ORLANDO, Fla. - State prosecutors decided Tuesday to drop charges against a former Tampa teacher accused of having sex with a 14-year-old middle school student.

The decision, announced hours after a judge rejected a plea deal for Debra Lafave, means the victim won't have to testify.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys had urged the judge to accept the deal for the sake of the boy involved. A psychiatrist who examined the teenager told the judge at a previous hearing that the boy suffered extreme anxiety from the media coverage of the case and does not want to testify.

Marion County Circuit Judge Hale Stancil, however, said the lack of prison time for Lafave under the plea deal "shocks the conscience of this court," and he rejected it.

Assistant State Attorney Richard Ridgway, in explaining the decision to drop the charges, said: "The court may be willing to risk the well-being of the victims in this case in order to force it to trial. I am not."

Lafave, 25, already faces three years of house arrest and seven years probation in Hillsborough County, where she was charged with having sex with the same boy in a classroom and her home. She pleaded guilty Nov. 22 to two counts of lewd and lascivious battery under a plea deal there.

In Marion County, she was accused of having sex with the boy in a sport utility vehicle.

Lafave said at a news conference later Tuesday that she has bipolar disorder, and her attorney said she was getting treatment.

"I have a lot of things in my past that have unfortunately become public," Lafave said.

Hillsborough County prosecutor Mike Sinacore has said the victim's family had anticipated a trial, but the media attention prompted the boy's mother to push for a plea deal.

"There is no one that wanted to see Debra Lafave serve jail time more than myself," the boy's mother wrote in an e-mail to the Ocala Star-Banner over the weekend. But she said the welfare of her son was more important.

'Shall we die together?' - chat rooms foster Japanese suicide pacts

CHICHIBU, Japan (AP) - The dirt is still black with charcoal on the mountain road where police found six bodies slumped inside a van, a stove still smoking inside - another in a spate of group suicides officials believe can be traced to the Internet.

Although few Web sites advertise themselves as suicide sites, a search for the words "Shall we die together?" in Japanese turns up pages of links to chat rooms spilling over with death wishes and ideas on how best to commit suicide.

The five men and one woman, all in their 20s and from six different prefectures across Japan, likely met over the Internet before dying together in a forested area 50 miles northwest of Tokyo, authorities said.

"We sprinkled rice here to honor their spirits," said Tsuru Kimura, 80, pointing to the white grains on several spots blackened with charcoal on the dirt road. Her son alerted police to the van March 10 on a tip-off from a passer-by, she said.

"I still don't understand why they had to die. And in a place like this?" Kimura said.

Internet suicide pacts have occurred since at least the late 1990s in a number of countries, but they have been most common in Japan, where the suicide rate is among the industrialized world's highest.

A record 91 people died in 34 Internet-linked suicide cases last year, up from 55 people in 19 cases in 2004, according to the latest figures from the National Police Agency. The number of Internet suicide pacts has almost tripled from 2003, when the agency started keeping records.

In March alone, at least 18 people have died in five separate cases of suspected Internet-linked group suicides in Japan - including three found dead Tuesday in western Japan.

In all those cases, the victims suffocated themselves inside cars using charcoal stoves, often sealing the windows with tape. Most of the dead have been in their 20s and 30s.

"Youngsters find that on Internet chat sites, they can talk about the most intimate of issues with total strangers - including vague notions of wanting to die," says Mafumi Usui, a psychology professor at Niigata Seiryo University.

"Most of them aren't serious (about killing themselves). But say one chat participant starts suggesting concrete plans… That's when the Internet can encourage suicide," Usui said.

A chat room entry dated Feb. 9 and signed by a participant who identified herself as AQUOS reads: "I live in Kyushu, and I have everything ready except a car."

"I'm willing to go anywhere to die. I don't want to fail - I want to die with certainty," another chat room participant, Haru, replied two days later. There are no further entries from the two.

Alarmed politicians have suggested suicide sites be regulated or shut down.

Last October, police launched an online crackdown with the cooperation of Internet service providers, urging them to report to police the name and address of anyone who appeared to be considering suicide. Since then, authorities have intervened in 12 cases, preventing 14 people from killing themselves, national police said last month.

But Yoshikuni Masuyama, an official at the IT crimes unit of the National Police Agency, had trouble explaining the recent surge in Internet-linked deaths.

"We're baffled," Masuyama said. "We still hope police intervention will have some effect. But of course, it's difficult to prevent all cases."

