New Orleans seems like three different cities. First, there is the eerily empty Ninth Ward. Across the canal, the French Quarter is astir with nightlife and recovering businesses.

A chain-link fence surrounds Cedar Park at 50th Street and Baltimore Avenue, enclosing landscaping machinery and old playground equipment. For the time being, it is abandoned, and does not appear impressive. But by Thanksgiving, the fences will be down and the machinery will be replaced with new landscaping, benches and improved lighting - worth a combined $200,000.

Election officials will record more than just your vote this week. Votes in the upcoming student government elections will be tallied by race and gender, among other criteria. This is part of a program thought up by the Nominations and Elections Committee - which runs student elections - and the Undergraduate Assembly designed to give minority groups more representation in student government.

Florence Cohen will not be taking her late husband's spot in city government. Cohen, 88, said that she will not run as an independent for City Council, after ward leaders did not select her as the official Democratic at-large candidate for the Nov. 7 special election.

Nonwhite students may still be in the minority at American colleges, but the rate at which they're enrolling far surpasses their white counterparts. Statisticians at the U.S. Department of Education predict that while nationwide college enrollment will continue to grow, among minorities, there's going to be a boom.

The Upper Quadrangle was evacuated Thursday night because of a bomb scare, though there turned out to be no threat. At about 7 p.m., SEPTA police investigated a suspicious package on Woodland Walk outside of the 37th Street trolley station.

Penn faculty revived a protest technique time-honored on college campuses last night: They staged a teach-in. For the second of three evenings, Penn Faculty & Staff Against the War on Iraq sought to make their case about the current conflict by turning the Huntsman Hall basement into an antiwar event after normal business hours ended.

WILMINGTON, Del. - State prosecutors presented the available forensic and DNA evidence in the trial of Wharton undergraduate Irina Malinovskaya yesterday -- but there was not much to show. Yet prosecutors say there has been more emphasis on verbal testimony than on DNA because Malinovskaya, who is charged with first-degree murder, tried to leave the scene without a trace.

Students see a useful tool, administrators see a potential problem, and some entrepreneurs think they've found a very profitable idea.

The Jewish high holidays are a major fund-raising event for most synagogues and Jewish organizations. And now, Penn's Hillel is no different. Under a new policy enacted this year, Hillel will charge non-student members of the region's Jewish community $180 to attend services.

And you thought baking Pillsbury brownies was a piece of cake. According to the rabbinic definition of baking, you don't even need the mix. Last night, David Freidenreich, a fellow at Penn's Center for Advanced Jewish Studies, discussed a taboo against eating foods prepared by people who are not Jewish and how definitions have been changed over time, sometimes in counter-intuitive ways, to get around the custom.

Holly Kalman never thought she'd be donning a mask, goggles and gloves to help gut houses.

A fight apparently broke out near the high rise college houses last night, drawing about 20 Penn police officers and security guards to 39th Street and Locust Walk around 11 p.m.

By next fall, residents of Philadelphia will be able to surf the Web by the banks of the Schuylkill River, says the company that is installing the city's wireless system.

The year has just begun, but the Class of 2008 has already started discussing the last day of school.

After months of deliberation, the verdict on the Engineering School's accreditation status is in.

High-school juniors can exhale: Early decision at Penn is not going anywhere, the dean of admissions says.