Royal Lineage: Princess Kiko, 24, the commoner...

Royal Lineage: Princess Kiko, 24, the commoner who charmed Japan last June when she married Emperor Akihito’s second son, is expecting a baby in October. The storybook courtship and marriage of Kiko, the daughter of a university professor, and Prince Akishino, 25, touched off a “Kiko-boom” among young Japanese women, launching the couple to cult status. If it’s a boy, the child would stand third in line to the throne, after Crown Prince Naruhito, 31, and the baby’s father.

* Political Time-Out: Who says political workaholics make Washington a one-industry town? Journalist Sandra McElwaine says sex is more than a cottage industry: One maitre d’ assists off-the-record love affairs with private upstairs suites and a tactful waiter. But one woman sneered at “beeper sex” with Washington males: “No matter what we’re doing, the minute that electronic signaling device goes off, they’re up and gone.”

* Come Look, Mr. Wilson: Cartoonist Hank Ketcham, creator of the mophead character Dennis the Menace, has dedicated a $200,000 playground he designed at Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children & Women in Orlando, Fla. “I don’t like teeter-totters or swings,” said Ketcham, walking through the play area for children who are disabled or being treated for such maladies as spina bifida and cancer. The “un-hospital-like” play area has cushioned flooring and special recreational equipment that builds in exercise with fun.

* Smoke Damage: A Soviet man fined for illegal cigarette dealing took his revenge by sending part of a courthouse up in smoke. The Tass news agency reported Tuesday the man threw Molotov cocktails into a court office in the city of Yalta, and two judges and a visitor scrambled out of a window. Firefighters put out the blaze, but not before part of the building was destroyed.