A woman was killed and at least 14 people were injured in two "low-intensity" explosions that took place on Guwahati-Bangalore Express at Chennai Central railway station on Thursday.


Cops and security officials stand near a passenger train in which two explosions occurred, at Chennai railway station.(Reuters photo)

Bomb detection and disposal squad personnel search cargo for explosives on the platform of Bangalore railway station after twin explosions killed one and injured several in Chennai. (AFP photo)

Blood lies splattered at a railway platform close to a passenger train that was ripped by two blasts at Chennai railway station. (AP photo)

Medics treat an injured passenger of a train blast at a hospital in Chennai.(AP photo)

Medics treat an injured passenger of a train blast at a hospital in Chennai.(AP photo)

A member of the bomb disposal squad examines the area next to a passenger train in which two explosions occurred at Chennai railway station. (Reuters photo)

Police and porters stand near the site of a bomb attack at a train station in Chennai. (AFP photo)

Swati (24), an assistant systems engineer at IT firm TCS, in blasts on Guwahati-Bangalore Express in Chennai. (HT photo)

Police and security officials examine the scene of a bomb attack at a train station in Chennai. (AFP photo)

A victim, who was injured in an explosion that occurred in a passenger train, lies in a hospital in Chennai. (Reuters photo)

People crowd at a railway station to get the glimpse of a passenger train in which two explosions occurred, in Chennai. (Reuters photo)

Police and train station workers stand near the site of a bomb attack at a train station in Chennai. (AFP photo)

A victim, who was injured in an explosion that occurred in a passenger train, lies in a hospital in Chennai. (Reuters photo)

A TV grab of the blast site at Chennai Central railway station. (Agencies)

A TV grab of the blast site at Chennai Central railway station. (Agencies)

Chennai railway station

A member of a bomb disposal squad with a sniffer dog examines a passenger train in which two explosions occurred, at Chennai Central railway station. (Reuters photo)

A policeman stands guard next to a passenger train in which two explosions occurred, at the railway station in Chennai. (Reuters photo)

Cops stand guard next to a passenger train in which two explosions occurred at the railway station in Chennai.(Reuters photo)
The Tamil Nadu Police detained a person for questioning. Authorities suspect the blasts were caused by bombs planted on the train, said M Bhupati, spokesperson of Southern Railway.

Condemning the blasts, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said such "barbaric acts" highlight the "desperation and cowardice" of those responsible. He asserted that no efforts would be spared in bringing the perpetrators to justice.

Tamil Nadu chief minister and AIADMK leader J Jayalalithaa ordered a Crime Branch-CID probe, while the opposition DMK slammed the state government over law and order.

The woman killed in the blasts was identified as Swati, a 24-year-old engineer who had recently joined a leading software firm TCS in Bangalore. She was supposed to tie the knot after two months.

The first explosion took place around 10 minutes after the Guwahati-bound train, running one and a half hours late, chugged into platform number nine at Chennai Central around 7am. The second blast was heard within a few seconds.

"They were not major blasts. It is suspected that Chennai was not the target as the train was running late," Tamil Nadu director general of police K Ramanujam said.

Prasanna Darnal, a 20-year-old nursing student on board, said, "It was like a small Diwali bomb going off. There were shrieks and cries of people and everyone was rushing to get out of the train."

Southern Railway general manager Rakesh Misra told reporters the blasts took place in S4 and S5 sleeper coaches.

The injured, including two hurt seriously, were rushed to a state-run hospital, where doctors said they were out of danger.

Hell hath no fury like a man chasing his wife's banana-hammock-wearing boy-toy down the streets of Tijuana.

The hilarious, almost cartoonish YouTube video above -- which made the rounds on Reddit Tuesday -- appears to show just that: A man clad only in a black banana hammock clings to his cowboy hat and runs like the wind, stalked by the alleged cuckolded husband a few steps behind.

The jury's still out if this video is a fake -- as one Redditor pointed out, it seems almost too good to be true. ("If a naked guy came running down the street, I wouldn't have time to think 'Hey, let's introduce this to my YouTube fans' and casually pan round to time the run-by perfectly.")

If it is real, we sure hope our scantily clad cowboy learned his lesson: Don't take a roll in the hay with another dude's wife unless you're prepared to run down the street (nearly) naked and afraid.

Keep in touch! Check out HuffPost Divorce on Facebook and Twitter. Sign up for our newsletter here.

 Unshaken by the latest surge in violence, Iraqis braved the threat of bombs and attacks to vote Wednesday in key elections for a new parliament amid a massive security operation as the country slides deeper into sectarian strife.

Hundreds of thousands of troops and police fanned out to guard voting centers in the first nationwide balloting since the 2011 American pullout. Scattered attacks still took place north of Baghdad, killing at least three people and wounding 16.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has held power for eight years, faces growing criticism over government corruption and persistent bloodshed as sectarian tensions threaten to push Iraq back toward the brink of civil war.

The 63-year-old Shiite leader's State of Law party was widely expected to win the most seats in the 328-member parliament but to fall short of a majority. That would allow al-Maliki to keep his post only if he can cobble together a coalition — a task made more difficult given the divisions with former Sunni Arab and Kurdish allies.

Even some of al-Maliki's Shiite backers denounce him as a would-be dictator, amassing power for himself, but most in the majority sect see no alternative. Al-Maliki also has the support of neighboring powerhouse Iran, which aides have said will use its weight to push discontented Shiite factions into backing him for another term.

Polls opened across the energy-rich nation at 7 a.m. (0400 GMT, midnight Tuesday EST) and were to close at 6 p.m. There were 22 million eligible voters, choosing from among some 9,000 candidates.

In central Baghdad, police and army manned checkpoints roughly 500 meters (yards) apart, while pickup trucks with machine-guns perched on top roamed the streets. Much of the city looked deserted without the normal traffic congestion. Most stores were closed.

Voters are being subjected to multiple searches before being allowed inside polling centers and surrounding streets were blocked by police trucks and barbed wire.

"I decided to go and vote early while it's safe. Crowds attract attacks," Azhar Mohammed said as she and her husband approached a polling station in Baghdad's mainly Shiite Karradah district. The 37-year-old woman said her brother — a soldier — was killed last week in the northern city of Mosul.

"There has been a big failure in the way the country has been run and I think it is time to elect new people," she said, shrouded in black.

Not far away, 72-year-old Essam Shukr broke into tears as he remembered a son killed in a suicide bombing in Karradah last month. "I hope this election takes us to the shores of safety," he said. "We want a better life for our sons and grandchildren who cannot even go to playgrounds or amusement parks because of the bad security situation. We want a better life for all Iraqis."

