Rihanna has set a new record as the first female solo artist in UK chart history to achieve number one singles in five consecutive years.
The Official Charts Company announced her record after What's My Name? rose from number two to the top spot.
The last solo artist to achieve the feat was Elvis Presley, who had number ones in each year from 1957 to 1963.
Rihanna's album Loud also holds on to its number one slot, giving her the second UK chart double of her career.
In 2007, her album Good Girl Gone Bad and single Umbrella topped both charts simultaneously.
Loud has now sold nearly 900,000 copies since its release in November last year.
As well as her number one, Rihanna, who is 22 and from Barbados, also appears on two other songs in the top 10 - Only Girl (In The World) and Who's That Chick.
Only Girl (In The World) was a number one last year and followed other number ones for Run This Town (2009), Take A Bow (2008) and Umbrella (2007).
Other albums which have re-entered the top 10 are Plan B's The Defamation of Strickland Banks, Rumer's Seasons Of My Soul and Cee Lo Green's The Lady Killer which climbs to its highest chart position yet at number four.
In the singles chart, the BBC's Sound Of 2011 winner, Jessie J, climbs to number five from last week's 18 with Do It Like A Dude.
domingo, 9 de enero de 2011
Rihanna makes history in UK chart
Scots-Chinese deal as Vice Premier Li Keqiang visits UK
Scotland and China have sealed a major green energy deal, as Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang began a four-day visit to the UK.
LThe agreement, worth $10m (£6.4m), will see technology pioneered in Scotland used at a new renewable energy conversion plant in China.
Confirmation of the deal came as Mr Li and his delegation arrived in Edinburgh for the first day of his visit.
The vice premier is also meeting Prime Minister David Cameron in London.
The visit has a focus on promoting trade and political links with the UK and other European nations.
Mr Li - widely tipped to become the next Chinese premier - will also meet key UK government figures in London, including Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, Chancellor George Osborne and Foreign Secretary William Hague.
Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond said the licensing deal was reached between Sino-Scots firm Shanghai Huanuan Boiler and Vessel Co/Cochran and Scotland-based engineers W2E Engineering, which specialises in generating electricity from domestic refuse.
Mr Salmond, who has led several trade missions to China over the past two years, said the visit was vital for building economic growth, especially in renewable energy.
China already has the largest deployment of on-shore renewable technology, and Scotland is a world-leader in pioneering the technology and application of clean, green energy," he said.
"This announcement is another positive step forward in strengthening Sino-Scottish links and confirming Scotland's reputation as a global leader in the development of renewable energy."
Shanghai Huanuan chairman Dong Ping added: "This agreement will see the creation of new green power stations built in Scotland and in China and this will generate sustainable renewable energy at a reduced cost for our global customers."
On the first day of the trip, Mr Li held talks with Scottish Secretary Michael Moore and also visited the renewable energy firm Pelamis Wave Power.
Mr Moore described the meeting as "very constructive", adding: "China and the UK are key partners in growth for the future.
"There are a huge number of economic opportunities which exist between China and Scotland and I am keen to see us take advantage of our excellent trading links and create new routes to market in the near future."
Mr Li is also due to deliver a speech at a China-Britain British Council banquet, ahead of his return to Beijing on Wednesday. The vice premier's stay in the UK comes after a three-day visit to Spain, where he signed $7.5bn (£4.8bn, 5.7bn euros) in trade deals.
Mr Li also reaffirmed his country would buy Spanish government bonds, despite the recent crisis of market confidence over eurozone debt. China has already made several Scottish trade agreements, including a deal requiring all "Scotch Whisky" sold in China to have been made in Scotland.
Anne MacColl, of the economic agency Scottish Development International, said Scotland was in a strong position to contribute to many of China's key aims, which also included life sciences, financial services and academic connections.
Analysis
One of the most important in a new and upcoming generation of Chinese officials, Li Keqiang is widely tipped to take over as China's next premier.
This is his first proper outing on the European stage. On this tour he's already met Chancellor Merkel in Germany, signed deals with German carmakers and offered to buy over $7bn worth of Spanish debt.
