Meeting the presidents of College Republicans and Penn Democrats together for coffee, it's hard to ignore the elephant - or donkey - in the room. However, the way College juniors Zac Byer and Lauren Burdette, the respective presidents of the most prominent politically right and left groups on campus tell it, theirs is a friendship based on similarities, not difference.

While violent crime on Penn's campus has largely decreased this year, some property crimes, like burglary and bike theft, have risen significantly in 2008. Violent crimes, such as robberies and assaults, are down 42 percent for the year. This trend held for September, with six violent offenses reported this year, down from 12 in the same month in 2007.

When University of the Arts president Sean Buffington began speaking about being an openly gay man, he chose to begin with a disclaimer on his own biases. "I am not a gay or lesbian studies expert. This is based on my own experiences, insights [and] prejudices," said Buffington as he addressed an audience at Steinhardt Hall, sponsored by the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Center.

Slept through a 9 a.m. lecture? Penn tech gurus want to help you catch up. Exactly a year after the inception of iTunesU as a resource for the Penn community, administrators are looking for the best way to put classroom content online. One option is iTunesU, an online digital media database located in the iTunes Store that allows department administrators and Information Technology workers to upload audio and video files to the system.

It's not just about the numbers. A new tool called CollegeSpeak aims to encourage students to value personal criteria over rankings and reputation when picking a school - and some elite colleges are signing on to the idea. The Web site - which is being developed by the Education Conservancy - uses a questionnaire to help students find colleges that best match their priorities.

Just because the voter-registration deadline has passed, don't expect the Locust Walk tables that were previously covered with registration forms to disappear. Now that they have done their best to make sure students have registered, political and civic-engagement groups on campus want to make sure those students vote on election day.

Navigating Penn InTouch and registering for classes might be smoother sailing next year. A revamped Penn InTouch Web site is scheduled for a June 2009 release and will resemble the new Course Search tool, which was rolled out to students last spring, in its interface.

While most of the campus is focusing on the upcoming presidential election, the College Republicans and the Penn Democrats are also focusing on another race - one in which most Penn students will not be able to vote. U.S. Congressman Patrick Murphy (D-Pa.

The sentencing of former Economics professor Rafael Robb, which was scheduled for yesterday, was postponed out of defense concerns that a vigil for his dead wife would affect the hearing. A new sentencing date for Robb - who pleaded guilty last November to voluntary manslaughter for killing his wife, Ellen - is tentatively set for Nov.

Ambassador Martine Letts shared a vision for a more globally significant Australia during a visit to Huntsman Hall yesterday as part of the 2008 International Relations Speaker Series, "Think Tanks, Civil Society, and Public Policy." Letts is the former Australian ambassador to Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay as well as the Australian Deputy Permanent Representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

A robot that reconstructs itself after exploding. It sounds like an unstoppable cyborg played by a certain state governor, but the ckBot has a long way to go before it can come close to exterminating the human race. The ckBot is the brainchild of Mechanical Engineering professor Mark Yim and Computer Science professor C.

Some schools have been left in the lurch after Wachovia's announcement last week that it would freeze $9.3 billion in funds for nearly 1,000 colleges and universities across the country, but Penn will not be one of them. Wachovia had been managing a short-term cash fund for the management firm Commonfund, but froze the account last week after resigning its position as a trustee.

Last Sunday's weekly meeting of the Undergraduate Assembly continued a push to get an extra day of move-out for students, among other issues. In this week's Penn Student Government Spotlight showcase the Social Planning and Events Committee told UA members that the Concerts committee is $50,000 over its annual budget after spending $35,000 on the fall 2007 concerts and $400,000 on last year's annual Spring Fling concert, which featured Ludacris, Gym Class Heroes, and OK Go.

How much do you really know about Penn's endowment? It's big, though not as big as Harvard's or Yale's. But, even after a 3.9-percent drop leaving it at $6.3 billion, it's more money than most students will ever see. And it's heavily invested in a variety of "asset classes.

If you're up late studying this week and want that late-night dose of caffeine, you'll have to look somewhere other than Penn Dining Services. The stores underneath 1920 Commons - which include Starbucks, Subway, Top That!, Jamba Juice and the C3 convenience store - have changed their operating hours They now close at 9:30 p.

After sharing his tales of war-time reporting and primary-debate moderating, CNN host Anderson Cooper left Irvine Auditorium full of captivated students eager to learn more. With the same mission in mind, The Daily Pennsylvanian sat down with Cooper for a few minutes to discuss reporting, politics and his lack of culinary skills.

As his campaign wraps up a vigorous voter registration drive in Pennsylvania, Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama spoke on Friday in Montgomery County - a region closely divided between registered Republicans and Democrats. Yet nearly one-third of Obama's 6,000 audience members on Friday will not vote in November.