"Sister, Sister" star Tamera Mowry rocks a pink bikini in the new issue of In Touch Weekly, and looks really good doing it.

"It's the first time I’ve been in a bikini since my honeymoon," Mowry, who married Fox news correspondent Adam Housley in 2011, tells In Touch. "I feel great"

She's all smiles in the photo as she poses with her 1-year-old son Aden.

Mowry, 35, who says she's now 127 pounds, has been following her own healthy schedule, explaining that she wanted to enjoy being a new mom, first and foremost. After she stopped nursing Aden when he was seven months old, she cut 500 calories from her 1,700-calorie-a-day breastfeeding diet and started working out five days a week.

"I wanted to spend time bonding with my baby, not killing myself at the gym," she tells In Touch.

Check out Tamera's bikini body below and pick up the new issue of In Touch Weekly, on newsstands now.

With a single finger, Jennifer Lawrence let her true feelings for the paparazzi be known.

The "Hunger Games" star stepped out for dinner with Tom Ford and boyfriend Nicholas Hoult at the Chilton Firehouse in London on Thursday night, April 24. Afterwards, photographers surrounded them as they made their way from the restaurant into a waiting cab.

Lawrence was having none of it and flipped the paparazzi the middle finger from the backseat of the cab as it pulled away. Hoult seemingly attempted to get her to put her hand down, but Lawrence's message was loud and clear.

Danica McKellar broke a rib Thursday, April 24, while rehearsing for "Dancing with the Stars." The former "Wonder Years" actress tweeted to her over 90,000 Twitter followers:

Hopefully, she and dance partner Val Chmerkovskiy can come up with a way to pull through together before Monday night's episode.

McKellar is hardly the first "DWTS" contestant to get injured in a dancing-related accident. Last year, Bill Nye, The Science Guy, hurt his knee on the show. He uploaded a picture to Instagram at the time. Nye wrote, "Here is the scoop: partially torn ligament. Awaiting the doc's orders with Tyne. We plan to dance! Stand by..."

The year before, 2012, opera singer Katherine Jenkins hurt her back dancing. "Thank you for all your concerned tweets... I'm with the Doctor, he says it was a reflectorical spasm in my lower back," she tweeted after the show. She later went on to become runner-up in the season finale.

In 2011, "DWTS" pro Kym Johnson injured her neck while practicing with dance partner Hines Ward. Despite the scary looking injury, the show released a statement saying that after several tests, Kym was cleared by the medical staff, though "bruised, sore" and "wearing a neck brace." She went on to win that year's competition.

The above is a contemporary-styled video complete with gyrating dancers who would seem more at home on MTV, dancing with Miley Cyrus, than in a clip set to Antonín Dvořák's Symphony No. 9.

And the group behind the video, a Belgian classical music festival called "B-Classic," says that's the whole point. The group is hoping this video, which it's calling "the first modern music video for a classical composer," can spark renewed youth interest in classical music.

"B-Classic wants to give classical music the same recognition as pop and rock music," an explanation on the group's website reads. "That's why we are proud to announce The Classical Comeback: a new music video format that combines the timeless emotion of classical music with the visual talent of a contemporary director."

Watch the clip above, and view a short documentary on the classical music video below:

A decades-old urban legend was put to rest Saturday when workers for a documentary film production company recovered "E.T." Atari game cartridges from a heap of garbage buried deep in the New Mexico desert.

The "Atari grave" was, until that moment, a highly debated tale among gaming enthusiasts and other self-described geeks for 30 years. The story claimed that in its death throes, the video game company sent about a dozen truckloads of cartridges of what many call the worst video game ever to be forever hidden in a concrete-covered landfill in southeastern New Mexico.

The search for the cartridges of a game that contributed to the demise of Atari will be featured in an upcoming documentary about the biggest video game company of the early '80s.

As a backhoe scattered a huge scoop of 30-year-old trash and dirt over the sand, the film crew spotted boxes and booklets carrying the Atari logo. Soon after, a game cartridge turned up, then another and another.

Film director Zak Penn showed assembled gaming fans one cartridge retrieved from the site and said that hundreds more were in the surrounding mounds of garbage.

About 200 residents and game enthusiasts gathered early Saturday at the old landfill in Alamogordo to watch crews search for up to a million discarded copies of "E.T. The Extraterrestrial" that the game's maker wanted to hide forever.

"I feel pretty relieved and psyched that they actually got to see something," Penn said as members of the production team sifted through the mounds of trash, pulling out boxes, games and other Atari products.

Most of the crowd left the landfill before the discovery, turned away by strong winds that kicked up massive clouds of dust mingled with garbage.

By the time the games were found, only a few dozen people remained. Some were playing the infamous game in a makeshift gaming den with a TV and an 1980s game console in the back of a van, while others took selfies beside a life-size E.T. doll inside a DeLorean car like the one that was turned into a time machine in the "Back To The Future" movies.

Among the watchers was Armando Ortega, a city official who as a teenager back in 1983 got a tip from a landfill employee about the massive dump of games.

Apple has offered to replace faulty on-off buttons on the iPhone 5, a rare glitch which it admitted affected “a small percentage” of the previous-generation smartphones.

Apple said on its user-support page that “iPhone 5 models manufactured through March 2013 may be affected by this issue,” in which the button, also known as a sleep/wake mechanism, stops functioning or works only intermittently.

 It did not say how many phones were shipped with the faulty mechanism. Owners can type in their iPhone serial numbers on Apple’s website to see if their phones qualify for a fix, then either take their gadgets to a store or mail them in to be repaired.
“Apple will offer the service free of charge to iPhone 5 customers with models that exhibit this issue and have a qualifying serial number,” spokeswoman Teresa Brewer said in a statement on Friday.

 Apple rarely initiates large-scale repair programs for its products, and iPhone glitches are rare. The company prides itself on hardware engineering and design, particularly for a flagship phone that yields more than half its revenue.

In a 2010 incident dubbed “Antennagate,” the company famously admitted that its iPhone 4 may experience signal loss when handled a certain way. The company subsequently offered free phone casings to correct the issue.

Apple began selling the iPhone 5S and the cheaper 5C in late 2013. In the first quarter, it moved a better-than-expected 43.7 million phones, helped by the gadget’s increasing popularity in markets like Japan and China.

Microsoft has officially announced it has completed its acquisition of the Nokia Devices and Services business. The takeover has been approved by Nokia shareholders and by governmental regulatory agencies around the world and arrives right on schedule, as announced earlier this week.

 As part of the transaction, Microsoft will honour all existing Nokia customer warranties, beginning April 25, 2014. Approximately 25,000 employees will be transferring to Microsoft from around the world.

