There's going to be some stiff competition for student government this week. This semester has seen a dramatic increase in the number of freshmen candidates vying for both class-board and Undergraduate Assembly positions. With 41 candidates for the freshman class board and 29 candidates for the UA, there has been a 32-percent overall increase in the number of candidates.

If preseason success is any indication of a team's chances in weeks to come, then both the Penn men and women's cross country teams are heading toward very productive seasons. The men's team earned a first-place finish at Saturday's Lock Haven Invitational.

I suppose it's old news by now that Penn has fallen to No. 7 (from No. 4) in the U.S. News & World Report rankings this fall. What a disappointment! What did we do to deserve this? Increasing class sizes? Disappointing statistics for the Class of '10? And, most importantly, was Amy Gutmann reprimanded? Apparently not.

WILMINGTON, Del. - Prosecutors tried on Friday to paint Irina Malinovskaya as a woman so blinded by her obsession with ex-boyfriend Robert Bondar that she would go to any lengths - including murder - to get him back.

The Penn men's tennis team came up short at the Virginia Invitational, despite a successful first day. Senior Mikhail Bekker and sophomores Jonathan Boym and Justin Fox all won tough three-set matches on Friday to advance to the quarterfinals, but junior Jason Pinsky lost his first match.

A potentially deadly bacterium is spreading throughout the country, and spinach is the culprit. The recent discovery of E. coli in bagged spinach has prompted restaurants and supermarkets around campus to pull the vegetable from their stores. Warning signs have been put up in Houston Market and spinach - cooked or raw - has been removed from all campus dining locations, according to employees at 1920 Commons.

What if you thought you had no bottom? That you were related to an apple? That you were drinking from a cow's teat? Now what if all your friends could see you? In what has become an annual tradition, the hypnotist called on Penn students to let go of their inhibitions and make fools of themselves in front of 900 of their peers.

This weekend, Penn football coach Al Bagnoli hit a milestone: He led the football team to its 100th victory during his career. That's a lot of wins for a team that only plays once a week, for three months a year. In fact, the only man who has more wins for Penn than Bagnoli is George Woodruff, who led the Quakers to 124 victories and three national championships - from 1892 to 1901.

NEW ORLEANS - Linda Nunnery couldn't be happier. She lost her home and her job to Katrina, but that's all just a memory now that Habitat for Humanity has provided her with a pristine new house in New Orleans' Upper Ninth Ward.

Philadelphia is now smoke-free, but don't expect the state to take a similar step anytime soon. In the wake of Philadelphia's smoking ban - which was signed into law by Mayor John Street on Thursday - heads are now turning toward a possible statewide measure currently being considered by Pennsylvania's House of Representatives.

As Al Bagnoli twiddled his victory cigar, one has to wonder what he was thinking about. Was he enjoying his 100th win as Penn's head coach? The end of a four-game losing streak? Beating a top-25 team? Seeing his starting sophomore quarterback begin his career 11-for-11? Instead, Bagnoli may have been realizing that his front seven put up a dominant performance, holding an offense that scored 28 points in the first half alone a week earlier to 11 against the Quakers.

In a high-stress campus crawling with Type-A personalities, psychological concerns are bound to be rampant among students. The question is: To whom do we turn? Well, as we read in Wil Hershner's July 20 column, we are supposed to go to Penn's Counseling and Psychological Services.

They're back. After a four-game losing streak that put last year's team under .500 in the Ivy League, the Quakers of old have seemingly returned.

An electrical fire ignited at a power-supply pole at 39th and Delancey streets yesterday evening, knocking out power and phone services for several residences on the block. No one was injured in the fire, and police officials say they do not yet know what caused it.

It certainly wasn't clean or pretty, but as far as the men's soccer team was concerned, it worked.

Pennsylvania has given $3.5 million to an organization that includes Penn for nanotechnology research. The grant is part of $11.1 million given to various institutions across the state for research in nanotechnology, the creation and study of devices between 1 and 100 nanometers in size.

With high expectations and team support, the women's tennis team fought with fire this weekend during the 14th annual William & Mary Invitational in Virginia. The matches took place on Friday and Saturday in individual tournament format, and no team scores were kept.