With eight of 17 players on the Penn volleyball team hailing from California, the Quakers' slate in San Francisco and Moraga, Calif., was supposed to be like three home matches. Indeed, the Red and Blue had plenty of fans in attendance, but that didn't translate into wins.

Every morning at 4 a.m., College and Wharton senior Sakina Zaidi meets friends at Philly Diner for breakfast and then goes home to sleep, fasting for the rest of the day. Since the beginning of the semester, Zaidi and many practicing Muslims in the Penn community have been celebrating Ramadan.

Last season, sophomore forward Kristin Kaiser clinched Penn's Ivy League crown with an overtime goal against Princeton. On Saturday, Kaiser helped Penn take a strong first step toward defending its title with a 2-0 victory over Harvard at Rhodes Field. "Its funny, Kristin is a kid who we've talked a little bit about why she's not more confident in herself because she's such a tremendous player," Penn coach Darren Ambrose said.

Last week, Penn men's soccer coach Rudy Fuller guaranteed that his team would give up a goal at some point this season. It took the Quakers only three minutes and 25 seconds into yesterday's 2-2 tie with Temple to prove him right. Drew Healy's seven-game, 673-minute shutout streak came undone when defender James Suevo hit a header into the back of the net.

EASTON, Pa. - Robert Irvin dropped back and let it fly over the middle. Looking to extend the Quakers' furious second-half rally with a fourth-down conversion, Irvin fired a wayward pass to David Wurst on a slant, missing high and setting up Wurst for a crushing meeting with the Lafayette secondary.

A new report released last week by the National Association for College Admissions Counseling stated that college admissions offices should de-emphasize applicants' SAT and ACT scores when deciding whom to admit. Penn, however, has no plans to drop the tests from its admissions criteria.

At 1:15 p.m. Friday, the Division of Public Safety learned that a boxcar had caught fire on the railway above 31st and Walnut streets, and a tanker containing chlorine had fallen off the tracks - causing potential chlorine release and forcing the area's residents to shelter in-place.

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

To commemorate the bicentennial of the abolition of the slave trade in the United States, White Students Confronting Racism hosted a 2-day film festival last Thursday and Friday. The purpose of the film festival was to "remind people of this bicentennial and think about what it means for us today," said Ali Michael, student leader of WSCR, an organization of the Graduate School of Education.

Penn's getting greener. Officials from the Sustainable Endowments Institute recently gave Penn an A- for its sustainability efforts, in its 2009 report rating the environmental-friendliness of 300 colleges. Much of the credit goes to the administration.

At the end of Saturday's game with Harvard, all members of the women's field hockey team lined up and belted out "Drink a Highball," smiles blazing from ear to ear. It was as if they had just won an Ivy League championship. This victory was indeed stirring.

Though presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain still have the last leg of campaigning and debates ahead of them, the Class of 2012 has reached the end of its election season, choosing Wharton freshman Jibran Khan and College freshman Shri Chauhan to be its president and vice president.

Junior Kate Kosminskaya had never played doubles with Alexa Ely. But the No. 2-seeded duo made the most of their competitive debut, winning the Cissie Leary Tournament when Yale's top team withdrew. Kosminskaya and Ely knocked off the Bulldogs' second-best tandem, Stevi Petrelli and Vicky Brook, in Saturday's semifinals, 8-5.

After the post-game press conference at Lafayette on Saturday, Leopards coach Frank Tavani offered some words of encouragement. "You guys got a good football team," he said. "They're gonna be all right. It's two tough games, I know, but believe me." I believe him.

In Philadelphia news last month: a boycott of the Embassy Suites Hotel for unfair firings, the unification of the city's two major taxi unions and an illegal-immigration raid at a janitorial services contractor. These aren't exactly typical headlines in Philadelphia news media.

Want a cheaper outlet for movie rentals or book purchases? More Americans than ever are realizing just where they can find these services for free. Nationwide, public libraries are welcoming more visitors than they have in previous years to browse their collections.

After the excitement surrounding Stephen Colbert's week-long stay at the Zellerbach Theatre last semester, the Social Planning and Events Committee has decided to tap another Stephen for its annual fall show. Comedian, musician and Pennsylvania-born Stephen Lynch is scheduled to perform at SPEC's fall concert, officials announced today.