Another Turn: Italian porn star-turned-politician Ilona (Cicciolina)...

Another Turn: Italian porn star-turned-politician Ilona (Cicciolina) Staller is making unaccustomed moves these days: She is resigning from the Parliament in Rome. The move comes as politicians face early elections if they fail to form a new government in the wake of Premier Giulio Andreotti’s resignation Friday. Although Staller hoped her decision “could prevent the danger of early elections,” many laughed at the idea that her resignation would effect anything. Lawmakers earlier pooh-poohed her proposals for public “love parks” for couples’ private pursuits.

* A Matter of Degree: Although British Prime Minister John Major says he regrets his indifference to school as a boy, the man who finished high school by correspondence and never went to college said during a TV interview in London on Monday: “I know an awful lot of people who have an armful of academic qualifications, and . . . they are wholly useless, most of them. They have no common sense at all.”

* Sinking Roots: Alex Haley, 69, who turned Americans on to digging up their roots, is giving evidence of his to the University of Tennessee. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author said Monday that he is donating his papers--including manuscripts of “Roots” and his work on “The Autobiography of Malcolm X”--to the university in Knoxville. Haley, who grew up in Henning, Tenn., turned down the Library of Congress’ offer to take the papers: The material “belongs at the University of Tennessee because I’m of Tennessee, and that’s the only place that it should be,” he said.

* Money Talks? Two sisters from Forks, Wash., had a hard time convincing the folks back home that a trip to Reno had turned them into instant millionaires. Mary Reynolds, 52, and Frankie Kennedy, 54, on Monday pooled $20 and hit the jackpot worth $3.2 million on a Megabucks slot machine at Harrah’s Reno. “I’m not sure I convinced any of them,” said Reynolds of her relatives. Kennedy, a high school secretary, said: “I’m calling in sick.” The money will be paid out at $163,448 a year for 20 years.