China Okasi, a Penn Graduate School of Education alumna, was always the one friends and family turned to for help with an essay, whether by knocking on her dorm-room door or meeting for a tutoring session at the Weingarten Learning Resources Center in Stouffer Commons.

It's one of the most valuable and unique pieces in Penn's art collection, but chances are you've never even heard of it, let alone noticed it tucked away in a corner of Van Pelt Library's first floor. Penn's Rittenhouse Orrery is a model of the solar system, complete with accurately moving planets, and is as precise as was possible in the late 18th century, according to Bob Koch, a retired astronomy professor who has researched the orrery.

"Ready. Set. Vote." This is the catchphrase of Pennsylvania's instructional voting video, produced by the state government in an effort to minimize woes at state voting booths Nov. 7. In May's primary, 200 machines jammed, leaving voters at certain sites with only one machine to use, Chris Sheridan, public-policy director for the Philadelphia political watchdog group Committee of Seventy, said.

Facebook.com may soon be sold to Yahoo for about $1 billion, according to an article published last week in The Wall Street Journal. The companies are in serious discussions over the sale of the site, founded by former Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg in 2004, the Journal reported.

WILMINGTON, Del. - Irina Malinovskaya admitted to police that she was outside the apartment where the body of Irina Zlotnikov was found on the day of her murder, according to a taped interrogation shown in court on Friday.

Karma was a key word yesterday during Wharton undergraduate Irina Malinovskaya's trial, but not in the cosmic sense. Instead, prosecutors called to the stand experts in animal DNA testing that provided testimony about hairs found in Malinovskaya's rental car.

According to one Penn professor, the American government - not extremist groups like al-Qaeda - is to blame for the war on terror. Professor Ian Lustick asks whether the U.S.'s current conflict is necessary in his new book, Trapped in the War on Terror, which was presented to an audience of about 30 at the Penn Bookstore yesterday.

A suspicious package outside the Quadrangle prompted police to evacuate the Upper Quad and Stouffer College House last night. The Philadelphia bomb squad determined with an X-ray that the package was safe, however, and no one was injured. At about 7 p.m.

When Bob Schoenberg started working at Penn's Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Center in 1982, a student in Gregory College House had just been beaten up in a violent incident of homophobia. Yesterday afternoon, as the LGBT Center officially opened a state-of-the-art "Cyber Center" in the Carriage House on Spruce Street, Schoenberg, now the director of the organization, said Penn had made great progress over the past 25 years.

University of Florida freshman Jason Attermann arrived on campus in Gainesville, Fla. several days before classes began in August. He didn't want the extra time to settle in, participate in a community service program or even get a head start on course readings.

This weekend may be your last chance to talk about the birds and the trees. The Philadelphia Museum of Art exhibit entitled "Kacho-ga: Flowers and Birds in Japanese Art," will end its summer-through-fall run this Sunday. The display of over 75 works of art ranges from paintings to sculptures and weaponry.

Some federal officials want the power to monitor Internet activity on college campuses. But although Penn - and most American universities - apparently won't have to go along, they are not entirely out of the line of fire. Last year, the federal agency that regulates communication extended a law so that it could keep tabs on Internet activity, including that on college campuses.

Jimmy Goldblum is no stranger to the halls of Ben Franklin High. Last spring, the College junior spent six weeks in New Orleans assisting his older brother Josh with the production of an online documentary about the school. Formerly the head of new media for the American Museum of Art as well as a Smithsonian employee, in the wake of Katrina, Josh decided that he wanted to create an online narrative to help educate people about the reality of the situation in New Orleans.

Smokey Joe's is about to become smokeless.

For Ann Dapice, when it comes to the situation of Native Americans in her home state of Oklahoma, one sentence sums a lot up: "Oklahoma does not like Indians." Dapice, who is of Cherokee and Lenape heritage and is a Penn alumna, shared her views on the current status of Native Americans in Oklahoma yesterday at the University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology by describing the current state of her hometown.

For Karan Shah, fall rush is his big second chance. The Engineering sophomore wanted to join the Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity last spring, but couldn't attend a majority of the rush events, eliminating his chances of getting a bid. Yet Shah continued to hang out at the house, where several of his friends are brothers.