Some experts warn the crackdown will drive suicidal people to use more obscure or overseas Internet providers, which are almost impossible to regulate. Others argue the sites, by allowing suicidal people to share their concerns, prevent more deaths than they facilitate.

Other experts suggest the Japanese are influenced by a traditional reverence of suicide.

In feudal Japan, ritual suicide was considered an honorable death under the samurai warrior ethic. "Chushingura," a saga about 47 loyal samurai who avenged their master's death and then committed mass suicide in 18th century Japan, has been made into countless movies and TV dramas.

"Japanese see suicide as tragic, yet beautiful or somehow sincere," said Usui, adding that was perhaps why so many used charcoal to die.

Through Internet chat sites, "young Japanese have learned asphyxia doesn't damage the body, he said. "They think it allows them to die beautifully."

Spring snow storm closes schools, Plains still digging out

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - The spring snow storm that buried parts of Nebraska under more than 2 feet of snow swept through the Ohio Valley on Tuesday, shutting down schools and making travel tough for voters headed for the polls for the Illinois' primary election.

As much as two inches of snow an hour fell in some areas of Illinois and Indiana, and wind gusted to 40 mph, weather officials said.

"Our weather's terrible. The highways are terrible. It's not the highway department's fault, they just can't keep up with it," said Morgan County, Ill., Sheriff's Deputy Trevor Lahey. He answered more than 50 calls Tuesday morning about cars in ditches west of Springfield.

In Colorado, Interstate 70 reopened early Tuesday after its eastbound lanes between Denver and the Kansas line were shut down for nearly 18 hours because of heavy snow. Interstate 80 remained closed across central Nebraska but was expected to reopen during the day.

The storm dumped as much as 28 inches of snow on central Nebraska on Monday, 20 inches in parts of South Dakota and half a foot in the Oklahoma Panhandle. Wind piled the snow into drifts 7 feet high in parts of South Dakota and Nebraska. Farther south, heavy rain caused flooding in the Dallas area.

By midmorning Tuesday, more than 7 inches of snow had fallen on parts of western Indiana, and wind up to 25 mph created whiteout conditions in some areas, the National Weather Service said.

Indiana State Police reported dozens of accidents. School districts across central Illinois and western and central Indiana closed for the day.

The weather was expected to contribute to low voter turnout for Illinois' primary election, which includes gubernatorial and congressional races.

It hit after an unseasonably warm winter in which snowfall was 30 percent to 50 percent below normal in Indiana. Through mid-March, Indianapolis had used only about two-thirds of its $4.6 million snow-removal budget, officials said.

Indiana state climatologist Dev Niyogi said the erratic weather will likely continue, in part because of the impact of La Nina, the mild cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean that often coincides with stronger and more frequent hurricanes, a wetter Pacific Northwest and a drier South.

"I think the important feature of the upcoming season is not just going to be a really cold or really warm season ahead, but the swings we are going have," he said. "Some days will really feel like winter again and some days we'll start thinking that maybe that summer is already here."

Schools also remained closed for a second day Tuesday in parts of the Plains states. The Nebraska Legislature canceled its Tuesday meeting, and the South Dakota Legislature rescheduled Monday's meetings.

At least five deaths were blamed on the storm in Colorado, Nebraska and Texas.

Australian cyclone survivors barbecue as cleanup begins

INNISFAIL, Australia (AP) - After their town was torn apart by a terrifying cyclone - amazingly without loss of life - the people of Innisfail responded with a most Australian of gatherings: a barbie.

Butchers and restaurant owners in the town offered up their wares to survivors rather than see them rot in refrigerators warming quickly in the tropical heat after the storm cut electricity in this town about 1,200 miles north of Sydney.

More than 1,000 residents turned out to munch on donated lamb chops, steaks and sausages amid twisted metal roofing sheets and palms trees stripped bare.

"It's looking after our home, isn't it?" said Jeff Baines, one of the barbecue organizers, who wore a chef's uniform as he cooked up dozens of sausages. "If we don't look after our home who's going to?"

The barbecue reflected a determination to make the best of things in the town of 8,000 people Tuesday, a day after Cyclone Larry - the most powerful cyclone to hit northeastern Australia in decades - lifted the roofs off scores of homes and devastated hundreds of square miles of sugar cane and banana crops.

At the River Drive trailer park, a man who identified himself as Brad sat in a plastic garden chair under a leaking tarp, shirtless, drinking a can of beer.