 “Today we welcome the Nokia Devices and Services business to our family. The mobile capabilities and assets they bring will advance our transformation,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. “Together with our partners, we remain focused on delivering innovation more rapidly in our mobile-first, cloud-first world.”

Former Nokia President and CEO Stephen Elop will directly report to Nadella and will serve as executive VP of the Microsoft Devices Group, overseeing development and progress of the Lumia range and other Nokia phones, Xbox hardware, Surface PCs and Perceptive Pixel (PPI) products.

 Microsoft says in a press statement that Windows Phone is the fastest-growing ecosystem in the smartphone market. “Furthermore, with the Nokia mobile phone business, Microsoft will target the affordable mobile devices market, a $50 billion annual opportunity, and delivering the first mobile experience to the next billion people while introducing Microsoft services to new customers around the world.”


The statement also confirms that Nokia as a brand will become largely irrelevant when it comes to handsets. Microsoft says Microsoft Mobile Oy develops, manufactures and distributes Lumia, Asha and Nokia X mobile phones and other devices, with no mention of the Nokia brand in the statement when talking about what Microsoft constitutes.


Microsoft also reiterated that it will not acquire Nokia factories in Masan, South Korea, and Chennai. The latter will stay with Nokia due to the ongoing tax row in India that prevented the transfer.

The Versova police on Friday arrested actor Inder Kumar on charges of raping and physically assaulting a 23-year-old woman.

Kumar has worked in several movies, including Masoom, Khiladiyon ka Khiladi, Wanted, and Tumko Na Bhul Payenge. The victim has been sent for medical tests and the police are waiting for the results.

Kumar lives in a rented apartment in Shanti Niketan building in Seven Bungalows, Andheri (West), with his wife Pallavi. His mother-in-law and brother-in-law too live in the same society.

"Kumar and his wife used to frequently fight as he would come home drunk. Earlier this week, Pallavi went to stay with her mother," an officer said. "Kumar and his wife had a major argument last Thursday. Pallavi even lodged a complaint against Kumar at the Versova police station that day." In her complaint, she said she suspected Kumar of having an affair with a model.

Kumar and the model were called to the police station. "We sorted out the matter within an hour and they went back to their homes," the officer said.

The model, in her statement to the police, said that the same evening Kumar called her to his residence and allegedly assaulted her with a broken beer bottle. She alleged that Kumar forcibly kept her in his house for two days while his wife was staying with her mother.

"Based on her allegations, we have arrested Kumar. We are verifying the facts and are waiting for the medical reports," Milind Bharambe, additional commissioner of police (west region), said.

The police have charged Kumar under sections 376 (rape), 324 (causing grievous hurt), 325 (punishment for voluntarily causing grievous hurt) and 506 (2) (criminal intimidation) of the IPC.

A society member said Kumar often fought with his family members. "Society members warned him on several occasions but he refused to change. Recently, the society asked him to vacate his flat within 15 days."

"Frozen" has broken another box office record, becoming the sixth highest-grossing movie of all time. The Disney movie has raked in $1.129 billion worldwide. It recently surpassed "Transformers: Dark Of The Moon" and was the second highest-grossing movie of 2013, coming in just behind "Iron Man 3," the fifth highest-grossing movie of all time.

"Frozen" has already shattered a handful of box-office records. In March, it became the highest-grossing animated film in history, beating out "Toy Story 2," "Monsters Inc.," "Toy Story 3" and "Aladdin." It also broke a Disney record by banking $93.9 million over the five-day holiday Thanksgiving weekend and demolished records in South Korea when it made over $75 million there in early March.

"Frozen" also won out over "Ice Age 4" to become the highest-grossing animated film of all time overseas. Its best market so far has been Japan, which is surprising because the country's anime films usually reign supreme. But "Frozen" earned $104.1 million there, making Japan the film's most popular country outside the U.S.

Let's not even get started on the "Frozen" soundtrack, which has sold 2.1 million copies in the U.S. according to Nielsen SoundScan. The "Frozen" reign continues!

On Wednesday, April 23, "13 Going On 30" turns 10 years old. In honor of the reverse-coming-of-age time travel romcom (and all 13 year olds now going on 23), we have spliced Jennifer Garner's recreation of "Thriller" into 11 easy steps. Without further adieu, please let her teach you how to dance, nay, how to live via the GIF-ed cuts of the sequence below.
Step 1: Turn to the side and take four steps forward and four steps back, starting with your right foot first. Bob your head on beats one, three, and four, and be sure to shake your butt.
Step 2: Turn your waist to the front, and push your arms forward and back, with your hands in the shape of claws (like a monster!). Do this two times.

Step 3: Be really enthusiastic, to make sure even the most basic individuals get involved.

Step 4: Spin around, bend your arms at the hips and pull them back and forth twice, with your hands in a "thumbs up" position. Turn in the opposite direction and repeat.

Step 5: Stand straight and take two hops forward, then bend down and pop up, while flashing an exuberant smile.

Step 6: Shift your shoulders left to right. Hold your arms up and clap your hands together.

Step 7: Bring your arms down and drag your feet to the right. Repeat on the left.

Step 8: With your claws up, take three steps to the right. Repeat on the left.

Popular messaging app WhatsApp has now crossed 500 million users. The company which was bought by Facebook in February this year  - for a gigantic amount of $19 billion – has been steadily adding to its growing list of users.

Last year in August, WhatsApp had 200 million users while the number doubled to 430 million in January 2014. The instant messaging app had also revealed that it processes 50 billion messages on an average every day.

Jan Koum, co-founder of WhatsApp says in a post on company’s blog, “In the last few months, we’ve grown fastest in countries like Brazil, India, Mexico, and Russia, and our users are also sharing more than 700 million photos and 100 million videos every single day.”

The post further clarifies that these 500 million people are not only registered members but also active users. The new milestone for the messaging app explains why Mark Zuckerberg was interested in buying it.

As far as India is concerned, it remains one of the fastest growing markets for WhatsApp. WhatsApp’s Neeraj Arora told BGR India that it’s adding a whopping 4 million active users per month and the India user base is set to cross 50 million mark in May, constituting 10 percent of all users. Currently the report says the service has 48 million active users in the country.

The deal between WhatsApp and Facebook has come under scrutiny for privacy issues. One of the major reasons users are worried about this acquisition is they fear WhatsApp could lose its ad-free messaging service.

The recent WhatsApp outages have only fuelled the fear that it might not be ad-free service for longer. Jan Koum put to rest these fears by releasing an official statement that reads, “WhatsApp will remain autonomous and operate independently. You can continue to enjoy the service for a nominal fee. You can continue to use WhatsApp no matter where in the world you are, or what smartphone you’re using. And you can still count on absolutely no ads interrupting your communication.”

