As admissions officers sift through applications this spring, some schools' choices may be more limited than they were last year. Many private colleges - especially top liberal arts schools - saw declines in application numbers this year, which admissions experts attribute to both the economic downturn and a natural fluctuation in the admissions cycle.

Philly Diner and the University recently agreed to shorten the restaurant's hours of operation in response to a shooting that occurred outside the diner last month. The diner - located in a University-owned building at 3901 Walnut St. - will close at 2 a.

A fire in the Chestnut Hall apartment building, located at 3900 Chestnut St., caused an evacuation early this morning. The fire was reported at about 5:10 a.m., according to Division of Public Safety spokeswoman Stef Cella. Penn and Philadelphia Police officers and the Philadelphia Fire Department arrived on the scene shortly afterward, and the Fire Department extinguished the fire.

New coffee shop Lovers and Madmen seeks to mirror its philosophy in its name: to provide a venue that caters to passionate people. Manager Megan Powers said she chose the coffee shop's name to "convey the same passion and intensity" from the scene in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream.

Walking 36 holes - nearly nine miles total - while carrying heavy clubs and still keeping a competitive attitude is a tough challenge, but Lisette Vitter is confident her team can handle it. "I think our team can do it, I think we're all very hard workers," the Penn women's golf captain said.

This year, you might not have to sign up for FlingSafe to actually fling safely. After last year's Spring Fling upgrade, which included an increased budget and a larger performing venue, the Social Planning and Events Committee expects a similar packed party - just one with better crowd control.

Yesterday, the School of Veterinary Medicine celebrated its 125th anniversary with the third-annual Phi Zeta Student Research Day at Hill Pavilion. The event highlighted student research and included a keynote speech and the induction of new members into the Phi Zeta Veterinary Honor Society.

Does faith create practice or does practice create faith? Does the authorship of a religious work matter most or is our personal experience of the work more important?

If you were guaranteed an internship in the industry of your choice, would you pay for it? At the University of Dreams, students do exactly that. After College senior Jackie Newman couldn't find an internship on her own last summer, she turned to University of Dreams and landed a job at Vidicom, a media and public-relations company in New York.

The families of Penn students seem to be financially stable relative to this year's unpredictable economy. Midyear undergraduate requests for additional financial aid increased to about 90 cases this academic year compared to 60 last year, but that difference is not the "sharp rise" the University had been expecting, according to Student Financial Aid director Bill Schilling.

When the West Philadelphia Alliance for Children gathered in the Civic House living room Tuesday night to teach other students how to "step" - a dance form using hands and feet to create intricate beats and rhythms - it was clear a celebration had begun. The event was just a taste of Civic House Week, a series of activities commemorating the 10th anniversary of Civic House on Penn's campus this week.

Even in these tight economic times, graduate and post-graduate students looking to find a job in education should not lose hope. Last night, School of Arts and Sciences dean Rebecca Bushnell and School of Medicine Executive Vice Dean and Chief Scientific Officer Glen Gaulton spoke to a crowd of about 50 young adults looking for advice on how to hack into the tightest job market the country has seen in decades.

The late-night grocery-item delivery service, The Lazy Grocer, is hoping that you're simply too tired, overworked and, well, lazy to want to run to Fresh Grocer or WaWa to nab that bag of chips and salsa at 2 a.m. Launched in early November by two current Wharton students, senior Raj Parikh and junior Akash Shah, The Lazy Grocer offers food, drink and "essential" items for sale in its roughly 23 categories.

College sophomore Gareth Glaser spent his spring break in the coastal Mexican city of Playa del Carmen, enjoying the breathtaking views of the sea, the sand - and the soldiers carrying submachine guns. Despite a travel alert from the U.S. Department of State last month warning Americans about the dangers of visiting the violence-ridden nation, many students still went to Mexico for spring break.

President Barack Obama's administration has set high expectations with its promises of health care reforms. Currently, the administration has not laid out a specific health care plan, but Obama set a number of related goals during his campaign. The most prominent of these is expanding coverage to include the over 47 million uninsured Americans.

To aid students struggling to pay tuition costs as a result of recent economic downfalls, Penn's Board of Trustees passed a resolution last month stating that Penn will share risk with a U.S. bank that has yet to be named in order to to secure loans for international students.

At a demonstration Monday at The Susquehanna International Group Center for Graphics, a student volunteer attached sensory markers to her legs, and a crowd watched as her cartwheels were imitated on a screen by an animated pair of legs. The demonstration held for graduate students showed off the center's new motion-capture studio, the largest academic motion-capture studio in the region, and part of renovations to the building completed in January.