PARIS (AFP) - Astronomers on Wednesday announced they had detected methane in the atmosphere of a planet 63 light years away, boosting prospects for identifying any life that exists beyond our Solar System.The team also confirmed previous suspicions that the planet, known by the tag of HD 189733b, has water in its atmosphere.
Reporting their work in the weekly British journal Nature, astronomers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) used the orbiting US-European Hubble telescope to get an infrared spectroscopic signature of the planet’s atmosphere.Spectroscopy entails breaking light into its components to reveal the “fingerprints” of chemicals it contains.They found an unmistakeable signature for methane, a molecule of carbon and hydrogen that can in some conditions play a key role in creating the conditions for life.

In this case, life on HD 189733b is almost certainly out of the question.

The planet, located in the constellation of Vulpecula, or the Little Fox, is one of a type of large planets called “hot Jupiters,” whose surface is scorched and where liquid water could not exist. (more…)

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NEW YORK - The call girl at the center of the prostitution scandal that prompted Gov. Eliot Spitzer to resign in disgrace has been identified as a 22-year-old aspiring musician who struggled in a broken home as a child.

The New York Times reported that the real name of the woman — identified as “Kristen” in court papers alleging that Spitzer paid thousands of dollars for her services — is Ashley Alexandra Dupre.

Don D. Buchwald, a New York lawyer, confirmed to The Associated Press that he represents Dupre, but he wouldn’t comment further.

Dupre told the newspaper she had slept very little since the allegations against Spitzer were revealed, and she declined to comment when asked by the Times when she first met him and how many times they had been together.

She told the Times she was worried about paying her rent in a ninth-floor Manhattan apartment since her boyfriend recently left her. She said she was considering moving back in with her family in New Jersey.

A man who answered the phone at her mother’s home in New Jersey and identified himself as Dupre’s brother told The Associated Press he had no idea why Dupre would agree to be interviewed in the scandal.

“She’s just trying to get through this,” he said. “We are all trying to be supportive of her.”

Dupre’s MySpace page provides a window into her life as she went from a broken home in New Jersey to a music career in the city.

“I have been alone,” she wrote. “I have abused drugs. I have been broke and homeless. But, I survived, on my own. I am here, in NY because of my music.”

In an Aug. 30 blog posting on MySpace, she wrote: “The past few months have been a roller coaster with so called friends, lovers, and family … but its something you have to deal with and confront in order to move on …”

“What destroys me strengthens me” is the slogan next to a photograph of her. The photos show her at various places, including in a bikini on a boat in a tropical locale. The number of hits to the page soared by the tens of thousands after the story broke, and many recent postings to her page ridiculed her.

Dupre describes her favorite musical artists as Etta James, Aretha Franklin, Celine Dion, Christina Aguilera and Frank Sinatra, among many others.

Her Web site boasts a recording of a song, “What We Want.”
“I know what you want, you got what I want,” she sings. “I know what you need. Can you handle me?”

Records show she lives in Manhattan a luxury rental skyscraper called The Chelsea Landmark, where a gaggle of reporters and TV trucks quickly gathered Wednesday night. Rents there start at $3500 a month for a small studio, neighbors said. The 35-story building opened less than a year ago.

The apartments feature imported Italian tiles, 9-foot ceilings and floor-to-ceiling corner windows. The building has a gym with a whirlpool and yoga and Pilates studios.

Dupre apparently appeared in federal court Monday as a witness in the case against four people accused of operating the Emperors Club VIP prostitution ring.

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ALBANY, N.Y. - With pressure mounting on Gov. Eliot Spitzer to resign over a call-girl scandal, investigators said Tuesday he was clearly a repeat customer who spent tens of thousands of dollars — perhaps as much as $80,000 — with the high-priced prostitution service over an extended period of time.

Spitzer and his family, meanwhile, remained secluded in their Fifth Avenue apartment, while Republicans began talking impeachment, and few if any fellow Democrats came forward to defend him. A death watch of sorts began at the state Capitol, where whispers of “What have you heard?” echoed through nearly every hallway of the ornate, 109-year-old building.

