PlanPhilly: Planning Philadelphia's Future

2012 Suzuki Kizashi Sport GTS AWD: And now for something really different. Price: $26,404.

Comcast Corp.-owned NBC Sports will broadcast Olympics events on the cable channels CNBC, MSNBC and Bravo, in addition to the 24-hour NBC Sports Network.

PPL Corp. has fundamentally repositioned itself in two years to concentrate its business on rate-regulated utilities rather than the more volatile power-generation sector, William H. Spence, PPL chairman and chief executive, told shareholders at its annual meeting Wednesday in Bethlehem.

Philadelphia will be the US Airways hub for nonstop flights to Asia if the airline launches service to China, Japan or Turkey, airline officials said. Currently, the only nonstop flight to Asia from Philadelphia International Airport is a US Airways flight to Tel Aviv, Israel. Philadelphia is the largest metro area in the country without nonstop service to other cities in Asia.

Single-family housing starts, a key measure of the health of the new-home market, rose 2.3 percent in April from March, the Census Bureau reported Wednesday. Overall starts were up 2.6 percent in April over March and 29.9 percent over the same month in 2011. Overall permits — an indicator of future construction — fell 7 percent in April from March but were 23.7 percent above April 2011.

Continuing declines in fixed interest rates prompted a 9.2 percent increase in mortgage applications last week, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported Wednesday. Most of the increase came, however, from refinancing. The percentage of loans for refinancing increased to 74.9 percent from 72.1 percent the previous week. The percentage of mortgages for buying a house fell 2.4 percent from the previous week.

Lightning struck two chemical storage tanks at Dow Chemical’s Rohm and Haas Bristol Plant overnight, touching off a three-alarm blaze that sent a large orange ball of flame and thick black plume of smoke into the predawn sky and blanketed the area with fumes for hours afterward. A Bristol Fire Police Officer, identified as David Wintz, 65, who was helping direct traffic and went home after complaining about not feeling well, suffered a heart attack and later died at Aria Health’s Torresdale campus, officials said.

Johnson & Johnson’s courtroom fights over Risperdal resume in Philadelphia on Wednesday, when Commonwealth Court judges are scheduled to hear an appeal of decisions to dismiss Pennsylvania’s 2008 lawsuit that alleged the company fraudulently profited from sales of the antipsychotic drug through the Medicaid program.

2012 Volkswagen Beetle 2.5 L vs. 2012 Mazda MX-5 Miata Special Edition: A spring fling showdown. Prices: The Volkswagen starts at $24,975 as tested (it was a preproduction model); the Mazda was $32,020 (no options).

To the sound of protests and drum beats that could be heard inside the Prince Music Theater, Gov. Corbett on Tuesday stuck to his message of budget austerity and no-new-taxes in a one-hour question-and-answer session hosted by the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce.

How many lawyers does it take to tell a professor when he can make copies from a digital book? Lots, so far. Digital distribution ought to make scholarship easy to spread, and cheap. Especially at a time when college expenses — most of which don’t go for instructors or texts, but for buildings, administration, marketing, and other nonacademic needs — are driving young Americans deep into debt.

The government's vehicle for promoting U.S. export sales survived a challenge from conservatives Tuesday with a Senate vote to renew the charter of the Export-Import Bank for three years. The vote, coming after the Senate rejected amendments to weaken or kill the bank, sends the measure to President Barack Obama for his signature.

Europe's latest political impasse cast a gloom over financial markets Tuesday. The euro plunged, and the Dow Jones industrial average extended a slide that has wiped out nearly 5 percent of its value in two weeks.

Temple University has agreed to pay the U.S. government $412,474 to settles claims stemming from two fraud schemes by a hospital department chairman and a trio of plastic surgeons that netted more than $4.5 million. Dr. Joseph J. Kubacki, former Chairman of Temple’s Ophthalmology Department, was convicted in August on 73 counts of health care fraud, 73 counts of making false statements, and four counts of wire fraud. Kubacki, also a professor at the medical school and an attending physician at Temple University Hospital, billed federal agencies more than $1.5 million claiming he had performed services at the hospital performed by residents when he wasn’t there.

What kind of real estate agent is Mayfair broker Christopher J. Artur? Let’s see what NeighborCity’s AgentMatch, billed as a way to pair “the best-performing agents with the specific needs of home sellers and buyers,” has to say about this veteran of more than 40 years in the business:

With gasoline prices a little lower than a year ago, the auto club AAA is projecting 34.8 million Americans will take trips at least 50 miles from home over the Memorial Day weekend, an uptick of 1.2 percent — or 500,000 travelers — over last year's 34.3 million.

Villanova University has named Patrick G. Maggitti the new dean of the School of Business, effective June 1. Maggitti will succeed James Danko, who left on July 31 to become president of Butler University. His post has been filled in the interim by Kevin Clark.

Bentley Systems Inc., the Exton-based, $500 million (annual sales) construction and architecture software firm, says it will add 50 employees at its new Center City office over the next couple of years, in the first of what Mayor Nutter hopes will be a string of suburban firms opening city “gateway” offices for skilled staff who’d rather walk to work than fight the Schuylkill. Bentley customers are expected downtown at the Pennsylvania Convention Center on Tuesday for the company’s “Be Together” users’ conference. Chief executive Greg Bentley and his brothers Keith (chief technology officer), Barry, and Ray (both executive vice presidents) plan to join Nutter on Wednesday to open the newly leased office in the burgundy-brick tower (home to ExcelleRX, and formerly Reliance Insurance) at 1601 Cherry St.

If they build it, will we come? Construction crews are finishing a $27 million, 75,000-square-foot expansion of Atlantic City International Airport that will add new gates and a federal inspection station for international flights and expand the baggage-claim area.

A federal district judge sitting in Harrisburg has thrown out decades-old state regulations governing Pennsylvania funeral homes, saying they held down competition while substantially boosting costs.