Last semester, Penn College Republicans elected College junior Arielle Klepach as its president. The Daily Pennsylvanian sat down with her to chat about this year’s plans and conservatives on campus.

Due to low funding and attendance, six parishes in West Philadelphia will merge to become three later this month. Catholic organizations at Penn, however, manage to maintain membership by straying from a strictly worship-based community model.

Saigon Cuisine opened on 40th and Chestnut streets to replace the French-Thai restaurant Nan. Nan’s owner, Kamol Phutlek, fell ill and closed the restaurant in October. Joey Sang opened Saigon Cuisine in December as a Vietnamese BYOB, yet he moved in without receiving a permit or a certificate of occupancy.

The Career Plans Survey, released by Career Services, reveals that 75 percent of School of Nursing graduates obtained full-time employment, a major increase from 59 percent full-time employment for graduates of the class of 2011.

Penn President Amy Gutmann’s salary of $1,462,742 in 2010 made her the 12th-highest-paid private university president in the nation.

On the heels of a series of broad changes to Penn’s practices governing alcohol use, the University announced Wednesday afternoon that it will be forming a new commission to study the impact of alcohol on student safety.

Two new classrooms that are set to open in Steinberg-Dietrich Hall for student use today, after almost a year of planning and building.

Nearly 100 PennDesign students and faculty members — along with experts from outside the University — began the new semester with an open-ended conversation concerning the role of design education and practice in disaster response and prevention.

Should significant spending cuts happen in two months — whether automatic or through a deal that similarly cuts spending — Penn could see reductions in funding from the federal government.

The man who robbed multiple University City restaurants at gunpoint last spring — including the Chipotle Mexican Grill on the 3900 block of Walnut Street — is headed to prison.

Over winter break, the leaders of Chi O were informed of underlying electrical issues in their chapter house on 3926 Spruce St. The issue forced them to temporarily relocate to the former chapter house of fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi, located at 4035 Walnut St.

Matthew Cartwright — a 1986 graduate of Penn Law — will serve as a member of both the Oversight and Government Reform and Natural Resources Committees. He was also selected Democratic Freshman Class President — a mostly ceremonial position — for 2013 by his fellow freshmen representatives on Friday.

Last September, SEAS completed the technical implementation of a “soft rollout” of the Google Apps for Education service for Engineering students with a pilot scheme for a selected group. Later in January, the service will be expanded to include all SEAS students except staff who are also students.

In the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, Penn President Amy Gutmann has become the latest in a slew of university leaders urging the federal government to do more to promote gun control, calling the problem of gun violence a “scourge of American life.”

Traffic was blocked off this morning on 38th Street between Chestnut and Walnut and on the 3800 block of Walnut Street.

Chair of the Department of Earth and Environmental Science Fred Scatena died Wednesday evening in his home in West Philadelphia after a brief battle with cancer.

An alert was issued over a robbery with weapon at 38th and Walnut streets. The Division of Public Safety confirmed the victim was a male student affiliated with the University.