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LONDON (Reuters) – Easter eggs may be good for you, but only if you eat small ones made from cocoa-rich dark chocolate, according to the latest in a string of scientific studies to show potential health benefits of chocolate.

German researchers studied more than 19,300 people over a decade and found those who ate the most chocolate — an average of 7.5 grams a day — had lower blood pressure and a 39 percent lower risk of having a heart attack or stroke than those who ate the least amount of chocolate — an average of 1.7 grams a day.

But, the difference between the two groups was just under six grams (6g) of chocolate a day, less than one small square of an average 100g bar, they wrote in a study in the European Heart Journal to be published on Wednesday.

Brian Buijsse of the German Institute of Human Nutrition in Nuthetal, who led the study, said people should not use his work as an excuse to stuff themselves with chocolate.

“Small amounts of chocolate may help to prevent heart disease, but only if it replaces other energy-dense food, such as snacks, in order to keep body weight stable,” he said.

Although they said more work needed to be done to be sure, the researchers think the flavanols in cocoa may be the reason why chocolate seems to be good for blood pressure and heart health — and since there is more cocoa in dark chocolate, dark chocolate may have a greater effect.

VEGETABLES, WINE AND COCOA

Flavanols are a class of the antioxidant flavonoids that are found in many vegetables, cocoa and red wine.

“Flavanols appear to be … responsible for improving the bioavailability of nitric oxide from the cells that line the inner wall of blood vessels,” said Buijsse.

Nitric oxide is a gas that, once released, causes the smooth muscle cells of the blood vessels to relax and widen, he said, adding that this may contribute to lower blood pressure.

For their chocolate study, the researchers used data from participants of a larger study called European Prospective Investigation into Cancer (EPIC).

They followed more than 19,300 over more than 10 years during which time their blood pressure, height and weight measurements as well as details of their diet, lifestyle and health were recorded.

Buijsse said put in terms of absolute risk, the findings showed that if people in the group eating the least amount of chocolate increased their chocolate intake by six grams a day, 85 fewer heart attacks and strokes per 10,000 people could be expected to occur over a period of about 10 years.

Commenting on the study on behalf of the European Society of Cardiology, Frank Ruschitzka of Switzerland’s University Hospital Zurich said basic science had now demonstrated “quite convincingly” that dark chocolate with a cocoa content of at least 70 percent reduces some kinds of stress and can improve blood flow and blood pressure.

But he said: “Before you rush to add dark chocolate to your diet, be aware that 100 grams … contains roughly 500 calories.

“You may want to subtract an equivalent amount of calories by cutting back on other foods to avoid weight gain.”

MIAMI – Five years after the court fight over allowing Terri Schiavo to die, most Americans still don’t draft the legal documents that spell out how far caregivers should go to keep them alive artificially.

Schiavo’s life and death captivated the country and fueled conversations about the necessity of the documents, known as advance directives or living wills. Even though millions witnessed a worse-case scenario, there’s no indication it had a lasting impact on getting more people to make their wishes known.

“The gap is so big,” said Paul Malley, president of Aging With Dignity, which advocates advance directives and which saw an increase in interest during the Schiavo case. “Even a significant impact from the Schiavo case doesn’t put a dent in the need that’s out there.”

The protracted family fight over keeping Schiavo alive, and her ultimate death March 31, 2005, plastered her story in headlines and prompted an immediate spike in Americans filling out advance directives. But while Schiavo’s struggle remains in the minds of many, the momentum it created for writing the instructions appears to have ebbed.

End-of-life experts estimate 20 percent to 30 percent of U.S. adults have advance directives, the same as before the Schiavo case. Even in polls of older Americans, who fill out such forms at higher rates, there is little if any change from 2005.

“Awareness is up,” said Kathy Brandt, a vice president of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization. “But I don’t know that people understand any better and I don’t know that we’re ever going to get better than a third of Americans.”