On Monday, when the scandal broke, prosecutors said in court papers that Spitzer had been caught on a wiretap spending $4,300 with the Emperors Club VIP call-girl service, with some of the money going toward a night with a prostitute named Kristen, and the rest to be used as credit toward future trysts. The papers also suggested that Spitzer had done this before.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a law enforcement official said Tuesday that Spitzer, in fact, had spent tens of thousands of dollars with the Emperors Club. Another official said the amount could be as high as $80,000. But it was not clear over what period of time that was spent.

Still another law enforcement official said investigators found that during the tryst with Kristen on the night before Valentine’s Day, Spitzer used two rooms at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington — one for himself, the other for the prostitute. Sometime around 10 p.m., Spitzer sneaked away from his security detail and made his way to the room where she was waiting, the official said. The three officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.

In the court papers, an Emperors Club employee was quoted as telling Kristen that Client 9 — Spitzer, according to investigators — “would ask you to do things that … you might not think were safe,” and Kristen responded by saying: “I have a way of dealing with that. … I’d be, like, listen, dude, you really want the sex?”

A law enforcement official said Tuesday the discussion had to do with Spitzer’s preference not to wear a condom and the call-girl’s insistence that he use one.

Spitzer’s vast personal wealth would have made it easy for him to spend thousands of dollars on prostitutes. The scion of a wealthy Manhattan real estate developer, Spitzer reported $1.9 million in income to the IRS in 2006.

Meanwhile, Albany insiders on Tuesday said the governor was still trying to decide how to proceed. Options included quitting immediately, or waiting to use resignation as a bargaining chip with federal prosecutors to avoid indictment.

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OSLO (Reuters) - The wreck of a British warship sunk by the Germans during World War Two, killing more than 100 men, has been discovered on the bottom of a deep fjord in the north of Norway, the Norwegian Navy said.

HMS Hunter went down on April 10, 1940, in the Ofot fjord outside of the Arctic port of Narvik during the first of two battles between the British and the Nazis, during which several other ships were sunk and never seen again in the deep inlet.

“We searched the area where HMS Hunter most likely was located and spent around 14 hours before we found the vessel,” said lieutenant Tom Thorgrimsen at KNM Tyr, the ship that made the discovery last week.

A memorial ceremony was held on Saturday for the victims, with over a thousand British and Norwegian soldiers taking part.

KNM Tyr is designed for deep water operations, and was testing new equipment which can reach depths of 1,000 meters below the surface.

HMS Hunter, an H-class destroyer, sank after taking hits from German forces, leading it to collide with another British vessel, HMS Hotspur.

“This is a big fjord, and it has not been a priority to find the vessel earlier,” Norwegian Navy spokesman John Inge Oglaend told Reuters, adding that there are thousands of shipwrecks along the Norwegian coast, making work difficult.

Supply of iron ore, which was transported to the ice-free port of Narvik from Kiruna in Sweden was the direct cause of the battles. Both sides wanted to secure its iron supply, used to produce steel, while denying it to the enemy.

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Fighting games are a great spectator sport. Awesome stuff happens on screen, but only if you master razor’s edge timing or memorize long combos, such as “punch, down, double-punch, kick back, punch, punch, grab” or the old favorite “up, down, punch, punch, kick, kick, left, punch.” It helps if you’ve been keeping up with Nintendo’s Brain Age games.

Alternatively, you could just pick up Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the latest and greatest in Nintendo’s series of user-friendly, pick-up-and-play fighting games, featuring a huge cast of familiar faces from Nintendo’s famous franchises (as well as a few unlikely guests) slapping each other silly.

The point of the Super Smash Brothers series is to provide wildly fun fighting action without all the demanding timing tricks or memorization, so the controls are a snap. Each character has a punch button and a special moves button, which when combined with very simple directional movements result in a surprising array of clever attacks. The levels are wildly inventive, the fancy power-ups ensure lots of crazy action, and the variety of characters is staggering. Up to four people can play at once and the game has full support for old Gamecube controllers, so you might not have to shell out the money for extra Wiimotes.

