Gov. Edward Rendell's love of dogs brought him to the Penn School of Veterinary Medicine Friday night to speak about his plans for improving Pennsylvania's laws governing the treatment of dogs. Rendell discussed statewide dog kennels conditions and the state's difficulty in enforcing animal-cruelty laws.

Penn students walk past the Richards Laboratories every day on Hamilton Walk. Few realize, however, that the building between the Quad and the biopond is a potential national historic landmark. Historical preservation organization Save Our Sites sponsored a tour of the building complex yesterday.

It's not every day a rising basketball phenom hands back a full scholarship to one of the top college teams in the nation. For Tamir Goodman, the decision came without hesitation. At a Jewish Shabbat dinner held on campus last Friday, Goodman spoke to students of the inseparable roles basketball and religion have played in his life.

There's a "celebrity whore." A would-be "gangsta." A father. Pinocchio . And they're all part of the University. The Pan-Asian American Community House has embarked on a campaign to give Penn community members the chance to express themselves anonymously, with blank postcards as canvas.

Despite three hung juries in the murder trial of Wharton student Irina Malinovskaya, experts say a fourth trial is still a distinct possibility. Lead prosecutor Paul Wallace declined to comment on the possibility of a fourth trial, but experts say the state could take the rare step of retrying Malinovskaya for a third time.

The judge in the murder case against Economics professor Rafael Robb is considering whether to hold a hearing about the admissibility of testimony from two mental-health experts.

A new Engineering program is trying to get more women involved in labs, experiments and science-based careers. The Advancing Women in Engineering program, which took off last month, is the School of Engineering and Applied Science's newest recruitment tool, aimed at increasing the number of women interested in engineering at Penn and elsewhere.

The Division of Public Safety issued an alert late Monday night after a female student was sexually assaulted Monday morning inside an apartment on the 4000 block of Spruce Street. Vice President for Public Safety Maureen Rush said police believe the assault was a stranger-rape, but could not immediately provide any more details.

University endowments are safe from government control - for now, at least. Legislation mandating a minimum 5 percent spending rate on university endowments will not appear before the Senate Finance Committee this year, and Penn officials are breathing a sigh of relief.

The Philadelphia District Attorney's office called former Neurosurgery professor Tracy McIntosh's petition to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court "frivolous" and "legally irrelevant" in its reply to McIntosh's request to the court to block his resentencing. The brief, filed last week, outlines the prosecution's opposition to McIntosh's attempt to halt resentencing in connection with a 2002 sexual assault.

Most Wharton Management 100 teams plan events and sell T-shirts to raise money for their clients and causes. But for Team Shout, the goal is different: raising political awareness. Working for entrepreneur and Wharton alumnus Ryan Comfort, the team is promoting Our Voice 2008, a Web site that seeks to politically engage voters between the ages of 18 and 30.

When Yale University sophomore Jon Terenzetti heard last year that Penn students can pack food into takeout containers and take them home from dining halls, he wondered why Yale students couldn't do the same. A year later, Yale is in the midst of bringing a takeaway system to its own dining halls.

With Harvard and Princeton holding out until the spring, could a binding early-decision acceptance to Penn be not so binding? The possibility of early admitted students breaking matriculation agreements is usually fairly marginal, but this year marks the first admissions season in which students will not have the option to apply early to Harvard and Princeton universities.

Students are taking environmental-sustainability messages to the streets - literally. Through this week, leaders of the Penn Environmental Group distributed nearly 1,000 recycling bins to residences between 38th and 42nd streets between Sansom Street and Baltimore Avenue.

Former Wharton Dean Patrick Harker didn't take long to start making waves again in the higher-education world. Just months after leaving Penn to assume the presidency at the University of Delaware, Harker and the school have made headlines after his suspension of the Residence Life Escalation Program, a residential program that encouraged students to address diversity issues.

Last Thursday, the eight people who direct the fate of over 800 undergraduates met for the first time this year. Their decisions could involve something as simple as planning the next study-break party or Disney movie marathon, or it could mean influencing housing policy across the board.

When College '86 alumna Julie Seaman was in school, her future plans seemed uncertain, and she certainly didn't expect to be speaking to a conference room of undergraduates at a Fox Leadership event Tuesday night. During her talk, entitled "Can you have it all? Maybe not all at once: Getting in and out of the workforce," Seaman used personal examples to advise students on life after college.