Trend Guru

DNA evidence has linked an air conditioning repairman to the stabbing deaths of three women, including a former girlfriend of actor Ashton Kutcher, police said Friday.

Michael Gargiulo, 32, of Santa Monica has been in custody since July for a separate knife attack and could face murder charges as soon as next week, police said.

Santa Monica police Lt. Darrell Lowe said DNA collected from a crime scene last spring helped link Gargiulo to the stabbing deaths of women from Los Angeles, suburban Chicago and Monterey Park.

One of the cases involves 22-year-old Ashley Ellerin, Kutcher's former girlfriend, who was found dead in February 2001 in her Hollywood Hills home.

Kutcher, who starred in the television series "That '70s Show" and is married to actress Demi Moore, told police he went to pick up the fashion student-model for a post-Grammy Awards party, but she did not answer the door. He checked a back window and spotted what he thought were red wine stains on the carpet and then left. Her body was discovered the next day by a friend

Catch the full story on The Associated Press website

Howard Hughes Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. (24 December 1905 – 5 April 1976) was an American aviator, industrialist, film producer/director, philanthropist, and one of the wealthiest people in the world. He gained fame in the late 1920s as a maverick film producer, making big budget and often controversial films like Hell's Angels, Scarface, and The Outlaw. As an aviator, Hughes set multiple world air-speed records (for which he won many awards, including the Congressional Gold Medal), built the Hughes H-1 Racer and H-4 "Spruce Goose" aircraft, and acquired and expanded Trans World Airlines. Despite his contributions to aeronautics and his other professional achievements, Hughes is perhaps most widely remembered for his highly-publicized descent into madness in later life. Nonetheless, Hughes' legacy is still visible through the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and he remains one of the most influential aviators in American history.

Read full biography of Howard Hughes at Famous Texans Website
Source : Wikipedia

Barack Obama named Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware as his vice presidential running mate early Saturday, balancing his ticket with a seasoned congressional veteran well-versed in foreign policy and defense issues.

Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee. Watch the first
Obama-Biden rally live at 3pm ET on www.BarackObama.com. Spread the
word!

Obama announced the pick on his Web site with a photo of the two men and an appeal for donations. A text message went out shortly afterward that said, "Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee."



Biden, 65, has twice sought the White House, and is a Catholic with blue-collar roots, a generally liberal voting record and a reputation as a long-winded orator.



Across more than 30 years in the Senate, he has served at various times not only as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee but also as head of the Judiciary Committee, with its jurisdiction over anti-crime legislation, Supreme Court nominees and Constitutional issues.
In selecting Biden, Obama passed over several other potential running mates, none more prominent than former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, his tenacious rival in dozens of primaries and caucuses. Read the complete story on Huffington Post.





Joe Biden: Profile


Joseph Biden, the 65-year-old Delaware senator has, by all accounts, a superlative resumé.
Biden's leadership of the foreign relations committee is expected to benefit Democrats during a presidential race that could be decided as much by Iran, Iraq and Russia as by the US.
His son is scheduled for a deployment to Iraq this year, and he has a palpable affection for Barack Obama.
Biden, first elected at the age of 30, is a demonstrably skilled debater. Washington has produced few sparkling wits, but he is one of them.



His long history in Washington also risks undermining Obama's message of "change".
Biden, who dropped out of the presidential race in Iowa in January, is of Irish Catholic heritage but is in favour of abortion rights, a key issue in US elections. He originally voted to authorise the war in Iraq, but has since become a persistent critic of the Bush administration's policies there.
Born into a working class family in Scranton, Pennsylvania on November 20 1942, Biden is not a household name but was arguably the most well-known of those being considered for the vice presidency by Obama.



Biden married Neilia Hunter in 1966, and the couple had three children. His wife and 13-month-old daughter. Naomi. died in a car accident in December 1972, shortly after he was first elected to the Senate.



His two sons, Joseph R Biden III and Robert Hunter, were seriously injured, but Biden was persuaded not to resign to look after them and was sworn into office from their bedside. Both made full recoveries.



In 1977, he married Jill Tracy Jacobs, with whom he has a daughter, Ashley. Biden is currently serving his sixth term as a member of the Democratic Party. He has served for the sixth-longest period among current senators, and is Delaware's longest-serving senato.


Read the complete profile on Guardian

Texas rep. chef Edwards confirms to CNN that Barack Obama's presedential campaign has vetted him for the No. 2 spot on the Democratic Presidential ticket. Edwards also told CNN Obama has not spoken to him in recent days about his VP choice.

An experimental aircraft crashed into a house shortly after takeoff Friday, killing the pilot and two people inside the home, authorities said.

The pilot of the home-built plane radioed that he was in trouble shortly after taking off from the North Las Vegas Airport, said Ian Gregor, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman in Hawthorne, Calif.
"He said he was unable to gain altitude and was going down," Gregor said.
Firefighters quickly doused an intense fire in the single-family home in a neighborhood southeast of a main runway at the airport.
The pilot and one resident of the house died in the 6:28 a.m. crash, and another person in the house died after being taken to University Medical Center in Las Vegas, said a deputy fire chief, Kevin Brame.
The names of the dead were not immediately released.
Gregor characterized the rear-propeller Velocity 173 RG aircraft as "experimental," and said it can be built from a kit. FAA records showed the aircraft was certified for flight in 2002, he said, and was owned by a Las Vegas resident. The name of the owner was not released.
Gregor said FAA and National Transportation Safety Board investigators were traveling to North Las Vegas to investigate the crash.
North Las Vegas Airport is the second-busiest airport in Nevada after McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, according to the airport's Web site. It's a busy hub for small planes and jets, and serves as a base for sightseeing flights to the Grand Canyon and other attractions.
News Source : The Associated Press Image Courtesy : CNN