For the most part, Brawl doesn’t tamper with the Super Smash Bros. formula. The graphics aren’t noticeably better than they were on the Gamecube in Super Smash Bros. Melee, but there are enough new levels and characters to keep this from feeling like a rehash. New to Brawl are a bunch of over-the-top finishing moves made accessible by catching an elusive floating power-up. Whereas Mortal Kombat had you ripping out your victims’ hearts, these are all in good fun. Kirby cooks up his opponents in a stew, Star Fox mans a huge tank, Metroid’s Samus dons her famous suit, and Pikachu goes high-voltage haywire.

In addition to the flexible arena fights, Brawl has tons of challenges and enough unlockables to keep completionists happy for weeks on end. The new story mode is perfect for some easygoing solo or co-operative gameplay. It’s a cross between a fighting game and a traditional side-scrolling platformer in the style of Mario Brothers. Unlimited continues ensure you’ll never be confronted with a ‘Game Over’ screen, and elaborate cutscenes keep the plot moving, introducing different characters and new settings. This is actually a great non-competitive way for players of different skill levels to enjoy Brawl and should be an ideal way for parents and children to play together.

Also new is online multiplayer. Nintendo has demonstrated how smoothly this can work on their handheld DS, but now the Wii gets the full-on treatment. It’s simple to go online and jump into lag-free games, although you still need to use Nintendo’s wonky ‘friend code’ matching feature to find people to play. There isn’t much in the way of goals, ranking, or community features, but the ability to play against online opponents gives Super Smash Brothers Brawl nearly unlimited replayability.

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LOS ANGELES — Manny Pacquiao is ready for anything, everything Juan Manuel Marquez will have to offer on March 15 in Las Vegas.
“It’s up to him what type of a fight he wants – whether toe-to-toe or hit-and-run. Whatever he wants, I’ll give it to him,” said Pacquiao.
In his cozy La Palazzo apartment Friday, after an early dinner of fish, steamed rice and corn soup, Pacquiao gazed at the coming fight.
He liked what he saw.
“Because I have the key to anything he plans to do,” said Pacquiao, craning his neck toward a group of friends playing darts in his living room.
“Whatever happens there I’m ready, I’m prepared,” said Pacquiao.
He was asked to elaborate.
Pacquiao, arguably the hardest puncher in the sport today, said his fight crew, which includes Freddie Roach, Eric Brown, Buboy Fernandez and Nonoy Neri, has long drawn the master plan.
“We believe that power and strategy will determine the outcome,” said Pacquiao, who floored Marquez three times in the opening round of their 2004 match, only to be dragged into a controversial draw.
“It’s the question of ‘can I handle his power or can he handle mine?’ If we both can, then it’s going to be a good fight. Strategy comes in,” said Pacquiao.
“And in terms of speed, even if he can match mine, I have full faith in my power.”
He said he’ll always be alert and ready if Marquez, the great counter-puncher from Mexico City, comes to him instead, and triggers a good, early exchange in the hope of landing a big one.
“Marquez may have the tendency to come in. It could be part of their plan. But I’m ready for that. I know what to do,” he said.
Pacquiao said he prefers an early exchange.
“But if I catch him with one solid punch, I’m sure he’d run away. Then he’d just try to counter and counter the whole evening,” Pacquiao said.
He said the other day if Marquez runs away, then the fight becomes boring.
Nobody wants that to happen.

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What is Amazon Kindle?

Amazon Kindle is a revolutionary portable reader that wirelessly downloads books, newspapers, magazines and blogs to a crisp, high-resolution electronic paper display that looks and reads like real paper, even in bright sunlight.

Kindle customers, no matter where they are in the U.S., can wirelessly shop the Kindle Store and download new content — all without a PC or a WiFi hot spot. Amazon pays for Kindle’s wireless connectivity so there are no monthly wireless bills and no service commitments for customers. The Kindle Store contains over 90,000 books that can be purchased and delivered wirelessly to Kindle, each in less than a minute. Customers can choose from hundreds of top newspapers, magazines and blogs and have their subscriptions auto-delivered wirelessly. All New York Times Best Sellers and New Releases are $9.99, unless marked otherwise.

