Philadelphia is strapped with a massive fiscal deficit. Budget cuts are looming over its vast infrastructure, threatening city jobs and services. The city's "savior" is a fresh-faced mayor facing a laundry list of problems who will likely make more enemies than friends by year's end.

Usually, inherited traits refer to eye color and blood type. However, new studies show that genetics can influence popularity as well. In a recent study, Harvard University sociology professor Nicholas Christakis found that a person's position in a social network is a result partially of his or her genetic background.

In response to the forced home invasion and sexual assaults of two Penn students in December, Penn's Division of Public Safety has begun to promote neighborhood and building safety via heightened landlord awareness and communication. This program, currently called "Vertical Town Watch," has the potential to be an effective tool.

Yale University Chief Investment Officer David Swensen and financial analyst Michael Schmidt wrote an op-ed in The New York Times late last month that caused quite a stir. No, their piece wasn't about university endowments or the state of the economy. They reached outside of their immediate comfort zone and made a case for dramatically changing the newspaper industry's business model.

Alicia Puglionesi is an College senior from Havertown, Pa. Her e-mail address is puglionesi@dailypennsylvanian.com.

On Friday night, the "Collegiate Bushrangers" and "Team U.S.A." convened in the Philomathean rooms of College Hall to debate the historical question: Is Australia the greatest ex-colony of Britain? The Australian team, composed of a delegation of Australian college students selected from institutions across the country, accepted the challenge to face a team of Penn undergraduates on just two day's notice.

No, they didn't right the Ivy ship against the defending champs, but you can't mark the Quakers down for creativity. Unable to build on a hot start from a fully-retooled starting five, Penn fell, 88-73, to Cornell Saturday night at the Palestra. The Red and Blue (5-13, 1-3 Ivy) now sit three games behind conference-leading Princeton, who improved to 4-0 in league play by downing Cornell (15-7, 5-1) and Columbia this weekend.

While RecycleMania is raging on campus, a researcher in the School of Medicine has created his own addition to the competition. Last year, Ed Bell, a researcher in the Medical School, devised a new recycling system to increase recycling in his lab by making it easier.

Kambili Moukwa was many things to many people, according to friend and third-year Ph.D. student Garry Bertholf, including a "brilliant student, pithy comedian, fearless dancer and self-proclaimed 'King of Smokey Joe's.'" During an on-campus memorial Saturday afternoon at Fisher-Bennett Hall, family, friends and faculty gathered to honor the College senior, who was discovered near Penn's Landing Jan.

The Penn women's basketball team went to the Empire State to face Ivy League rivals Columbia and Cornell this weekend, but the two game results couldn't have been any different. The Quakers that faced Columbia in New York City Friday looked as though they were not at all in contention for an Ivy League title, losing 77-57 to the Lions.

As Feb Club kicks into gear, it's hard for seniors to not think about that other major milestone slowly creeping up on them - May 18, when they will don cap and gown, smile for their parents, and say goodbye to life as an undergrad. As a general rule, some will get their first job or pursue graduate work.

By LEIGH SILVER Staff Writer silver@dailypennsylvanian.com Ekaterina Kosminskaya knows that sometimes, you just can't win every match. Playing as the Penn women's tennis team's No. 1 in both doubles and singles, the junior could only muster a 2-2 record against Virginia Commonwealth and Richmond this weekend.

Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, "there has been a sense of fear about being a Muslim" in America, said Fariha Khan, associate director of the Asian American Studies program who teaches a class on Muslim identiy in the United States. For the last eight years under President George W.

By OLIVIA JUNG Contributing Writer gamail@dailypennsylvanian.com One perk of being at Penn is that one often gets to see, meet and hear first-hand from world-renowned scholars and influential leaders - Anderson Cooper, the CEO of Coca Cola company, just to name a few.

The Undergraduate Assembly is teaming up with the Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships to make research more appealing and accessible to students. The UA's recent undergraduate research proposal, which set up that partnernship, is the latest step in efforts by student groups working with CURF to publicize its offerings and encourage extracurricular research.

Penn knows that against certain teams, being physically overmatched is all but guaranteed. With schools like North Carolina and Villanova on their schedule, the Quakers are certain to get pushed around from time to time. One time it is never supposed to happen, however, is against another Ivy League team.

The outlook was bleak for the men's squash team. After coming up short against Harvard Saturday, it faced a 4-3 deficit yesterday against Dartmouth. And Penn's Porter Drake and Mark Froot were each down, 2-0, in their respective matches. But the Quakers fought through, and at the end of the match it was Drake screaming triumphantly and Dartmouth's Tyler Young throwing his racket against the glass after a frustrating defeat.