Starting out at $35 for single and $55 for couples, tickets soon dropped to $25 for singles and $45 for couples.

“We spoke with some Juniors and Seniors and they said that they would be more interested in buying Winter Formal tickets if the prices were lower,” said junior Noa Barak, a co-chair of the junior committee in charge of winter formal. The Leadership class decided “the main reason people weren’t buying was because the tickets were too expensive.”

Before the price drop, the tickets were set to increase by $5 a week, as they traditionally have in years past. But with sales lagging, Leadership decided to keep prices consistently low this year.

Students have reason to be concerned about the low number of tickets sold. “People [don't] quite understand that Winter Formal’s revenue goes directly towards Prom 2013 and senior week,” said Junior Class President Dana Thomas. “This means that the Junior Committee in Leadership needs to fundraise like crazy in order to make up the deficit.”

Thomas believes the precedent established by previous dances may have damaged this year’s sales. “I think this Winter Formal will be really fun, but I only wish that it didn’t have such a bad reputation… from previous years; [that] really hurt us this year. I hope that next year people will buy tickets in support of the class of 2014.”

Rick Santorum finished a distant third in Florida with 13% of the vote to Romney’s 46% and Gingrich’s 32%, and Ron Paul finished an even more distant fourth, locking up only 7% of voters. Neither Paul nor Santorum had focused particularly on the state, however, with each choosing to divert their attention and resources instead to Nevada, which holds its primary on Feb. 4.

Gingrich has been the perennial swing candidate of the race. His campaign nearly foundered over the summer, as nearly all of his staffers abandoned the campaign, only to rise astronomically last December, leading Gingrich to declare he was “going be the nominee.” Hit with attack ads, Gingrich fared dismally in Iowa and New Hampshire, and then cruised to victory in the socially conservative South Carolina.

With the results coming in from Florida, Gingrich’s 2012 hopes suffered a severe blow. For the sake of promoting a horse race, the media relentlessly play up Gingrich’s chances of success and of resurgence, and while the erratic nature of this year’s race rules nothing out, Gingrich’s chance for success appears slim.

More voters than in the previous three primaries combined voted in Florida, which represents a more diverse voter base that is more representative of the Republican electorate as a whole than the bases in Iowa, New Hampshire, or South Carolina. That Gingrich was unable to compete in Florida, and that he lost his mantle of ‘invincibility’ in debate to a more aggressive Romney, will likely pose problems for the Gingrich camp that will be difficult to overcome in the weeks ahead.

After a gloves-off, belligerent campaign in Florida, Romney possibly eased fears among hard-line conservatives that he would not fight tough, or have the unapologetic aggression we have seen in Gingrich. Nevertheless, while Romney may have cut into what John Podhoretz of the New York Post called Romney’s “clean-cut Boy Scout Ken-doll candidate from Massachusetts” image, Romney also risked alienating independent voters to whom his less combative approach appealed.

Gingrich fully embraced the increasingly antagonistic tenor of the race, failing to pay Romney the customary congratulatory call after the race. Gingrich also omitted mention of the former governor by name in his final speech in Florida, with only one reference to the “Massachusetts moderate.” Enamored of speaking and less so of conceding, Gingrich did manage to include a populist and anti-Romney jab, saying he would have “people power defeat money power.”

Both Romney and many Republican leaders have sought to look beyond the fight for the nomination and to the general election in November, but with the persistence of candidates like Gingrich, Santorum and Paul, the Republican Party has remained fragmented, unable to coalesce around a single candidate.

Romney naturally believes he is the candidate that the Republican base should rally around, but as the campaign moves to Nevada, his opponents show few signs of surrender. In a ‘concession’ speech that read more like a campaign rally, Gingrich said, “We are going to contest every place and we are going to win, and we will be in Tampa as the nominee in August.”

On May 12, 2011 Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy introduced the Protect Intellectual Properties Act (PIPA) to the senate, which immediately gained 40 co-sponsors in addition to the pre-existing 11. Then, four months later, Texas Representative Lamar Smith introduced the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in House with 43 co-sponsors.

The core aim of PIPA is, as stated at the head of the bill, “to prevent online threats to economic creativity and theft of intellectual property, and for other purposes”. The goal of SOPA is “to promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by combating the theft of U.S. property, and for other purposes”. In short, these bills attempt to stop online piracy.