At 10.3 ounces, Kindle is lighter and thinner than a paperback book, carries two hundred books, and includes built-in access to The New Oxford American Dictionary and wireless access to the Earth’s biggest encyclopedia, Wikipedia.org.

Due to heavy customer demand, Kindle is temporarily sold out. They are working hard to manufacture Kindles as quickly as possible and are prioritizing orders on a first come, first served basis. Please ORDER KINDLE NOW to reserve your place in line. They will keep you informed by email as we get more precise delivery dates. Note that Kindles cannot currently be sold or shipped to customers living outside of the U.S.

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Shown here for the first time, these seventy-five patches reveal a secret world of military imagery and jargon, where classified projects are known by peculiar names (”Goat Suckers,” “None of Your Fucking Business,” “Tastes Like Chicken”) and illustrated with occult symbols and ridiculous cartoons. Although the actual projects represented here (such as the notorious Area 51) are classified, these patches-which are worn by military units working on classified missions-are precisely photographed, strangely hinting at a world about which little is known.

By submitting hundreds of Freedom of Information requests, the author has also assembled an extensive and readable guide to the patches included here, making this volume the best available survey of the military’s black world-a $27 billion industry that has quietly grown by almost 50 percent since 9/11.

Trevor Paglen is a geographer by training, and an expert on clandestine military installations. He leads expeditions to the secret bases of the American West and is the author, with A.C. Thompson, of Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA’s Rendition Flights, which TheNew York Times praised as “the real thing . . . and not on the evening news.”

Get to know all 75 revealed Badges of Secrecy here 

See Sample Badges below

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London, March 3: Princess Diana was on the contraceptive pill and enjoyed a normal sexual relationship with Hasnat Khan, the Pakistani heart surgeon confirmed today in an astonishingly candid 4,171-word statement read out today in the high court in London.

Hasnat said he and Diana had spoken of marriage but without going into specifics and revealed she was the one who ended their relationship after she had gone on holiday with Dodi Fayed, son of Mohammed Al Fayed, the wealthy owner of Harrods.

Hasnat refused to give evidence to the inquest currently examining how Diana died either in person or by videolink.

But a statement he had given police under his full name of Hasnat Ahmad Khan set out how he had met the princess in August or September, 1995, when she was visiting a patient at the Royal Brompton Hospital where he was a surgeon, and how their friendship quickly became intimate.

“I did notice that she was also very flirtatious with everyone,” commented Hasnat. He invited her to come with him to his uncle’s house in Stratford-upon-Avon. “I was very surprised when she said she would. We drove there together and Diana met my aunt and uncle. We had dinner in a restaurant and then drove back to London. After this, our friendship turned into a relationship.”

He said: “Diana was very protective towards me and wanted to shield me from the attention.” By November, he began to be pursued by the media which had rumbled the relationship.

Such detail has been provided that filmmakers will now be tempted now to make the Diana-Hasnat affair into a movie. (more…)

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WASHINGTON - Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting John McCain has a lunch date Wednesday with President Bush at the White House — and the promise of a Bush endorsement.

There’ll be a formal welcome at the North Portico, followed by lunch in Bush’s private dining room and an endorsement in the Rose Garden.

In recent weeks, Bush has gone out of his way to defend the senator’s conservative credentials, saying criticism of the Arizona senator has been grossly unfair. The two were bitter rivals in 2000.

“The president has said he looks forward to vigorously campaigning for the GOP and tonight it has become clear that the GOP nominee will be Sen. John McCain,” White House press secretary Dana Perino said Tuesday night. “Of course the president is going to endorse the GOP nominee, which is going to be Senator John McCain.”

Bush made morning phone calls to McCain’s former rivals Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson to congratulate them on their primary campaigns. He intends to call Rudy Giuliani later.

“He said he appreciated their ability to keep their sense of humor and that he looks forward to working them in the ‘08 election,” Perino said.

Asked about McCain’s past disagreements with Bush, she said: “The point of these elections is for the candidate to run as their own person. Elections are about change and going forward, and one of the most attractive things about Senator McCain to the Republican Party is that he has been his own person. He has blazed his own trail and he will have to make the case as to why voters should vote for him.”

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