Mark Linkous, Mark Linkous (d. March 6, 2010) was an American singer, songwriter and musician, best-known as leader of Sparklehorse. Originally from Virginia, Linkous lived in North Carolina where he established the Static King Studio in Hayesville, NC. He was the first in his entire family to not be a coal miner.

Linkous cofounded indie band Dancing Hoods in the 1980s. Following their breakup, Linkous continued writing songs (notably “Sick of Goodbyes” with David Lowery, which appeared on Kerosene Hat by Cracker). Linkous founded Sparklehorse in 1995, who have since released four records.

In 1996, while supporting Radiohead on the first Sparklehorse tour, Linkous overdosed on alcohol, Valium and antidepressants and possibly other substances in his London hotel room [1]. Unconscious and with his legs pinned beneath him for almost fourteen hours, the resulting potassium buildup caused his heart to stop for several minutes after his body was lifted up. He was treated at St Mary’s Hospital, London. The following surgeries nearly caused him to lose both legs and left him wheelchair-bound for six months.

Most recently, Linkous released Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain in September 2006 through Sparklehorse, and the much anticipated Dark Night of the Soul album with the producer Danger Mouse, the director David Lynch and ten other musicians was released on the Internet in May 2009, as was a book of photographs by David Lynch to accompany the music.

Linkous committed suicide on March 6, 2010 with a single shotgun blast to the head. Linkous’ family members initially found him (still alive) after the shotgun blast. With extensive facial and cranial trauma to Linkous’ head (Linkous suffered a particularly devastating “blow-out”-type wound wherein the blast evacuated the back portion of his head), his family called police and an ambulance crew. Linkous lived for an additional three hours after the shotgun blast, but was later pronounced dead by ambulance EMT workers.

Concorde Crash Trial Begins in France, A trial began over the crash of an Air France Concorde in July 2000. The jet took off in flames from Paris airport and crashed shortly afterwards, killing 113 people.
Those accused include US airline Continental, two of its technical staff, two former Concorde engineers and a former French civil aviation official.

Al-Qaeda ‘To Attempt US Attack Soon’: Spy Shief, Al-Qaeda can be expected to attempt an attack on the US in the next three to six months, the top US spy chief says.
“The chances of an attempted attack are certain. They’re going to try,” US Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair replied when asked about the likelihood of an attempted al-Qaeda strike over that time frame.
Blair said the extremist network that carried out the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks would keep targeting the United States until bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri have been caught or killed.
“We judge that al-Qaeda maintains its intent to attack the Homeland preferably with a large scale operation that would cause mass casualties, harm the US economy, or both,” Blair told the Senate Intelligence Committee.
“We assess that at least until Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri are dead or captured, al-Qaeda will retain its resolute intent to strike the Homeland,” he said.
With President Barack Obama’s administration under fire for its handling of the attempted Christmas Day bomber, notably informing him of his right to remain silent, Blair declined to say whether bin Laden should get the same treatment if captured.
Instead, Blair said he “would very much hope” that the Saudi-born extremists would be interrogated and that officials would “squeeze” him for information.
CIA Director Leon Panetta told Congress on Tuesday the terrorist organisation is deploying operatives to the US to carry out new attacks from inside the country, including “clean” recruits with a negligible trail of terror contacts. Al-Qaeda is also inspiring homegrown extremists to trigger violence on their own, Panetta added.
“The biggest threat is not so much that we face an attack like 9/11. It is that al-Qaeda is adapting its methods in ways that oftentimes make it difficult to detect,” Panetta told the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Dan Seals has the tools to do the job right. He has tremendous business experience at Sprint, as a Director at GE Capital, as a business consultant as well as on the job experience in D.C. as an economics fellow. With that work experience and two advanced degrees in business, economics and public policy from two of nation’s best universities, he has the actual problem solving tools that are critical in bringing down our nation’s deficit, one of his key promises.

Dan Seals is a true progressive, fiscally responsible and a man who cares about the future for his three daughters and all the citizens of the 10th Congressional District.

Seals is independent of the Illinois and Cook County Democrats and has no ties to the corruption in Springfield, Blagojevich, or Cook County. When we are fortunate enough to have a great candidate like Seals.

Libya has signed an arms deal with Russia worth 1.3 billion Euros ($1.8 billion), Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was quoted as saying during a meeting with Vladimir Gorodetsky, Director general of the Izhevsk Machinery Plant.
“Only yesterday we signed a contract worth 1.3 billion euros,” Putin said, “And it’s not only small arms,” he added, without specifying which weapons Libya intended to purchase. “In fact the contract is very important for us because many of our spheres are connected with it”, answered Vladimir Gorodetsky. Izhevsk Machinery Plant is famous for its production of small arms, the Kalashnikov assault rifle among them.

Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachan and Ritesh Deshmukh participated in the projection ceremony of their new flick ‘Rann’, which is based on journalism.
The event was also attended by film Director Ram Gopal Warma and other crew members. Addressing the gathering, Amitabh said that he would only get character roles in this part of his age, adding that he wanted to be a journalist before stepping into the film industry and as such termed himself lucky enough to get a role in Rann. “I just put forward my stance on journalism, and as such there is no criticism on the profession”, said Ram Gopal Warma. Paresh Rawal, Manisha Koirala and Gul Panag are also among the cast, however, the release has been postponed owing to Salman Khan’s ‘Veer’.

NEW DELHI: Priyanka Chopra Named Best Actress in 56th National Awards, Bengali film ‘Antaheen’ by director Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury was chosen as the Best Film while Tamil filmmaker Bala won the honour o
Best Director for his film ‘Naan Kadavul’ at the 56th National Film Awards announced here on Saturday.

‘Antaheen’, starring Sharmila Tagore, Rahul Bose, Aparna Sen and Radhika Apte, is a relationship drama.

The award for Best Actor went to Upendra Limaye for Marathi film ‘Jogwa’, which also fetched the trophy for the Best film on social issues. Hindi film ‘Oye Lucky Lucky Oye’ by Dibakar Banerjee was adjudged as the Best Popular Film.

Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra bagged the Best Actress award for her role of a aspiring model in Madhur Bhandarkar’s ‘Fashion’ which also bagged the Best Supporting Actress Award for Kangana Ranaut who played the role of a troubled model.

Actor Arjun Rampal won the award for Best Supporting Actor for his role of a failed rocker in ‘Rock On’.

Shreya Ghoshal won the Best Female Playback award for ‘Antaheen’ and ‘Jogwa’, which also brought the Best Male Playback Singer award to Hariharan.

Kannada film ‘Gubbachigalu’ was adjudged the Best Children’s film. The award for Best Special Effects went to ‘Mumbai Meri Jaan’.

Malayalam film ‘Bioscope’ won the Best Jury Award while the trophy for Best Child Actor (rpt) Best Child Actor went to Shams Patel for Hindi film ‘Thanks Maa’.

Export of Useless Bomb Detectors Exposed, A British company earned billions of pounds by selling bogus bomb detectors to many countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Hundreds of people in all these countries died due to these fake detectors. British police have arrested the director of the company Jim McCormick on suspicion of fraud and playing with the life of innocent people.
Experts had already declared these detectors bogus and dangerous. It was claimed that these detectors could sense explosive from the distance of 1 Km.
A few days before two suicide bombs in Iraq exposes these fake detectors. British government has banned the detectors from export amid allegations it does not work.

MUMBAI: After the super success of Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani, they have become the hottest onscreen pair in Bollywood today. And now, Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif are ready for an encore. They will star in Imtiaz Ali’s next, his long-in-the-pipeline project Rock Star.

The film has passed through the hands of many potential rock stars. Imtiaz first offered it to John Abraham. Excited as hell, John had begun to prepare for the part and even started to learn the guitar in 2008.

Then, Imtiaz found an option – Saif Ali Khan seemed perfect for Rock Star because he was almost one in real life. If he played the role, he didn’t even need to start learning the guitar. However, Saif and Imtiaz did Love Aaj Kal instead. During the making of the film, Rishi Kapoor, who also starred in it, was so impressed by Imtiaz that he swore he would make the director work with his son Ranbir.

Says a source, “Imtiaz and Ranbir met many times in the past few months and discussed several projects. But it was Rock Star that Ranbir liked the best.”

We hear Ranbir will be learning to play the guitar for the part as soon as he finishes with Siddharth Anand’s Anjaana Anjaani. Ranbir was heard telling a friend, “Who wouldn’t be excited about playing rock star? It’s a dream role.” To add to the magic, Ranbir’s co-star in Rock Star is Katrina Kaif – a combo every filmmaker in Bollywood wants to get together.

Attempts are on to sign Katrina for the only other film Ranbir has signed for 2010, which is being directed by Anurag Basu. However it’s the Imtiaz Ali project that Katrina has apparently said yes to so far.

And contrary to perception that AR Rahman is doing the music, it’s apparently the tried and tested Pritam

Chakraborty. “After Jab We Met and Love Aaj Kal, who wants to break the Imtiaz Ali-Pritam team?” wonders a source close to the project. “Ranbir will go all out to prepare for his part as a rock star. He wants to look every inch the part. That includes the sinewy muscled physique and expertise with the guitar strings.”

BAGHDAD: An Iraqi police officer says blasts have killed seven people in the western province of Anbar.

Col. Fadhil Nimrawi says the first explosion targeted the house of the director of the anti-terrorism unit in the town of Hit, about 85 miles (140 kilometers) west of Baghdad. The director was wounded and his mother, two sisters and a child were killed.

Nimrawi says a lawyer was killed by another bomb at his home. Two other explosions at separate locations also occurred on Thursday morning.

The blasts follow last week’s attack on Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, which wounded the Anbar governor and killed 24. The Islamic state of Iraq, a group linked to al-Qaida in Iraq, claimed responsibility for that attack.