U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Pa.) spoke about prose and politics last night at the Penn Bookstore. In front of a crowd of about 50 students - many of whom were from the Penn Democrats - Murphy promoted his new book, Taking the Hill: From Philly to Baghdad to the United States Congress, and conveyed the common democratic theme of change.

The Faculty Senate has debated self-disclosure for prospective professors over the past year, and now students are also getting a chance to voice their views. With two weeks remaining until the Faculty Senate Executive Committee meets to discuss the proposed criminal self-disclosure policy for faculty, student leaders have been meeting with members of the Faculty Senate to discuss the divisive issue.

Wharton freshman Ben Lewis would like nothing more than to walk into any convenience store and see GIVE, his own brand of water, for sale. That just might become a possibility very soon. Lewis was 18 years old when he founded his own bottled water company called PurBlu with his cousin and two high school friends, including current Wharton freshman Jesse Rudolph.

In an effort to enhance campus safety, a nine-member panel led by Vice President for Public Safety Maureen Rush discussed a new system to inform students about campus emergencies last night in Houston Hall.

It has killed a Hollywood actor and been the subject of a Superbowl ad - prescription drug abuse is definitely on the national radar. Marijuana and alcohol are still more popular on college campuses than prescription drugs, but adolescents who abuse substances for the first time are beginning to choose prescription drugs more often than marijuana, according to the most recent National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

A new show featuring paintings and photography by Frida Kahlo at the Philadelphia Museum of Art has Philadelphia art buffs and Latin American art enthusiasts in a frenzy.

Local officials are brushing up on what it takes to handle a terrorist attack. More than 20 law-enforcement and public-safety officials, including Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey and Mayor Michael Nutter, participated in a security forum aimed at improving communication yesterday.

Girls who missed out on rush, don't lose hope: formal recruitment is not the only time of year that offers the opportunity for sorority membership. During Continuous Open Bidding, the informal process that sororities use to acquire new members during the fall and spring semesters after rush, houses may offer bids to girls that either did not participate in rush at all or dropped out early.

Last week, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter released his first budget for the city, which began to address his ambitious inaugural goals - including a reduction in crime and improvement in the city's education system.

Recent cell phone registration numbers for the UPennAlert notification system show an approximately 10 percent increase from the beginning of October. Sixty-one percent of students and 31 percent of faculty and staff have registered their cell-phone numbers, compared to about 50 percent of students who had done so in the beginning of October, according to Vice President for Public Safety Maureen Rush.

If a recession is on the horizon for the economy, Penn officials and finance experts say the University should not be too worried. In the last quarter of 2007, the U.S. economy saw a staggeringly low growth rate of 0.6 percent. While growth was not negative, as it would be during a recession, it might be a signal that the nation is headed there in the coming years.

How do you find a compromise between preserving free speech and protecting students from becoming victims of libelous and defamatory comments? That is the question raised by Juicycampus.com-, a Web site launched last October on seven college campuses that serves as a forum for students to post campus gossip anonymously.

The flat-screen television flashing with vivid images of superheroes and Charlie Brown seemed out of place at the time-worn Kelly Writers House last night as Pulitzer Prize-winning artist and author of Maus Art Spiegelman presented "Comix 101." The presentation was a condensed history of comic-book evolution intertwined with his personal experience writing graphic novels.

Several Nursing students may be traveling to rural areas in Honduras - but that won't stop them from blogging about it. As part of the Nursing course, Infant and Maternal Care in the Americas, nine Nursing undergraduate and graduate students will help out in underserved communities in Honduras to improve health care, particularly in midwifery, for two weeks this May.

With the addition of the Radian to residential options, sororities are having an unusually difficult time filling their houses for next year. Because rush occurs during the spring, many girls have already signed contracts for housing next semester. Most off-campus leases are signed during the fall, as are contracts for in-house room change.

Achieving an atmosphere that is both cozy and sleek can be a difficult task. But for Twenty Manning, a neighborhood bistro whose menu combines traditional American cuisine with Asian-inspired dishes, doing two things at once seems to be no problem. Tucked into 20th Street between Spruce and Locust streets, the restaurant maintains the elegance of the surrounding Rittenhouse Square.

Who knew SEPTA went to Turkey? While I've never actually been to the land of hummus and ottomans, Konak restaurant certainly met my expectations. Owners Melek Basaran and her daughter Aysa Atay have transformed one of Old City's many cramped buildings into a palace.