After weeks of blocks, kills and digs, only one obstacle stands between Penn volleyball and its Ivy League competition. In a final tune-up before the Ivy opener at Princeton on Saturday, the Quakers (5-5) begin their non-tournament schedule today at Villanova (9-5), hoping to avenge consecutive 3-0 losses to their crosstown foe from the Big East.

We might be unranked in football, but we've almost cracked the top 10 in the world's most-played sport. Penn took 11th place in the second annual Sexual Health Report Card, a ranking of sexual health resources at 139 U.S. colleges and universities released by the makers of Trojan condoms.

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

I wiped my savings account this summer and, in the last weeks, I lost six toes to hunger. I hope you fared better. Perhaps you worked as an intern, earned a tidy sum and wound up indentured to some soul-sucking firm. I heard that graduates on the International Teaching Assistants Program (ITAP) did very nicely.

WILMINGTON, Del. - Prosecutors showed that Wharton undergraduate Irina Malinovskaya had spyware on her computer and presented DNA analyses of human and animal hair, but it's unclear how strongly that evidence links Malinovskaya to the December 2004 murder of Irina Zlotnikov.

It's hardly a surprise that college diplomas generate higher salaries than their high school counterparts. But it turns out that they also generate more voters, non-smokers and community-service volunteers, a study says. According to a College Board's report entitled "Education Pays: The Benefits of Higher Education for Individuals and Society," college graduates are more likely to be healthy, to volunteer, to vote - and even to be more tolerant of different opinions.

If you thought Penn struggled in its running game on Saturday against Villanova, take a look at the Yale-Cornell contest. While the Quakers tallied 45 yards -- with 29 coming from quarterback Bryan Walker - the Big Red mustered just 39 on the ground as they fell 51-12 to the Bulldogs.

Alicia Puglionesi is a College junior from Haverton, Pa. Her e-mail address is puglionesi@dailypennsylvanian.com.

They drove you to soccer practice; they guided you through the college application process. When it came time for dorm shopping, they made checklists. And now that classes are in full swing, they expect daily e-mails. Some people call them "helicopter parents," and, somewhat improbably, they might just be the next big thing in college fundraising.

Texas volleyball is big - only California can boast of having more talent in the sport. And Lone Star State volleyball players, like most Texans, have a tendency to stick close to home. So high-school teammates Anna Shlimak and Julia Swanson weren't exactly following the crowd when they chose, three years apart, to play for the Quakers.

NEW YORK - Columbia University was a hotbed of conflict yesterday as free-speech pundits, politicos, national media, New Yorkers and Columbia students gathered to voice their divergent views on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to the Morningside Heights, N.Y., campus.

Accused murderer Irina Malinovskaya allegedly falsified an e-mail from her ex-lover Robert Bondar, according to evidence presented for the first time yesterday. The document - for which she has been charged with attempted tampering with physical evidence - is the first major change in a case that has ended twice with hung juries.

With the number of homicides in Philadelphia inching past 300, police and community officials are now calling on black males in the city to curb violent crime. Last week, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson and civic leaders called for 10,000 men to sign up Oct.

A man was robbed at gunpoint this Saturday after entering a cab on the 4000 block of Walnut Street, according to the Philadelphia Police Department and Division of Public Safety officials. The victim, a 19-year-old male unaffiliated with the University, reported that he entered a cab at about 2:30 a.

The Undergraduate Assembly meeting on Sunday night focused more on general student-body interests and less on internal affairs for the first time this year. Issues included improving the add/drop period and New Student Orientation, distributing free national newspapers to students and better management of campus security.

Penn men's soccer coach Rudy Fuller must feel like he's playing "Whack-a-Mole." He knocks one problem down, and another pops up. Last year, his team had trouble closing out games. This year, it can't open them. In 2006, the Quakers were prone to fading in the second half.

Former Economics graduate student and convicted sex offender Kurt Mitman has been granted parole and may be allowed to resume classes at Penn, state and University officials said yesterday.