Phila

In the majestic halls of a grand stone mansion that rises from verdant fields off Pattison Avenue, the American Swedish Historical Museum's small but dedicated staff has been preparing to welcome the king and queen. Calmly. Very calmly. "We're excited," said Tracey Rae Beck, the museum's executive director. The fervor, however, was mostly internal. The only sound floating through the high-ceilinged galleries Thursday morning - only 28 hours before the royals' scheduled arrival - was the mellifluent Swedish conversation that Birgitta Davis was having on the phone.

WASHINGTON – A Navy ship, named in honor of the passengers and crew who died aboard United Flight 93, will be commissioned in Philadelphia - 200 miles from the abandoned coal field in Somerset County where the plane was forced down on 9/11. The USS Somerset, an amphibius transport ship whose bow was in part fashioned from the steel remains of coal mining equipment found at the crash site, will be commissioned at the Philadelphia Port in January, according Sen. Pat Toomey (R., Pa)

The city is targeting more than 450 illegal advertising benches on sidewalks throughout Philadelphia, with a plan to remove them and fine their owners beginning next week. The concrete-and-wood benches are regarded as safety hazards and eyesores by the city, said acting Streets Commissioner David Perri. After originally planning to begin Saturday, the city Thursday decided to give owners five more days to voluntarily remove them. A four-member Streets Department crew, using a flatbed truck and front-end loader, is scheduled to begin confiscating the benches Thursday.

Immerse yourself in different cultures on Saturday from noon to 5 p.m. and celebrate Philadelphia's 10 Sister Cities at the Sister Cities Park International Festival. Event festivities include dancing, music, cooking demos, and hands-on activities. There will be cultural activities and performances throughout the day. The Italian Council's Luigi Scotto will sing, the Guang Hua Chinese School troupe will dance, and Taiko drummers will enrich with a Japanese percussion show. Guests can even get a French language lesson at 3:05 p.m. Other activities include a Cameroonian fashion show and Israeli, Polish and Korean dance performances.

Philadelphia ranks fifth from the bottom of the more than 200 most populous counties nationwide on a key measure of infant mortality, the organization Save the Children is reporting Tuesday, another reminder of the overriding importance of poverty and race. Some other parts of the region don't fare well either. Camden County was No. 20 and Delaware County No. 22 in the analysis of infant deaths in the first 24 hours of life for 2007 through 2009. Among states, Delaware comes in fourth and Pennsylvania sixth (counting the District of Columbia as No. 1)

POLICE ARRESTED a New York City man yesterday on murder charges for allegedly gunning down three men in West Philadelphia in December, killing two of them. Marco Joaquin, 18, was charged with two counts of murder in the Dec. 22 deaths of Anthony Fletcher, 33, and Dwayne Page, 29, said Officer Tanya Little, a police spokeswoman. Joaquin had been listed as one of the Police Department's "most-wanted fugitives. " Police found the three victims inside Fletcher's apartment on Chester Avenue near 46th Street about 10:30 p.m. that night.

If the doomsday budget being floated by the nearly broke Philadelphia School District comes to pass, this is what school will look like in September: "No books, no paper, no clubs, no counselors, no librarian," Masterman teacher Elizabeth Taylor grimly told City Council last week. There would be bigger classes, but no aides to help manage them. Schools would lack sports, support staff to monitor lunchrooms and playgrounds, and secretaries. Some would lose security officers. Thousands of musical instruments would sit unplayed because there would be no music teachers to give lessons.

With its top-flight medical schools, hospitals, and pharmaceutical industry, Philadelphia has long been fertile ground for health information technology start-ups. More recently, there has been a lot of effort in the region to nurture "green" technology firms focused on reducing energy use and promoting renewable energy sources. If the University of Pennsylvania's Bobbi Kurshan gets her way, education technology will be the next sector locally to produce growing businesses.

You can excuse William Ryan Jr., a well-known former prosecutor from Delaware County, for not paying much attention to the competition in 2006 for the city's first two casino licenses. At the time, he was working in Harrisburg as second-in-command to then-Attorney General Tom Corbett, overseeing a staff of 730. Today, most of Ryan's time is focused on the future of gaming in Philadelphia and the entire state. In 2011, Corbett named his longtime associate to be chairman of the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board.

One in a continuing series spotlighting real estate markets in this region's communities.   There was a time 60th Street in Haddington was called "Real Estate Row," because of the 22 realty offices that lined both sides of the thoroughfare. Given the changing fortunes of the housing market, that time has past in many places, not just this nearly one-mile-square chunk of West Philadelphia hugging the Market-Frankford El - which, not surprisingly, was the catalyst for the neighborhood's birth in 1903 and subsequent growth.