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CRAFTED entirely out of amber, gold and precious stones, it was a masterpiece of baroque art and widely regarded as the world?s most important art treasure. When its 565 candles were lit, the famous Amber Room was said to glow a fiery gold. Looted by the Nazis , its whereabouts have been a mystery since the dying days of the Second World War. But now a new German investigation believes it has found where the treasure, worth £120 million today, lies - in abandoned mine workings in the former East Germany. One of the few facts all historians seem to...

LONDON - A Muslim cleric accused of inciting followers to murder "nonbelievers" was shown on tape Thursday promising an audience that religious martyrs would be rewarded with 72 virgins in paradise. The tape played in a London courtroom also showed Abdullah el-Faisal urging British Muslim boys to spend their school vacations learning how to use Kalashnikov rifles. But el-Faisal, 39, denies encouraging "others to murder persons unknown," making threatening or abusive recordings and stirring up racial hatred. Prosecutors say el-Faisal preached across Britain and sold Arabic-language tapes of his speeches in specialist shops. They showed the jury at London's Old...

NEW YORK — Winona Ryder's alias for buying prescription painkillers is "Emily Thompson." Christian Slater has been known to fear Germans when he's under the influence. And despite his vigorous political stumping during Election 2000, Ben Affleck hadn't voted in years. This isn't the stuff of trashy tabloids. It's the juicy dish found in court documents and other public records when the stars wind up acting shady. Web sites like Court TV's The Smoking Gun lunge at the chance to post the papers that offer such meaty tidbits about the rich and famous. TSG Co-founder and managing editor Daniel Green...

Contact: Lynda Majarian lynda.majarian@uvm.edu 802-656-1107 University of Vermont Rainforest researchers hit pay dirt It shouldn't be there, but it is. Deep in the central Amazonian rainforest lies a rich, black soil known locally as terra preta do Indio (Indian dark earth) that farmers have worked for years with minimal fertilization. A Brazilian-American archeological team believed terra preta, which may cover 10 percent of Amazonia, was the product of intense habitation by Amerindian populations who flourished in the area for two millennia, but they recently unearthed evidence that societies lived and farmed in the area up to 11,000 years ago. As...

Older than dirt....... We were cleaning out my mother's house and found an old Royal Crown Cola bottle. In the bottle top was a stopper with a bunch of holes in it. I knew immediately what it was, but my daughter had no idea. She thought she had tried to make it a salt shaker or something. I knew it as the bottle that sat on the end of the ironing board to "sprinkle" clothes with because we didn't have steam irons. Man, I am old. ********************************************************** Many Do You Remember?? lights dimmer switches on the floor Ignition switches on...