These earlier stopovers are designed to signal that the EU as a whole is still seen as key to China's future growth, and reassure European nations that they are important partners.
In Britain over the next four days, the focus will be on the economy. Today's tour of the innovative wave and tidal energy project in Leith is to signal that the UK and Scotland are at the forefront of hi-tech renewable technology that China is keen to acquire.
The message is that both sides, not only indebted Britain, can benefit from a deeper relationship.
Shot US congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords 'doing well
They said it "was still very early" but they were "cautiously optimistic".
Ms Giffords, 40, was injured and six other people killed at a public meeting at a Tucson supermarket on Saturday.
The FBI has confirmed Jared Loughner, 22, is in custody and it expects formal charges to be laid on Sunday.Trying period'
Surgeons at the Arizona University Medical Center said Ms Giffords was still in a critical condition but they were encouraged as the bullet that hit her had entered only one and not both hemispheres of the brain.
It had travelled the length of the left side.
The doctors said their surgery had initially controlled the bleeding, then taken the pressure off the brain.
Transfusions had worked well, they said, and after the surgery Ms Giffords could respond to simple commands.
Dr Peter Rhee, medical director of the hospital's trauma and critical care unit, said: "This is about as good as good can get."
Dr Michael Lemole, chief of neurosurgery, added: "We're very encouraged. We are still in critical condition. Brain swelling at any time can take a turn for the worse. But I am cautiously optimistic."
In their press conference, the surgeons said they had treated 11 other patients in the wake of the shooting, one of which - nine-year-old Christina-Taylor Green - they were unable to resuscitate.
Five patients remain in serious condition and one has been discharged. Six surgeries were performed.
Dr Rhee said: "I never thought I would experience something like this in my own back yard. It's a very trying period for all of us."
In a separate press conference, FBI director Robert Mueller called the shootings "an attack on our institutions and our way of life".
He said it appeared that Jared Loughner had attended a public event held by Ms Giffords in 2007.
Mr Mueller said "all logical precautions are in place to best ensure the safety of other public officials", although he added: "There is no information at this time to suggest any specific threat remains."
Police said they still wanted to question a second man in connection with the shooting.
A photograph had been released of the man but police said they were now satisfied that he might not be involved.
Politicians have expressed shock at the attack, with President Barack Obama calling it a "tragedy for our entire country".
House Speaker John Boehner vowed on Sunday that the shootings would "not deter us from our calling to represent our constituents".
The six dead included the nine-year-old girl, federal Judge John Roll - who had served Arizona's legal system for 40 years - and one of Ms Giffords' political aides. Fourteen people were wounded.
Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, a conservative Republican, had placed Ms Giffords on a list of politicians she wanted to remove from office in November's mid-term polls.
Ms Giffords had pointed to the "crosshairs of a gun sight" that Mrs Palin had used on her list, adding: "When people do that, they have to realise that there are consequences to that action."
Mrs Palin has issued a statement offering her condolences to the families of Ms Giffords and the other victims of the attack.
'Obviously disturbed'
The attacker struck as Ms Giffords held one of her regular open-invitation meetings - which she called "Congress on your corner" - with her constituents outside the Safeway supermarket in Tucson at around 1000 (1700 GMT) on Saturday.
Eyewitnesses say the gunman approached Ms Giffords and shot her at close range.
The attacker then fired some 20 shots indiscriminately before being overpowered by members of the crowd as he attempted to reload what one witness described as a semi-automatic Glock pistol.
He was then hauled away by police, witnesses said.
Local media report the suspect has so far refused to speak.
Various former classmates have described Jared Loughner as "obviously disturbed" and a loner who had posted a number of anti-government videos and messages on social networking websites.
Shortly before the attack he had posted: "Goodbye friends. Dear friends, don' be mad at me."
An overnight vigil was held outside the Tucson hospital where the victims were taken.
A few miles away, both the scene of the attack and some streets around the suspect's home - where he lived with his parents - remained cordoned off.