As expected by Mark Zuckerberg, the app seems to be well on track to achieve the billion users mark.

The going is great for Priyanka Chopra who is out with her third solo I Can't Make You Love Me, which made it to the No 3 spot on iTunes India in less than 24 hours. (Also read: Priyanka's latest single was launched in New York)

After the success of In My City featuring will.i.am and Exotic featuring Pitbull, Priyanka has nailed it with her third song I Can't Make You Love Me. It is a unique cover of the Bonnie Raitt's 1991 song that made it to Rolling Stone magazine's 500 greatest songs of all-time list.
"My cover of I Can't Make You Love Me is really different because the original is a ballad and we have used dance music for my version of the song. Watch out for the video," Priyanka, who launched the new track on April 22, said in a statement. (Also read: Priyanka found every scene of Mary Kom inspiring)

Her rendition of the song is already on its way to making waves on the international music scene.

Australian musician Iggy Azalea stopped by New York City radio station Hot 97 on Tuesday, April 22, and told a disturbing story that explains why she had stopped crowd surfing at her shows. Apparently, her fans think it's fair game to sexually assault the rapper and try to slip their fingers into her body during the concerts.

Alarming and unsettling as it is, Azalea, 23, talked about it with a straight face and an upfront attitude. "I will get lurk tweets for like a week before my show, like 'I'm about to go to the Iggy Azalea show and I'm going to finger her,' and I'll see it and be like, please don't!," she said. "That's a violation. I don't actually like that stuff."

"Like, they think I'm real slutty, like 'Oh, she got a song called 'Pu$$y,' I know what she wants. She wants these two fingers.' Why would I want a stranger to ever finger me?" Azalea said. "Buying my album for $12 doesn't mean you get to finger me when I come to your city."

Not only do men have issues with boundaries, but women do, too. "Girls think it's cool ... doesn't make it okay," she said.

As a precaution, she now wears three layers under her pants -- two pairs of underwear and skin-colored tights, as a "protective barrier."

Polling began Thursday morning for 12 Lok Sabha seats in the third phase of Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh to decide the political future of 188 candidates, including SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav and Union Minister Salman Khurshid.

"The polling has started at 7 am and will continue till 6 pm. The polling has started on a peaceful note," Chief Electoral Officer Umesh Sinha said.

The 12 constituencies where polling is going on include: Hathras, Mathura, Agra, Fatehpur Sikri, Firozabad, Mainpuri, Etah, Hardoi, Farukhabad, Etawah, Kannauj and Akbarpur.

The electoral fortunes of 188 candidates, including 20 women contestants, will be decided by 2.03 crore electorate. The EC has put up 21,990 polling centres and deployed 1.09 lakh employees for the voting exercise.

While maximum number of 28 candidates are in fray from Fatehpur Sikri, only nine candidates are contesting in Hathras.

The focus will on the Yadav family as the SP chief is fighting to retain his traditional Mainpuri seat while his daughter-in-law Dimple Yadav would be facing a challenge to retain Kannauj.

Mulayam's nephew and son of SP national general secretary Ram Gopal, Akshay Yadav is in the electoral fray for the first time from Firozabad.

Two more political families that of former Prime Minister Chaudhary Charan Singh and BJP leader and former UP chief minister Kalyan Singh are also set to test their hold in their respective areas.

In the Mathura seat, Hema Malini banking on the 'Modi wave' is pitted against Jayant Chaudhary, grandson of Chaudhary Charan Singh and son of RLD chief Ajit Singh.

Once considered a key person in SP, Amar Singh has entered the electoral battle for the first time from Fatehpur. He is contesting on RLD ticket with the support of Congress.

Though Kalyan Singh is not in fray this time from Etah, his son Rajveer's future is at stake in the same seat. Last time Kalyan won from Etah seat as an independent candidate.

In Farukkhabad, Union Minister Khurshid is faced with the challenge of retaining his seat.

BJP and BSP are contesting on all 12 seats, whereas Congress has not fielded candidates against Mulayam and Dimple.

Michelle Keegan has had to apologise to fans for ignoring them when they came to meet her outside the 'Corrie' studios, claiming she was wearing stage makeup that would give away her 'Coronation Street' exit storyline.

It was announced in late 2013 that Michelle’s character Tina McIntyre was to leave the soap later this year in a dramatic “whodunnit?” storyline.

Her exit from the soap has been shrouded in secrecy ever since to avoid revealing which ‘Corrie’ resident is behind Tina’s murder.

When one fan tweeted on Tuesday that she was disappointed to have not been able to meet the actress after travelling down to see her, Michelle quickly apologised, claiming she wasn’t allowed to greet fans because of her stage makeup.

It was recently reported that following her last ever day of filming on Thursday, Michelle would be throwing a chav-themed party for the cast and crew of ‘Corrie’, as a tribute to her character, before she moves to the south to live with her fiancé Mark Wright.
The former 'TOWIE' star was on set with Michelle earlier this month, supporting her as she filmed what he tweeted were her “final scenes” as Tina McIntyre.

Michelle first joined the soap in 2008 as David Platt’s girlfriend. She’s since been involved in a number of dramatic and hard-hitting storylines including the death of her father, an on-off relationship with Chris Fountain’s character Tommy Duckworth and a surrogate pregnancy.

Her character Tina is currently embroiled in an affair with married Peter Barlow, and recently revealed that she thinks she might be pregnant with his baby.

Lady Gaga celebrated her 28th birthday with an energetic but short concert at the Roseland Ballroom in her first of seven concerts at the closing venue.

Gaga performed for an hour Friday night in front of a feverish crowd. She started with a slow version of "Born This Way" on piano, with the audience joining in. She followed that with the jams "Monster" and "Bad Romance." She danced and sang on the side of the stage in a red tight leotard.

"Thank you so much for spending my birthday with me," she yelled to the audience, which included her actor-boyfriend Taylor Kinney and Nate Ruess, lead singer for the band Fun.

Gaga was in top form as she sang nearly a dozen of her songs, including "Just Dance," an acoustic version of "Poker Face," and the recent hit "Applause." The concert's main surprise: It was too short. After she ended, fans waited for the pop star to hit the stage again. She never did.

She performed some tracks from her recent album, "ARTPOP," which has struggled to match the success of her other releases. But onstage, she showed no signs of slowing down.
Gaga closed with the new single, "G.U.Y.," now wearing an all-white ensemble (her sixth costume change for the night).

"Thanks for making this the best birthday ever," she said.

The New York-born singer will perform six more shows at the Roseland Ballroom, helping close the famed venue that opened eight decades ago. Performers in the past have included The Rolling Stones, Madonna and Beyonce, who famously performed four shows in 2011 when she was pregnant.