Much of the problem with advance directives is people aren’t entirely sure what they do, or fear they mean they’d be forced to forgo lifesaving treatment. In fact, they can be changed by the patient and would only be used in limited grave circumstances, typically in which they can no longer communicate their wishes.

Living wills spell out desires regarding the use of respirators, feeding tubes and other life-support efforts, and to what lengths a person wants to be kept alive in the face of brain damage, comas and other conditions.

Schiavo, who collapsed at her St. Petersburg, Fla., home in 1990, had no such instructions in writing. Her heart stopped and she suffered what doctors said was irreversible brain damage that left her in a permanent vegetative state.

Her husband said his wife would not have wanted to live in a vegetative state; her parents wanted her kept alive. The result was an epic legal battle that involved dozens of judges in numerous jurisdictions, including the U.S. Supreme Court.

In the end, her feeding tube was ordered removed two weeks before she finally succumbed.

Still, while the paperwork on end-of-life wishes is vital — particularly in cases such as Schiavo’s, when family members disagree — family discussions that precede such documentation can be even more important.

“It’s an ongoing conversation,” said Sally Hurme, who works on consumer health education for AARP. “Your views may change, your health circumstances may change and you need to keep your family up to date.”

Malley says advance directives she be part of a broader conversation about what an individual wants out of their final years, how they want to be cared for, where they want to live and so on. Even when someone does have a living will, they often haven’t had such a conversation with their loved ones.

“When people are asked what’s important for them at the end of life they talk about being at home, with family, not in pain,” he said. “A lot of times we only ask the question about life support treatment and tubes and ventilators.”

Even for those who deal with death daily, though, thinking about one’s own can be difficult.

Dr. Gail Cooney, a 57-year-old neurologist who is medical director at the Hospice of Palm Beach County, had spent more than 20 years preaching to patients and family alike the necessity of having advance directives. She knew full well the importance and had seen what could happen without something in writing.

But, still, it took a diagnosis of ovarian cancer and subsequent major surgery before she took her own advice.

“I knew what I wanted but I had never written it down until I was sitting there waiting for surgery in that stupid little hospital gown,” she said.

CAIRO – Archaeologists have unearthed a 3,500-year-old door to the afterlife from the tomb of a high-ranking Egyptian official near Karnak temple in Luxor, the Egyptian antiquities authority said Monday.

These recessed niches found in nearly all ancient Egyptian tombs were meant to take the spirits of the dead to and from the afterworld. The nearly six-foot- tall (1.75 meters) slab of pink granite was covered with religious texts.

The door came from the tomb of User, the chief minister of Queen Hatshepsut, a powerful, long ruling 15th century B.C. queen from the New Kingdom with a famous mortuary temple near Luxor in southern Egypt.

User held the position of vizier for 20 years, also acquiring the titles of prince and mayor of the city, according to the inscriptions. He may have inherited his position from his father.

Viziers in ancient Egypt were powerful officials tasked with the day-to-day running of the kingdom’s complex bureaucracy.

As a testament to his importance, User had his own tomb on the west bank of the Nile in Luxor, where royal kings and queens were also buried. A chapel dedicated to him has also been discovered further south in the hills near Aswan.

The stone itself was long way from its tomb and had apparently been removed from the grave and then incorporated into the wall of a Roman-era building, more than a thousand years later.

False doors were placed in the west walls of tombs and faced offering tables where food and drink were left for the spirit of the deceased.

ROME (AFP) – Europe’s largest undersea volcano could disintegrate and unleash a tsunami that would engulf southern Italy “at any time”, a prominent vulcanologist warned in an interview published Monday.

The Marsili volcano, which is bursting with magma, has “fragile walls” that could collapse, Enzo Boschi told the leading daily Corriere della Sera.

“It could even happen tomorrow,” said Boschi, president of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV).

“Our latest research shows that the volcano is not structurally solid, its walls are fragile, the magma chamber is of sizeable dimensions,” he said. “All that tells us that the volcano is active and could begin erupting at any time.”