Ms Giffords, who represents the eighth district of Arizona in the House of Representatives, is married to space shuttle astronaut Mark Kelly.
Described as a "a rising star" in the Democrats with hopes of eventually winning the Arizona Senate seat, she has served on several congressional committees, including those covering the armed services and foreign affairs, and is a member of the "blue dog" group of centrist Democrats.
All of next week's legislative debates in the House have been postponed.
sábado, 8 de enero de 2011
Google to fix phone bug that misdirects text messages
A small number of phones using Google's Android system have been affected.Google says it will fix a mobile phone bug that mistakenly sends text messages to the wrong people.
The glitch, which has hit a small portion of the company's Android mobile phones, first emerged last year.
Those affected say some of their texts have ended up in the hands of random recipients.
After investigating the issue, Google said it had "developed a fix" and would be rolling it out soon.
It is nearly a year since the problem was first reported, although the number of incidents appeared to increase last summer.
Initial examinations confused the problem with another, similar bug - but the company admitted yesterday that some users have seen their messages delivered to the incorrect recipient.
"It took us some time to reproduce this issue, as it appears that it's only occurring very rarely," said Nik Kralevich, an engineer on the Android security team.
"Even so, we've now managed to both reproduce it and develop a fix that we will deploy."
It is not clear, however, when users will actually receive the fix - or how it would happen.
Some mobile bugs require a complete software update - which would require plugging affected handsets into a computer - while others can be fixed remotely.
Potentially embarrassingAlthough the company was keen to stress that only a tiny fraction of users have reported problems, some users say it has proven embarrassing and potentially costly.
"Today I sent a text asking about a contract from a potential employer - and it went to my current boss," wrote one user on Google's bug forum.
"If this hurts my career, I will be looking into legal action."
Tracking down the bug has become increasingly important for Google since Android - its system to power smartphones - has grown massively in popularity over the past year.
It has rocketed from having a share of just 3% of the worldwide smart phone market in 2009 to more than 25% today.
Most users affected suggested it is an inconvenient, rather than crippling, problem - but those who have experienced the glitch say that it has been troubling.
"I don't know where the SMS messages are going," Christina Bunce, a university programme leader from Falmouth, told the BBC.
"But I can see they have been sent and never arrived."
US wants Twitter details of Wikileaks activists
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is currently fighting extradition from the UK to SwedenThe US government has subpoenaed the social networking site Twitter for personal details of people connected to Wikileaks, court documents show.
The US District Court in Virginia said it wanted information including user names, addresses, connection records, telephone numbers and payment details.
Those named include Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and an Icelandic MP.
The US is examining possible charges against Mr Assange over the leaking of 250,000 classified diplomatic cables.
Reports indicate the Department of Justice may seek to indict him on charges of conspiring to steal documents with Private First Class Bradley Manning, a US Army intelligence analyst.
Mr Manning is facing a court martial and up to 52 years in prison for allegedly sending Wikileaks the diplomatic cables, as well military logs about incidents in Afghanistan and Iraq and a classified military video.
'Given a message'According to the court order issued on 14 December by the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, the US Attorney's Office has provided evidence to show that the information held by Twitter is "relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation".
The San Francisco-based website was given three days to respond was also told not to disclose that it had been served the subpoena, or the existence of the investigation.
However, the same court removed those restrictions on Wednesday and authorised Twitter to disclose the order to its customers.
The subpoena requested the details of Mr Assange, Pfc Manning and Icelandic MP Birgitta Jonsdottir, as well as Dutch hacker Rop Gonggrijp and US programmer Jacob Appelbaum, both of whom have previously worked with Wikileaks.
The information sought includes mailing addresses and billing information, connection records and session times, IP addresses used to access Twitter, email accounts, as well as the "means and source of payment".
Mr Assange condemned the court order on Saturday, saying it amounted to harassment.
"If the Iranian government was to attempt to coercively obtain this information from journalists and activists of foreign nations, human rights groups around the world would speak out," he said in a statement.
The order was unsealed "thanks to legal action by Twitter", he added.
And Mr Assange's lawyer, Mark Stephens, said the US government was attempting to intimidate people.
