WASHINGTON - Archaeologists have uncovered what may have been a village for workers or festival-goers near the mysterious stone circle Stonehenge in England.

The village was located at Durrington Walls, about two miles from Stonehenge, and is also the location of a wooden version of the stone circle.

Eight houses have been excavated and the researchers believe there were at least 25 of them, archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson said Tuesday at a briefing held by the National Geographic Society.

The village was carbon dated to about 2600 B.C., about the same time Stonehenge was built. The Great Pyramid in Egypt was built at about the same time, said Parker Pearson of Sheffield University.

The small wooden houses had a central hearth, he said, and are almost identical to stone houses built at about the same time in the Orkney Islands.

The researchers speculated that Durrington Walls was a place for the living and Stonehenge where several cremated remains have been found was a cemetery and memorial. Both are connected to the Avon River by paths they called avenues.

Parker Pearson said remains of stone tools, animal bones, arrowheads and other artifacts were uncovered in the village.

Remains of pigs indicated they were about nine months old when killed, which would mark a midwinter festival, he said.

Parker Pearson said Stonehenge was oriented to face the midsummer sunrise and midwinter sunset, while the wooden circle at Durrington Walls faced the midwinter sunrise and midsummer sunset.

2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Two of India’s biggest film stars one an aging icon, the other the heart throb of a younger generation are battling for popular approval, their rivalry revealed by subtle digs. Amitabh Bachchan, 64, has ruled the Indian box office for decades, and Shah Rukh Khan, 41, is the reigning star and possibly Bollywood’s highest-paid actor. While the country’s celebrity-gossip journalists have compared their star power, fan following and box office fortunes, the two actors had refused to join the fray. But not any more. The comments began after Khan took over a popular television quiz show in January that Bachchan once hosted. “That was your generation, this is mine,” Khan said in an interview. “I’m cool, hip, sexy and wonderful.” In an interview with Times Now television, Bachchan responded: “If you want to do an honest comparison, you should wait for him to get to 65 and then see how he fares.” Both actors say talk of their rivalry is a media creation, but commentators say the controversy won’t hurt either star. (Reuters)

It’s a dramatic shift, when funny men turn serious. Even Eddie Murphy, the latest of Hollywood’s leading comic performers to try, has had some laughs over his own transformation, which could bring him an Academy Award this month. At the Screen Actors Guild awards last month, where he won a supporting actor prize for “Dreamgirls,” Murphy adopted a British accent as he soberly remarked how honored he was to be recognized by his peers. But he could not keep a broad grin in check for more than a few seconds. “No, I’m sorry,” Murphy said after a moment, laughing. “It’s just when the British people come and get the awards, it’s so smooth with their stuff. And I feel goofy up here, ’cause I don’t be winning stuff.” Murphy is favored to follow his “Dreamgirls” co-star Jamie Foxx, the best actor recipient two years ago, as an actor who started in comedy and was awarded an Oscar for a dramatic role. (AP)

The British pop singer Robbie Williams spent his 33rd birthday Wednesday in an unspecified rehabilitation center in the United States, where he is being treated for an addiction to prescription drugs, Reuters reported. His public relations agent gave no further details. Williams achieved fame with the boy band Take That and was treated for drug and alcohol dependency after it broke up in the mid-1990s. He went on to begin a successful solo career.

He’s Salman Rushdie, the university professor, once again. Rushdie, the author of “The Satanic Verses” and “Shalimar the Clown,” this week began a five-year position at Emory University in Atlanta. He will teach world literature to graduate students. His appointment is coupled with the donation of his literary archives to the university’s library. They include manuscripts, journals and letters from his writing career. Rushdie, 59, who has lectured at campuses around the world, said he chose Emory, in part, “because they asked me and nobody else ever had.” The school’s library already is home to archives from the British poet laureate Ted Hughes and the Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney. (AP)

Omar Sharif, the Egyptian-born actor best known for his roles in “Dr. Zhivago” and “Lawrence of Arabia,” was sentenced to two years’ probation and 15 hours of anger management after he pleaded no contest this week in Beverly Hills, California, to misdemeanor battery for punching a parking valet who refused to accept a \20 note, breaking the man’s nose. According to the lawsuit, Sharif, 74, was belligerent and intoxicated and called Juan Anderson, a Guatemalan immigrant, a “stupid Mexican” for refusing to accept the currency. In American courts, a no contest plea is the same as a guilty plea for sentencing purposes in criminal cases, but cannot be used as an admission of guilt in a civil case. Anderson is seeking $17,000 in compensation, the actor’s attorney said. (AP, NYT)

A drama about a Brazilian man killed by the police in London is being filmed by a British studio with Stephen Frears, who made “The Queen,” as executive producer. Mango Films will focus on events before the death of Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, who was mistaken for a suicide bomber by the police in July 2005, and the impact of the shooting on London’s Brazilian community. The director, Henrique Goldman, said it would be a “human” story. (BBC)

Tree growth in temperate forests is driven by availability of water and not by temperature as previously thought, new research suggests.

