Heavy rains battered the coastal areas of north Tamil Nadu on Wednesday as cyclone 'Laila' further intensified and moved to lay centered in the Bay of Bengal around 190 km east-northeast of Chennai and is expected to cross the Andhra Pradesh coast on Thursday.

A major earthquake of 7.2 magnitude hit Baja California in Mexico, shaking skyscrapers in San Diego and Los Angeles, whose strong tremors were felt as far as Phoenix and Las Vegas as well.The immediate impact of the earthquake on people and buildings were not immediately known. The quake was centred approximately 25 kilometre south-southwest of Guadalupe Victoria, the United States geological survey said.

An ethnic conclave, Hillcroft was renamed this month, fulfilling the seven-year long demand of over 100,000 strong Indian-American population living in the Greater Houston area.

Pakistani troops on Sunday captured a strategic mountaintop and pushed deeper into Taliban-held territory after consolidating their hold on areas around the hometown of Hakimullah Mehsud in Waziristan, where 15 rebels and a soldier were killed in fresh fighting.

The Miss Universe 2009 pageant is fast approaching on August 23. In a countdown to D-Day, we'll be introducing you to all 84 contestants from around the world.

Rain gods smiled on Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and some other places in the northern belt, which had witnessed only patchy rainfall since the advent of the monsoon late June.

A look at the 'grunt' factor in women's tennis.

The south-west monsoon is likely to hit the national capital in a day or two as pre-monsoon showers drenched the city on Tuesday, bringing respite to denizens who have been braving an intense heat wave for the past week. Various parts of the city received rains during the past 12 hours, which brought down the temperature to tolerable levels around 25 degree Celsius, the Meteorological office said. The city has received over 10 mm of rains in the past three days.

The counties and metro areas with the nation's poorest air quality.

Shamsi airfield, in the Baluchistan region in southern Pakistan, has become the new ground zero in the United States war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda.The Times, London, reports that the Central Intelligence Agency is covertly using the Shamsi airfield, located just 30 miles from the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, to launch Predator strikes on Taliban and Al Qaeda bases on the Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan -- a fact repeatedly denied by US and Pak

The events, trends, and goofs that defined 2008

Travel pro Peter Greenberg makes sense of the airline mess and finds ways to make the most of a tangled travel situation.

The Telluride festival -- held a week before the much larger event in Toronto, heralds the beginning of the fall film season in North America, showing a small selection of films -- Hollywood and international -- a number of which end up creating the buzz for the Oscar season.

Twenty-two people were killed, over 126 injured and thousands of houses destroyed on Saturday when a strong earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale hit quake-prone southwest China region. An earthquake measuring 5.3 on the Richter scale also hit Hejing County in north-west China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on Saturday, but no casualty has been reported.

The BSE mid-cap Index will include shares of Allied Digital Services, Cals Refineries, Century Plyboards, Gammon Infra, Hindustan Oil Exploration, Indiabulls Securities, Jai Balaji Industries, Jet Airways, Jindal Drilling, Puravankara Projects, Rain Commodities, S Kumars Nationwide, Shriram City Union Finance, Thermax and Thomas Cook India.

The south-west monsoon has set in ahead of schedule with heavy rains lashing the city on Saturday, the city's weather office said, issuing warning to fishermen against venturing into the sea. Road, rail and air traffic were disrupted badly.

The number of dead and missing in China's worst earthquake in recent decades is nearing 90,000, as visiting United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon flew into the disaster zone on Saturday and pledged the world body's support for the relief work. Chinese premier Wen Jiabao briefed the UN Secretary General on quake relief efforts and said China would carry out reconstruction as soon as possible. Wen told Ban that the quake had claimed more than 60,000 lives in Sichuan province.

Up to 7,650 people have been killed and nearly 900 students feared buried after a powerful earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter Scale rocked South West China's Sichuan province on Monday. The government rushed its troops to the earthquake-struck Wenchuan County of southwest Sichuan province for disaster relief work, with President Hu Jintao ordering all out effort efforts to help the affected people.

The Olympic flame reached the top of Mount Everest on Thursday, an emotional moment for China and the crowning of the Beijing Olympics torch relay that was dogged by anti-Chinese protests on its world tour. "Long live Tibet!" and "Long live Beijing!", the climbers, all wearing red, shouted joyously into a TV camera after unfurling the Chinese national flag, the Olympic flag and a flag bearing the Beijing Olympic logo.

No fresh outbreak of violence was reported by authorities in Lhasa, which came under the vice-like grip of security forces after Friday's orgy of violence saw marauding mobs torching buildings and police and private vehicles, and loot banks and shops. However, spontaneous demonstrations continued elsewhere in China with at least three Tibetan protesters killed in clashes in a Tibetan-populated district of Sichuan province in southwest China, rights groups said.

Russia tennis player Anna Chakvetadze escaped unharmed after several men broke into her house in southwest Moscow early on Tuesday, police said.

Tata Consultancy Services America was awarded a $2.5 million Rapid Outreach Grant by the Ohio government to aid businesses growth and job-creation.

The current spell of rain was triggered by systems of low pressure formed along Kerala and Tamil Nadu coasts, Indian Meteorological Department sources said in Thiruvananthapuram. Torrential rains have been pounding the capital city and suburbs since Friday night, bringing roads under knee-deep water in busy Thampanur, Pazhavangadi and East Fort.

Even if you assume a higher return fare of Rs 40,000, the yield will still be lower than the costs.

Militants in Pakistan's restive tribal areas carried out the two attacks apparently as a retaliation to the bloody Lal Masjid crackdown.

Check out how treating employees with decency can make for a better bottomline.

Pakistan appears to be building a new nuclear reactor to produce weapons-grade plutonium at Khushab in Punjab province, an American watchdog group has said citing satellite imagery.

Once Shaheen II becomes operational, it will give Pakistan the ability to target facilities across most if not all of India and hold all of India's major cities at risk.

The fastest growth's in Asia, but the U.S. still dominates among the top 20.

Global IT giant, Wipro Technologies, will open a third delivery centre in China to cater to the growing needs of its multinational clients.

Much ink has been expended on debating the minutiae of MPD 2021, particularly issues such as mixed use. But what has not been understood or acknowledged is that the credibility of the planning exercise itself is presently at stake.

Dying to snag a job in the States? Forget New York City. If you want to get a job in the U.S. this year, go south and west. Oklahoma City, anyone?

China struggles to build a livable city inside a world-class business capital.

There's worse traffic in more cities in India than any other country, and the problem is only growing.

China has granted the "national software export base" status to its five more cities, entitling them to special treatment and financial support from the government, as part of its efforts to compete with India.

Officials also said that a group of 50 youths were throwing stones at cars.

The accusations, officials say, are made to discredit India's involvement in various development projects in Afghanistan as well as its close ties with Tehran.