Looking for a way to build momentum heading into the postseason? Try winning the biggest meet of the season, blowing out a conference rival and breaking a historic school record - in one weekend. The No. 20 Penn wrestling team may have waited until the last meet of the season to finally notch a win against a ranked opponent.

The fire that gutted a house located at 210 S. 41st St. on Jan. 27 was deliberately set, Philadelphia Fire Department Executive Chief Daniel Williams said yesterday.

The number of spots available at some of the top business schools in the country is dropping - but not at Wharton. The Yale School of Management is planning for an incoming class of 195, compared to its 220-person class of 2008, and Stanford's Graduate School of Business is also aiming to scale back its class size by 20.

Penn is at least $1 billion into its current fundraising campaign, but shhh - you didn't hear it from us. Since 2004, the University has been in the quiet phase of a capital campaign - Penn's most ambitious in history, University officials say - that isn't scheduled to go public until this fall.

A new report predicts that starting salaries for associates at top Manhattan law firms could reach $190,000 by December, and one expert says they have no signs of stopping. The 2007 Salary Guide - published by Robert Half Legal, a recruitment firm based in Menlo Park, Calif.

Prize-winning poet Susan Howe appeared at the Kelly Writer's house yesterday for an exclusive poetry reading of her own works. An author of several poetry publications, Howe opened the night with one of her most recent prose poems, "What is this Crackling of Voices in the Mind," in a style she described as "a Jonathan Edwards personal, conversion narrative.

Community activists are convinced that, if the city has its way, $50 million of their hard earned tax money will go to one ugly bridge. But at a public hearing yesterday, they learned that if construction doesn't start soon, it may never happen. The City Council's Committee on Streets and Services convened the hearing to debate a proposal to widen South Street.

In the world of prestigious scholarships, Penn is back in the game. As of last Sunday, Alix Rogers is representing Penn as the University's only winner of the Gates Cambridge Scholarship, which grants recipients one year of study and research at the University of Cambridge in England.

The gifts for Barbaro just keep on coming. The Penn School of Veterinary Medicine announced yesterday that Barbaro's owners, Roy and Gretchen Jackson, donated a $3 million gift to Penn Vet to fund research on laminitis and other equine diseases. The money will supplement gifts from the Fund to Fight Laminitis that have been donated to sponsor this future research.

Slick sidewalks, lots of slush and furious winds won't get in the way of Cupid's bow, at least as far as students are concerned.

On a busy night of studying, Mustafa Al-ammar was chatting on instant messenger. But the College junior was not procrastinating or making plans to go to a frat party: He was chatting about an upcoming assignment with a professor. "I never go to office hours," Al-ammar said.

Sometimes, all it takes is a little chardonnay to get a neighborhood back on track. Part of a larger revitalization of the area, demolition is set to begin on the current over-the-counter liquor store on the 4900 block of Baltimore Ave., which will be moved down the block and will re-open in late spring.

By Jody Pollock Contributing Writer gamail@dailypennsylvanian.com In San Francisco, it broke the HIV/AIDS story. In Houston, it could have prevented the Enron scandal. And in Minot, N.D., it could have saved lives. Local news, explained Eric Klinenberg, the guest speaker at last night's 2007 Dean's Lecture at Annenberg, is the fabric that ties our nation together - but that fabric is being unraveled as major media conglomerates claim control over increasingly unregulated airwaves, sapping the country of its local flavors.

Now that the Penn College Republicans have a candidate to support, you can be sure they'll be throwing their weight behind him. Only they say they don't know much about him yet - a problem that Republican candidate Al Taubenberger will have to deal with in the coming months running in a city dominated primarily by Democrats.

The doorbell was set to the tune of the Star Spangled Banner. As it rang through the whole house, the fraternity brothers stopped for a moment, grinning. "Listen to that!" Engineering sophomore Alex Numann said. "We're hearing America," College junior Matt Fiedler exclaimed.

Many Wharton graduates go into i-banking. Others hope to make their fortune from the stock market. But one Wharton senior is looking to make money from the most basic principle of business: Wear a good suit. Alex Avendano started a custom-suit company called Henry Davidsen, and this recruiting season, he's hoping almost every Wharton undergraduate will be wearing one of his pieces.

It was a University of Pennsylvania woman who made the first major stride for women presidents in academia, and now another Penn woman is making the next one. Former Penn President Judith Rodin made history as the first female president of an Ivy League school, and, with the appointment of Drew Faust as Harvard's first female president last Sunday, professors, administrators and professionals are heralding her appointment as the next big step for women.