"How many New Yorkers are in here tonight?" Gaga asked early in the show. "Do you believe in love? Do you?"

The Grammy winner kept the concert tame compared to her showcase at the South by Southwest festival this month, which featured a performance artist vomiting paint on her. She thanked her fans a number of times in between songs.

"When I woke up this morning I was so happy," she said. "I couldn't wait to get here tonight. I have so many friends here ... so many fans I've grown up with for six whole years, seven whole years."

When a dog became stranded in a canal in Romania, some passersby jumped in to pull the soaking wet pup from the icy water. But it's what happens after the dog was freed that makes the recorded rescue so remarkable.

In a video, posted on YouTube this week, several men pull the dog to safety by the scruff of its neck -- something canine mothers often do to their pups to carry them. After the dog is freed, it appears to act as most humans would and shows its gratitude to the rescuers by showering them with nuzzles and licks.
Whether dogs are capable of showing emotions like humans has been a recurrent topic in scientific studies (though most pet owners would probably agree that dogs are capable of showing a wide range of emotions.)

In October, a professor of neuroeconomics published an editorial following two years of research on the human-canine connection with the conclusion: "Dogs are people, too." More recently, another study indicated that, within the brain, dogs process voices and emotions just like humans.

So while this rescued dog may just be excited to be back on dry land, we're inclined to believe it's grateful for the assist.

Jimmy Kimmel seems to think so. He tweeted this selfie — featuring Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton — to his 3.76 million followers on Saturday night:

Five and a half years after leaving Hugh Hefner and Playboy behind, Holly Madison finally ditched her bleach blonde hair for something a bit more appropriate for her newfound motherhood.
Trouble is, the former reality star can't seem to pick a color she likes and we aren't too thrilled with the newest results.

The former The Girls Next Door centerpiece debuted her ginger locks on March 13th on a red carpet in Las Vegas.
Unfortunately, she must have wanted something a bit more vibrant and darkened the color just before her most recent appearance celebrating a brand new cupcake ATM yesterday.
I'm not sure about you, but I much prefer the lighter version to the darker. It seems a lot more natural and is just prettier.

And from one ginger to another, Holly better make sure to have those hair appointments scheduled in advance. Red may be stunning, but it is a bitch to keep up with once you start washing it.

About five years ago, Lady Gaga burst into mega fame with the force of a shooting star (that insisted on wearing raw meat to red carpet events). But with her latest performance largely spotlighting vomit as performance art, it's all too easy to forget the moment when Gaga first rose into public consciousness, accessorized by Muppets and often compared to Madonna.

So, what happened? In just about five years, Gaga reached an unprecedented echelon of pop stardom, only to lose her mystery to such an extent that puke-for-attention seems almost standard. (She was puked on, it should be noted, by vomit painter Millie Brown.) In hopes of mapping the trajectory from fledgling stardom to bile desperation, we've tracked the rise and fall of Gaga's monstrous brand of celebrity.

Feb. 20, 2007 - Appearing in public for perhaps the last time as the human who once resembled Stefani Germanotta, Gaga attends the "Who's Next? Writers on the Rise" event in New York City.

May 19, 2008 - Gaga introduces her eclectic sartorial choices to the world at the NewNowNext Award, walking the carpet as a pirate from a future in which there is no cure for glaucoma.
Aug. 19, 2008 - Gaga releases "The Fame" and it eventually goes platinum, selling over 10 million digital singles and quickly making her what Rolling Stone would later call "the defining pop star of 2009." The Top-40 quickly becomes 20 percent just Gaga.

Jan. 20, 2009 - In an interview with The Guardian, Lady Gaga tells Laura Barton that she has "felt famous [her] whole life." Her confidence in place of feigned surprise over her success is refreshing.

May 11, 2009 - During a spot on "Ellen," Gaga begins her foray into absurd hats with "The Orbit," succeeds in confounding both Ellen and America.

Sept. 13, 2009 - One of Gaga's five generally outrageous outfits at the VMAs includes a red lace bridal headdress that is basically what would have happened if Carrie ever got married.

It's not like "Divergent" fans had any real reason to worry about their franchise getting a sequel, seeing as Veronica Roth's books are a trilogy and Lionsgate had a follow-up planned all along. But just in case anyone was uncertain, Lionsgate subsidiary Summit Entertainment has officially given "Insurgent" the green light.

Really, though, we had nothing to fret over. The Shailene Woodley-fronted dystopian flick opened to an impressive $4.9 million following Thursday night's screenings. While the movie is no longer poised to be more lucrative than the first "Twilight" installment, it's still generated an endless cycle of buzz in recent months and could accrue between $50 and $60 million this weekend.
“We're off to a great start with strong numbers from all regions of the country, urban, suburban and rural alike,” Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer said in a statement. ”We're confident that ‘Divergent' is on its way to becoming another important franchise for us, and we have just greenlit the second film, ‘Insurgent.'”

As previously announced, "Divergent" director Neil Burger won't return for the sequel, having turned down the offer for "practical reasons" concerning his shooting schedule. Instead, Robert Schwentke ("The Time Traveler's Wife," "R.I.P.D.") will take over. "Insurgent" is eyeing a March 2015 release, and Woodley and co-star Theo James are already on board to return.

If the movies stick to that schedule, the third installment, “Allegiant,” will arrive in March 2016

Ankhon Dekhi is a delicate and delightful film about invisible people — those ordinary folk you pass on the street but rarely pay attention to. Writer-director Rajat Kapoor finds beauty and richness in their lives.

He constructs a keenly observed portrait of a lower-middle class family in Delhi, how the centre slowly frays and falls apart. But the film ends on a note that is beguiling and entirely apt for a director whose gurus are Kumar Shahani and Mani Kaul.
Ankhon Dekhi centres around Raje Bauji, played by Sanjay Mishra who, after a dramatic incident, decides that he will only believe what he sees with his eyes.This leads to a series of bewildering situations, including Raje Bauji at the zoo, goading a tiger to roar so he can confirm that tigers roar.


The performances by Sanjay and Seema Pahwa, who plays his harassed wife, are wonderful. Rajat, who also plays a pivotal role in the film, tells their story with tenderness and affection. Sadly, the narrative meanders in the second half — the plot becomes increasingly random and farfetched. But eventually, the strands come together with such a heave of emotion that I found myself wiping away tears. 

China said on Saturday it had a new satellite image of what could be wreckage from a missing Malaysian airliner, as more planes and ships headed to join an international search operation scouring some of the remotest seas on Earth.
The latest possible lead came as the search for Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 entered its third week, with still no confirmed trace found of the Boeing 777 or the 239 people on board.