The non-profit organization Fight for the Future is protesting these bills because its members believe that their “wording is ambiguous”. For example, they believe that the “other purposes” mentioned would harm the welfare of the Internet.

PIPA defines an ‘Internet site dedicated to infringing activities’ as one that is a means for the “reproduction, distribution, or public performance of copyrighted works, in complete or substantially complete form”. However, Fight for the Future and its supporters are uneasy because of the fact that these parameters encompass social networking websites and user-based media tubes (such as Youtube and Vimeo) which would thus be held liable for user activity.

The major force backing the SOPA and PIPA bills is pressure coming from the music, recording, and film industries. For example, some of the top organizations supporting SOPA include the National Music Publisher’s Association, Deluxe Entertainment Services Group Inc., and the American Federation of Musicians. Among the supporters of PIPA are the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and even the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).

The RIAA shed light on the music industry’s major concern that has led it to support PIPA and SOPA. The RIAA stated that between 1999 and 2010 its revenue dropped by 53% because, according to the NPD Group (a market research company based in New York), only “37% of the music acquired by US consumers in 2009 was paid for”. The RIAA emphasized that the other 63% of music consumed by the US was done so illegally. Therefore, the music and film industries support PIPA and SOPA because they encourage the censorship of ‘rogue’ websites that promulgate the consumption of pirated media.

In retaliation to the large support of these two anti-piracy bills, on Jan. 13, 2012, Fight for the Future, led in part by Tiffiniy Cheng, announced that it would organize a web-wide blackout in protest of PIPA and SOPA called ‘sopastrike’. On Jan. 18, 2012 the online protest took place and 115,000 sites took part by shutting down. Among the participating sites were Wikipedia, Wired, Tumblr, Reddit, and WordPress. These websites raised awareness of Fight for the Future’s plight against PIPA and SOPA by encouraging users to sign letters to congress and send emails to congressmen opposing these acts.

Over 10 million people signed the letter to congress and users sent over 3 million emails to congressmen across the U.S. Sopastrike was the largest internet protest in history and succeeded in causing congress to indefinitely shelf SOPA and PIPA on Jan. 20, 2012.

Congresswoman Anna G. Eshoo of California’s fourteenth district led a bipartisan letter to the House Judiciary Committee expressing her opposition to SOPA. Congresswoman Eshoo stated that she had “serious concerns that SOPA as written would have an array of unintended consequences on cyber security, freedom of speech, and the growth of the Internet” because it gave “the government new authority to order Internet Service Providers to implement various filtering technologies on their networks and create new forms of private legal action against websites”.

Eshoo believes that “OPEN Act [Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act] is a better alternative to fighting online piracy” because “this legislation would combat infringing websites by expanding the U.S. International Trade Commission’s existing authority to enforce copyright and trademark laws online while allowing American start-ups and Internet entrepreneurs to flourish.”

Congress announced that on Jan. 24, 2012 they would hold a final vote on PIPA and SOPA. In light of this, congresswoman Eshoo stated that she “will oppose [SOPA]” and “remain committed to protecting innovation and business growth in Silicon Valley.”

Steward First Class Carl E. Clark, 95, resident of Menlo Park, received The Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with the Combat Distinguishing Device at Moffet Field. He was awarded by Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus and Congresswoman Anna G. Eshoo (D-Palo Alto), who organized the ceremony.

Clark received the honor because of his brave actions on May 3, 1945, when he saved the lives of his comrades and the life of his ship, the U.S.S. Aaron Ward, in the Battle of Okinawa. Despite a broken collarbone, Clark carried his shipmates to the aid station and put out fires with a hose normally carried by eight or more sailors as kamikaze pilots attacked the ship. He received only a Purple Heart, for his injury.

Clark was not awarded further for his act of heroism specifically because he was African-American, and his white superiors found it unnecessary to even note his bravery in the official report. He did not rise in rank, and stayed a low-rank Steward.

“Racism robbed Carl of recognition,” said Rep. Eshoo.

He is the reason his ship and so many of his shipmates survived that night.

After World War II, Clark returned to the Bay Area, married, had a family, who was in full attendance at the ceremony, and continued to live, engaged in his community.