"I'm 42 years of age this year, and I've never been through anything like that," he said.

Most of the park's trees were uprooted and several small buildings were destroyed, but amazingly none of the trailers was badly damaged.

The nearby banana plantations where Brad worked, however, were wiped out.

"My job now is history," he said. "There's no point crying about it is there? You've just got to carry on."

No one was killed when the tempest struck early Monday and only minor injuries were reported. But officials estimated that thousands of people in Innisfail and surrounding towns were left with severely damaged homes.

"There most certainly would be around 7,000 people … that are effectively homeless," Australian lawmaker Bob Katter told The Associated Press. "They're sitting in four walls but no roof."

Hundreds of troops rumbled into Innisfail Tuesday to provide fresh water, food, shelter and other emergency relief. Police also sent extra officers to the region.

"We're mindful that looting is a possibility, and we have the resources if we need to deal with it," said police Superintendent Mike Keating, speaking on Australian television. He said no looting has been reported.

President Bush called Australian Prime Minister John Howard early Tuesday to offer American help if needed.

"Of course we are able ourselves to look after this," Howard said. "But it was a very generous, thoughtful gesture on his part, and I thank him for it."

Howard pledged aid to the shattered communities and said he would visit them Wednesday.

The landscape around Innisfail was one of devastation - rain forest shredded by the winds and acres of sugar and banana plantations flattened, the broken branches and cane lying on the ground eerily pointing the same direction. An apartment block with its roof torn off looked from the air like a doll's house.

Innisfail's main street was littered with rubble from badly damaged buildings and the corrugated metal used for roofing in the region. Some wooden buildings were missing entire walls, and others had collapsed in splinters.

The storm wrought havoc on the region's agriculture. Officials estimated Tuesday that the cyclone wiped out about 10 percent of Australia's sugar crop and would likely cost the industry $144 million. The Australian Banana Growers Council estimated losses of $253 million and 4,000 jobs this season.

"The whole bloody place is blown apart … This is going to be a long, slow recovery," said Peter Beattie, premier of the state of Queensland where Innisfail is located.

Beattie warned it could take days to restore power and water supplies to Innisfail.

Ben Manogu, 20, a backpacker from England who had been trying to find work in the region, said he would be heading home earlier than expected because there were no jobs.

"I was excited about it until I saw all the destruction that it did," he said of the cyclone.

'We're not disposable' - France's youths asking for steady jobs, not big dreams

PARIS (AP) - When student demonstrators in France wear trash bags to protests, their message is: "We're not disposable." They're angry about a new government job plan that will allow employers to fire them more easily.

But that's just the tipping point.

The unemployment rate for France's young people is more than 20 percent, or twice the national average. Many college graduates must string together odd jobs, meaning they don't dare move out of their parents' homes or start families. Without a steady job, it's extremely hard to rent an apartment or even to open a bank account.

Job competition from emerging markets - the government's key argument for the new law - is far from most students' minds. Their leaders say French workers cannot accept longer hours and lower pay on par with Asian economies.

"What the student demonstrations are saying is that the young refuse to live in the world as it is," said Bruno Julliard, the head of France's main student association, UNEF.

Student groups have suggested earlier job training and individual job counseling, but there's no consensus among young people on a radical way to solve youth unemployment.

The new law, which takes effect next month, allows employers to fire workers younger than 26 in the first two years on the job, without citing a reason. It offers a measure of flexibility the government hopes will spur employers to hire young people, but critics say it gives younger workers less job security and undermines France's generous labor protections.

Bolstered by support from trade unions, students led a new protest Tuesday, marching across the Left Bank and shouting "It's the street that rules!"

Tensions mounted afterward as several hundred protesters tossed bottles and stones at riot police near the Luxembourg Gardens, and officers retaliated with tear gas. A few stragglers took advantage of the chaotic scene to steal cell phones and break mirrors off cars along the march route. About 10 people were taken into custody, judicial officials said.

Students have blockaded dozens of universities across France, prompting about 300 students to stage a counterdemonstration outside Paris' famed Pantheon.

"We are not all in favor of the jobs plan, but we refuse to sacrifice our studies over it," said one demonstrator, 18-year-old Thomas Seince.

Along with this fall's riots in France's depressed neighborhoods, the protests have been a major test for conservative Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and highlight the challenges faced by many European governments looking to reform their job markets to cope with globalization.

Villepin said Tuesday that unions and employers could discuss improvements to the contested "first job contract" - but he refused to consider canceling it or substantially changing it.

