WILMINGTON, Del. - A crowded courtroom watched yesterday as an intense exchange unfolded between Irina Malinovskaya and the state prosecutor conducting her cross-examination.

Penn wants to build bridges to Center City, but Philadelphia will have to destroy one first. At a conference held at World Cafe Live last week, University President Amy Gutmann said that part of Penn's east campus plan includes making the Walnut and South Street bridges "more attractive and functional.

Tickets are selling out fast for this week's fall concert featuring alternative pop artist Rufus Wainwright. So far, 900 of the available 1,100 tickets to Friday's concert in Irvine Auditorium have been sold.

MySpace.com wants you to "Declare Yourself." The social-networking Web site, which boasts more than 114 million users, joined its competitor Facebook.com in trying to increase voter awareness by setting up its own voter-registration page last week. The new feature of MySpace allows users to enter their zip code and personal information, after which they receive a registration form to print and send to local election officials.

Online degrees usually don't carry much weight in the business world, but one new program promises to be different. At least, its creators are. Newsweek magazine and test-preparation company Kaplan are teaming up to create what the organizations believe is the first Internet-based business program run by a magazine.

Since blogging began, outrageous claims and personal dramas have made their way onto the Internet for all to read. But when university faculty members are the bloggers, they're sometimes finding themselves in hot water. At a number of schools around the country, personal Web logs are getting professors - and the administrators they write about - into trouble, raising questions of exactly how much freedom of speech the Internet allows.

Missed meetings, apologetic phone calls and an ex-girlfriend's curiosity about seeing her replacement were the focus of the defense's direct examination of Irina Malinovskaya yesterday.

It's time to bring Philadelphia back to the Delaware River, city planners say. The Philadelphia City Planning Commission has big plans for the vacant lots along river in Northeast Philadelphia. The Commission hopes that proposed residences, retail and green spaces will link neighborhoods to the river.

U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings announced last week which recommendations from a higher education report she plans to implement. The report, released last month, is the result of a commission on higher education that Spellings formed last September to consider solutions to problems afflicting higher education in the country.

A child dies every 15 seconds from diarrhea contracted through contaminated water, but the world is still far from solving its shortage of clean water, says one environmental scientist. Stanley Laskowski, a lecturer in the Master of Environmental Studies Program, contended that the water shortage and sanitation crisis constitute one of the biggest environmental problems in the world yesterday in Hayden Hall.

Click the thumbnail for a larger image. Re-sizing may be necessary.

In an interview that touched on campaign promises, middle names and plans for the future, The Daily Pennsylvanian sat down with the new head of the freshman class, Wharton freshman Arthur Gardner Smith. The Daily Pennsylvanian: First off, why do you go by three names? Was it a campaign strategy or have you always gone by them? Arthur Gardner Smith: Well, Gardner's my mom's maiden name.

Joe Toy wants people to know he's not just a "solo wacko" out there preaching on college campuses. A licensed minister with the Evangelical Congregational Church and a commissioned missionary, Toy has devoted his life to preaching around the Philadelphia area.

Wharton professor Justin Wolfers is not ashamed to admit that he knows nothing. In fact, he hoped that his audience would walk away from his research presentation on the death penalty knowing nothing, too. As part of a criminology lecture series, Wolfers spoke to students and colleagues in Huntsman Hall on Friday about the effects of the death penalty as a crime deterrent.

Penn's School of Medicine is potentially interested in purchasing a vacant former Dupont lab in nearby Delaware County. Med School officials said they are not sure how much of the nearly 125,000 square foot property the school is considering purchasing but that the research-and-development location will most likely be used as interim or storage space.

Penn Leads the Vote isn't resting on its laurels. Student participation in elections has skyrocketed since the group's inception in 2004, and members are now trying to triple turnout for the vote this November. 2006 College grad Jason Oberman founded Penn leads the vote in collaboration with Joseph Tierney and John DiIulio of the Fox Leadership Program.

Student leaders will finally announce the official debut of the free music-subscription service Ruckus with an e-mail to students today. The official site, which allows users unlimited music downloads, went live last Thursday. Users have been able to sporadically access a test version of the service since late August as contract negotiations between the University and Ruckus were pending.