"It's a great disappointment that the department of justice has stopped playing lawyers and started playing politics," he told BBC News.
Twitter has declined to comment on the claim, saying only: "To help users protect their rights, it's our policy to notify users about law enforcement and governmental requests for their information, unless we are prevented by law from doing so."
Ms Jonsdottir, who until recently was a vocal supporter of Wikileaks, revealed on Friday that the department of justice had asked Twitter for her personal details and all of her tweets since November 2009.
She said she had 10 days to appeal against the subpoena.
Ms Jonsdottir wrote on her Twitter feed: "USA government wants to know about all my tweets and more since 1 November 2009. Do they realise I am a member of parliament in Iceland?"
She said that she would call Iceland's justice minister to discuss the request.
"I think I am being given a message, almost like someone breathing in a phone," she said.
Ms Jonsdottir was the chief sponsor of the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative (IMMI) law, which made Iceland an international haven for investigative journalism and free speech.
She has said she helped to produce a video for Wikileaks showing a US Apache helicopter shooting civilians in Iraq in 2007.
The classified video, released by Wikileaks last April, brought the whistle-blowing website to the world's attention.
The website's founder, Julian Assange, is currently fighting extradition from the UK to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning as part of an inquiry into alleged sex offences.
Ms Jonsdottir reportedly left Wikileaks late last year after she argued unsuccessfully that Mr Assange should take a low-profile role until his legal troubles were resolved.
Ammonite diet revealed in X-rays
Ask someone to name their favourite fossils and the chances are they will point to the ammonites.
These coiled remains of ancient squid-like creatures are in every child's rock collection.
The animals were a big success, filling the oceans for 350 million years before going extinct with the dinosaurs.
Now, exquisite X-ray images featured in Science magazine are providing new insights on how the ammonites lived and perhaps also on why they died out.
The pictures have been produced by a team of French and American researchers using the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility(ESRF) in Grenoble.
They reveal the mouthparts of three ammonite specimens discovered in Belle Fourche, South Dakota, US, a place renowned for the excellent preservation of fossils.
The fossils are actually from a grouping of straight, or uncoiled, ammonites known as Baculites but the implications should hold across a great swathe of species.
Beautiful 3D reconstructions lay bare the physical characteristics of the molluscs' jaws and a tongue-like structure called the radula.
The imagery is important because of what it says about the feeding habits of these prehistoric marine invertebrates.
Although "ten a penny" in terms of their abundance, the fossils still hide some secrets about the living animals' ecology.
"Ammonites are iconic fossils; everyone knows them, but actually we have very few data on the animals themselves," explained Isabelle Kruta from the National Museum of Natural History, Paris. "We have their shells but beyond that it's all been speculation."
With no direct counterpart today, it has been difficult to nail down the ammonites' true place in the ancient food chain.
But the analysis by Kruta and her colleagues indicates their ammonites would have dined on small organisms floating in the water, such as zooplankton, tiny crustaceans, and even other petite ammonites.
In one of the specimen's mouths the team found the remains of what was probably the animal's last meal, diced up by the jaws and the teeth-laden radula.
If plankton provided the major part of the ammonite diet then this could help explain their extinction 65 million years ago, the team believes.
The asteroid or comet impact widely implicated in the dinosaurs' demise would also have damaged plankton production in the oceansFrom their first appearance in the Early Devonian Period (about 400 million years ago), ammonites underwent an explosive diversification.Today, many thousands of species are known from the fossil record.
This great wealth of different forms through Earth history means they can be used as a dating tool by geologists - if a rock contains a particular fossil ammonite then that rock must be of a certain age.
Depleted food resources could have been a decisive factor therefore in pushing the ammonites over the edge.
"Pretty much all the community thought they were carnivorous but we didn't know exactly what they were eating," said Ms Kruta.
"People have pictured them catching fish or eating clams. But we've found they couldn't eat large, hard prey; they were not able to tear apart pieces of flesh," she told BBC News.
living relatives are animals like squid, octopus and cuttlefish.
