Though the Quakers' Ivy home-opener against Columbia tonight may seem like a mere distraction before Saturday's matchup against defending champion Cornell, Penn coach Glen Miller swears that the Goliath that is Big Red basketball isn't overshadowing a potential David in the foreground.

Tomorrow, Penn School of Design students will travel to the heart of Amish Country to learn about Philadelphia's regional food system. From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Professor Domenic Vitiello will lead the Farm to City bus tour to Lancaster County, Pa., where students will visit area farms, distribution sites and the Lancaster Central Market.

New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced Monday that Aetna, the third-largest health-insurance company in the U.S., agreed to reimburse more than 73,000 students at over 200 colleges nationwide for underpaying student claims. The company, which serves as the health care provider for the Penn Student Insurance Plan, underpaid more than $5.

Men's basketball fell, 88-73, to defending champion Cornell at the Palestra Saturday night. In a surprising move, Glen Miller went with a completely new starting lineup: Harrison Gaines, Kevin Egee, Rob Belcore, Justin Reilly, and Conor Turley. The new-look Quakers jumped out to an 11-5 lead behind five quick points by Belcore.

It is a widely known sports philosophy that players "learn from the best." Men's squash coach Craig Thorpe-Clarke and his team have taken this adage to heart. After the humbling experience of getting shut out, 9-0, against the top two teams in the nation - No.

According to Anwar Shah, the industrialized world has a lot to learn from the industrializing nations of the world. Last night in the ARCH Building, the Department of Slavic Languages and Literature together with the Political Science Department hosted a lecture by Shah - lead economist and coordinator of the operations evaluation department at the World Bank.

Against top-ranked Princeton last week, Penn women's squash lost its captain, Emily Goodwin, early on in the match to a knee injury. It was a devastating blow for the Quakers, who are still feeling the effects of the senior's absence. As a result of the senior's injury, the Red and Blue are short-handed heading into this weekend's matches.

And so the streak continues. As has been the case for the past five years, the Penn women's swimming team emerged triumphant in its meet against La Salle, this time winning, 169-130, last night.

It was Joni Mitchell and later Coldplay who sang, "You don't know what you have till it's gone." That couldn't be truer now as we enter the season of state-budget addresses. This year, in these economic times, a lot of people are understandably upset as jobs are lost and programs are cut.

The casting team of The Last Airbender is offering Philadelphians one last chance to steal the limelight. A second casting call for the M. Night Shyamalan movie will be held on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Independence Hall

Last night, business fraternity Alpha Kappa Psi embraced the relationship between business and philanthropy at its second annual corporate benefit in the Woodlands Ballroom of the Inn at Penn. The corporate benefit is Alpha Kappa Psi's signature event and one of the largest philanthropic events on campus.

Since it was passed in 1993, the Clinton administration's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy has prevented open members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community from serving in the military due to claims of persecution and forced resignations. Fortunately for those the policy affects, times may change with the new presidential administration - a change many in the LGBT community would welcome on campus.

High-rise residents and Nursing students may have extra incentive to nix the elevators for stairs in the future. The Undergraduate Assembly's Civic and Community Engagement Committee has drafted a proposal to paint the stairwells in a number of buildings, including Harnwell, Harrison and Rodin college houses and Claire Fagin Hall.

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. And this semester, Nicholas Kristof will be added to that list - the award-winning journalist will speak at the Ambani Auditorium in Huntsman Hall tonight at 6:30 p.

Two Jews, two Palestinians, a law student and a recent alum sounds more like the makings of a joke than the makings of a non-profit microfinance company. But gathered in Huntsman Hall last night, the founders of lendforpeace.org were not kidding around as they celebrated the launch of their Web site.

Judie Lomax hardly seems like an intimidating figure. The Columbia sophomore stands at a pedestrian 5-foot-11 - if anything undersized at her forward position - and plays for a historically meek Lions squad that has never posted a winning record in the Ivy League.

Students enduring freezing wind, rain or snow while waiting for Penn Transit may be in for a shorter wait thanks to the recent installation of a GPS tracking system. Operational since September last year, the service enables students to check when the shuttle or bus they are waiting for will arrive at the desired transit stop.