Stockholm

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - The mighty Swedish warship Vasa was - literally - a total flop on its maiden voyage in 1628. It keeled over and sank in minutes as thousands gathered for the occasion watched in horror. But dredged up more than 300 years later from cold storage on the bottom of Stockholm's harbor, the vessel has enjoyed a remarkable second life as one of the world's great museum pieces. Now the Vasa is under attack from a new enemy. Its ancient oak timbers are literally consuming themselves, being chewed up by sulfuric acid produced by the accidental chemistry of centuries-old sewage and dissolved iron bolts.

A Maryland developer would abandon plans to build a $250 million sports themed office and recreation park called Gateway South, and Baltimore's only slots casino would be constructed on the land instead if city and state officials approve the change. The Baltimore Development Corp. is drafting a memorandum of understanding that gives control of an 11-acre, city-owned parcel south of M&T Bank Stadium, to Baltimore City Entertainment Group, one of four bidders for slot machine licenses in Maryland and the only group seeking to build a slots facility in downtown.

STOCKHOLM -- Ericsson AB, the world's No. 3 cellular-phone maker, and rival Qualcomm Inc. agreed yesterday to share technology for wireless phones and equipment, ending a 2 1/2-year patent dispute.Ericsson will buy an unprofitable Qualcomm unit that makes cellular-network equipment, and the companies will jointly support one standard for next-generation gear that lets users send and receive e-mail, hold video conferences and browse the Internet. Analysts predict 700 million new cellular phone users in the next five years.

Former 400-meter world champion Antonio Pettigrew was found dead Tuesday, the university where he worked as a coach said. Pettigrew, who is survived by his wife and son, had been an assistant track coach at North Carolina for the past four seasons. The 42-year-old Pettigrew, who was stripped of an Olympic gold medal in 2000 after admitting to doping, was found unresponsive by friends in the back seat of his vehicle in Chatham County in central North Carolina early Tuesday.

Everyone knows the best way to Carnegie Hall. (Practice, practice, practice.) But how do you get to eat a Nobel Prize banquet? Um ... study harder? Surprisingly, it's a whole lot easier than that. Simply head to City Hall in Stockholm, Sweden, which is where the 2003 Nobel laureates will dine tonight in high style. Here, you'll find a subterranean restaurant called Stadshus Kallaren where, starting tomorrow, you can eat exactly the same meal. What's more, if you order in advance and have a party of at least six, you can request any menu from the Nobel banquet's 102-year history, and it will be served on the same gold-leafed Orrefors china from which the winners dine.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - There were jetloads of flowers, flown to this wintry capital from San Remo, Italy, where Alfred Nobel died on Dec. 10, 1896. There was the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, playing enough trumpet fanfares for a coronation, which this was, sort of. There were gold medals and royal handshakes for Baltimore's Dr. Peter C. Agre and nine other laureates. And to top off last night's formal award of the 2003 Nobel Prizes for physics, chemistry, medicine, economics and literature, there was the banquet.

Stockholm. -- "Every road toward a better state of society is blocked, sooner or later, by war, by threats of war, preparation for war. That is the truth, odious and unacceptable truth.''Every time I visit Sweden, Aldous Huxley's words come racing back. Never at war in 178 years, Sweden, if no longer the most prosperous country in the world, is still the one with the best all-round record of social and economic achievement -- where incomes are high and infant mortality low, where a long and secure life is practically assured and no one is ill-housed, where women have made more progress than anywhere else.

STOCKHOLM -- Avesta Sheffield AB, a Swedish stainless-steel producer, said plunging steel prices pushed it to a first-quarter loss and may force it to cut up to 15 percent of its work force.The company, which announced the mothballing of its east Baltimore County plant in June, said its net loss was 314 million kronor, or $37.8 million.The price of cold-rolled stainless steel, Avesta's main product, has fallen by more than a fifth in Europe in the past year, as cheaper exports from Japan and South Korea have flooded a market already awash in excess metal.

STOCKHOLM -- Astra AB said yesterday that it will buy Merck & Co.'s half of their U.S. sales venture for at least $4.4 billion in cash, paving the way for Sweden's biggest drugmaker to consider merging with a rival.Astra, maker of the world's best-selling drug, the ulcer treatment Prilosec, will lend the No. 1 U.S. drugmaker $1.4 billion when the agreement is signed July 1. Astra will pay at least $4.4 billion -- or more, depending on sales -- in 2008, the earliest that it can buy the stake.

Stockholm -- The U.N. Security Council has authorized sending a 22,000-member peace-keeping force, the largest in U.N. history, to oversee an end to the Cambodian civil war.Only a week or so earlier, it decided to send 13,000 peace-keeping soldiers to Yugoslavia. Just before that, it approved sending observers, poll-watchers and peace-keepers to El Salvador.And on Tuesday this week, Armenia appealed for a sizable U.N. force to intervene in its fast-escalating and sordidly destructive war with Azerbaijan.