Yo, Philly in the News - Double-Sized Weekend Sum-Up Edition

• According to U.S. News & World Report's recently released guide to "America's Best Colleges," University of Pennsylvania is the 7th best college in the nation. Woo hoo! Go U Penn!
• Yesterday was Unity Day in Philadelphia, the 28th occurrence of this yearly event celebrating families and community pride, featuring dozens of free musical performances. Unfortunately, Unity Day also means lots of road closings: MLK Drive, Kelly Drive around the art museum, and the Ben Franklin Parkway from Eakins Oval to 20th were all closed until 9PM. Hope you found your way to where you needed to go anyway...
• If you haven't heard yet, 11-year-old Bianca Ryan, a local girl from Mayfair, has won NBC's reality TV show contest, "America's Got Talent." The prize is $1 million, which her father says she plans to spend on a shopping spree, college, and charities.
• Friday morning you might have noticed a bit of a mess around South Broad from Spruce Street to City Hall. The mess was made up of hundreds of court documents, which turned out, thankfully, not to include anything confidential; they could have been acquired by anyone at the clerk's office. It's suspected that the documents were discarded by participants in the court system, and a trash hauler made the mess taking them away.
• A few weeks ago, if you'd been looking with a sharp eye at the many baskets lining Germantown Avenue in Chestnut Hill, you might have noticed some surprising plants included amongst the flowers; namely, marijuana. Someone apparently planted some of the illegal weed in the pots as a joke. Too late to grab some of it for your own personal collection, though; the landscaper has already removed it.
• A big sex slave operation was recently shut down by police. Brothels masquerading as legitimate businesses were closed all up and down the East Coast, including one right here in Philly: the Callowhill Relaxation Center on Ridge Avenue and Hamilton St., above Callowhill near 11th. The Center claimed to be a massage parlor, but was actually much more - or less, depending on how you look at it. This Phillyist works about a block or so from the place, and has been propositioned to go there more than once while walking in the area. Now we're even more glad than we were already that we didn't!

Photo of a completely real and legitimate massage via stock.xchng