The event would result in “a strong tsunami that could strike the coasts of Campania, Calabria and Sicily,” Boschi said.

The undersea Marsili, 3,000 meters (9,800 feet) tall and located some 150 kilometres (90 miles) southwest of Naples, has not erupted since the start of recorded history.

It is 70 kilometres long and 30 kilometres wide, and its crater is some 450 metres below the surface of the Tyrrhenian Sea.

“A rupture of the walls would let loose millions of cubic metres of material capable of generating a very powerful wave,” Boschi said.

“While the indications that have been collected are precise, it is impossible to make predictions. The risk is real but hard to evaluate.”

WASHINGTON – The Republican National Committee spent $1,946 last month at a sex-themed Hollywood club that features topless dancers and bondage outfits. Now the GOP wants its money back.

Listed in a monthly financial report, the amount is itemized as expenses for meals at Voyeur West Hollywood.

RNC spokesman Doug Heye said Monday the committee doesn’t know the details of how the money was spent, all who may have attended or the nature of the outing, except to say it was an unauthorized event and that the expenditure was inappropriate.

The RNC will be reimbursed by Erik Brown of Orange, Calif., the donor-vendor who billed the committee for the club visit, Heye said.

Brown did not respond to an e-mail and phone message seeking comment. The transaction was first reported by the Daily Caller.

Since November, the RNC has paid Brown’s company, Dynamic Marketing Inc., about $19,000 for printing and direct-mail services, campaign spending reports show. He has contributed several thousand dollars to the party.

The most recent financial disclosure report said the RNC spent more than $17,000 for private planes in February and nearly $13,000 for car services. Heye said such services are used only when needed.

The $1,946 for meals at Voyeur West Hollywood was the most eye-catching item in the monthly report. RNC Chairman Michael Steele, whose spending decisions have angered some donors in this midterm election year, had nothing to do with the nightclub expenditure, Heye said.

The conservative group Concerned Women for America said the RNC should disclose more about the episode.

“Did they really agree to reimburse nearly $2,000 for a bondage-themed night club?” group president Penny Nance asked in a statement. “Why would a staffer believe that this is acceptable, and has this kind of thing been approved in the past?”

Much of the most lavish spending by the major political parties is associated with fundraisers, which often target wealthy people.

The RNC spent $144,549 for rooms at the Four Seasons Resort in Jackson Hole, Wyo., in 2009. On March 19, 2009, it spent $31,980 for catering by the Breakers Palm Beach in Florida.

The RNC paid $18,361 over the past several months to the “Tiny Jewel Box” in Washington for “office supplies,” which may have included trinkets or gifts for big donors. It spent $13,622 at Dylan’s Candy Bar in New York City.

Some Republican officials and donors have complained about Steele’s spending decisions, saying the party should devote every available dollar to trying to win House and Senate races this fall. He held this year’s four-day winter meeting at a beachfront hotel in Hawaii, although it often takes place in Washington.

Some donors grumbled when Steele spent more than $18,000 to redecorate his office. Steele, a former Maryland lieutenant governor, also has received substantial fees for making speeches, even though the RNC pays him a full-time salary.

Steele’s supporters say he has brought a refreshing frankness and energy to the party’s leadership.

NEW YORK – Ricky Martin is no longer denying the rumors: He’s gay.

In a statement posted via Twitter in both Spanish and English, and later confirmed with his representative, Martin said: “I am proud to say that I am a fortunate homosexual man. I am very blessed to be who I am.”

For many, Monday’s announcement will come as no surprise; the “Livin’ La Vida Loca” singer’s sexuality has been speculated about for years. But the Puerto Rican star, who got his start as a child in the teen group Menudo, never directly addressed it and was usually seen at events with beautiful women on his arm.

Martin, 38, said he decided to reveal the truth after working on his memoirs helped him realize that he had to be free with himself, and not keep any more secrets.

“From the moment I wrote the first phrase I was sure the book was the tool that was going to help me free myself from things I was carrying within me for a long time. Things that were too heavy for me to keep inside,” he said. “Writing this account of my life, I got very close to my truth. And this is something worth celebrating.”

