Stockholm  - Up close, a Boeing 747-200 is an impressive sight.

Visitors to Stockholm's Arlanda airport can now get a real, close-up view of a mighty bird - in the form of a decommissioned jumbo jet which has been converted into a hostel.

General Manager Oscar Dios hopes that aviation enthusiasts, budget travellers, charter tourists and day visitors will book a stay at the Jumbo Hostel that opened in mid-January.

Stockholm  - Piles of bullets and spent cartridges, a rusty spade, old pistols and sub-machine pistols, pieces of clothing and numerous maps and photographs.

These artefacts are part of an exhibition called "Holocaust By Bullets," that offers new insights into the genocide of Jews in Ukraine during during the Nazi-German occupation 1941-1944.

Riga - The prime ministers of Baltic neighbours Latvia and Lithuania said Monday they would send a joint letter to the European Commission calling on the EU to prioritise the construction of an energy link between the Baltic states and Sweden.

Italy - Sweden's Jessica Lindell-Vikarby claimed her first World Cup victory Monday as the favourites slipped up in a women's super-g on Monday.

The 24-year-old posted 1 minute 25.13 seconds on Cortina's Tofane piste for a comfortable 0.81-second lead over 19-year-old Austrian Anna Fenninger.

Third was Switzerland's Andrea Dettling, 0.87 seconds behind, who with Fenninger enjoyed a first podium finish.

Lindell-Vikarby's best previous finish was a third place in a super-g at Lake Louise, Canada on December 2, 2007.

Stockholm - Drinking moderate amounts of coffee may protect people from dementia in later life, according to a study by Finnish and Swedish researchers.

Coffee drinkers ran a lower risk of dementia in middle age and Alzheimer's disease later in life compared to those who drank little or no coffee.

The researchers at the University of Kuopio, Finland, and Karolinska Institutet of Stockholm, Sweden, studied 1,409 individuals aged 65 to 79 who were members of a group surveyed in 1972, 1977, 1982 or 1987 and who completed a re-examination in 1998.

Stockholm  - Sweden inched closer to adopting same-sex marriage Wednesday with proposed legislation presented to parliament by three of the four parties in the ruling centre-right coalition.

"People in a steady relationship have the need, regardless of sexual orientation, to manifest their feelings and wish to live together," the proposal said.

Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt's conservative Moderate Party, the Liberal Party and the Centre Party were likely to get support from the opposition.