Gingrich shook hands with 3,609 people near Seattle on Saturday to land him in The Guinness Book of World Records under a new category of "most handshakes by a national figure." "This is really why he won office in the first place, to build up to this moment," quipped Mike Shields, communications director for the Speaker's political office.

Gingrich did a fast-paced version of the basic political grin-and-grip from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Saturday and then gave a speech at the Washington State Republican Party's annual picnic on Vashon island near Seattle.

Gingrich didn't come close to the "public official" record of 8,513 handshakes by President Theodore Roosevelt at the White House on January 1, 1907.

Di death row
LONDON: A significant minority of people in Britain believe that Princess Diana's death in a car wreck wasnot an accident, said an opinion poll conducted by The Sunday Times.

Twenty-four per cent of those questioned even said they believe the deaths of Diana and her friend Dodi Al Fayed were due to a conspiracy. In September 1997, a similar poll showed that 84 per cent thought Diana's death was accidental.

The latest poll also showed that Queen Elizabeth II had regained public trust after her restrained reaction to Diana's death led to a drop in her popularity. Less than a third of those questioned - 29 per cent - currently think Queen Elizabeth II should abdicate her crown either immediately or when she reaches the age of 75 in 2001, while 62 per cent said she should never step down.

Tolstoy's letters
MOSCOW: Three letters, whose 90-year journey could be the stuff of an epic novel, have made their way back to a museum dedicated to the man who wrote them: Leo Tolstoy. The letters were written to a young Ukrainian follower of Tolstoy between 1906 and 1909, and carried by his descendants asthey were tossed by the political currents of the century. The Sheerman family was persecuted by the Soviet Union and emigrated to Nazi Germany to serve as labourers during World War II. After the war, the descendants of Vladimir Sheerman emigrated to Argentina, where they live today.

"And for all this time and through all these troubles and misfortunes, members of my family carried these papers. For a time I couldn't understand why they bothered," said Vladimir's granddaughter, 75-year-old Maria Sheerman.

Vladimir Sheerman was a young landowner who, captivated by Tolstoy's theories of communal property, decided to give away his land to his peasants and establish a commune. In one of the letters donated to the museum, the author of War and Peace counsels the young man to think twice about his decision because he might live to regret it. The letters ended the year before Tolstoy's death in 1910.

Computer woes
HAMBURG: The sensitivity of the fingers can be reduced by frequently workingwith computer keyboards, say researchers.

Researchers at the University of London recently concluded that long-term keyboard use can damage the medianus nerve, which links the fingers to the brain.

The scientists compared the sensitivity in the fingers of long-term keyboard users to that of of non-users. Two-thirds of computer users experienced a reduction in sensitivity to vibration. They sensed vibrations only when they were twice as strong as those sensed by non-users.