Breathless: Non-smoker Princess Diana got a surprise...

Breathless: Non-smoker Princess Diana got a surprise Wednesday in London when she gamely took a smoker’s breath test as part of Britain’s No Smoking Day: She registered two-parts-per-million of carbon monoxide. But that level came from her drive across London by car, she learned. Three smokers registered 9, 19 and 24 parts. “That’s not very good,” said Diana.

* Bruised Ego: Prison-bound Leona Helmsley offered to put up $1 million to pay for a ticker-tape parade planned in New York for Operation Desert Storm troops but was rebuffed. Mayor David Dinkins said he wants a “people’s parade” rather than a march financed by one fat cat. When city officials told the hotel queen they would accept a smaller contribution, she said forget it and gave nothing.

* Letters Home: With Syracuse University acquiring more than 1,300 letters of Nobel laureate Albert Schweitzer from his daughter, the university becomes “the major center in this country of Schweitzer scholarship,” said librarian David Stam. The letters, between the physician and his wife, Helene, enhance his reputation as a theologian, musician and musicologist.

* Marker: The dormitory where James Meredith roomed in 1962 as the first black student at the University of Mississippi recently acquired a commemorative plaque. It is apparently the first display on the Oxford, Miss., campus to mention Meredith, a university official said. Whites reacted to Meredith’s admission with rioting that left two dead.