The following comes from the Official Star Wars site:

The legendary Galactic Senate on the capital world of Coruscant gathers representatives from planets throughout the Republic. Senator Palpatine takes a leading place in this elite community, and his voice carries special influence in discussions that will shape the future of the galaxy.

The following comes from the Emperor Palpatine ("Classic") Figure File Card (courtesy of Sir Steve's:

Appearances can be deceiving - a saying never more true than in the case of Emperor Palpatine. In his early days as a Senator of the Galactic Republic, Palpatine seemed like an ordinary politician. However, as the Republic fell apart, the Senator's hidden thirst for power grew and his true evil spirit became apparent. He declared himself Emperor of the galaxy, and used the dark side of the force as a means to enforce his tyranny. He nearly succeeded in wiping out the Jedi Knights, who stood as the most potent threat to his reign of terror. As destiny would have it, Luke Skywalker, the son of Palpatine's loyal apprentice Darth Vader, would ultimately bring about the evil Emperor's downfall.

and from the Senator Palpatine action figure:

"A political and tactical mastermind, Senator Palpatine represents the people of Naboo in the Galactic Senate and engineers his own election as Supreme Chancellor of the Republic."

We will see Palpatine rise from his senatorial postion to Chancellor of the Galactic Senate to Emperor on his New Order platform. Someone who contacted Hary Knowles claiming to be George Lucas (only Harry would know for sure if it was true) said that Palpatine's rise to power will be the focus of the second prequel, barely out-screen-timing the Clone Wars plot.

Adam Leach sent us some scans from the British Star Wars magazine. Adam also summarized some of the more interesting parts of the magazine.

"There was also an interview with Ian McDiarmid in the same magazine that the pictures I sent came from. He talked a little about his role in the prequels. He described filming and the fact that a lot of it was done against blue backgrounds (as we've come to expect!), and that other scenes were done externally and the sets were "as you would imagine a great DW Griffith movie should look - steps and columns and so on". Even so, a blue screen was used on this outside scene too. Also, he specifieed that he had some scenes with Natalie Portman, and she would be "Transformed by makeup" whenever they were filming (sounds interesting!). Ian McDiarmid also says that he is getting the chance to play Palpatine younger than his own years (McDiarmid is in his early 50s), so it gives us an idea of the age of the younger Senator Palpatine.

Interestingly, Steve Sansweet's Star Wars Encyclopedia revealed that Emperor Palpatine was a Dark Lord of the Sith as well as Darth Vader.

Lucasfilm registered the doman names palpatine.com and palpatine.net.

11/19/98: ORB

The Secret Identity Rumor: We have heard that the future Emperor's identity will remain a secret until Episode II. Talk is that it will be some sort of cliffhanger. In that case, we can expect to see a number of "suspects" during Episode I would could turn out to be Palpatine.

More of the rumor suggests Palpatine will not be called by that name until he turns to the Dark Side of the Force and he will be a young, attractive man before the effects of the Dark Side destroy his looks along with his soul. Palpatine will supposidely be someone who we liked in Episode I.

The Two Palpatines Rumor: Yet another Emperor rumor floating around the net says that Ian McDiarmid will be playing a character called Palpatine, but that character will not turn out to be the Emperor... there will be another character, who we like, who is a relative of that character's who will actually turn out to be the Emperor.