Martin said one of the reasons why he kept his homosexuality hidden was because he was told by some that it would hurt his career. While his U.S. career peaked after the release of his 1999 self-titled English album, a multiplatinum success that included the hits “Livin’ La Vida Loca” and “Shake Your Bon-Bon,” he is still a hugely successful Latin artist.

“Because all this advice came from people who I love dearly, I decided to move on with my life not sharing with the world my entire truth,” he said in his statement. “Allowing myself to be seduced by fear and insecurity became a self-fulfilling prophecy of sabotage. Today I take full responsibility for my decisions and my actions.”

Martin, who is the father of two boys born via surrogate in 2008, said he couldn’t continue to hide his sexuality now that he is a father: “Enough is enough. This has to change.”

Martin’s book is still a work in progress.

Five people remain in critical condition out of 71 hospitalized after the blasts, city health department official Andrei Seltsovsky told the Rossiya-24 state news channel. Only eight victims had been formally identified, he said.

Some commuters said Tuesday they would try and block the events out of their mind completely.

“We have to live with this, not to think about it, especially when we’re underground,” said Tatyana Yerofeyeva, a Muscovite in her early 50s.

As public outrage swells, the upper house of parliament is proposing bringing back the death penalty for such crimes, a lawmaker was quoted as saying.

“This is our reaction to yesterday’s tragic events,” Anatoly Kyskov, the Federation Council’s legal committee chairman, said in comments carried by state news agency RIA Novosti.

Medvedev called on chairmen from the Supreme Court and the High Court of Arbitration to propose ways to “perfect” terrorism laws.

Russia announced a moratorium on capital punishment when it joined the Council of Europe in 1996 and pledged to abolish it, but has not done so. The Kremlin-controlled parliament has been reluctant to fully outlaw executions, due to broad public support for the death penalty.

As Moscow mourned, plastic plaques hung in the two metro stations above rickety tables overflowing with flowers; their inscriptions promised permanent replacements. Some people were choked by tears as they laid candles.

Flags flew at half staff on government buildings, at the Kremlin, and in other cities across the vast country. Entertainment events and television shows were canceled, and services were scheduled at several churches.

Heightened transportation security remained in effect across the capital and elsewhere. Police with machine guns and sniffer dogs patrolled subway entrances.

Later, jittery authorities evacuated 45 residents of a central Moscow apartment building over a suspicious-looking object found under a police vehicle nearby, Russian media said.

Monday’s first explosion took place just before 8 a.m. at the Lubyanka station in central Moscow, beneath the notorious headquarters of the Federal Security Service or FSB, the KGB’s main successor agency. The FSB is a symbol of power under Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer who headed the agency before his election as president in 2000.

About 45 minutes later, a second blast hit the Park Kultury station on the same subway line, which is near the renowned Gorky Park. In both cases, the bombs were detonated as the trains pulled into the stations and the doors were opening.

Amateur video on Russian TV showed wounded and possibly dead commuters on the floor of the smoke-filled Lubyanka station. One video showed gruesome images of dead passengers sprawled inside a mangled subway car and a bloody leg lying on a station platform.

By late Monday, both stations had been scrubbed clean. Holes left by shrapnel in the granite were the only reminder of the day’s tragic bombings.

Putin, who built much of his political capital by directing a fierce war against Chechen separatists a decade ago, has promised to track down and kill the organizers of what he called a “disgusting” crime.

The ornate Moscow subway system is the world’s second-busiest after Tokyo’s, carrying around 7 million passengers on an average workday, and is a key element in running the sprawling and traffic-choked city.

The last confirmed terrorist attack in Moscow was in August 2004, when a suicide bomber blew herself up outside a subway station, killing 10 people. Chechen rebels claimed responsibility.