When Foothill College instructor Sheila Dunec learned of Clark’s story in 1999, she felt that the injustice he faced should be brought to the attention of Congresswoman Eshoo. Because of her, he was officially recognized as a hero on that January day.

Clark now “joins other pioneers such as…the Tuskegee Airmen,” as Secretary Mabus notes. Secretary Mabus also notes that these men went beyond the call of duty, “At a time when their nation, our nation, did not always live up to the principles that [they] served to protect”.

This breathtaking ceremony marked changing times in American history, as American actions are noted as not always the greatest moments, but also correcting injustices. It shows that our country is progressing forward to better times, times we can be proud of.

Clark said in his speech that he would receive the honor in memory of African Americans who had served and whose deaths and actions were never noted.

“Those men went down with their ships,” he said, “I want to share this honor with all of those men.”

This series of attacks, also referred to as a distributed denial of service (DDOS), may be the largest in Anonymous history, according to Russian news source RT. Anonymous has long been opposed to SOPA, the anti-piracy bill which is aimed at protecting copyrighted material, but actually gives the government a hefty amount of censorship powers over the Internet. These attacks are aligned with the Anonymous mentality of striking out against both SOPA and big corporations.

The hackers targeted the big recording companies like Universal Music, EMI, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), in addition to other media groups like the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). Allegedly, all of these sites were shut down, although only Universal Music remains down.

On the government front, Anonymous struck down websites for the U.S. Copyright Office, the Department of Justice, the White House, and even the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It even went international, breaching HADOPI, the French Copyright Authority which remains inactive.

These incidents reflect Anonymous’ reaction to the fall of Hong Kong-based Megaupload.com, a site that allows users to easily share and save files. The US Justice Department figured that users were partaking in illegal activity, and decided to accuse Megaupload.com of copyright infringement.

According to CNN.com, attorney Ira Rothken says, “‘We believe that the allegations [against Megaupload] are without merit and Megaupload is going to vigorously defend against the case.”

Anonymous boasted its success in a recent statement, where it published the personal information of MPAA’s CEO Chris Dodd. The statement ended with the chilling message, “We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not Forgive. We do not Forget. Expect Us.”

With a strong second place finish in New Hampshire, the often-overlooked Paul added to his third-place finish in Iowa on Jan. 3, further dismissing critics, and many in the media, who have labeled his candidacy as a protest campaign with little chance of long-term success. Paul’s solid showing in New Hampshire, akin to a victory in a state assured of a Romney triumph, likely means that Paul’s campaign will continue long into 2012, and given Paul’s personal persistence, possibly to the party convention this summer.

New Hampshire was an all-or-nothing proposition for Jon Huntsman, as he passed over the Iowa Caucus, and has little hope for success in South Carolina. Huntsman bet his campaign on a strong showing in New Hampshire, and his efforts largely paid off with a third place finish, locking up nearly 17 percent of the vote. Having polled in the single digits for much of the campaign trail, Huntsman aided his weakening campaign with a modest finish, but the future of his candidacy remains uncertain.

Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum—the former still reeling from disparaging advertisements released by a pro-Romney PAC, Restore Our Future, and the latter struggling with appealing to the more socially liberal residents of New Hampshire, including being booed by college students for his comments on gay marriage—each took around 9% of the vote. Both are moving their campaigns to South Carolina, where the contest promises to be a tense one, in which the remaining candidates empty their treasuries in an onslaught of ad campaigns, attempting to appeal to South Carolinian voters and to discredit their opponents.

The campaign in South Carolina is shaping up to be an ugly one, as the candidates pour money (a pro-Romney super PAC has already spent $7 million) into negative advertising, and the lower-polling candidates contemplate the extent to which they can attack Romney, now the clearly defined Republican front-runner. Attacks on Romney range from his inconsistency, what opponents like to dub his weak conservatism, and most recently, to his role in predatory capitalism, as the CEO of Bain Capital.

Attacks on Romney’s record at Bain, especially a 28-minute documentary bought and released by the Gingrich-affiliated super PAC Winning Our Future, mark an odd turn for the Republican party, which focuses much of its rhetoric on the importance of free-market capitalism in preserving American values.