"The law is well-crafted," he insisted in a meeting with youths.

The boisterous debate could shape the outcome of next year's presidential and parliamentary elections. Villepin's popularity has plunged, and the Socialists have vowed to revoke the law if they return to power.

Attention also focused on a protester in a coma after Saturday's demonstration. Union leaders claimed the 39-year-old man had been "violently trampled by a police charge," but a top police union official said demonstrators had struck him.

"The entire country has plunged into a test of power, which could become very serious," Jean-Marc Ayrault, the Socialist leader in the National Assembly, told the lower house.

When Ayrault claimed that Villepin was driven by "egotism," many ruling party lawmakers left the chamber, shaking their fists and shouting "CPE" - the French acronym for the jobs contract.

Meanwhile, courts have begun intervening to stop the university blockades. A tribunal in southeastern France on Monday ruled that every student occupying Grenoble's universities could face fines of $60 a day starting Thursday.

Another day of nationwide street protests is planned for Thursday, and trade unions called a national day of strikes for March 28 which are expected to affect sectors from travel to industry.

Associated Press Writer Paul Duke and Jean-Marie Godard in Paris contributed to this report.

Family missing since March 4 found alive in snowy mountains

MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) - Six family members missing in a recreational vehicle since March 4 were found alive Tuesday in a remote, snowy section of Southern Oregon, authorities said. - Bureau of Land Management workers first found two of the family members, who had decided to walk out of the woods and left the vehicle, sheriff's deputies said.

Later, search and rescue workers in a helicopter made contact with the other four, said Sgt. David Marshall, spokesman for the Douglas County sheriff's department.

A snow machine was headed into the area to pick up the four, Marshall said.

A press release from the Douglas County sheriff's office said the area "is not accessible by vehicle. There is a heavy snowpack."

The family of Pete Stivers, 29 and Marlo Hill-Stivers, 31, disappeared while traveling in a 35-foot recreational vehicle from Ashland on March 4 across the mountains to the Oregon coast.

Also on the trip were their children Sabastyan, 9, and Gabrayell, 8, and Elbert and Becky Higginbotham of Arizona, whom police described as Pete Stiver's mother and stepfather.

Unsuccessful searches had focused on the U.S. 199 corridor leading south from Grants Pass. The few roads across the range in the Douglas County are narrow and windy.

The recreational vehicle apparently became stranded near the line between Douglas and Curry counties, said Marshall, the Douglas County sheriff's office spokesman.

Marshall said that Pete and Marlo Hill-Stivers walked from the recreational vehicle and enountered the BLM workers Tuesday morning.

He said the vehicle apparently was on a dirt and gravel mountain road that is sometimes used as a shortcut for trips to the coast, especially in the summer.

"But it's nothing to travel in the winter, especially with the snows that have been coming through," he said.

Panel finds errors in state's handling of severely brain-damaged Massachusetts girl

BOSTON (AP) - An alarming string of mistakes by state agencies and medical professionals contributed to the poor care given to a 12-year-old girl before and after a beating that left her severely brain-damaged, a panel appointed by the governor reported Tuesday.

Gov. Mitt Romney created the commission in January to investigate the state's handling of the case of Haleigh Poutre, who was hospitalized in September after a beating allegedly inflicted by her adoptive mother and stepfather.

Massachusetts Social Services Commissioner Harry Spence has said his agency was aware that Haleigh had been suffering serious injuries over the past few years, but he said social workers and Haleigh's doctors believed the girl was hurting herself.

In January, state social service authorities won a ruling from Massachusetts' highest court allowing them to remove Haleigh from life support after doctors said she was in a vegetative state with no hope of recovery. But before life support could be removed, she suddenly began breathing on her own.

She has since been moved to a rehabilitation center.

"As the Haleigh Poutre case demonstrates, errors in human judgment occur. What is unusual is how many people involved in Haleigh's care - medical professionals, case workers and administrators from many disciplines - made errors," Romney said in a statement.

The head of the three-member panel, Christine Ferguson, former commissioner of the state's Department of Public Health and a one-time chief of Rhode Island's Department of Human Services, said the case "highlights a frightening confluence of a health-care system ignorant of abuse and a child protective system ignorant of medicine."

The panel also said a new process should be created for deciding when someone in state care is taken off of life support.

It recommended that the Social Services Department get a second opinion from a physician outside the institution where the patient is being treated before any decision is made on withholding life-sustaining treatment.