The new potential sighting was dramatically announced by Malaysia's acting transport minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, after he was handed a note with details during a news conference in Kuala Lumpur, scooping the official announcement from China.

"Chinese ships have been dispatched to the area," Hishammuddin told reporters. China said the object was 74 feet long and 43 feet wide, and spotted around 75 miles "south by west" of potential debris reported by Australia off its west coast in the forbidding waters of the southern Indian Ocean.

The image was captured by the high-definition Earth observation satellite "Gaofen-1" early on March 18, two days after the Australian satellite picture was taken, China's State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND) said on its website.

It could not easily be determined from the blurred images whether the objects were the same, but the Chinese photograph could depict a cluster of smaller objects, a senior military officer from one of the 26 nations involved in the search for the plane said.
The wing of a Boeing 777-200ER is approximately 27 metres long and 14 metres wide at its base, according to estimates derived from publicly available scale drawings. Its fuselage is 63.7 meters long by 6.2 meters wide.

Flight MH370 vanished from civilian radar screens early on March 8, less than an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur on a scheduled flight to Beijing.

Investigators believe someone on board shut off the plane's communications systems, and partial military radar tracking showed it turning west and re-crossing the Malay Peninsula, apparently under the control of a skilled pilot.

That has led them to focus on hijacking or sabotage, but they have not ruled out technical problems.

Since Australia announced the first image of what could be parts of the aircraft on Thursday, the international search for the plane has focused on an expanse of ocean more than 2,000 km (1,200 miles) southwest of Perth.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said one of its aircraft reported sighting a number of "small objects" with the naked eye, including a wooden pallet, within a radius of 5 km.

A Royal New Zealand Air Force P-3 Orion aircraft took a closer look but only reported seeing clumps of seaweed. It dropped a marker buoy to track the movement.

"A merchant ship in the area has been tasked to relocate and seek to identify the material," AMSA said in a statement.

The search area experienced good weather conditions on Saturday with visibility of around 10 km and moderate seas.

Australia, which is coordinating the rescue, has cautioned the objects in the satellite image might be a lost shipping container or other debris, and may have sunk since the picture was taken.

"Even though this is not a definite lead, it is probably more solid than any other lead around the world and that is why so much effort and interest is being put into this search," Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss told reporters, before latest Chinese image was reported.

In yet another setback to Finnish handset maker Nokia , the Tamil Nadu government has slapped on it a Rs. 2,400 crore tax demand notice related to the devices sold from its Chennai factory.
   
Nokia, which as part of its deal with the US-based software giant Microsoft has to transfer its Indian assets including the Chennai factory by March-end, on Friday approached the Madras High Court challenging claims made by the Tamil Nadu government.
   
The development comes within a week of the Supreme Court refusing to lift restraint on sale of its Indian assets in a separate case related to payment of tax dues.
   
Tamil Nadu government's Commercial Taxes Department (VAT) have assessed sales tax on the devices sold from the firm's Chennai manufacturing facility.
   
According to sources, the government has claimed that the company is selling mobile phones in the domestic market instead of exporting them.
   They said the state government has sent a tax demand notice of about Rs. 2,400 crore to the company in relation to this issue.
   
"Nokia has today filed a writ to the Madras High Court to contest a claim from the Tamil Nadu tax department, which has moved to assess sales tax on the export of devices from the company's Chennai facility," the company said in a statement.
   
Nokia considers the claim to be completely without merit and counter to domestic tax laws, it added.
   
"Nokia will defend itself vigorously in this matter. It is absurd that the Tamil Nadu tax authority is now claiming that devices made in Chennai were not exported and were instead sold domestically in India.
   
"We contend that this allegation has no basis in reality whatsoever; it could easily be rebuffed by a check of documentation provided to various governmental departments including Customs," the company said.
   
In India, exports are by law exempt from tax and Nokia has proved consistently that devices produced at Chennai are exported abroad, it added.
   
Nokia further said, "Indeed, the company has been regularly assessed and audited by the tax authorities since 2006 without incident, and it has also won numerous export awards from governmental organisations."

Mind you, I've never actually been to a strip club. But I had imagined a dark, dingy place where men slink in and out with their eyes averted, afraid they might run into their wives' Pilates instructor (or something like that). Armed with two female friends and more than a few whiskey gingers, I walked into Headquarters Gentlemen's Club to watch Belle Knox's debut stripping performance on Tuesday night with a tote bag full of gym clothes and a grandpa sweater on. Let's just say the bouncers seemed more than a bit perplexed.

When Belle Knox, sex worker and all-around badass feminist, came out as the Duke porn star last month, I immediately went into full-support mode. Knox is refreshingly articulate and steadfast about her beliefs -- especially impressive given that she's only 18. As a sex-positive feminist, I support Belle's choice to work in porn and completely respect her ambition to succeed in her career. So when I got the chance to attend her stripping debut at a New York City gentlemen's club I decided to take it, because frankly, I was curious.
After bee-lining to the bar, my coworkers and I found prime viewing spots directly in front of the stage. There was a swarm of journalists in the club and some poor, unsuspecting (non-journalist) men huddled away from the flashing camera lights. And while we may not have been getting the truest strip club experience, given the bizarre media circus, there was no ignoring the naked and gyrating women strutting around the room.

Our small entourage slowly acclimated to our surroundings as we gossiped and watched Knox's many opening acts come and go from the stage. During the three-hour show (I swear, this was for work), our conversation slowly evolved. We started out nervously giggling, quickly realized this was disrespectful, and attempted to pay attention to the dancers onstage.

Staring at these women exposing themselves for the pleasure of the audience, me and my two heterosexual female companions began to pick apart each performer's body: "Oh my gosh, she is absolutely gorgeous!" "Her boobs are totally fake." "C'mon, I could do a better job than her."

After two hours of standing next to flashing lenses, eager reporters and a dude who actually asked if I worked there, Belle took the stage. With a small army of cameras trailing her, the 18-year-old star made her entrance to none other than Joan Jett's "Bad Reputation."

Australia's multibillion-dollar mining, farming and tourism industries face significant threats as worsening global warming causes more dangerous and extreme weather, the world's leading climate science body will warn.

A final draft of a five-year assessment by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - seen by Fairfax Media - details a litany of global impacts from intensifying climate change including the displacement of hundreds of millions of people, reduced crop yields and the loss of trillions of dollars from the global economy.

The report is the second part of the IPCC's fifth major assessment and focuses on climate change's impacts and how the world might adapt. It will be finalised at a meeting in Japan next weekend before its release on March 31.
The final draft Australasia chapter also outlines significant local threats if human-caused climate change gets worse, in particular high confidence that fire seasons, particularly in southern Australia, will extend in high-risk areas.