Dozens of contributors to three Web sites affiliated with al-Qaida wrote comments in praise of Monday’s attacks. One site opened a special page to “receive congratulations” for the Chechen rebels who “started the dark tunnel attacks in the apostate countries,” and wished for God to accept the two women as martyr

PITTSBURGH – A judge’s ruling that a 12-year-old boy will be tried as an adult on charges of fatally shooting his father’s pregnant fiancee is an unprecedented move, an advocate for defense attorneys says.

Jordan Brown is charged with criminal homicide in the death of 26-year-old Kenzie Marie Houk in their farmhouse in New Galilee, in western Pennsylvania, on Feb. 20, 2009. Houk was 8 1/2 months pregnant when she died of a shotgun blast to the back of her head as she lay in bed; the male fetus died from a resulting lack of oxygen.

Cynthia Orr, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys, said she’s never heard of someone as young as Brown charged with fetal homicide. Brown’s attorneys are expected to appeal.

“It’s simply inappropriate to put a 12-year-old child in the adult prison system, it won’t work,” said Orr, a Texas attorney. “It won’t benefit society or this child.”

In his opinion Monday refusing to move the case to juvenile court, Lawrence County Judge Dominick Motto called Houk’s death “an execution-style killing of a defenseless pregnant young mother.

“A more horrific crime is difficult to imagine,” he wrote.

Brown’s attorneys, Dennis Elisco and David Acker, have argued the boy’s case would best be dealt with in juvenile court, where he could receive treatment and incarceration specifically aimed at younger offenders.

Under state law, the attorneys had to convince the judge that he was more “amenable” to rehabilitation in the juvenile system — which would have jurisdiction only until he is 21 — than as an adult.

But the judge said the testimony of defense psychologist Kirk Heilbrun didn’t convince him that Brown was best tried as a juvenile.

Motto focused on findings by a prosecution psychiatrist, Dr. John O’Brien, who found that Brown tended to “minimize” the allegations against him. Brown denied killing Houk when examined by both doctors.

Kevin Harley, spokesman for the Pennsylvania attorney general, said prosecutors agree with the decision but stressed that prosecutors could still decide to move the case to juvenile court themselves if he admits he committed the crimes.

“Our position is he isn’t amenable (to juvenile court rehabilitation) because he didn’t admit he did it and hasn’t accepted responsibility for his actions,” Harley said.

Orr said Harley’s comments show that Pennsylvania’s system is flawed if a child must, for all practical purposes, admit guilt to have a chance to be tried as a juvenile.

“That means this whole process is inappropriate and, certainly, unconstitutional,” she said.

Debbie Houk, the victim’s mother, said she doesn’t understand why there would be debate about the decision.

“There was no reason for uncertainty in our eyes,” Houk said. “We’re pleased.”

Prosecutors have said they will seek a conviction on first-degree murder charges, for which Brown could face up to life in prison if convicted.

Prosecutors have suggested the boy was jealous of Houk and her unborn son. Police had said Brown hid the weapon under a blanket so Houk’s 7-year-old daughter wouldn’t see it as he entered her mother’s room. Later, authorities say, he threw the spent shell casing along a path on his way to a bus and went to school.

A state trooper testified that tests showed the shell was fired from Brown’s youth-model 20-gauge shotgun.

NORMAN, Okla. – Police in Oklahoma said Monday that two bodies found near a car belonging to a man accused of killing his estranged wife and kidnapping her 7-year-old daughter more than two months ago are likely those of the girl and the man.

Police said officers discovered the vehicle and bodies after receiving a call about 2:45 p.m. about an abandoned car near Oklahoma Highway 9 in southeast Norman. Police suspect the bodies are those of 7-year-old Aja Johnson and her stepfather, Lester Hobbs.

“We have no reason to believe it’s not those two people,” said Jessica Brown, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, who added that the bodies were in an advanced state of decomposition. “We wish it would have turned out differently.”

Brown said the Oklahoma Medical Examiner’s office will use fingerprints to positively identify Hobbs and dental records may have to be used to identify the girl. Brown characterized papers found inside the vehicle as a possible suicide note. She said no weapon had been found and officials hadn’t immediately determined a cause of death.

