With the economy reeling, the cost of a Penn tuition next year before room, board and other expenses - $34,868 - may be hard to come by. Financial-aid experts are examining ways to make the lengthy application process easier. Sandy Baum, a member of the College Board's "Rethinking Student Aid" study group, said different amounts of information are needed from different types of aid applicants.

Last year, after College sophomore Sara Heinze's close family friend, four-year-old Alexa, passed away from complications after being treated for neuroblastoma, she began to think about what she could do to help. As president of her high-school athletic association, Heinze helped organize a "change drive," that raised about $2,000 for a three-day breast-cancer walk by collecting small change from students.

A 22-year-old man unaffiliated with the University was stabbed at around 2:15 a.m. Saturday on the 200 block of South 44th Street, according to Philadelphia Police spokesman Lt. Frank Vanore. Responding to a call, Penn Police found that the complainant had been stabbed in the abdomen by a taxi driver.

The total number of crimes in the Penn Patrol Zone in March 2009 decreased 32 percent from the total in the same month last year, dropping from 78 to 53. The total number of crimes in the year 2009 is down 25 percent from this point in time last year, from 212 to 159.

According to two professors at Penn's School of Medicine, more exercise may reduce a woman's risk of developing breast cancer - and, in a new study, they plan to test this hypothesis. Led by Epidemiology professor Kathryn Schmitz and Hematology/Oncology professor Susan Domchek, the study will take about four years to complete.

The Superior Court of Pennsylvania recently upheld a 2007 decision by a Philadelphia trial court mandating that Penn pay Mark Helpin, former chairman of the Department of Pediatric Dentistry, $4.04 million for breaching their employment contract. The lawsuit has been ongoing since 2005, when Helpin sued the University alleging he was forced to resign in 2004 after he was reassigned to a different position and his salary was reduced, a breach of his contract, he contended.

When Penn students sign up for classes next year, they may have to not only decide which courses to take, but also whether to register to vote in the next election. That is the goal of the Student Voter Opportunity to Encourage Registration (VOTER) Act, introduced into Congress last month by Sen.

Though it was early on a rainy Friday morning, the students piling into Irvine Auditorium were smiling. They were the high school-seniors lucky enough to receive acceptances for Penn's class of 2013 - and on Friday, they came in huge numbers to Penn Previews, hoping to see what the University is all about.

For some potential Penn applicants, dropping the standardized testing requirement may result in the difference between an acceptance and a rejection. A new study conducted by Princeton University sociology professor Thomas Espenshade and statistical programmer Chang Chung suggests that if colleges entirely dropped SAT or ACT testing as application requirements, more Latino, black, working-class or socio-economically disadvantaged students would be admitted into selective universities.

Penn professors' involvement in the Obama administration didn't stop at the transition team, as evidenced by the announcement of several new appointments last week. Psychiatry professor Thomas McLellan will become the deputy director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, according to a press release from the White House.

Last week, the Graduate and Professional Students Assembly elected its new executive board, which will take effect May 1. Nursing Ph.D. student Corbett Brown, the new chairman, has been an assembly member since last September. He sat down with The Daily Pennsylvanian to discuss his goals for next year.

Last fall, Penn Environmental Group piled trash on College Green. This semester, PEG continued its efforts to raise awareness with a festival in Houston Hall last Friday, called GreenFest. This semester's GreenFest was originally planned to take place on College Green but was moved into Houston Hall due to inclement weather.

With the summer riding season coming up, Division of Public Safety officials are intent on stamping out bike crime on campus. As a city with a very high student population, Philadelphia has become notorious in recent years as a bike theft hotspot. Bike lock manufacturer Kryptonite publishes a "Top 10 Worst Cities for Bike Theft List" on its blog every year, and Philadelphia is its reigning champion.

The rollout of the Apple iTunes Music Store three-tiered pricing system last Tuesday has already drawn criticism, copycats and apparent declines in sales rankings among some of the top 100 songs. In January, Apple had announced it would soon begin selling all DRM-free songs with the introduction of the new pricing levels of $.

On April 1, Rabbi Michael Uram entered the Eastern State Penitentiary - the penitentiary on Fairmount Avenue that has housed the likes of Al Capone and Willie Sutton. He was there to dedicate the Alfred W. Fleisher Memorial Synagogue, a chapel built in the 1960s and restored and renovated for use today.

According to a new study, black students who are either first- or second-generation American are overrepresented at selective colleges and universities, compared with those whose families have resided in the United States longer. This overrepresentation may stem from stereotypes - such as that immigrant blacks are smarter or work harder.