Once again, politics is coming before the health of Philadelphia citizens. After City Council finally came together - despite years of infighting - to ban smoking in restaurants, Mayor John Street is threatening to once again ruin everything.

College sophomore Irmina Gawlas was vice president of her class last year. But she didn't even bother running for the sophomore class board because she was so disenchanted with the election process at Penn. "Many students were disenfranchised over something so silly," she said, referring to a flurry of freshman candidates being disqualified last year for campaigning early on Facebook.

Phones have been ringing non-stop at Student Health Services. And that's because if students don't submit their health insurance waivers by tomorrow, they will be paying about an additional $2,000 for the Penn Student Insurance Plan.

A routine arrest turned into high drama outside Fresh Grocer last night.

College sophomore Lauren Eskreis-Winkler doesn't expect students to rely on Penn Course Review or word of mouth to decide which classes to take. Instead, she has developed a Web site called Course Previews that posts video footage of and syllabi from a variety of classes throughout the University, from Africana Studies to Health and Societies to Urban Studies classes.

When Engineering junior Jeff Weinstein and his roommates host parties, they invite their guests to hang out on their rooftop deck, entirely lined with rope lights and overlooking Center City. The vision for the deck, and for the rest of their apartment, is what Weinstein calls "the lazy man's creativity.

The University has literally taken a safety recommendation to heart.

Zeta Beta Tau is coming back to campus, and they're starting from scratch. But the fraternity says the start-up effort is going strong. The fraternity is working to enlist a new crop of members, who will be "founding fathers" of the new chapter at Penn, said ZBT national director for expansion Matt Tobe.

Familiar signs will soon disappear from Walnut Street businesses vacate en masse, making way for a University building project.

Harvard University officials announced today that the school will end its early-admissions option beginning with the class entering in 2008.

Rev. Beverly Dale knows what her detractors might say about her. "'She's that crazy person interested in sex and God,'" she said, mimicking her critics. But Dale - director of the Christian Association and informally known as "Rev Bev" - isn't concerned with naysayers.

Increasing competitiveness about the college process means that more applicants these days are eschewing the traditional SAT exam in favor of another test - the ACT. Experts says the ACT has grown in popularity over the past decade, including in areas where taking the SAT used to be an unrivaled rite of college preparation.

Poet and screenwriter Cristin Aptowicz returned to her home city of Philadelphia yesterday to commemorate the emotions and events of Sept. 11th on its five-year anniversary. After the attacks, Aptowicz said, Manhattan's Lower East Side poetry community came together to serve as a haven for those affected by the terrorist attacks.

Social networking site Facebook.com - long accessible only to college and high school students - will soon open its doors to everyone.

You can add Indian food to range of cuisine that a PennCard will get you. Cafe Spice Express - the Penn meal-plan version of the upscale Cafe Spice restaurant in Old City - opened for lunch in the lower level of 1920 Commons and in Houston Market last week.

For Wharton senior Laura Forton, it's all about shaking hands, making eye contact and knowing a thing or two about sports. Having spent her summer working as a technical analyst at Smith Barney, a subsidiary of Citigroup Inc., Forton said that being the only girl in a sea of ties and suits motivated her to work even harder in an initially "intimidating" environment.

Philadelphia high-schooler Priscilla Clinkscales remembers clearly a pivotal moment in her life: the day her uncle was sentenced to jail for a crime she is convinced he did not commit. Clinkscales was just seven years old at the time, but it changed her. She started watching Court TV and soon had big dreams of becoming a lawyer.