* Ears Everywhere: The KGB, the Soviet...

* Ears Everywhere: The KGB, the Soviet Union’s spy agency, helped plot the August coup by eavesdropping on everyone from First Lady Raisa Gorbachev’s hairdresser to Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s tennis coach, the weekly Moscow News says. Yeltsin’s daughter’s phone was not immune, and neither was the pillow talk of the Soviet Union’s leading politicians. “The sauna where (Yeltsin) liked to go became transparent,” the paper said. Conversations that “people had in the most piquant, intimate moments of their life” are on record, the newspaper said.

* Paper Cut: A jury in Harrison, Ark., awarded $1.5 million to Nellie Mitchell, the 96-year-old woman who sued the Sun, a supermarket tabloid, for running her photo with a story about a newspaper carrier who allegedly became pregnant by a customer at age 101. The Florida tabloid’s lawyers conceded that the article, like other Sun stories, was made up and that use of the photo was a mistake. A Sun editor said he selected Mitchell’s picture because he assumed she was dead.

* Where Did the Love Go?: Foreigners will now have to pay 130 times more than Indians to see the Taj Mahal, the 17th-Century monument to love. While Indians will continue to pay 8 cents, foreigners will pay $10. The money will be used for maintenance. The mausoleum was built by the emperor Shah Jahan for his wife, Mumtaz.

* Holiday Notes: A masked man in Copenhagen pointed a gun at bank workers Thursday, collected $21,000 and called out: “Have a merry Christmas!” before he rode off on a bicycle . . . Seven groups dropped out of Gainesville’s Christmas parade after the Georgia city granted the Ku Klux Klan permission to enter a float titled “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” . . . The Super 8 economy lodging chain is offering free accommodations on Christmas Eve to anyone visiting a friend or relative in a nursing home, veterans’ home, hospital or treatment center.