In a first study of its kind, scientists looked at the survival mechanisms of cone-bearing trees such as pines and firs, in the harshly dry pre-monsoon seasons of the Santa Catalina Mountains near Tucson, Arizona. The annual Arizona http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnature/060608_ap_monsoon_formation.html season beginning in early July and lasting for about two months normally follows a severe dry spell.

Previous models of typical western or temperate forests consider temperature to be the main driver of respiration and http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/050622_extreme_creature.html, the process by which plants convert sunlight, carbon dioxide, and water into food.

My research indicated that for the semi-arid forest that is not the case. It is driven by when water is available, in that the roots do not freeze and thus as soon as the soil moisture is available, whether winter or summer, they will turn on their photosynthetic processes, said lead study author Constance Brown, a researcher at Indiana University. Conversely, during the pre-monsoon drought period, trees will shut down or severely curtail photosynthesis, she said.

This mechanism is different from cacti, which have adapted to http://www.livescience.com/othernews/060724_mm_cacti_survive.html in hot and arid environments.

The cacti ecosystem is at a much lower elevation, and the question of water- versus temperature-driven is not an issue in their photosynthetic processes, Brown told LiveScience. They only grow up to a certain elevation dictated by temperature and survive by their ability to conserve and utilize water in the semiarid environment.

The data, collected between June 2002 and December 2004, show that the trees in the predominately Douglas fir and pine forest have evolved the ability to shut down to a near-death state during dry spells, then flourish when it rains.

The results of the study will be detailed in the April issue of the Journal of Arid Environments. 2006 LiveScience.com. All rights reserved.

BANGKOK (XFN-ASIA) - Finance minister and deputy prime minister Pridiyathorn Devakula announced that he has resigned, citing differences with the prime minister over the handling of the economy.

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NEW YORK Pharmacy benefit manager Caremark Rx () said late on Sunday it had rejected a roughly $26 billion takeover bid from rival Express Scripts, saying it favored an offer of about $22.2 billion from drugstore chain CVS Corp. ().

Caremark said Express Scripts’ proposal included “questionable assumptions” on the calculation of synergy benefits and faced significant antitrust risks and timing delays.

In a statement, Caremark said the Express Scripts stock-and-cash proposal “does not constitute, and is not reasonably likely to lead to, a superior proposal.”

Caremark said the proposed all-stock deal with presented limited integration risk and significant opportunities for synergies between the two companies.

A merger with CVS is expected to create more than $500 million in cost synergies through the combination of the firms’ pharmacy benefits management businesses, Caremark said.

Nashville-based Caremark said its deal with CVS had already received antitrust clearance and the companies expected to close the transaction by the end of the first quarter of 2007.

“We are fully committed to our pending merger with CVS and believe strongly in the financial and strategic merits of the proposed combination,” said Mac Crawford, chairman, president and CEO of Caremark.

Express Scripts said in an e-mailed statement it “remains committed to pursuing a combination” with Caremark. It added that its offer “represents a superior proposal.”

“We believe that Caremark is using antitrust as a red herring to distract stockholders from the real value differential at issue,” the statement said.

PREMIUM

Express Scripts’ proposal presents stockholders with a 13-percent premium to the proposed CVS acquisition price, based on the closing prices as of January 5, the company said.

Caremark said The proposal from rival pharmacy benefit manager Express Scripts lacked strategic rationale and created the risk of significant customer attrition and destruction of shareholder value.

The Express Scripts plan would also result in a “highly leveraged and weakened business” with diminished financial strength, it added.

“Our board gave careful consideration to ‘ proposal,” said Crawford. “In the end, our conclusion was simple and straightforward: Express Scripts’ proposal is not in the best interests of Caremark, its shareholders, customers and consumers.”

Express Scripts said that a combined company would generate substantial free cash flow, which would let it reduce acquisition-related debt, return to historical leverage levels and continue to invest in the company.

Pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, administer prescription drug benefits for employers and health plans, brokering deals in part by buying medicines in bulk from manufacturers.

PBMs also operate large pharmacies that deliver prescriptions by mail.