There is also significant risk of increased damage and death from heatwaves resulting from more frequent extreme high temperatures. Flood risk too would be worse.
The draft says these new extremes imply Australia's mammoth mining industry is increasingly vulnerable without adaptation measures. The report points to significant loss of coal exports revenue of $5 billion to $9 billion when mines were flooded in 2011.
Tourism also faces some significant threats, the draft says. The Great Barrier Reef is expected to degrade under all climate change scenarios, reducing its attractiveness to visitors.
Australia's $1.8 billion ski industry is identified as most negatively affected, with little option for it to counteract threats.
For Australian farming a 4 per cent reduction in the gross value of beef, sheep and wool is expected with 3 degrees of warming above a 1980-99 baseline.

Dairy output is projected to decline in all regions, except in Tasmania.
Out of the major risks identified for Australia in the draft, the loss of montane ecosystems and changes in coral reefs, appear to be very difficult to avoid. The draft also finds modelling consistently indicated the range of many wildlife species will contract.

And there is high confidence climate change is already affecting Australia's oceans, with climate zones and species shifting hundreds of kilometres southwards.

Professor Jean Palutikof - a review editor of the assessment and director of Australia's National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility - said while adaptation measures were important, there were limits to what the world could do and it was important to cut global emissions to ensure these thresholds are not reached.
''I think it is quite black and white, there is a risk we will go beyond the limits of the natural environment and human society to adapt to the climate'' she said.

A spokesman for Environment Minister Greg Hunt said the government recognised the importance of adapting to the impacts of climate change, pointing to the refunding of the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, which it has asked to ''focus on putting practical adaptation information in the hands of decision-makers so we can build a stronger, more resilient Australia''.

A day after India vs Pakistan ICC World Twenty20 championship match ended, West Indies captain Darren Sammy took umbrage at the fact that a big-talking Suresh Raina, fresh off a smashing innings against arch rival neighbours, dubbed Windies batsmen as "six hitters".

Sammy then threw an open challenge and dared the Indian bowlers to stop them from hitting the maximums when they clash in the ICC World Twenty20 here tomorrow.

"We don't care much about what Suresh Raina thinks. If he thinks we are only six hitters, then stop us from hitting sixes," Sammy replied when asked about his batsmen inability to rotate strike against spinners.
However, the usually affable West Indies skipper went back to his normal good natured mood as he answered questions with a bit of fun and some with a lot of seriousness.
What's there on Chris Gayle's mind, asked a scribe. "I am not Jesus Christ! I don't know what's going on in his mind," he laughed and replied.
Also read: ICC World Twenty20: Virat Kohli helps India maintain World Cup record against Pakistan
Then he got serious. "But I know he (Gayle) is really pumped up to play here. Whenever he is playing for the West Indies, he is very pumped up. And tomorrow's game everyone will be pumped up."

Will India be easy opponents, was what he was asked first up at the media conference.

"You seriously ask that question? No, I don't think any team is an easy opponent. India started off on a winning note and most likely they will have a lot of confidence going into the game. We know what we are capable of doing and we have been playing some good T20 cricket and the guys are confident that we would come good once we play to our full potential."

China has not held back in forcing the pace of the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. It has deployed 21 satellites and a flotilla of naval ships. It has dispatched investigators to Malaysia, run background checks on the Chinese passengers, and scoured radar images of its vast western regions. Every day it has cajoled, chided and criticized Malaysian officials.

And still it has come up empty-handed. Two weeks after the plane vanished on an overnight flight to Beijing, no trace of the Boeing 777 jet or the 239 people on board, two-thirds of whom are Chinese, has been found.

The painful process of working with Malaysia in searching for the airplane and investigating what went wrong in the early hours of March 8 has revealed the limits of China's power, influence and technological and military might in the region, despite its rapid rise as a rival to the United States and American strategic dominance of the Western Pacific.

Within China, anguished relatives and friends of the passengers and their many sympathizers are pressing hard for answers, but the government finds itself helpless as Malaysia takes the lead in the search and investigation efforts, which is consistent with international norms on air disasters.
Malaysia has been keeping other nations, including China, at a distance, to the frustration of officials here, according to political observers. That tension is reflected in the frequent condemnations of Malaysia that have appeared in the Chinese state news media. China is out of its comfort zone, no longer in the position of strength from which it usually deals with smaller Asian nations, including Malaysia.

The two countries have for decades maintained strong economic ties, and Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader, promised closer economic and military cooperation on a visit to Malaysia in October. At the same time, China has not been shy about pressing Malaysia on a range of delicate issues - in January, it sent a naval patrol to a reef in the South China Sea that is claimed by Malaysia; in 2012, it welcomed Malaysia's deportation of six ethnic Uighurs who had fled from China.

Now, Chinese officials find themselves desperately prodding Malaysia to share information, to allow China a hand in the investigation and to placate the irate Chinese families who demand answers daily.

"If you don't push them, they won't move," Zhu Zhenming, a scholar of Southeast Asia at the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences, said about the Malaysian authorities. "It's mostly to do with their administrative management capabilities, but also their culture."

He added that Malaysia was "too lacking" when it came to "dealing with disaster management" - "not because they don't want to do it, but because they cannot."

That sense of frustration, and perhaps condescension, has come through even in official Chinese remarks that were intended to be diplomatic. On Tuesday, Huang Huikang, the Chinese ambassador to Malaysia, told reporters in Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital, that "the Malaysian government has insufficient capabilities, technologies and experience in responding to the MH370 incident, but they did their best." 

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, who is on the Lok Sabha election campaign, will be holding two election rallies on Saturday.

The Congress's poll campaign chief will be first visiting Mandla district in Madhya Pradesh where he will be interacting with the tribals.

Later in the day, Rahul will head to Pratapgarh district in Uttar Pradesh where he will be addressing a public meeting.

American investigators reviewing a hard drive belonging to the captain of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 have found that there were deletions of information even closer to the final flight than first indicated by Malaysian officials, U.S. law enforcement officials tell CNN.
The forensic search of the computer files by government experts found files were removed even after February 3, the date Malaysian authorities have cited for when some data was cleared from the drive of the captain.
Investigators are examining the contents of drives belonging to both pilots. Copies of the hard drives are at the FBI's forensics lab facilities in Quantico, Virginia, and one is being analyzed with the assistance of consultants the FBI uses to help analyze such electronic data.
It's not clear why Malaysian officials cited the February 3 date and if they knew of the other deletions. The type of software used for flight simulation takes up a lot of room in hard drives and investigators believe that could be one reason for deletion of files.
It's possible too that some damage could have been done during the first examinations done by Malaysian investigators.
Law enforcement officials say that they aren't drawing any conclusions about the subsequent deletions, or the earlier ones, just two days into reviewing the hard drive contents, which officials described as a large volume of data. More couldn't be learned about the nature of the deletions, and who made them.

