Pope Benedict XVI may come to Philadelphia next April, according to a report from the Catholic News Service. A Vatican spokesman had said earlier this year that the pope was planning a trip to the United Nations and New York City in 2008, likely in April.

When College sophomore Anne Ryan died from meningitis last Sunday, she left behind a legacy as a model of two kinds. First, as a girl whose striking beauty didn't stop at the surface, and second, as a scholar whose passions for learning and life made her an ideal student, her friends at Penn say.

Prosecutors continue efforts to send former Penn professor Tracy McIntosh to prison, but McIntosh's lawyers now argue that a previous backroom deal proposed by the case's former prosecutor should keep him from serving time.

There will always be that one student who just doesn't understand question five. Fifty minutes later, the frustration in the classroom is palpable, recitation is over, and the teaching assistant has yet to explain the answer thoroughly. It's a problem that is troubling - and all too familiar - to the undergraduate population: A lack of communication between TAs and students.

A report released last month by the panel charged with investigating the Virginia Tech shootings sheds light on a blatant shortcoming on the part of the Virginia Tech's counseling services, which may provide guidelines for other universities to follow in the future.

Jennifer Jagger is out to make giving birth a little bit easier - or, at least, the preparation for it. Jagger, a Nursing graduate student, co-edited the newly launched Philadelphia Guide to a Healthy Birth. Published by Choices in Childbirth - a non-profit consumer advocacy group that educates the public about women's rights and options in childbirth - the Guide lists 155 female-friendly practitioners, all of whom have been referred by mothers and midwives.

Thanks to the recent opening of the Jean Madeline Aveda Institute, students can get pampered on a budget.

A change in admissions deans notwithstanding, Penn continues to maintain that early decision is here to stay. After Harvard and Princeton universities announced last fall that they were both dropping their early-admissions programs, many expected Penn and the other Ivies to follow suit.

n "I just loved watching her life play out. It was beautiful. She was always doing something extraordinary. There was nothing ordinary she would do." "Her family came before anything else in the whole world. She would give anything up for her family." - Penn State University sophomore Missy Rupp, Ryan's high-school best friend n "I was obsessed since the moment I met her.

Penn's Division of Public Safety has released a traffic advisory due to ongoing construction on the Annenberg School for Communication. Lane closures near the construction site began Wednesday morning. The closures are expected to last between two and three weeks.

Unlike most Penn students, Wharton seniors Jason Toff and Kelly Schaefer spent their summer nights chatting online with Indian programmers.

For Penn Dining, the opportunity to link with professional services giant Aramark six years ago was supposed to bring much-needed improvements to the University's dining services.

When it comes to funding construction, America's biomedical-research colleges may be approaching the perfect storm. Nationwide, medical schools have continued to engage in ambitious expansion projects with the expectation that federal funding will help foot the bill.

Newsflash: Bringing your A-game in a round of Halo doesn't translate to an A on your Econ midterm. In a recent year-long study, researchers surveyed incoming freshmen at Berea College in Kentucky and found that students who brought video-game systems to school earned a lower GPA than their non-gaming classmates.

WILMINGTON, Del. - It was deja vu all over again as the third murder trial for Wharton undergraduate Irina Malinovskaya began yesterday at the New Castle Co. courthouse.

When the Covenant - the red, cylindrical statue on Locust Walk - was erected in 1975, students called it "obnoxiously spastic" and reminiscent of "cosmic soda straws." Now, students just call it the Dueling Tampons. And that's what 1996 College graduate Matt Rosler calls his Web site: Duelingtampons.

Scientists often joke that, instead of having a genie grant three wishes, they'd just prefer three grants. Well, scientists engaging in interdisciplinary research might not have to bother with the genie anymore. The National Institutes of Health Roadmap for Medical Research announced last week funding of $210 million over five years for nine interdisciplinary research consortia nationwide.