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The healing process after her surgery last week is yet not even half-complete. But Katrina Kaif, recovering quietly from surgery at her Mumbai home, stubbornly decided to go and join her family in London for the annual Christmas-New Year vacation, which she had promised herself for months now. Katrina flew out of Mumbai early Wednesday morning after getting a reluctant go-ahead from her doctors at Breach Candy hospital. Wincing in pain she said a few hours before departure, “The pain will remain for a while. But the process of healing is on. I got my doctor’s consent in Mumbai and I’ve another doctor in London who’s fully aware of my condition. The doctors said the pain would be the same in Mumbai or London. And as long as I’m very careful about not exerting myself I’ll be fine. So I’m off.” Katrina had gone into a depression earlier during the week when she felt she wouldn’t be able to join her sisters and brother in London because of her medical condition. On Tuesday after visiting ...

NEW YORK: State police say a daylong standoff at a small-town post office has ended with three hostages being released and a suspect in custody. Authorities late Wednesday ordered the suspect to let the hostages go and come out with his hands up.Soon after, the four left the building in Virginia, including a man in a wheelchair. State police Sgt. Michael Conroy says that man is the suspect.Earlier, state police said the man holding the hostages had entered the building pushing a wheelchair. Conroy says authorities believe all the hostages are out. Officers are still checking the building in western Virginia.

Thursday, December 24, 2009 NEW YORK: Was it only a decade ago that a blackberry was a mere warm season fruit? That green was, well, a color, and reality TV was that one show sandwiched between music videos on MTV?There were, of course, huge political and social upheavals that roiled the world in the past decade, but there also were the gradual lifestyle changes that people do not always notice when they are happening; kind of like watching a child grow older. Here is an alphabetical look at 50 things that changed our lives since the beginning of the millennium:AIRPORTS: Remember when you did not have to take off your shoes before getting on a plane? Remember when you could bring a bottled drink on board? Political terror changed all that.ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE: From acupuncture to herbal supplements to alternative ways of treating cancer, alternative medicine became more mainstream than ever.APPS: There is an app for that! The phrase comes from Apple iPhone advertising, but could apply...

Thursday, December 24, 2009 SYDNEY: Australian holidaymakers were evacuated Thursday from a campsite in the path of raging wildfires, a day after an inferno destroyed 13 homes in the country's southeast, officials said. Fire crews in Victoria state were on high alert as strong winds and searing temperatures prompted extreme fire warnings, with four blazes burning out of control in the Gippsland region north of Melbourne. "It's going to be extremely hot, we're looking at the spot forecast of temperatures of up to 40 degrees (Celsius, or 104 degrees Fahrenheit)," a spokesman for the Country Fire Authority (CFA) told state radio. "Humidities will be low, and the wind will be out of the north gusting up to 55 or 60 kilometres (34 or 37 miles) an hour, which is a bad fire day." Camping areas in East Gippsland were evacuated and the CFA warned the main highway between Sydney and Melbourne could be closed as conditions worsened. Officials did not say how many ...

Thursday, December 24, 2009 BEIJING: The cold snap in northwest China's Xinjiang that started on Tuesday has continued, bringing a white Christmas to most parts of the far western regions, is now spreading to northern and central China. The National Meteorological Center said the blizzard that began in most parts of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on Tuesday night had stopped, but temperatures had kept plunging. Thursday morning's low temperature in the north of Xinjiang averaged minus 30 degrees Celsius. Meanwhile, the cold snap, a result of extremely cold air temperatures in western Siberia, was moving south, bringing wind and snow, and would drop temperatures by an average 10 degrees Celsius in the northwestern provinces of Gansu, Qinghai, Shaanxi and Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. The center has forecast heavy snow in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and the three northeastern provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning over the next couple of days. The cold is ...

Thursday, December 24, 2009 NEW YORK: Air pollution may double the risk that an elderly person will be hospitalized for pneumonia, according to a new study."We have shown that air pollution exerts a strong effect on hospital admissions for pneumonia," Michael Jerrett, of the University of California, Berkeley, who was involved in the study, noted in an interview.About 600,000 people are hospitalized for pneumonia in the United States each year. Pneumonia is the leading cause of death in the elderly.The study -- led by researchers at McMaster University in Canada and reported in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine -- looked at health data from 345 people who had been hospitalized for pneumonia within a two-year period. All of them were 65 or older and lived in Hamilton, Ontario.Hamilton is home to a large industrial steel-making complex. Residents living near the complex are exposed to high levels of tiny, floating particles known as particulate mat...

Thursday, December 24, 2009 SANAA: Thirty-four suspected Al-Qaeda members were killed in an air raid launched at dawn Thursday by the Yemeni army against a meeting place of the terror group in Chabwa province east of Sanaa, a security source said.