When I met Bob Bark outside of Fresh Grocer last week, I thought I'd be writing a simple pro-union column. Bark had handed me a flyer that announced: "Newsflash! Campus Apartments has decided to hire an electrical contractor who does not pay what the government says is a fair wage.

Thanks to a policy change by the Philadelphia School District, every school volunteer will have to undergo three background checks costing a total of $70. And that may put the West Philadelphia Tutoring Project - run by Civic House, Penn's community service center - in jeopardy.

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

Too much sun is bad for you anyway, right? After an uneven 10-day, seven-game swing in Boca Raton, Fla., the Penn baseball team is heading north of Philadelphia - to Ambler, Pa. - for its first showdown back in the northeast. There, the Quakers (3-5) will meet Temple (7-7) at the Owls' Skip Wilson Field this afternoon.

One of Penn's winningest teams, No. 6 women's lacrosse, will finally play its first game in front of a home crowd, as the squad suits up at Franklin Field tonight against its intrastate rival, No. 19 Penn State. The Quakers (4-1, 1-0 Ivy) will have their work cut out for them against the Nittany Lions (2-3), whose losing record is misleading.

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

Sunday marked the end of a season for Penn fencing and the end of an accomplished career for men's captain Ron Berkowsky. In front of a hometown crowd, Ohio State's Andras Horanyi permanently dashed Berkowsky's hopes of a national championship for the second year in a row.

A Dental student was held captive in his apartment by armed robbers for about 12 hours over spring break. The student was walking out of his apartment, located at 4311 Spruce St., on March 9 at about 11:30 p.m. when he was confronted by a white male and a black male.

Led by senior runner Jesse Carlin, four Penn women entered the history books when they were named All-Americans at the NCAA Spring Indoor Track & Field Championships this past weekend. Carlin advanced to the 800m finals at the University of Arkansas track on Sunday, finishing with a season-best time of 2:06:48.

Coach Glen Miller said that, at Penn, "it's first place or last place." But with two straight wins to close the season, the Quakers at least avoided their first losing Ivy campaign in 17 years. After losing a heartbreaker to Cornell, Penn defeated both Columbia and Princeton to finish with an 8-6 league record, good enough to stand alone in third place.

When it comes to making plans on how to improve Philadelphia, architects and city planners from Penn say civic engagement is critical. Penn Praxis, the consulting branch of Penn's School of Design, is working in conjunction with the Penn Project for Civic Engagement to generate a series of plans to renovate the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, located on South Broad Street.

Former Marketing professor Scott Ward was indicted last Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on one count of making false statements to the State Department and two counts of transporting and shipping child pornography.

The thing that Gary Gregory will always remember about his sister's death is how close she was to leaving her husband when he killed her. Gregory was down from Massachusetts to bring his sister, Ellen Robb, and her daughter Olivia up to Boston with him for Christmas.

Thus far, the men's lacrosse team has seen its share of ups and downs, and its spring break road trips proved to be no exception. At the two-day Pioneer Faceoff Classic, hosted by Denver, the Quakers dispatched Air Force 13-10 on March 8 before failing to upset the host school, losing 12-11 in overtime.

Flames burst from the attic of the Mask and Wig Clubhouse, located at 310 S. Quince Street, early Saturday morning - but the 2 a.m. fire was not part of the group's annual spring show. The fire, which is still being investigated by the Philadelphia Fire Marshal, was reported by an unidentified person who saw the flames and informed officials, according to Mask and Wig board members.

East Asian and Middle Eastern history may be more similar than you think. Yesterday afternoon at Logan Hall, Cemil Aydin, Princeton University post-doctoral fellow and assistant professor of History at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, gave a lecture entitled, "East Asia and the Middle East: What Can We Learn from Comparative Approaches to Global History?" His talk was based on his most recent book, "The Politics of Anti-Westernism in Asia: Visions of World Order in Pan-Islamic and Pan-Asian Thought," in which he challenges prevalent notions of anti-Westernism as a reaction to Western values or response to Western imperialism.

The Penn men's tennis team battled Saturday against No. 8 Michigan, but when the final point had been decided, they were left with an all-too-familiar feeling. The Wolverines dispatched the Quakers 7-0 at Lott Courts for the team's fourth loss over spring break, and sixth straight overall.