Washington  - The US government on Tuesday launched a new programme designed to unfreeze credit markets by taking a direct role in lending for small businesses, cars, student tuition, credit cards and other core sectors of the struggling US economy.

The US Treasury and Federal Reserve said they would begin lending up to 200 billion dollars by March 25 to help restart securitization markets, a critical component of the US economy that has virtually come to a halt since the financial crisis exploded in September.

Washington, March 3: Optical techniques developed by Northwestern University researchers has shown further promise in detecting the presence of pancreatic cancer through analysis of neighbouring tissue in the duodenum, part of the small intestine neighbouring the pancreas.

Vadim Backman, professor of biomedical engineering at the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern, has revealed that the new technology has shown some promise in clinical trial results.

Washington, Mar. 3: Everybody knows that Piyush “Bobby” Jindal is the son of Indian immigrants, that he is 37 and one of the youngest political leaders in the United States, that he is a Republican who has the potential to be the country’s future president. But there are aspects to his personality.

Jindal doesn''t drink, doesn''t smoke, doesn''t swear and relentlessly hammers his message that the days of corruption and incompetence are over.

Jindal is keen to change the "business as usual" attitude in Louisiana.

Washington, Mar 3: Rihanna and Chris Brown might have got back together, but the Barbados star’s relatives are not too pleased with their reconciliation.

Rihanna’s family, it seems, isn''t quite ready for the couple’s reunion.

"Everyone wants them to take a break, to cool off," People quoted a relative as saying.

"No one wants them back together," the relative added.

Washington, Mar 3: The secret legal opinions issued by the Bush Administration lawyers after the September
11 attacks included assertions that the president could use the nation’s military within the US to combat terrorism suspects and to conduct raids without obtaining search warrants.

That opinion was among nine that were disclosed publicly for the first time Monday by the Justice Department, in what the Obama Administration portrayed as a step toward greater transparency, the New York Times reported.

Washington, Mar 3 : Katie Holmes has once again sparked health concerns after she was spotted looking super skinny at a restaurant.

The 30-year-old actress was with husband Tom Cruise dining with actor John Lithgow and his wife at West Hollywood''s popular Italian restaurant Il Sole.

According to sources, although Cruise was overtly cheerful, Holmes was super skinny and seemed miserable.