A pedestrian-friendly South Street bridge would benefit city, students.

Americans enjoy 1,049 rights based on marital status. But for gay Americans, the number drops. Outside of Massachusetts, gay unions throughout the country are not recognized as legal marriages. So yesterday, as a part of Freedom to Marry Day, Penn students, faculty and staff came together to try to end what some see as outright discrimination.

Despite an ideal location and willing campus, Penn has little luck when it comes to hosting presidential debates.

In Malawi, every boyfriend is a "sugar daddy" - in fact, regularly supplying one's "chibwenzi," or "friend/sexual partner," with money is not a form of prostitution but a normal and expected behavior in premarital Malawian sexual relationships. Michelle Poulin, a postdoctoral fellow in the Population Studies Center at Penn, spoke yesterday about dating and marriage in the midst of the AIDS epidemic in Africa in the McNeil Building.

Last night, Rodin College House residents were given specific instructions: Close the windows, shut the bedroom door, go to a lounge-less floor, and listen up. In place of the more standard fire drills, University safety officials conducted a shelter-in-place drill, in which students learned what to do in case of non-fire-related emergencies.

160FBI laptops stolen between Feb. 2002 and Sept. 2005; 10 had sensitive or classified information. Source: U.S. Justice Department

Imagine it's 9 a.m. Your alarm goes off to wrench you out of bed for that 9:30 recitation. You keep hitting the snooze button and next thing you know, it's 11 a.m. and the class is long over. But oversleeping no longer has to be your biggest fear. If the Undergraduate Assembly has its way, in a few months, you'll have a backup plan: iTunes U.

For the second time in three years, a strange sight will appear at the Palestra. One of the two best teams in Ivy League history is in its proper place at the top of the conference standings. Penn (14-8) is in first place at 5-1. But archrival Princeton (10-10), as it was two years ago, comes limping into tonight's 7 p.

A student-panel discussion on the role of international law in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, held last night in Huntsman Hall, showed that people can be controversial while still being civil. Sponsored by Penn Arab Students Society, the panel was moderated by Wharton Graduate Association President Hassan El-Houry, a second-year MBA student, and featured a diverse group of six speakers from various cultural and humanitarian groups on campus.

Last Friday against Harvard, Penn's leading scorer was held to four points in 30 minutes on 2-of-11 shooting. But coach Pat Knapp saw a bigger problem. "That's not the story of the weekend," he said when asked about Monica Naltner's season-low output. "The story of the weekend is how poorly we defended, particularly on the perimeter.

The Quakers destroyed a sloppy Dartmouth team with pressure defense and a solid inside game for the 73-53 win. It was the Red and Blue's first home Ivy contest this season, and they looked energized and much more comfortable than they were in New Haven, Conn.

Friday's men's basketball game against Dartmouth College was conspicuously different. Not because of the Quakers' huge margin of victory, or even because of Ibby Jaaber's sweet dunk, but because of some slight changes to the half-time performance. In an effort to promote school spirit, all four undergraduate class presidents participated in a half-time free-throw shoot-out as part of the first annual Clash of the Classes.

Republican Al Taubenberger's to-do list may be a little longer than that of your average mayoral candidate. Taubenberger, president of the Greater Northeast Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, became the Republican party's sole candidate to enter the upcoming election when he kicked off his campaign last week.

Penn's Mid-Atlantic Gigapop in Philadelphia - an advanced networking computer center - has connected to the Internet2 Network, University officials announced last week. Internet2, the most advanced networking center in the U.S., provides Internet to Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware.

As long as the weather is freezing, students shouldn't be shivering indoors.

Before buying chocolates for that special someone, make sure that child labor wasn't involved in its production.

Daniel Schwartz is a College freshman from Decatur, Ga. His e-mail address is schwarm@sas.upenn.edu.