The University has increased the clinical staff of Counseling and Psychological Services by almost 25 percent, affirming what administrators are calling a strong commitment to mental health. Four full-time psychologists and one part-time psychologist have been hired as permanent staff members, CAPS Director Ilene Rosenstein said.

Cruising around Philadelphia in a BMW will no longer be an activity limited to those students who have made it to 21. PhillyCarShare, a car-sharing service, allows anyone over the age of 18 that chance. The service, which calls itself the only in the country catering to customers between 18 and 20, allows members to hold keys to a car that they can reserve at any time, or to rent vehicles on a one-time basis.

Amidst the assassinations, protests and riots of 1968, a rising senior at Penn hitchhiked across Europe. Thirty eight years later, Joe Mack has finally published the story of his travels. Mack returned to Penn last night to present and read excerpts from 1968 and I'm Hitchhiking Through Europe to an small audience at the Penn Bookstore.

For 18 years of my life, drug addicts, alcoholics and rehab facilities were only things I saw in movies. Depression and therapists seemed out of my world. But I have certainly learned that life is never the way it looks from the outside. As a junior in high school, my life seemed perfectly on track: great friends, yearbook editor and varsity sports.

David Hollenberg's vision for the future appearance of Penn has some things old, some things new, some things borrowed and some things - green. As the new university architect, Hollenberg plans to mix his ideals of urban design with the realities of University City and Philadelphia.

Top universities across the country want to make themselves accessible to low-income students. And it seems the increasingly popular way of doing so is with a bold appeal to families whose income fall below a set level. Columbia University is the latest school to jump on this financial-aid bandwagon.

The Penn Health System's fleet of helicopters is about to grow. The four-rotorcraft PennSTAR Air Medical Services will receive a delivery of two American Eurocopter EC135s, advanced aircraft that can carry six or seven passengers and come equipped with night-vision goggles, according to Rotorhub, a source for helicopter-related news.

And you thought excuses like "the dog ate my homework" stopped in high school. According to a Center for Teaching and Learning discussion, being faced with lame attempts to get out of work is just one of the challenges teaching assistants face at Penn. The session given in Van Pelt Library yesterday - called "Dealing with Penn Students" - was designed for graduate students to discuss challenges in managing relationships with Penn undergraduates.

The drug commonly known as the "birth control patch" now carries yet another warning, Food and Drug Administration officials announced last week. A new study shows that the patch - known by its brand name Ortho Evra - doubles women's chances of blood clots.

WILMINGTON, Del. - Prosecutors presented evidence yesterday that Wharton undergraduate Irina Malinovskaya was planning to use a computer program to spy on someone.

When Craig Thompson was a student in Penn's School of Medicine in the '70s, he wanted to work as a military-base physician. More than 30 years later, however, Thompson is still at Penn, and he was recently appointed director of the Abramson Cancer Center.

The walk eastward from the Penn campus to Center City is, as Penn President Amy Gutmann put it, "ugly." But Gutmann says the school's planned eastward-expansion project, whose first phase is slated to cost $1.94 billion, will change that. Gutmann and Stephen Starr, the famed Philadelphia restaurateur, formed the panel for a Philadelphia Talks lecture series event at the World Cafe Live last night.

David Hollenberg - Penn's new Unversity architect - is all about "Penn-ness." It's an undefinable word Hollenberg uses to describe the aesthetic heart of Penn's campus - an undefinable mixture of architectural styles and eras. Hollenberg - who began the job in June - is now faced with the unique task of preserving "Penn-ness," as the University embarks on a historic period of expansion, building and preservation.

After previewing his new animated series, Freak Show, David Cross said he felt sorry for subjecting his audience to such a tasteless show. "We can only apologize so much for what you saw tonight," Cross said in Houston Hall's Bodek Lounge last night. Jon Benjamin and Cross, the show's creators, fielded questions from students after previewing two episodes of their new Comedy Central show, which follows a group of carnival freaks who are members of a superhero group.

One freshman-class-board candidate supposedly tore down a competitors' signs and put up hers instead. Another was 30 minutes late in turning in documentation of his campaign finances. And both may be disqualified from the election.

Harvard University proved that its trend-setting ability extends outside the Ivy League yesterday, with the addition of the University of Virginia to the ever-growing list of schools nixing their early admission policies. Applicants to the UVA Class of 2013 will have to wait until the spring to find out if they have been accepted, UVA officials said.

A vaccine against the virus that is mainly responsible for cervical cancer is now available from Student Health, but it isn't cheap - at least for the time being.