News In Brief

LIFE'S LITTLE UPS AND DOWNS There are endurance contests, and then there's what happen-ed near Sydney, Australia, over the past 40 days. As part of a radio-station promotion, 24 people boarded the roller-coaster at an amusement park Feb. 26 to see who could endure longest. They were to ride 14 hours a day and sleep in the same seat each night. It all ground to a halt Wednesday when the final two, Rosa Vaccaro and Steve Fletcher, agreed they'd had enough. But only for the moment. Fletcher planned to take his children aboard the roller-coaster at another park this weekend.

NOW THAT'S PUCKER POWER! Meanwhile, the new record-holders for the world's longest kiss appear to be Israelis Dror Orpaz and Karmit Tsubera. They outsmooched 299 other couples in a marathon sponsored by the city of Tel Aviv and Colgate toothpaste. Their 30-hour, 45-minute lip-lock is being verified by the Guinness Book of World Records.

Where refugees are seeking shelter from Kosovo conflict

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates nearly 500,000 people - the vast majority of them ethnic Albanians - have left Kosovo since NATO began its air assault on Yugoslavia March 24. In addition, many of Kosovo's approximately 1.8 million ethnic Albanians already were displaced before the current exodus. The states with the most ethnic-Albanian refugees and the estimated total in each:

Albania 303,000

Bosnia-Herzegovina 24,500

Macedonia 117,000

Montenegro 59,000

Turkey 7,612

Nations that have confirmed to the UN that they'll shelter Kosovo refugees temporarily and the number each has offered to take:

Australia 4,000

Canada 5,000

European Union (overall) 20,000

Norway 5,000-6,000

Poland 1,000

Turkey 20,000

US 20,000

- Associated Press