Click to play
The machine produces an intense, high-energy light that can pierce just about any material, revealing its inner structure.
Its advantage is that the investigation is non-destructive - it provides information that could otherwise only be obtained by cutting into a fossil.
The X-ray microtomography data also captures very fine details which can then be rendered virtually in a 3D form and manipulated on a computer.TThis data can even be sent to a printer to make oversized plastic models that scientists can play with to try to reconstruct the proper alignment of anatomical features which in the fossil itself may have been preserved in a jumbled heap.
For example, Ms Kruta uses a 15cm-long plastic print of a radula tooth to demonstrate the 2mm-long original that remains hidden away inside a fossil.
"For the radula you have to imagine a kind of band with something like 50 rows of teeth, and for each row you have nine teeth; and for some of the teeth you can have up to 17 cusps. It looks like a comb," said Dr Paul Tafforeau from the ESRFhis data can even be sent to a printer to make oversized plastic models that scientists can play with to try to reconstruct the proper alignment of anatomical features which in the fossil itself may have been preserved in a jumbled heap.
For example, Ms Kruta uses a 15cm-long plastic print of a radula tooth to demonstrate the 2mm-long original that remains hidden away inside a fossil.
"For the radula you have to imagine a kind of band with something like 50 rows of teeth, and for each row you have nine teeth; and for some of the teeth you can have up to 17 cusps. It looks like a comb," said Dr Paul Tafforeau from the ESRF.
EUROPEAN LIGHT SOURCE
"The preservation meant we had both jaws in position with the radula, and then inside we had planktonic animals including one that had been cut in two. You can even see its internal organs," he told BBC News.
US foreclosures in new legal trouble
The ruling could affect other lenders - and other borrowers who have been foreclosed uponTwo of the US's biggest mortgage lenders have had mortgage foreclosures cancelled in a case that could affect other banks.
The Supreme Court in Massachusetts ruled against US Bancorp and Wells Fargo in a widely watched case.
Backing a lower court ruling made in 2009, it said two foreclosure sales were invalid because the banks did not prove that they owned them at the time.Bank shares fell sharply after the ruling dragging the wider market down.The decision is among the earliest to address the validity of foreclosures done without proper documentation - so-called robo-loans because they were carried out by people who were unqualified and who often did not check a single line in the paperwork.
Retrospective applicationAfter the robo-loan scandal was exposed last year some lenders, including Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and Ally Financial temporarily stopped seizing homes.
Analysts believe this latest court action will further affect the foreclosure process in the US.
Marty Mosby, an analyst at Guggenheim Securities said: "A ruling like this will slow down the foreclosure process. They're going to have to be really precise and get everything in order. It doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room."
The case also applies retrospectively to people who have already been foreclosed.
Glenn Russell, a lawyer for one of the couples in the case said: "I'm ecstatic. The fact the decision applies retroactively could mean thousands of homeowners can seek recovery for homes wrongfully foreclosed upon."
'Utter carelessness'Wells Fargo and US Bancorp lacked the authority to foreclose after having "failed to make the required showing that they were the holders of the mortgages at the time of foreclosure," wrote Justice Ralph Gants for the Massachusetts court.
Justice Robert Cordy said the banks had displayed "utter carelessness" in documenting their right to own the properties.
Courts in other US states are considering similar cases, and all 50 state attorneys general are examining whether lenders are forcing people out of their homes improperly.
Michael Pill, a partner at Green, Miles, Lipton & Fitz-Gibbon, who represents homeowners and is not involved in the case, said: "What they were doing was peddling these mortgages and leaving the paperwork behind."
Wells Fargo had no immediate comment on the decision.
US Bancorp spokesman Steve Dale said the decision has no financial impact on the bank.
But leading bank shares were affected by the case.
Wells Fargo shares closed down 2.02%, US Bancorp shares were down 0.6, Bank of America was down 1.32% while JP Morgan fell 1.89%.
Analysts said the decision may also threaten banks' ability to package mortgages into securities, and may raise the spectre that loans transferred improperly will need to be bought back.