Penn senior 141-pound wrestler Rick Rappo takes a very zen approach to dealing with crunch-time pressure. He seemed totally focused and undaunted in tackling his enormous task in an 18-16 home upset by the Quakers (8-5, 3-0 EIWA) over No. 21 Hofstra (7-4, 4-1 CAA) on Saturday.

By BRIAN KOTLOFF Contributing Writer bkotloff@dailypennsylvanian.com The women's swimming team got off to a mediocre start in its meet Friday at West Chester, but junior Amy Reams made sure they finished strong. With Penn holding onto a slim lead at the halfway point, Reams began the second half with an impressive win in the 100-yard freestyle.

In a press conference on Friday, the Philadelphia Police announced an increase in the reward for the arrest and prosecution of the man who sexually assaulted two Penn students in an armed home invasion on Dec. 19. The new reward is $20,000. The suspect is described as a black man in his mid- to late-20s, about 6 foot tall and of average build and with short black hair and a goatee.

The Penn gymnastics team hosted Brown and Towson at Hutchinson Gym Saturday at 1 p.m. The Quakers finished second with a score of 189.725, falling to Towson, which finished at 192.850. Penn edged out Brown's score of 187.300. Senior Jordan Brewer was the star for the Red and Blue.

Eight measly seconds. That's what prevented the men's basketball team from completing a tremendous start to their Ivy League season. After opening conference play with their biggest win of the season, a 66-60 road victory over Harvard Friday night, the Quakers held an eight-point lead and owned all the momentum with 5:24 remaining against Dartmouth Saturday.

If your boss invited you to help him paint his house on a Saturday afternoon, would you accept? Studies show that more than 80 percent of Americans would decline, while only about 30 percent of Chinese citizens would say no. This is one of the challenges that 1985 Wharton alumnus Simon MacKinnon, president of Corning, Inc.

A makeshift headquarters consumes the empty hotel ballroom, where a row of business-clad individuals quickly type resolutions addressing Colombian drug trafficking and current tensions between Israel and Palestine. But this is not some top-secret government agency - this is the Ivy League Model United Nations Conference's operational room, also known as "Ops.

The University recently announced that renovations to Du Bois College House - originally set to begin next year - will in fact start next month. This decision to renovate the increasingly dilapidated low rise could not be more welcomed. For years, students and staff who live and work in Du Bois have pushed for these updates, charging that the dorm was ignored in favor of the Quadrangle and high rises, which are more popular with on-campus residents.

The closure of the South Street Bridge threw a wrench into the daily routines of many Penn athletes. But with the new Weave Pedestrian Bridge, they will now make it to practice on time. The bridge - which opened to the public on Jan. 19 and is part of the Penn Connects initiative - spans from the Amtrak Northeast Corridor train lines to Hollenback Center and the athletic fields to the south.

For the Penn women's basketball team, the start of the home Ivy League season is a sigh of relief - and an opportunity to erase the memories of last week's disappointing loss to Seton Hall. "This week was really about regrouping as a team, getting our minds right and preparing for what's ahead," guard Erin Power said.

Penn's colors may be red and blue, but green has been gradually joining that group. The University recently completed a first working draft of Penn's action plan for climate neutrality, which is being reviewed by the Environmental Sustainability Advisory Committee and upper-level members of the administration, including University President Amy Gutmann.

An eight-game losing streak and a 2-12 non-conference record earlier this year didn't predicate a successful season for Big Green basketball. Toppling a huge Ivy contender on the road just two games into league play, however, is no fluke. "They certainly have some good pieces to the puzzle," Penn coach Glen Miller mused about the Dartmouth squad's victory over Harvard.

Graham Natatorium in West Chester, Pa., is unlike most swimming complexes. It houses just one six-lane pool, which limits the size of the teams competing and directly affects their lineup flexibility. Tonight, the Penn men's and women's swimming teams must overcome those challenges when they make the short trip west to face the Golden Rams at 6 p.

The University's health-insurance policy may be in violation of its nondiscrimination policy, many members of the Penn community say. Currently, the University employee-benefits program does not cover sexual reassignment surgery, but it is in direct violation of its nondiscrimination policy by not covering these procedures, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Center associate director Erin Cross wrote in an e-mail.

On the first Friday after spring classes began, the Quakers sat in a Palestra room and watched film of NJIT, which they would travel to face the next morning. When the session broke up, sophomore guard Remy Cofield pulled coach Glen Miller aside. Cofield told Miller that he felt stressed and anxious and that playing basketball was only worsening things.

For the past few years, comedians have had it pretty good. With his political blunders galore and unfortunate ineloquence, bashing former President Bush became somewhat of a national pastime. I'm all for a little humor - a few good jokes at his expense can keep the president's ego in check.

Take a quick look at Hofstra's 5-foot-8, 174-pound monster Alton Lucas, and it's not very hard to see why he's the pride of the Pride wrestling squad. His chest resembles that of a mythical hero, his arms massive pillars of granite. OK, that may be a bit of a hyperbole, but suffice it to say, the guy is ripped.