Four killed when small plane crashes in Missouri resort town of Branson

BRANSON, Mo. (AP) - Federal aviation investigators Tuesday began combing the wreckage of a twin-engine plane that crashed into a storage building and burst into flames just a few hundred feet from this resort town's main strip.

The small Piper Seneca apparently had mechanical problems before it went down Monday afternoon, killing all four people aboard.

Pilot Paul Johnson had radioed that he was trying to return to Taney County Airport, authorities said, but the plane didn't make it.

It crashed about 200 feet from Branson's busy main drag, near a Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum and a string of musical theaters bearing the names of such entertainers as Andy Williams and Bobby Vinton.

National Transportation Safety Board inspector Tim Sorensen said Tuesday that he could not yet speculate about the cause of the crash.

Small planes like Johnson's do not carry "black box" flight data and cockpit voice recorders, and the plane was heavily damaged by fire, he said.

Mike Willett, manager of AAA Self Storage Inns, said the plane struck the corner of a building containing storage units and quickly caught fire, destroying the building.

The Federal Aviation Administration said the plane crashed about 15 minutes after it took off with full fuel tanks from Taney County Airport in Point Lookout, Mo.

In addition to Johnson, 71, a dentist, the other victims were identified as his wife, Marcia Johnson, 71; Betty Roach, 80; and her husband, Bill Roach, for whom no age was available. They were vacationing from Lubbock, Texas, authorities said.

Paul Johnson was an Abilene Christian University trustee and member of the school's Sports Hall of Fame, according to the Abilene Reporter-News.

"We are shocked and saddened at the news of the tragic loss of Dr. Paul and Marcia Johnson," ACU President Dr. Royce Money said in a statement. "Paul was an outstanding athlete throughout his entire life, and he was a tremendous ambassador, recruiter and trustee for his alma mater."

Associated Press writers David Twiddy and Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City contributed to this report.

Orinda mom warned by judge after third-day cross-examining son

MARTINEZ (AP) - The judge in the Susan Polk murder trial threatened to revoke the Orinda woman's right to act as her own attorney after she spent a third day cross-examining one of her sons. - Contra Costa County Superior Court Judge Laurel Brady said Monday she would allow Polk only one more day to question her son, Gabriel Polk, 19, who had previously testified for the prosecution.

Polk is charged with killing her psychologist husband, Felix Polk, in 2002. She claims she killed him in self-defense after years of abuse. Two sons are testifying on behalf of the prosecution.

Brady spent several minutes Monday dressing down Polk after she accused the prosecution of misconduct in the case against Gabriel's older brother, Eli Polk, 21, who was arrested last week in Orinda on suspicion of violating a restraining order.

"I am extremely concerned at this point," Brady said. "In my experience, this has gone on way longer than is necessary."

Editor-in-chief of scientific journal dies in Berkeley at 67

BERKELEY (AP) - Nicholas Cozzarelli, editor-in-chief of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has died at age 67. - Cozzarelli, who was also a professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley, died Sunday at his home in Berkeley from complications of treatment for Burkitt's lymphoma, university officials said Tuesday.

A member of the National Academy of Sciences, Cozzarelli was known for his research on how proteins affect DNA.

"He made very big contributions in understanding how DNA is replicated, how it recombines and is repaired, and how it is forcefully moved from cell to cell," Michael Botchan, a UC Berkeley professor of molecular and cell biology said in a campus news release announcing Cozzarelli's death.

He had been editor-in-chief at the main publication of the National Academy of Sciences since 1995 and was a strong advocate of open access publishing, allowing the public as well as paid subscribers to read scientific articles. The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences was one of the first publications to allow free access online.

Born March 26, 1938, in Jersey City, New Jersey, Cozzarelli was the son of Italian immigrants. His father was a shoemaker and his mother edited telephone books.

Cozzarelli got a full scholarship to Princeton University and attended Harvard Medical School, where he graduated with a doctorate in biochemistry in 1966.

Diane Sullenberger, executive editor of the PNAS journal, and Daniel Salsbury, its managing editor, said in a statement they were deeply saddened by Cozzarelli's death and praised him for "unparalleled leadership."

"He dedicated himself to publishing the highest quality research in PNAS, while increasing the journal's disciplinary breadth and access to its content around the world," the statement said.

Survivors include Cozzarelli's wife, Linda, and a daughter, Laura Cozzarelli-Wood of Towson, Md.

