The city's police forces have been largely spared from Mayor Michael Nutter's wide-ranging budget cuts, which were announced last week in response to the city's projected $1 billion budget gap over the next five years. Though there will be about 200 layoffs citywide, none are planned for Philadelphia Police officers.

Minority engineers are taking steps to build a stronger, more diverse community at Penn. The School of Engineering and Applied Sciences hosted a Minorities in Engineering gathering last night in the Towne building. The event, sponsored by Naked Chocolate, was organized by the Society of Women Engineers, National Society of Black Engineers, Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers and Queer Undergraduates in Engineering, Science and Technology.

Art, memories and a pair of gray-and-white striped pants took center stage at Hillel last night, as Holocaust survivor William Bernheim shared his experiences with the crowd. William, grandfather of College sophomore Taylor Bernheim, chronicled his journey from Poland, to the Lodz ghetto and ultimately to the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany.

This semester, College senior Rebecca Gerr could have been kicking back, enjoying her soon-to-be freedom from academic life. Instead, she chose to enroll in Portuguese 114 - Portuguese for Spanish speakers - where she spends one hour four days a week with her fellow estudiantes learning a new language.

Yesterday students may have noticed a few things they thought they had disposed of sitting on Locust Walk. In an effort to improve student recycling habits, the Penn Environmental Group partnered with Facilities and Real Estate Services to create two mountains - one of recycling and one of trash - in front of Van Pelt Library.

Provost Ron Daniels, who came to the University over three years ago, will leave Penn in March to become the president of Johns Hopkins University.

Driscoll Construction Company has been awarded a $67-million contract to reconstruct the South Street Bridge, Mayor Michael Nutter announced yesterday. Reconstruction of the bridge, which extends from 27th Street to Convention Avenue and connects University City to Center City, will begin with the demolition of the existing bridge in December and should be complete in two years.

After hearing friends who studied abroad rave about their experiences, College senior Hayling Price knew he had no choice but to follow in their footsteps. He considered Spain to further his language skills but decided the cultural element was more important.

Turmoil in financial markets is causing other top-tier schools to look for ways to cut costs as their endowments dip in value. Several schools - including Harvard, Columbia and Duke universities - are seeking to unload private-equity holdings in an effort to shore up cash, the Dow Jones and various financial blogs reported last week.

Amid economic troubles and uncertainty over gun laws after President-elect Barack Obama is inaugurated in January, one thing is clear: Gun sales are going up. Gun sales in the months of January to September rose 9 percent in 2008 compared with last year, according to FBI statistics.

Penn received the names of more than 1,000 students this fall from a College Board pilot program that helps schools recruit students from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Thirty-nine schools are participating in the program, which provides institutions with names of low-income students who have taken College Board exams and which marks a departure from the usual criteria to match students and schools.

Sunday night's Undergraduate Assembly meeting came and went with an hour of discussion during the Open Forum and few new items of business brought up. Five representatives from the Living Water Christian Fellowship asked for the UA's help in spreading awareness about a casino on the 1000 block of Market Street in Chinatown.

With caramel apple dipping and electronics recycling last Friday, the Penn Environmental Group promoted going green with Greenfest 2008. An annual event held on College Green, Greenfest is part of PEG's Eco-Week that helps promote environmentally friendly initiatives and educate students about sustainability.

In light of this year's financial crisis, MBA programs around the country, including Wharton, anticipate a rise in the number of applicants. With thousands of corporate employees on the job market, the prospect of adding a graduate degree to one's resume is expected to be more popular than in the past.

Harold and Kumar's Kal Penn may have been a professor last semester, but he's not the only actor to recently grace Penn's campus. Class of '92 alumna Kate Jennings Grant led a conversation on her experiences as an actress last Friday. She has performed in many on- and off-Broadway plays including The Marriage of Bette and Boo by Christopher Durang, which Penn Presents will be performing this week.

Penn says they led the vote last Tuesday in a competition with Dartmouth College to turn out the greater number of voters on election day. But in homage to the 2000 presidential election, Dartmouth is challenging Penn's numbers and has yet to concede the competition.

Shaky economic times and a tumultuous housing market have not prevented new properties from springing up throughout University City in recent years. Since 2006, a number of mixed-use, luxury apartment complexes have come to call West Philadelphia home. With more construction on the way, it may seem like the area isn't feeling the pinch of the global financial crisis.