Republicans have walked a difficult line in their attempts to both appeal to the popular classes, proclaiming their unwavering faith in the ‘American people’, and to champion the wealthy elite, hailing the affluent as ‘job-creators’ and attempts to increase their taxation ‘class warfare’. Increasing criticism of Romney’s role at the private equity firm has sparked the ire of some conservative leaders, notably South Carolina governor Nikki Haley and candidate Jon Huntsman (though Huntsman did previously quip that Romney enjoyed ‘firing people’).

Though many of the candidates have denounced criticism of Romney’s time at Bain, the attacks have given a bipartisan element to a line of assault that would have previously been limited to President Obama and Romney’s Democratic challengers.

In a particularly harsh condemnation of Romney’s past at Bain, and a testament to what will likely be a hotly contested fight in South Carolina, Rick Perry labeled private equity firms “vultures that are sitting out there on the tree limb waiting for the company to get sick and then they swoop in, they eat the carcass. They leave with that and they leave the skeleton.”

Rick Perry finished a weakening fifth, and announced he would return to Texas to “assess” his campaign. After 12 hours of consideration, Perry has decided to remain in the race, a decision likely influenced by Michele Bachmann’s decision to drop out, after finishing last of the official contestants in Iowa. Perry will pass over the more socially liberal New Hampshire to take his campaign straight to South Carolina, the third state to vote in the nominating contest.

Romney’s paper-thin margin of victory in Iowa, representing the tightest contest in the Iowa caucus in the nation’s history, was the opposite of decisive, but is certainly heartening for the Romney campaign as he moves to New Hampshire, where he has a sizable lead over Newt Gingrich.

Romney campaigned little in Iowa, especially in comparison to Santorum, who visited all 99 counties, and held an impressive 381 town hall meetings, but Romney became more aggressive in the period running up to the caucus, as the weakening of Perry, Gingrich and Bachmann gave him an opportunity for victory.

Romney declined to participate in the Iowa Straw Poll in August, and ran a different campaign from in 2008, when he invested heavily in Iowa, only to finish a disappointing second to Mike Huckabee. Nevertheless, his appeal as the candidate with the best chance to defeat incumbent Democrat Barack Obama, and an onslaught of devastating attack ads aimed at Gingrich and funded by Romney’s super PAC, allowed Romney to succeed in eking out an Iowa victory.

Known for its particularly socially conservative voters, with nearly 6 of 10 caucus-goers identifying themselves as Evangelicals, Iowa offered a perfect opportunity for Santorum, registering in the single digits only weeks earlier, to consolidate conservative support and champion his socially conservative platform. He has harshly condemned both abortions and gay marriage, and referred to climate change as “junk science”, saying it is an excuse for more government regulation. Santorum rose at just the right moment, with his campaign hoping that a strong result in Iowa will help present Santorum as the most viable conservative alternative to Romney, whom many in the Republican base continue to doubt.

Santorum, addressing a crowd of supporters while vote tallies placed him in a virtual tie with Romney, stressed the importance of family, religion, and values, reinforcing the influence these threads will likely have on his future campaign.

Santorum emphasized, “the basic values that Americans stand for,” and said that “[Americans] understand that when the family breaks down, the economy struggles.”

He referred to his supporters as “the same people who Barack Obama talked about clinging to their guns and bibles. Thank God they do.”

While Iowa embraced Santorum’s message and social conservatism, the state represents a hotbed of evangelical and socially conservative voters, and Santorum will face an uphill battle against Romney, and even Gingrich, in the weeks to come. Nevertheless, Santorum is taking it in stride. To open his caucus speech he thanked the crowd and said, “Game on.”

Over the next few months, the Republicans will engage in a series of primary votes to choose the candidate they want to represent them in the upcoming election. New Hampshire will hold the first official primary on Jan. 10, but the nonbinding Iowa caucus occurs tonight, Jan. 3, and typically serves as a solid predictor of the party nominee. This guide breaks down the four candidates that have a decent chance (and two that don’t) on the Republican ticket.

Newt Gingrich

Political Credentials: Speaker of the House (1995-99), Representative from Georgia (1979-1999)

Gingrich was TIME Magazine’s Man of the Year in 1995 for his leadership in the Republican Party during the midterm elections that saw the end of nearly 40 years of Democratic control of Congress. However, just four years later, he resigned his post as Speaker amidst charges of fostering the manipulation of several nonprofit organizations for pro-Republican ends. Gingrich was the first Speaker tried for ethical reasons. In spite of this shady history, he currently leads many Republican polls.

