It all begins with a popping or ripping sound, and then the knee suddenly buckles. What follows next is excruciating pain and swelling - all signs of tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in the knee, or ACL.

Under questioning by prosecutors, Wharton undergraduate Irina Malinovskaya broke down on the witness stand yesterday, weeping.

Bucknell football coach Tim Landis is certainly happy to have Andrew Lair on his team, but the circumstances in which the sophomore got there were hardly cause for celebration. Just over a year ago, Lair was in the thick of training camp as a freshman quarterback at the United States Naval Academy.

Larry Gagosian, whom Art Review magazine called "the world's greatest art businessman," never actually planned on getting into the art business. In fact, he'll tell you that in any other business, he would be a "complete flop." Gagosian, the owner of six galleries worldwide, joined 1988 Wharton graduate Glenn Fuhrman in Huntsman Hall yesterday evening for a casual conversation on today's art world.

Avery Lawrence is a College junior from Charlottesville, Va. His e-mail address is lawrence@dailypennsylvanian.com.

Facebook.com has joined the registration trend.The social-networking site joined up with non-partisan political organization Rock the Vote yesterday to begin offering a voter registration page through its Web site. Facebook’s move comes just a week after its competitor, MySpace.

'There ain't no such thing as a free lunch," opines Manuel, a character in Robert Heinlein's science fiction classic The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Since the release of that book in the 1960s, the maxim has become inextricably interwoven with economics. Each year, legions of Penn students have that cliche drilled into their heads when they take Econ 1.

Gathered around a lectern that resembled an oversized electrical outlet, the members of the University City Lighting Consortium prepared to celebrate creating a brighter, safer Philadelphia. "Let this be a neighborhood where the streets have no closing time," Penn President Amy Gutmann said.

For Penn's new top Facilities official, rebuilding lower Manhattan after Sept. 11 has been good preparation for rebuilding University City. From the vast physical size of the projects to the amount of public scrutiny she will likely face, the similarities between memorializing Ground Zero and redeveloping University City are numerous, said Anne Papageorge, who starts at Penn Oct.

Award-winning writer Paul LaFarge introduced his audience to a metaphysical world of talking rabbits, boys gluing themselves to dead girls' bodies and women marrying chairs last night. Those gathered in the Kelly Writers House listened intently as they learned about Paul Poissel, the obscure 19th-century French writer who created these bizarre images in his novel The Facts of Winter, which LaFarge translated.

Sometimes teams win games they deserve to lose. Sometimes teams lose games they deserve to win. When both teams deserve to win, they're lucky to tie. Last night the Penn men's soccer team faced Seton Hall at Rhodes Field, the first of two Big East opponents.

On-campus recruiting is in full force this month, and about 300 business organizations have booked dozens of rooms in Huntsman Hall, interviewing Penn students for jobs. And each year, more and more of those eager interviewees haven't studied finance or management - they've studied art history or comparative literature.

If you've been walking around the city during the past 11 days, you may end up seeing yourself on the silver screen in March. Shooter, a new film by Paramount Pictures, finished filming in Philadelphia yesterday. Several scenes were shot in Penn's backyard.

A City Council bill threatens to delay smoking ban's enforcement for months. Why does Council want to cut the legs out from its own law?

WILMINGTON, Del. - A crowded courtroom watched yesterday as an intense exchange unfolded between Irina Malinovskaya and the state prosecutor conducting her cross-examination.

Penn wants to build bridges to Center City, but Philadelphia will have to destroy one first. At a conference held at World Cafe Live last week, University President Amy Gutmann said that part of Penn's east campus plan includes making the Walnut and South Street bridges "more attractive and functional.

The Class of 2007 is working hard to leave its mark on the University. And if you've seen seniors walking around campus with bright green T-shirts, then you know how they're planning to do it. The shirts are part of an advertising campaign for the Senior Class Gift Drive, a campaign to get every senior to donate money to Penn.