Former Penn professor Tracy McIntosh has filed a petition to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to appeal a Superior Court decision that he be resentenced for his sexual-assualt conviction. McIntosh's lawyer, Thomas Bergstrom, said McIntosh filed the appeal on Dec.

Penn Economics professor Rafael Robb has been named the prime suspect in the murder of his wife, Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor announced last week at a press conference.

Despite calls for change, Penn isn't alone in its favor of early admissions. Amid continued debate among colleges and universities over the program's merits, Yale University announced last week that it will not be ending its early-action program. In an interview with Yale Alumni Magazine, President Richard Levin said the school will be keeping its early-action program because it believes that the best way to make schools more accessible is to improve financial-aid packages.

Law students across the country are turning heads for an allegedly widespread dependency on alcohol and drugs. According to the Association of American Law Schools, high-stress, cutthroat competition and heavy workloads are leading law students to engage in heavy alcohol and drug use, participate in Internet gambling and suffer from clinical depression.

A recent donation could help give citizenship a boost at Penn. A $2.5 million endowment from the Mellon Foundation will be donated to Penn for a new interdisciplinary program on Democracy, Citizenship and Constitutionality, University officials announced at the end of last semester.

College freshman Jessica Wolfe boarded a flight home to Denver, Co., at 8:30 a.m. on Dec. 20. But, as the plane approached Denver International Airport, it was unexpectedly diverted to Nebraska because of weather conditions. Wolfe had five minutes to decide whether to stay in Nebraska - an eight-hour drive from her home - or to fly back to Philadelphia.

The University's Project on Civic Engagement kicked off its major initiative, Great Expectation: Citizen Voices on Philadelphia's Future, at St. John's University last night. The forum is part of a series that will take place at community centers, hospitals and college campuses in different neighborhoods across the region.

University City was subject to several violent crimes over winter break, with one murder and four major robberies. All of the crimes involved victims unaffiliated with the University. On Dec. 24, Robert Rose, 21, was killed by multiple gunshot wounds to the back and legs on the 3900 block of Market Street, Division of Public Safety officials said.

After months of deliberation, SAS administrators remain locked in negotiations over replacing the current Webmail system, which has repeatedly broken down over the past year. SAS Vice Dean for Finance and Administration Ramin Sedehi said the school is still negotiating with both Microsoft and Google in an effort to ensure that the privacy and security of students is protected.

At the start of the holiday season, Nursing freshman Kayla Guarneri wasn't dreaming about snow or eggnog. Instad, she was thinking about the looks on local children's faces when she gave them the gifts they'd been begging Santa Claus for. Guarneri is one of about 20 student volunteers who dressed up as elves or Santa Claus and delivered 125 Christmas presents - most of which were purchased by Penn students - to children at two nearby low-income Catholic schools yesterday morning.

After two mistrials in Wharton undergraduate Irina Malinovskaya's murder case, there is still no indication whether she will be retried for a second time. Mary Burnell, a Malinovskaya defense lawyer, said the prosecutors in the case have not contacted them about a third trial, although immediately after the trial they had announced their intention to retry.

For students at Cornell University, keeping in touch with Mom and Dad is becoming a whole lot easier.

University alumnus Ralph Roberts and his son, alumnus Brian Roberts, have pledged $15 million towards a $144 million proton-therapy center scheduled to open in 2009. Other funds will come from the federal government, the Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

The wife of a Penn professor was found murdered in her Main Line home late last week. The victim, Ellen Robb, was the wife of Rafael Robb, who teaches in the Economics Department. Her body was found Friday afternoon, and authorities told The Philadelphia Inquirer that, according to the autopsy, her death resulted from being beaten with a long, cylindrical object.

After the third Webmail crash in three days on Friday, School of Arts and Sciences technology officials say the problem may have finally been put to bed.

Unlike more recent campaigns to reduce crime on campus, the Nuisance Alarm Reduction Team prefers to keep a low profile. Their goal: Stop falsely triggered alarms from disrupting the academic lives of students throughout campus. And with the recent increase in the sophistication and number of alarm systems across campus, University officials say NART's job is more necessary now than ever.

Thanks to a change in LSAT policy, aspiring law students may be able to breathe easier on test day. After a shift in American Bar Association protocol last June, 74 percent of law schools currently or will soon evaluate applicants based on their highest LSAT scores, according to a recently released survey by Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions.