Far from any tropical beach, the men's lacrosse team still has the chance to make waves this spring break. With two home games on the docket in between classes, Penn has an opportunity this afternoon to knock off a top-20 team in No. 18 Denver (3-1) and win its first league contest next Saturday against Yale (1-2, 0-0 Ivy).

Penn will initiate a four-year study with $5.5 million to find out more about prevention of staph infections. A Penn study will receive part of the annual Pennsylvania share of the national tobacco settlement funds this year, Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Health Everette James announced last month.

Updated March 8, 5:20 p.m. NEW YORK -- The Quakers had never even seen this play before, let alone practiced it. But trailing by two with 1.9 seconds remaining, Glen Miller and his coaching staff whipped out a dry-erase clipboard and crafted a setup to down Columbia.

Although the men's tennis team is traveling to the West Coast next week, it will not be spending the time wandering on the beach, watching the sun set and relaxing before the upcoming Ivy League season. The Quakers (5-4) will have to leave the comforts of Levy Pavilion - where they remain undefeated so far this season - to take on four competitive California squads, two of which are nationally ranked.

Updated March 16, 11:35 a.m. The undergraduate student hospitalized with meningococcal infection March 7 remains in critical condition but is stable and improving, according to University spokeswoman Phyllis Holtzman on Monday. The student was infected with strain B, the strain for which there is no vaccine, according to Holtzman.

Many at Penn praise Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) for his instrumental work to increase the National Institutes of Health's budget by 34 percent in the stimulus package President Barack Obama signed Feb 17. Yet the unclear time frame for and method of distributing stimulus funding has caused much anticipation.

"Come, whoever you are, come." This quote by Jalalud'din Rumi, a 13th-century Muslim poet, was the message extended to those invited to the panel discussion last night, "Do religions oppress women?" Women and men of all faiths flocked to the Hall of Flags in Houston Hall for the conversation in recognition of International Women's Day, which this year will take place on March 8.

During her two years living in Penn college houses, College sophomore Jessica Renny has never used a landline phone. "I've never plugged it in, and I don't even know the number," she said. Although every room in college houses and University-owned Greek houses is supposed to come with a landline phone and jack, it appears that fewer students are making use of the provided service - and the shift away from landlines is taking place across the country, too.

March 12, 1:33 p.m. Leonore Annenberg, emeritus trustee and founding member of the Annenberg School for Communication, died Thursday morning in Rancho Mirage, Calif., at the age of 91. Annenberg was elected to the University's Board of Trustees in 1982, and was elected a life trustee in 1987.

Two students were swept up in Penn's effort last month to halt the spread of meningococcal infection that sent shock waves through campus. Between Feb. 12 and 13, three students were hospitalized with meningococcal infection, a bacterial infection within the bloodstream.

This wasn't how Kevin Egee imagined his senior year ending. Considering Penn made the NCAA Tournament in both his freshman and sophomore years, the Quakers' 9-16 (5-6 Ivy) record isn't exactly what Egee - and fellow active seniors Cam Lewis and Brennan Votel - had in mind for their final season in Red and Blue.

Some things, like gin and tonic or Beyonce and Jay-Z, are just meant to be together. An amicable relationship between Penn and Georgetown's baseball teams isn't one of them. Having already faced the Hoyas twice in their season opener last weekend, the Quakers will play them four additional times this weekend at Rollins College, as Penn heads down to Winter Park, Fla.

Forget the Grapefruit League - if you're looking for some good ball this break, the Ivy League will be out in full force in the Sunshine State. The Penn softball team will be one of five Ivy teams - Brown, Columbia, Cornell and Yale are the others - to head to Florida for the annual Rebel Spring Games, a month-long collegiate tournament held in Kissimmee.

Aside from the men's basketball team's performance, the new student-ticket policies have been some of the more popular gameday fodder this season. Breaking from its previous policy, the Athletic Department announced last September that the student section would be entirely general admission.

In economic and business classes across campus, students learn about labor as an abstraction, as a commodity, as something to be traded on the market. But for Peter Ho and three other hotel workers who spoke last week with a group of students, faculty and staff, labor is deeply personal.

Did you spend more time in piano lessons or watching TV when you were growing up? The answer may depend largely on your social class. Sociologist Annette Lareau addressed the idea of class differences in child-rearing practices during an event held by the Penn Education Society last night in Houston Hall.

"The time has come to think about sex," Gayle Rubin wrote 25 years ago as the opening of her paper Thinking Sex. Now that time has come again. Rethinking Sex: Gender and Sexuality Studies State of the Field Conference opened last night at the Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.