Katrina spending Independence Day with Shahrukh

This year, Chicago will witnessed a two-day extravagant fun-fair to celebrate India’s Independence Day and big names in Bollywood like Shahrukh Khan, Katrina Kaif, Bipasha Basu, Diya Mirza, Gulshan Grover, Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor will grace the event.

Buzz up!
Shahrukh along with Bipasha Basu, Diya Mirza and Gulshan Grover, will attend the event called South Asian Carnival on 15th August. However, Katrina will grace the event on 16th August along with Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor.


Bollywood fans will have a chance to interact with their favourite stars. The carnival will have non-stop musical entertainment.

10 Things Gas Stations Won't Tell You

When fuel climbs, gas stations must shrink their profit margin to remain competitive, meaning they earn less per gallon than usual.
But another big cost during tough times is something they can’t do anything about—credit card fees,
“Those credit card fees are miserable for the gas station business,” says Mohsen Arabshahi, who owns five Southern California gas stations.
How do station owners make up for lost revenue? “Prices go up like a rocket and come down like a feather,” says Richard Gilbert, a professor of economics at UC Berkeley. For several weeks after wholesale prices drop, stations can earn as much as 20 cents a gallon before retail prices are lowered to reflect the change.

Marines assault Taliban town in Afghanistan

DAHANEH, Afghanistan – Helicopter-borne U.S. Marines backed by Harrier jets stormed a Taliban-held town in southern Afghanistan before dawn Wednesday, the launch of a new operation to uproot Taliban fighters from a longtime base and provide security for next week's presidential election.

The troops exchanged heavy fire with insurgents, killing at least seven in an offensive they hoped would also cut Taliban supply lines and isolate their fighters.

Casualties have mounted as U.S. and NATO troops ramp up military operations following President Barack Obama's decision to deploy 21,000 more American forces to Afghanistan this year to cope with the rising Taliban insurgency. 

Last month, U.S. and NATO deaths from roadside and suicide bomb blasts in Afghanistan soared six-fold compared with the same month last year, as militants detonated the highest number of bombs of the eight-year war, according to figures released Tuesday.

Martin confirmed suspicions among the Marines that the fierce resistance indicated that the Taliban had been tipped off about the operation beforehand. "I'm pretty sure they knew of it in advance," he said. 

Once the second largest-town in Helmand, Naw Zad has been almost emptied of its 30,000 inhabitants after three years of near-constant fighting. Taliban lines begin barely a mile (a kilometer) from the Marines' forward operating base, set amid minefields with hundreds of homemade explosives. By occupying Dahaneh, the Marines say they can outflank the insurgents in Naw Zad valley and isolate them in woods and mountains

Longest living heart transplant patient dies of cancer

 

Washington - A US man who held the world record for living the longest after a single heart transplant has died of cancer at the age of 51, according to a report on Tuesday.

Tony Huesman of Washington Township, Ohio, died Sunday from melanoma, a form of skin cancer, his wife, Carol, told the Dayton Daily News.

Huesman was approaching the 31st anniversary of living with a transplanted heart and had already had the longest life of any such patient in medical history.

"Tony was disappointed that he had lived so long with the transplanted heart only to find out that it was cancer which seemed to be taking his life," Carol Huesman said, according to the newspaper.

Huesman received his heart transplant on August 30, 1978, at Stanford University Medical Center in California. The organ came from an anonymous donor. Huesman had previously said he'd been told that the donor was motorcyclist who died in an accident.

He went on to found Huesman Heart Foundation in Dayton, Ohio to educate the public about maintaining a healthy heart.(dpa)

NASA CELEBRATES SUN-EARTH DAY WITH SOLAR X-RAY FIREWORKS

Just in time for Sun-Earth Day, a new NASA spacecraft, complete with a new name, made its debut by observing a huge explosion in the atmosphere of the Sun. The blast, called a solar flare, was equal to one million megatons of TNT and gave off powerful bursts of X-rays.

The solar fireworks were captured by what is now known as the Reuven Ramaty High-Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager spacecraft, or RHESSI. The spacecraft launched last month as HESSI was recently renamed in honor of Dr. Reuven Ramaty, who died in 2001 after a long and distinguished career in the Laboratory for High Energy Astrophysics at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Ramaty was a pioneer in the field of solar-flare physics, gamma-ray astronomy and cosmic rays.  



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"We are thrilled to be making the first high-resolution movies of flares using their high-energy radiation," said Brian Dennis, the RHESSI mission scientist at Goddard. "We want to understand how solar flares can explosively release so much energy. RHESSI shows us the high-energy radiation emitted by flares: their X-rays and gamma rays. This radiation reveals the core of the flare -- the exact time and place where the energy is released."

The RHESSI scientific payload is a collaborative effort among the University of California, Berkeley; Goddard; the Paul Scherrer Institut in Switzerland; and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley. The mission also involves additional scientific participation from France, Japan, The Netherlands, Scotland and Switzerland.

