MAIL 1
INSIDE PEOPLE 8
PICKS & PANS 13
THE INSIDER 41
PASSAGES 104
ROYAL WATCH 120
PUZZLER 122
CHATTER 132

STAR TRACKS 4
Hillary Rodham Clinton meets the troops. Prince Charles keeps the beat. Sean Penn and Robin Wright are spirited, and more

UP FRONT 42
Mira Sorvino's upswept coif, Susan Sarandon's décolletage and Oprah Winfrey's rocks the size of Gibraltar were only some of the highlights at the 68th Academy Awards, where glamor and elegance were the order of the day

ANGELS 62
Hearing that an old classmate from Myrtle Beach (S.C.) High School was dying of kidney disease, Susan Benner gave him one of her own

CONTROVERSY 65
Radio shock jock Don Imus scorches the Clintons at a Washington gala and ignites a furor

WINNERS 69
Thumbing his nose at military threats from Communist China, Lee Teng-hui wins Taiwan's first democratic presidential election

OLYMPICS 75
Why are the centennial modern Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, instead of Athens, Greece? Because Billy Payne wanted them there

TUBE 79
Aaron Spelling discovery Patrick Muldoon, a former college athlete and Calvin Klein model, joins the Melrose Place hall of hunks

OUT OF THE PAST 85
Peter Carl Fabergé, creator of the Romanov Easter eggs now touring the U.S., knew how to make a czarina smile

TRIBUTE 88
Former Sen. Edmund Muskie, the presidential candidate done in by an apparent show of tears, leaves behind a legacy of cleaner air and water

ON THE MOVE 93
Few in her native New Zealand have even heard of Xena Warrior Princess, but in the U.S., Lucy Lawless is the hottest heroine since Wonder Woman

TROUBLE 96
As investigators try to solve a series of arsons at black churches across the South, tiny congregations struggle to replace what has been lost

TOP CAT 107
Nine lives? Big deal. Broadway's Marléne Danielle is set to go into the record books after 4,648 performances as a feline in the cast of Cats

JOCKS 113
At 300 pounds, boxer and Curly Howard look-alike Eric Butterbean Esch has inspired a Sega video game and become a near-regular on The Tonight Show—now he wants Mike Tyson

WHERE ARE THEY NOW? 117
Dr. Christiaan Barnard, former transplant surgeon and roué, is still trying to make hearts beat—as a medical-thriller writer

IN THE MONEY 125
David and Tom Gardner, whose personal finance site on the Internet is called the Motley Fool, want to enhance your bottom line online

CRIME 126
Still haunted by his mother's murder, in 1954, Sam R. Sheppard tries to prove his father's innocence in the case that inspired The Fugitive