* No Place Like Home: Although a...

* No Place Like Home: Although a half-million people live in Mongolia’s capital city of Ulan Bator, the U.S. ambassador to Mongolia does not. Ambassador Richard Williams, unable to find a “suitable” home in the country to which he was appointed ambassador in July, 1988, lives in the United States. Dessaix Anderson, deputy assistant secretary of state for Asian and Pacific affairs, told a House committee Tuesday that part of the problem is lack of money to buy Williams a home. But he acknowledged that Williams could rent or lease a home. Rep. Jim Leach, R-Iowa, suggested that “maybe the department needs a little more frontier mentality.”

* Tatiana II: The name Tatiana--selected by Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg and her husband Edwin for their new baby, who was born Saturday at New York Hospital--may sound familiar. Several years ago designer Diane Von Furstenberg named a perfume Tatiana in honor of her daughter. The Schlossbergs say they selected the Slavic name for their 7-pound, 10-ounce girl, the second grandchild for Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, because of the late Tatiana Grossman, founder of Universal Limited Art Editions. “She was a lithographer for whom Ed Schlossberg worked and whom he admired,” said a spokeswoman.

* A Vote for Bart: Bart Simpson, the underachieving, anti-Establishment son on Fox Television’s “The Simpsons,” won about 10 write-in votes in this week’s election for the undergraduate student council at UCLA. This should surprise no one, said Sarah Suks, politics editor for the UCLA Daily Bruin newspaper. She said the rest of the 53 write-ins were for real people, except for one Mickey Mouse vote.

* Pest Control: Owls, shunned in Bangladesh as harbingers of misfortune, may enjoy a new popularity, thanks to a study published Wednesday by University of Dhaka professor Nurjahan Sarker. According to the study, one owl eats at least two rats and many crop-eating insects every day, and can save $3,000 worth of rice in a field each year.