The Explorers Program Office at Goddard manages the RHESSI mission for NASA's Office of Space Science in Washington. Spectrum Astro, Inc. of Gilbert, Ariz., constructed the RHESSI spacecraft and provided integration support.

It was a moderately powerful flare, classified as M2.4 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The most powerful flares, designated X-class by NOAA, can release up to 100 times more energy.

During its planned two-year mission, RHESSI will study the secrets of how solar flares are produced in the Sun's atmosphere. Launched Feb. 5, RHESSI is now fully operational after only six weeks in orbit. It is observing the Sun and recording the high-energy radiation from solar flares as they occur.

RHESSI is the first NASA Small Explorer mission being managed in the "Principal Investigator" mode. The Principal Investigator, Robert Lin of the University of California, Berkeley, is responsible for many aspects of the mission, including the science instrument, spacecraft integration and environmental testing, and spacecraft operations and data analysis.

Canada bleeds more jobs in July, recovery in doubt

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canadian job losses in July were more than double what had been expected as employers cut workers even though the economy is commonly thought to be on the mend after its worst recession since the early 1990s.

Statistics Canada said on Friday the economy suffered net job losses of 44,500 in the month, compared with the market's consensus forecast of a 17,500 decline. The construction industry bled the most workers, followed by food and accommodation services, while factory workers were largely spared.

The unemployment rate remained unchanged from June at an 11-year high of 8.6 percent as fewer people stayed in the labor market looking for work.

The Canadian dollar fell to a one-week low against its U.S. counterpart after the report, hitting C$1.0851 to the U.S. dollar, or 92.16 U.S. cents. It later recovered slightly to trade at C$1.0810, or 92.51 U.S. cents.

Still, economists pointed out some good signs -- the overall pace of job losses appears to be slowing from earlier this year and the manufacturing sector carnage is slowing. Also, a lack of summer jobs for students explained part of July's big drop and that trend will be reversed in September.

U.S. employment fared better than expected in July. U.S. employers cut a fewer than expected 247,000 jobs, providing the clearest evidence yet that the economy is turning around.

In Canada, full-time employment in July declined by 29,000 and part-time employment fell 15,000. The private sector dropped 75,000 workers from payrolls while the public sector losses were marginal, and the number of self-employed rose by 35,000.

Hourly wages for permanent employees rose 3.2 percent in July, compared with a year earlier, down slightly from 3.4 percent in June.

The central bank has promised to keep its benchmark interest rate at a record low of 0.25 percent through June 2010, conditional on inflation staying under control.

But if the outlook worsens considerably, the bank could either keep rates on hold for longer or consider creating money to buy bonds in the market, a step known as quantitative easing.

"(The jobs report) is likely to keep the Bank of Canada cautious, maintaining current, very stimulative conditions," said Paul Ferley, assistant chief economist at Royal Bank of Canada.

In good sign, job losses slow as unemployment dips

WASHINGTON – Employers sharply scaled back layoffs in July, and the unemployment rate dipped for the first time in 15 months, sending a strong signal that the worst recession since World War II is finally ending.

A net total of 247,000 jobs were lost last month, the fewest in a year. That compares with 443,000 jobs that disappeared in June. And the unemployment rate for July declined to 9.4 percent from 9.5 percent in June.

The snapshot the Labor Department released Friday offered other encouraging news, too: Workers' hours nudged up after sinking to a record low in June, and paychecks grew after having stagnated or fallen.

The White House's Gibbs said President Barack Obama still think unemployment will hit 10 percent this year. The Federal Reserve has predicted the jobless rate is likely to top 10 percent in 2009.

Some Fed officials think the rate could rise as high as 10.6 percent in 2010. The post-World War II high was 10.8 percent at the end of 1982, when the country suffered through a severe recession.

An elevated unemployment rate could become a political liability for Obama when congressional elections are held next year. The last time the unemployment rate topped 10 percent, the party of the president — then Ronald Reagan's GOP — lost 26 House seats in the midterm elections in 1982.

Obama has urged Americans to be patient and give time for his $787 billion stimulus package of tax cuts and increased government spending to take hold. Most of the money will flow in 2010.

With companies feeling a bit better about the economy's prospects and their own, they boosted workers' hours in July. The average work week rose to 33.1 hours, after having fallen to 33 hours in June, the lowest on records dating to 1964.

And employers bumped up wages. Average hourly earnings rose to $18.56 in July, up from $18.53 in June. Hourly earnings were stagnant in June. Average weekly earnings, which fell in June, rose to $614.34. Those gains raised hopes that consumers — whose spending accounts for the single-largest slice of economic activity — will feel more confident and more inclined to spend in the months ahead, thus helping the recovery.

Other recent barometers have shown some improvements in manufacturing, housing and construction activity.

The government reported last week that the economy shrank at a pace of just 1 percent from April-to-June, another sign the recession is winding down. Many analysts predict the economy could start growing again in the current July-to-September quarter.