It was a bit like New Student Orientation all over again last night for next year's residents of the Radian, as they met with future roommates and hallmates for the first time. As construction progresses on the Radian, located at 39th and Walnut streets, its future residents gathered last night at Marathon Grill.

It took Jim Skinner more than 40 years to go from flipping burgers to managing fortunes for the fast-food giant McDonalds. Yesterday, he shared some of the secrets to his success with students at the Woodlands Ballroom at the Hilton Inn at Penn. The event was a corporate benefit banquet billed as "An Evening of Philanthropy," hosted by Penn's chapter of the Alpha Kappa Psi Professional business fraternity.

For Americans, there's July 4th, there's New Years Eve - and then there's the Super Bowl. Between the game and the grub, this annual showdown between football's best has become what amounts to a national celebration for football fanatics and novices alike.

Mayor Michael Nutter's decision last week to revoke SugarHouse's casino license for its proposed 5,500-slot parlor provided a new setback for casino developers interested in coming to Philadelphia. Nutter revoked the license in order to more completely evaluate whether the proposed casino is the best use for the land at the Fishtown site.

Penn will comply with requests for information about endowment growth and financial-aid spending asked for in a letter from the U.S. Senate Finance Committee early this week. The letter, written by committee chairman Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, and ranking Republican Chuck Grassley of Iowa, seeks to gather data in order to assess how colleges are making education more affordable and how tax breaks for endowments factor into financial-aid policy.

A home in Pearlington, Miss. was sinking and Engineering graduate student Kyle Sirianno was determined to find out why. He encountered the home - which had sunk by two inches because the septic tank underneath it was broken - while testing the quality of well water in Pearlington, an area still suffering from the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina.

Mingling with a group of older and wiser graduate students are numerous undergraduates hoping to gain experience and knowledge. The concept of taking graduate-level classes either for submatriculation or for experience has long been a tradition for undergraduates at Penn.

If second-year physics graduate student John Alison were a few years older, he would have studied at Fermi, a famous physics lab in Chicago. Instead he will head to Switzerland this summer to study particle physics. Geneva, Switzerland boasts the world's premier particle accelerator thanks to a 1990s budget cut that halted construction of a similar model in the U.

For seniors, February marks the start of their last round of midterms, their last Super Bowl to watch at Penn and Feb Club, a month-long celebration for seniors to attend events together across Philadelphia. "It's geared toward giving seniors a better perspective of Philly as a whole in their last few months," College senior and class president Puneet Singh said.

AlliedBarton security guards at Penn and Temple University received significant increases in wages and sick leave last week. The adjustments to the security guards' contracts, effective last month at Penn and today at Temple, provide for up to three days' paid sick leave at both Penn and Temple and a wage increase from $9.

Do you know of the Heavenly Mother? Many students do now, after recent encounters with teams of missionaries on campus. Members of the World Mission Society Church of God have been proselytizing on campus over the past few weeks, approaching students on various street corners and outside University buildings.

Thanks to record-breaking investment and fundraising, Penn's endowment for the 2007 fiscal year reached an all-time high - a high that, for the first time in history, pushed Penn into the top 10 schools with the highest endowments in the country. Penn's $6.

Carbon Trading 101. It isn't listed in the spring course timetable - yet. In a few years, however, that may be a different story. In a speech yesterday presented by Penn's Institute for Environmental Studies, adjunct professor Andrew Huemmler discussed what he believes to be the next frontier in U.

Across the country, 1,100 schools are heating up for Focus the Nation, a teach-in about global warming solutions. The Fox Leadership Program and the student group Campus Progress and the Penn Environmental Group are making an effort to join the discussion with an all-day conference today in Houston Hall.

The ashes of Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro will be interred at Churchill Downs, where the Derby is run every year, his owners, Roy and Gretchen Jackson, announced yesterday, according to The Associated Press. Barbaro, who was injured during the 2006 Preakness Stakes, was treated for over eight months at Penn's New Bolton Center in Kennett Square, Pa.

Sleep. Exercise. Fling. These are all things being recommended to students this year. "Fling: Ask Us Why" was revealed by the Social Planning and Events Committee last Friday to be the theme of this year's Spring Fling, which will take place on Friday, April 11 and Saturday, April 12.

An AlliedBarton security guard has been arrested and charged with theft and receiving stolen property, according to Deputy Chief of Investigations Mike Morrin of the Penn Police. The incident marks the second time since November that an on-campus AlliedBarton guard has been arrested.