The Next Great City of the 21st century has a 19th-century municipal park system. In 1867, state law established the Fairmount Park Commission to deal with the maintenance and preservation of the 9,200-acre Fairmount Park. But the City also has a Recreation Department, which helps manage public recreation facilities.

My refrigerator's not working. It's more like the outlet next to the refrigerator; for some reason it only works two days a week (seriously) and keeps blowing some circuit. The refrigerator before this made a lake on my floor every day for a month until it was replaced.

The juniors who are abroad this semester might be missing out on campus election hype, but that doesn't mean they aren't voting. College junior George Donnelly, who is studying in Scotland this semester, got an absentee ballot because he "wanted to make sure Barack Obama lays the smack down in New Jersey.

Engineering senior Ryan Goldstein's avoidance of child pornography charges was not unusual, experts say, since many people can escape some criminal charges by cooperating with authorities. Goldstein was sentenced last week on computer-hacking charges, but does not face charges for the several thousand images of child pornography found on his computer because he helped the FBI catch others involved in the hacking scheme.

The average College of General Studies class at Penn attracts a mixed bag of students. The College kid who's too lazy to take the 10 a.m. version. The stay-at-home mom who's finally getting her degree. And the senior citizen who has nothing better to do on a Tuesday evening.

Based on a celebrity-studded public service announcement of the same name, "Don't Vote / 5 Friends" is a viral video produced and distributed by Penn Leads the Vote - a nonpartisan organization dedicated to increasing voter turnout.

Domus, the eight-story, $71-million luxury apartment complex located on 34th and Chestnut streets, is up for sale - barely a year after its completion in the fall of 2007. Domus was intended to be built and then put on the market shortly after, according to a spokeswoman for the building's developer.

Matthew Krentz's experiences growing up in St. Louis and playing basketball at junior college led him to craft a fictional account of his experiences. He wrote, directed and starred in Streetballers - the Philadelphia Daily News lauded his "chutzpah" - but he still couldn't get Hollywood to take note of the relatively low-budget Irish Urban drama.

The long-term future of government policies on abortion, the death penalty, use of torture and a number of other issues are at stake in the 2008 presidential election. Experts believe this year's election is significant because the president's power to appoint justices to the Supreme Court has the potential to substantially alter policies in the long run.

This is the last semester that students will use a Scantron sheet and No. 2 pencil to evaluate their professors. Starting in Spring 2009, the course evaluation system will be completely electronic. With this shift, the Student Committee for Undergraduate Education hopes to make the qualitative comments - which students currently handwrite at the bottom of the evaluation form but are not published online - accessible to everyone.

Last Friday, Philadelphia Police captains, community members and proud parents alike gathered in Temple University's McGonigle Hall to recognize the Police Academy's newest graduates. The 91 officers, after spending this week on traffic control during the World Series, will then be deployed to districts across the city - including several that will require them to work closely with Philadelphia universities.

Amira Fawcett is an Engineering senior from Houston, Texas. Her e-mail address is fawcett@dailypennsylvanian.com.

Leadership, according to journalist Chris Satullo, "can be boiled down to six Yoda-esque, pithy statements." Satullo, longtime columnist and former editorial page editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer, spoke to a group of about a dozen students and faculty yesterday over dinner as part of the Fox Leadership Speakers Forum.

What's your anti-drug? For many targets of the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign - a five-year, $1 billion effort by the federal government to promote drug-resistance skills, alternatives and negative consequences - it doesn't seem to matter. A recent evaluation led by the Annenberg School for Communication found little correlation between exposure to anti-drug advertisements and anti-drug beliefs.

In the midst of the economic crisis, relations between the U.S. and China - a growing economic superpower - may play a crucial role. Zhou Wenzhong, who has been China's ambassador to the U.S. since 2005, discussed this relationship yesterday in a lecture

The losing streak, it seemed, would never end. But this weekend, after Columbia's 21-13 win over Dartmouth, the stench of the 13-game skid was washed away in orange Gatorade. The bath that Lions coach Norries Wilson received courtesy of safety Andy Shalbrack must have felt good - it signaled the end of the second-longest active skid in the Football Championship Subdivision.

NEW HAVEN, Conn., Oct. 25 - For the first 16 minutes of Saturday's 9-7 win over Yale, the Quakers' offense was stagnant. Senior quarterback Robert Irvin showed an ability to roll right and hit tight end Josh Koontz on the run, but not much else, so coach Al Bagnoli decided to call on backup Kyle Olson early in the second quarter.