Two who went on three-state killing spree sentenced to life in Michigan killing of pizzeria worker

MOUNT CLEMENS, Mich. (AP) - Two men who killed of a pizzeria worker during a three-state robbery and murder rampage were sentenced Tuesday to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

David Baumann, 24, and Dennis Bryan, 25, pleaded no contest to first-degree murder last month in the death of 16-year-old pizza clerk Justin Mello during an October 2000 robbery in New Baltimore, Baumann's hometown.

Bryan, who was from Fair Haven, already had been sentenced to 50 years in prison and Baumann to life for the killing of a gun shop employee in Bristol, Va., and both were given life sentences in Florida for killing a 22-year-old sandwich shop clerk in St. Augustine.

Both men will be transferred to Virginia to continue serving their sentences there.

Six North Carolina KKK members plead guilty in gun plot

By:RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - Six members of a Ku Klux Klan splinter group have pleaded guilty in a plot to steal and sell guns as a way to raise money to blow up a courthouse and kill a county sheriff, a federal prosecutor said Tuesday. - All six pleaded guilty Monday to charges including theft of firearms and possession of stolen firearms, in return for other charges being dropped, Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Goulian said. They were indicted in December.

They allegedly raised at least $1,650 by selling some stolen guns, and Johnston County Sheriff Steve Bizzell said the money was intended to finance plans that included killing him.

He said they were angry with him over their failed plans to march in a popular community festival, Benson Mule Days. A local KKK leader related to two of the defendants had invited a Klan figure from Indiana to watch them march and was embarrassed when the group was barred from the event, Bizzell said.

The charges carry up to 10 years in prison. Sentencing dates have not been set, Goulian said.

Charges against a seventh defendant are still pending, he said.

Mussolini's secret bunker, lavish residence open to the public in Rome

ROME (AP) - The 19th-century villa of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini opens to the public for the first time Wednesday, allowing visitors to see his elegant frescoes and lavish chandeliers - and the hidden bunkers and anti-gas chamber he could hide out in.

Mussolini, who lived lavishly and entertained guests at the Rome residence, built the underground chambers to protect himself and his family from possible air raids and gas attacks.

A $6 million restoration was undertaken after decades of decay during which the villa's neoclassic treasures were shunned as a tainted reminder of the fascist period.

"Sixty years have passed and history has said what it had to say," Rome's center-left Mayor Walter Veltroni said during a ceremony Tuesday for invited guests. "If some nostalgics (of fascism) will want to come here, let them come. This is a beautiful place in the city and it's our duty to preserve it."

Visits require advanced booking and take place in small guided groups.

Mussolini lived at Villa Torlonia in 1925-1943 with his wife and children, delighting in tennis games and horseback rides on the grounds that surround the house, built by one of Rome's aristocratic families.

"When the winds of war started blowing, he ordered the construction of the bunker," said Eugenio La Rocca, superintendent for Rome's monuments.

Two underground structures, built in great secrecy, cover more than 2,000 square feet and include an anti-gas chamber with air ducts and showers for decontamination, all protected by a double set of airtight doors.

Mussolini dug the bunker 23 feet deep, burying a 10-foot thick concrete box with bare cylindrical corridors and multiple escape routes.

While restoring the chamber, archeologists discovered it was built over a second-century Christian tomb, where they found three bodies. The area was a common burial ground in Roman times, housing mainly the sprawling underground corridors of one of six Jewish catacombs in the city.

It is not known whether Mussolini ever had a use for the hideout. By the time air raids hit Rome, "Il Duce" had been deposed and was leading a puppet state in northern Italy under Nazi protection. He was captured and executed by partisans in April 1945 while fleeing to Switzerland.

Above Villa Torlonia's World War II relics stand elegant stuccos and polished marbles, a ballroom with crystal chandeliers and private chambers with tromp l'oeil frescoes that give the illusion of being in an ancient Egyptian temple or a Gothic cathedral.

Architects and painters Giuseppe Valadier and Giovan Battista Caretti built the villa in the first half of the 19th century for the Torlonia family. It is part of an extravagant complex that includes a frescoed reproduction of an underground Etruscan tomb, an exotic garden, a theater and a Swiss chalet in Liberty Style.

More recent are the life-size drawings of exotic dancers left by U.S. soldiers who set up headquarters there in 1944-1947.

Future plans for Villa Torlonia's grounds include opening the ancient Jewish catacombs and building a museum dedicated to Holocaust victims right across from Mussolini's residence.