The Los Angeles Times may be able to take a tip or two from four Wharton seniors on how to increase its profits. The undergraduate Wharton team placed second at the University of Southern California's annual Marshall International Case Competition, in which participating teams have to solve a real world business problem in 24 hours.

Universities around the country are richer than ever, but the money is not necessarily coming out of alumni's pockets. Contributions to colleges have reached $29.75 billion in 2007 - the highest ever - but the amount of that contribution that comes from alumni has decreased by 1.

Daniel Schwartz is a College sophomore from Decatur, Ga. His e-mail address is schwartz@dailypennsylvanian.com.

Fifth place was not what the Penn men's and women's track teams had in mind for this weekend's Heptagonal Indoor Championships at Cornell. Despite several impressive individual accomplishments, both teams fell short of the podium. The women finished in fifth with a total of 45 points, 69 behind first-place Princeton.

In federal court Friday Engineering junior Ryan Goldstein pleaded guilty to helping a hacker crash the School of Engineering and Applied Science's server in February 2006. Goldstein pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting another person to gain unauthorized access to a protected computer, a federal misdemeanor.

The Philadelphia music community has a vital hub just a few blocks from campus, though many Penn students don't know about it. In the past three months, Counting Crows, Ingrid Michaelson, Feist, Rilo Kiley and Iron and Wine have performed or recorded in-studio interviews at WXPN radio, a professionally run, University-owned radio station located at 30th and Walnut streets.

Attorneys for Irina Malinovskaya, the Wharton undergraduate accused of killing her ex-lover's girlfriend in 2004, have filed motions to have the case dismissed. Malinovskaya has faced three trials in the case, all of which have ended in hung juries. Delaware state prosecutors have not said if they will seek a fourth trial.

Even though Los Angeles is a long way from Philadelphia, Penn has a small claim to Hollywood fame in actor Kalpen Modi, who teaches as an adjunct professor in the Asian American Studies Department this semester. Last night, the Asian American Studies Department, the South Asia Center and the South Asia Society co-hosted a question and answer session with Modi called "A Conversation with Kal Penn" in Houston Hall.

NCAA bids likely for eight Penn fencers It was a weekend of mixed results for the men's and women's fencing teams. They competed in the NCAA Regionals on Saturday in Madison, N.J., along with Princeton, Temple, Penn State, Haverford, North Carolina, Drew, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Stevens and Fairleigh Dickinson.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - On another night, it might have been a setback. But when leading scorer Tyler Bernardini fouled out after just 18 minutes on Saturday night, Penn had already disappointed in so many ways that one more hardly mattered. Brown shredded Penn's defense, shot a remarkable 64 percent from the field, led by as many points as 39 and put a 75-43 beatdown on the Quakers (11-17, 6-5 Ivy), producing the largest margin of defeat Penn has ever endured in an Ivy League game.

By David Bernstein Staff Writer davidkb@dailypennsylvanian.com NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Even amid Penn's elite teams and Ivy titles of the past few years, Yale's John J. Lee Amphitheater has carried a bit of mystique for the Quakers. Before this season, four of the past six contests there ended in upset victories for the Bulldogs.

It's not often that the Penn men's tennis team faces a former Israeli champion, the No. 40 singles player and the No. 23 doubles team in the nation, all in one weekend. But in matches Friday and Saturday against Maryland and No. 43 Louisville, the Quakers saw their toughest competition all year.

It's time for Campus Inn to check in to its new home at 40th and Pine streets. Plans by developers to build an 11-story hotel at the corner of the two streets - on land leased to them by the University - have faced strong opposition from some community members.

When Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, causing the failure of New Orleans' levees, I had no appreciation for the severity of the crisis. What do terms like mandatory evacuation, flood zone, storm surge and levee breach mean? What would they look like in your hometown? Coming from a place where streets are blanketed in snow instead of flooded with water, I couldn't picture any of these things.

It looks like no one can stop Sara Coenen. After going undefeated in the 100- and 200-yard backstroke in league competition this season, Penn's star sophomore won both titles at the Ivy League Women's Swimming and Diving Championships. The Quakers (7-5, 4-3 Ivy) finished fifth overall, but they broke seven school records in the process.

In preparation for next month's Pennsylvania primary, Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both set up Philadelphia campaign headquarters this weekend. Obama, an Illinois senator, opened his headquarters at 15th and Sansom streets on Saturday.

Penn's Police can now send you text messages. On Friday, The Division of Public Safety conducted a comprehensive test of its new emergency alert system. Taking a page from PhillyCarShare's ComprehensiveFieldGuideAboutHowToNameThings, UPennAlert decided in its message that putting spaces between words just takes too long.