Hobbs and the child had been missing since Aja’s mother, Tonya Hobbs, was found dead Jan. 24 inside Lester Hobbs’ motor home in Geronimo, about 100 miles southwest of Oklahoma City. Police searched for Hobbs and the girl and an Amber Alert was issued, but information called into authorities didn’t lead to their whereabouts.

Meanwhile, Comanche County prosecutors charged Lester Hobbs with first-degree murder for his estranged wife’s killing and with kidnapping for Aja’s disappearance.

Brown said investigators don’t know how long the vehicle had been at the scene, but it could have been at least a month. The car was found well off the road in a clearing surrounded by trees and thicket.

Brown said Hobbs, 46, lived in Norman for several years in the past and may have been familiar with the area where the car and bodies were discovered.

Brown also said Hobbs’ relatives would be questioned about whether they helped him flee following Tonya Hobbs’ killing.

“We have no indication at this point in time that anyone did that,” she said.

Aja’s father, J.J. Johnson, couldn’t be reached for comment by The Associated Press. He told reporters earlier that the discovery was closure for him and his family and his daughter is in a better place.

“As a parent, you know, the love for your child always burns in you. For some odd reason that fire burned out,” Johnson told KWTV.

“I had a funny feeling something would happen like this. I never really wanted to accept it, but it was in the back of my mind. The thought of what he may be doing to her, I don’t have to think about that anymore.”

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran’s intelligence agents mounted a “complicated” cross-border mission and freed an Iranian diplomat kidnapped in 2008 by gunmen in northwestern Pakistan, state television reported Tuesday.

The agents rescued Heshmatollah Attarzadeh of Iran’s Peshawar consulate “in a complicated intelligence operation” and took him back to Iran the report said.

Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi said that Iran had asked Pakistan to free the diplomat, but after it failed to do the job, Tehran had handled the problem itself.

“We have a high intelligence capability in the region,” he said. “We have a good intelligence dominance over all other secret agencies active in the region,” he added, accusing U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies of supporting the kidnappers.

A senior Pakistani security official, however, maintained that Pakistani intelligence did in fact help in the rescue operation.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the issue, did not provide any further details.

Attarzadeh and his Pakistani bodyguard were driving over a narrow bridge in Peshawar on Nov. 13, 2008 when two gunmen blocked their way with a car and opened fire. The attackers fled with the diplomat after killing the guard.

Peshawar is the capital of Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province and borders the largely autonomous tribal regions, parts of which have become strongholds for Taliban and al-Qaida militants who have staged repeated attacks against the city.

In the 1980s, Peshawar was an intrigue-filled hub for U.S.-backed guerrillas fighting Soviet troops in neighboring Afghanistan, some of whom went on to form the Taliban or al-Qaida. Osama bin Laden, now perhaps hiding in the adjacent tribal regions, was among them.

Despite that legacy, the city of some 2 million people was once considered relatively safe for foreigners. But organized crime and militancy are on the rise — and increasingly hard to distinguish — and it was possible that the Iranian was kidnapped for ransom.

A year after Attarzadeh was kidnapped, a Pakistani employee of the same Iranian consulate was gunned down near his home.

Iran is mostly Shiite and is regularly denounced by the fiercely Sunni al-Qaida and Taliban operating along the Afghan-Pakistan border.

Hardline Sunnis consider Shiites to be heretics and often call for attacks against them.

The operation marks the latest success by Iran’s intelligence services to be announced on television. Last month, Iran captured Abdulmalik Rigi, leader of an armed Sunni opposition group whose insurgency in southeast Iran had destabilized the border region with Pakistan.

Rigi was captured on a flight from Dubai to Kyrgyzstan last month after he had left Pakistan. The Pakistani government claimed that Rigi’s capture would have not been possible without Islamabad’s cooperation but Iran insisted that its intelligence agents alone captured the terrorist leader.