CONTRIBUTORS

THOMAS SANCTON, our Paris bureau chief, has been piecing together the whereabouts of Henri Paul, the Ritz Hotel deputy security chief, in the hours before Paul took the wheel of the car in which he, Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed were killed. Sancton and his staff interviewed dozens of people, from Paul's tennis partner to bartenders to reluctant employees at the Ritz. This week, teaming up with the CNN/TIME Impact show, which airs Sunday at 9 p.m. E.T., Sancton spoke with an eyewitness who comforted injured bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones and made the first emergency call to police. Says Sancton: "I've covered a lot of different stories out of Paris. But this is by far the biggest challenge because of the veil of secrecy surrounding the investigation."

JOSHUA COOPER RAMO, who edits TIME DIGITAL, our bimonthly supplement on computer technology, wrote this week's cover story on America Online's merger with CompuServe. "People bash online services as a zero-billion- dollar business," says Ramo. "This proves that one of them can be a success and step out of the pack." Ramo, a senior editor, is stepping lively himself. Since he began editing Time Digital, it has grown from 42 to 80 pages. It now reaches 2.5 million readers and is available on newsstands. Last week it literally burst out of our regular magazine with a freestanding issue on the elite of the cyberworld. TIME subscribers can obtain a free TIME DIGITAL supplement by calling 800-843-TIME.

JOEL STEIN faithfully tuned in to Touched by an Angel to get a feel for the genre of religious-themed TV shows appearing this fall. His verdict? "It's a pretty well-paced, watchable show," he says. "Besides, that Irish angel is kind of hot." Stein recently joined our staff after two years as sports editor at Time Out New York, where he profiled WNBA star Sheryl Swoopes, thigh-mistress Suzanne Somers and that other icon of athleticism, Howard Stern. Stein seems perplexed by his welcome to TIME: "Everyone here is so nice; they say hi in the cafeteria." Stein has also contributed articles on weird Websites and video-game champions for TIME DIGITAL. He found a new commitment after writing this week's story: he plans to keep watching Touched by an Angel.

ROMESH RATNESAR, who wrote this week's story on President Clinton's drive for national testing, joined our staff last month after a year at the New Republic, which he joined after graduating from Stanford University. Ratnesar isn't a complete stranger to TIME--he worked as an intern in our Business section in 1994. Since returning to TIME, Ratnesar has taken on some sticky issues, including the debate over "whole math." Says senior editor Howard Chua-Eoan: "Romesh has the amazing ability to breathe life into the most densely technical of stories." He's also been assigned to explain one of the pending complexities of the information age: digital TV. In that case, youth helps--he's not too old to understand it.