Some senior U.S. counterterrorism officials say that an accident is the leading operative theory as cause for the disappearance of Flight 370. That's because there is no other information indicating foul play.
"Barring other information to suggest otherwise one has to first think this was a tragic accident," a U.S. law enforcement official said. But investigators have not ruled out terrorism or other theories.
Investigators have focused on the pilots because of the lack of any other information. But there isn't proof that they did anything wrong.
U.S. investigators have compiled profiles of the two pilots, based on interviews with friends, neighbors and family members conducted by Malaysian investigators, and on a search of their online activities, U.S. officials say.
Those interviews haven't turned up anything that could suggest any explanations for the plane's disappearance.

The February 2 polls, called by Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra in an unsuccessful attempt to ease a months-old political crisis, have not yet been completed because of disruption by demonstrators.

A court spokesman told reporters that the 6:3 ruling was reached on the grounds that voting was not held for the entire country on the same day.

Opposition protesters blocked candidate registrations in 28 constituencies, and also caused the closure of about 10 per cent of polling stations.

The main opposition Democrat Party boycotted the vote, saying it would not end years of political turmoil.

The case was one of a slew of legal hurdles facing Yingluck, who has withstood calls to resign despite months of political street protests.

A spokesman for her Puea Thai Party described the outcome as "regrettable", and said the annulment of the vote would "set a bad precedent".
The petition was filed by a Bangkok law lecturer. A similar bid, submitted by the opposition on the grounds that the failure to hold the entire election on the same day was an attempt to grab power unconstitutionally, was rejected by the constitutional court last month.

Yingluck's government, in a caretaker role following the incomplete election, faces a series of legal challenges that could lead to her removal from office, including negligence charges linked to a rice subsidy scheme.

She has faced more than four months of street demonstrations seeking to force her from office and install an unelected government to oversee reforms and curb the dominance of her billionaire family.

Twenty-three people have been killed in recent weeks in gun and grenade attacks, mostly targeting protesters.

It is the latest chapter in a political crisis stretching back to a military coup in 2006 that ousted Yingluck's brother Thaksin Shinawatra, a divisive tycoon-turned-politician who lives in Dubai to avoid prison for a corruption conviction.

Crimea's Moscow-backed leaders declared a 96% vote in favour of quitting Ukraine and annexation by Russia in a referendum Western powers said was illegal and will bring immediate sanctions.
As state media in Russia carried a startling reminder of its power to turn the United States to "radioactive ash", US President Barack Obama spoke to Vladimir Putin, telling the Russian president that he and his European allies were ready to impose "additional costs" on Moscow for violating Ukraine's territory.
The Kremlin and the White House issued statements saying Obama and Putin saw diplomatic options to resolve what is the gravest crisis in East-West relations since the Cold War.

A pro-Russian protester celebrates in Simferopol's Lenin Square on March 16, 2014 after exit polls showed that about 95% of voters in Ukraine's Crimea region supported union with Russia (AFP photo)

But Obama said Russian forces must first end "incursions" into its ex-Soviet neighbour while Putin renewed his accusation that the new leadership in Kiev, brought to power by an uprising last month against his elected Ukrainian ally, were failing to protect Russian-speakers from violent Ukrainian nationalists.
Moscow defended a military takeover of the majority ethnic Russian Crimea by citing a right to protect "peaceful citizens". Ukraine's interim government has mobilised troops to defend against an invasion of its eastern mainland, where pro-Russian protesters have been involved in deadly clashes in recent days.
With three-quarters of Sunday's votes counted in Crimea, a Black Sea peninsula that is home to 2 million people, 95.7% had supported annexation by Russia, chief electoral official Mikhail Malyshev, was quoted as saying by local media.
Turnout was 83 percent, he added - a high figure given that many who opposed the move had said they would boycott the vote. Russia's lower house of parliament will pass legislation allowing Crimea to join Russia "in the very near future", news agency Interfax cited its deputy speaker as saying on Monday.
"Results of the referendum in Crimea clearly showed that residents of Crimea see their future only as part of Russia," Sergei Neverov was quoted as saying. Japan on Monday echoed Western nations in rejecting the referendum and called on Russia not to annex Crimea. US and European officials say military action is unlikely over Crimea, which Soviet rulers handed to Ukraine 60 years ago.

But the risk of a wider Russian incursion, as Putin probes Western weakness and tries to restore Moscow's influence over its old Soviet empire, leaves NATO calculating how to help Kiev without triggering what some Ukrainians call "World War Three".
"We hope all parties can calmly maintain restraint to prevent the situation from further escalating and worsening.
Political resolution and dialogue is the only way out," Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Li Baodong told reporters on Monday, ahead of a visit to Europe by President Xi Jinping later this month. China avoided making a comment on the Crimea referendum and has said it does not back sanctions on Moscow - a close diplomatic ally and key economic partner.

Highlighting the stakes, journalist Dmitry Kiselyov, who is close to the Kremlin, stood before an image of a mushroom cloud on his weekly TV show to issue a stark warning. He said: "Russia is the only country in the world that is realistically capable of turning the United States into radioactive ash."
On Lenin Square in the centre of the Crimean capital Simferopol, a band struck up even before polls closed as the crowd waved Russian flags. Regional premier Sergei Aksyonov, a businessman nicknamed "Goblin" who took power when Russian forces moved in two weeks ago, thanked Moscow for its support.
The regional assembly is expected to rubber-stamp a plan to transfer allegiance to Russia on Monday before Aksyonov travels to Moscow, although the timing of any final annexation is in doubt. Putin may choose to hold off a formal move as diplomatic bargaining continues over economic and diplomatic sanctions that many EU states fear could hurt them as much as they do Russia.

Following Lady Gaga's interesting, and debatably disturbing, SXSW performance, Demi Lovato took to Twitter to criticize the bit involving performance artist Millie Brown.

Lovato's struggles with eating disorders and addiction are well-known, and so she was quick to point out that Brown forcing herself to vomit all over Gaga was unacceptable. She stated that Gaga was glamorizing eating disorders and that the performance wasn't "cool" in any way whatsoever.
"Putting the word ART in it isn't a free card to do whatever you want without consequences," she tweeted.

Despite some passioned reactions from upset Gaga fans, Lovato continued to warn of the negative ways pop culture can impact others, especially someone with as much clout as Gaga.

However, in the end, Lovato reminded everyone that was still a Little Monster at heart. Read her tweets below.