Philadelphia's artists, including Penn's vice provost for University life, will open their doors to the public this weekend. Philadelphia Open Studio Tours is an annual event that allows over 200 of the city's visual artists to open their studios or homes for the display and sale of their artwork.

Amy Gutmann made $675,000 in her first year as Penn's president, but she's got a long way to go to catch up with her predecessor, who was still on the payroll even though she was not president in that year. Gutmann's total compensation for the fiscal year 2005 - which ended on June 30 of that year - was $675,000 with $92,000 total benefits, tax reports show.

Grounds for declaring a mistrial, which would have been the second in the case of Irina Malinovskaya, surfaced on Wednesday, but Judge James Vaughn declined to do so. The judge also rejected a proposal to lessen the charge against Malinovskaya.

When it comes to leveling the educational playing field, wealth is more important than race, says sociology professor Dalton Conley. Dalton Conley, professor of sociology and public policy at New York University, spoke yesterday in Logan Hall about the relationship between wealth and education to a group of faculty and Graduate School of Education students as part of the "Race in the Academy" series.

Yale University will make videos of class lectures available to the public on the Internet next fall, the university has announced. The initiative, financed by a private grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, will put class lectures, transcripts, syllabi and other materials from select courses on the Internet for free.

Weaving humor through the serious themes of politics and coming of age, poet Daisy Fried charmed an audience that smiled, laughed and applauded as if on queue. Yesterday evening, Fried, who taught writing at Penn three years ago, read selections of her poetry at the Kelly Writers House.

It may not have access to the precognitive psychics featured in the 2002 Tom Cruise movie Minority Report, but a new city parole force working with Penn's criminology center is trying to prevent potential murderers from killing. Penn's Jerry Lee Center of Criminology, in partnership with the First Judicial District of Philadelphia, is in the process of launching a homicide prevention unit that will try to determine which paroled felons are most likely to commit murder and assign them special parole officers.

The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania have purchased a former Dupont lab in nearby Delaware County on behalf of Penn's School of Medicine. The 124,000 square-foot facility, located on 17.4 acres of land, will cost the University $8.25 million, according to CB Richard Ellis, which is representing Dupont.

Almost 20 million students from schools in 49 states and 3 countries are signed up to take a virtual field trip to Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, courtesy of Ball State University and the National Park Foundation. On Oct. 17, Ball State will broadcast the Electronic Field Trip, including live tours, in-class activities and an online panel of experts.

A window that fell from the fourth floor of the Franklin Building, located near 36th and Walnut streets, was likely dislodged by a construction mishap, according to the Division of Public Safety. The window fell and crashed on the street below on Saturday morning.

Homecoming came a little early at Penn, at least for former University President Judith Rodin.

What could be worse than midterms? Perhaps having your studying interrupted by your laptop bursting into flames.

A potential amendment to the city smoking ban will most likely not bring drastic change to the local bar scene, area bar owners say.

These guys don't care for activism, and they're taking to the streets to make sure everyone knows it. The pack of students holding cardboard signs and marching down Locust Walk yesterday wasn't protesting genocide in Darfur or the war in Iraq - the students were just protesting the act of protesting.

Larry Gagosian, whom Art Review magazine called "the world's greatest art businessman," never actually planned on getting into the art business. In fact, he'll tell you that in any other business, he would be a "complete flop." Gagosian, the owner of six galleries worldwide, joined 1988 Wharton graduate Glenn Fuhrman in Huntsman Hall yesterday evening for a casual conversation on today's art world.

Under questioning by prosecutors, Wharton undergraduate Irina Malinovskaya broke down on the witness stand yesterday, weeping.

Facebook.com has joined the registration trend.The social-networking site joined up with non-partisan political organization Rock the Vote yesterday to begin offering a voter registration page through its Web site. Facebook’s move comes just a week after its competitor, MySpace.