Policies: Gingrich, like the majority of conservatives, believes that the government has overspent and needs to reduce its debt. In response, he wants to extend the tax cuts enacted by President Bush, in contrast to many who believe raising taxes would help cut the deficit. He also wants to increase funding for education while elevating standards for math and science.

Gingrich believes that the Obama administration has been too soft on terrorism, and wholeheartedly supports American involvement in the Middle East.

More recently, Gingrich has spoken out against “Obamacare”, calling it “socialist.” He believes healthcare should be privatized, with breaks for unemployed individuals to help them buy coverage. Missing from his reform plan, however, is a resolution for those individuals the private healthcare companies refuse to cover.

He is an opponent of abortion and gay marriage, and a supporter of border crackdown – but not total closure, as he does support a guest worker program.

Mitt Romney

Political Credentials: Governor of Massachusetts (2003-2007), Presidential campaign in 2008

Romney’s father, George, was governor of Michigan. Mitt Romney was also previously the CEO of Bain Capital, whose success has earned him the reputation as a financial problem-solver.

Policies:  Romney believes the key to economic stability is a balanced budget; as such he has proposed an amendment to force Congress to submit a balanced budget each year. Romney also opposed the Obama stimulus package, as he favors tax cuts, principally on investments (capital gains), over increased spending. He also backs the No Child Left Behind program and an increase in support for charter schools. Romney opposes “Obamacare”, calling it an “unquestionable abuse of power.” However, Obama’s bill largely mirrors a bill for the state of Massachusetts, which Romney signed.

He remains relatively neutral on gun control despite his membership in National Rifle Association, and has always been an adamant supporter of the war in the Middle East.

Romney is a devout Mormon, and his religious faith guides his stances on gay marriage and abortion (except in extreme cases like rape) and his belief that abstinence should be taught in schools.

Ron Paul

Political Credentials: Libertarians are known for their vociferous support of Ron Paul, but few voters outside this cult following are familiar with the congressman’s policies. In his nine books and over twenty-year record representing Texas in the House, Paul has advocated for minimum government and maximum individual freedom. 2012 marks his third run for president, first on the Libertarian ticket in 1988 and then with the Republican Party in 2008.

Policies: An outspoken adherent to non-interventionist foreign policy, Paul holds to his controversial position that the American presence in the Middle East provokes terrorist attacks and invites out-of-control government spending. He opposes gun control and federal regulation of education, health care, and marriage, while supporting states’ rights and across-the-board legalization of drugs. Critical of Keynesian economics, Paul urges a frugal government and challenges the effectiveness of stimulus funding during a recession, claiming economic packages “take money from productive individuals and spend it in non-productive ways.”

Rick Perry

Political Credentials: Governor of Texas (2000-present). Rick Perry became governor when George Bush resigned to assume the presidency, and has since become the longest-serving governor in state history.

Policies: Perry’s economic calling card has been his record as Texas’ governor where, since 2009, the state has supplied 40 percent of the country’s new jobs. He believes that business incentives and low taxes, the keys to his success in Texas, can effectively transfer to the national level. However, opposition claims that these policies only succeeded because they sucked jobs away from other states. Perry believes that the stimulus package failed, and that the best way to reduce the federal debt is through extensive spending cuts, especially in Social Security. Perry, like many Republican counterparts, disagrees with the Obama healthcare plan, but has not provided an alternative solution.

Perry’s devotion to Evangelism, much like Romney’s fidelity to Mormonism, manifests itself in his social policy, as he too abhors gay marriage, only tolerates abortion in extreme circumstances, and does not believe in global warming. He led the race for a period of time; however, poor debate performances, namely a gaffe in which he forgot a department of government that he wanted to cut, cost him substantially. He now finds himself trailing by a wide margin.

Michele Bachmann served as a Minnesota Senator from 2003-2007 and has been a member of the US House of Representatives since 2007. She aligns herself with the Tea Party, and as such does not have much support from more moderate Republicans.

Rick Santorum served as a Representative (1991-1995) and Senator (1995-2007) from Pennsylvania. In spite of his relatively strong showing in the Iowa polls, he is not predicted to be a major player nationally due to his radical and often religiously-based beliefs, such as his support of bombing Iranian nuclear reactors.