San Francisco  - After months of deadlock, which saw California unable to pay its bills, the largest and richest state in the US solved its budget crisis on Thursday.

The impasse, which led Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to issue layoff notices to 20,000 state workers and order a halt in all public works projects, was broken after he succeeded in persuading a Republican legislator to back the spending plan despite strong opposition from their rightwing party.

The whole of Canada seems to be gearing up with great zeal for Obama's visit to Ottawa. People are driving for hours through the cold and snow to get a glimpse of Obama when he lands at Ottawa and give him a grand Canadian welcome.

Obama T-shirts, Obama specialty coffee beans and Obama burgers are flying off the shelves in the wake of arrival of the U. S. President. The police raised barricades yesterday even as the well wishers planned rallies to greet the president.

The content by American web TV portal Hulu.com has been yanked its content off CBS-owned TV.com. This happened after the site’s recent re-launch as a potential rival for ad-driven streaming television.

Basically, Hulu is a JV between media giants NBC and News Corp and both are CBS competitors. However, Hulu signed on to TV.com early as a distribution partner. Since the TV.com concentrated on being a community site based on user-created content that just happened to present some syndicated content, the pact worked. 

Geneva  - During dispute settlements sessions at the World Trade Organization on Thursday, the United States and European Union continued to argue over tariffs on banana imports and bans on genetically modified foods.

The US alleged that the EU was failing to comply with a judicial body decision on bio-tech products, saying that nine member states had bans in place on the goods which were "not based on risk assessment," meaning they were not proven to have negative health consequences or similar concerns.

Washington/Ottawa  - US President Barack Obama arrived Thursday in Ottawa on his first foreign visit, where he was greeted at the airport by Governor General Michaelle Jean.

The pair made a striking image, bringing home the message of racial change in North America, as both leaders are black.

Obama was to travel to Parliament Hill, where he is to be greeted in the rotunda by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Washington  - A key gauge of US economic performance rose higher than expected in January despite the country's ongoing recession, according to a private research group Thursday.

The New York-based Conference Board's index of leading economic indicators was up 0.4 per cent, after climbing a revised 0.2 per cent in December of last year.

The index, which is designed to measure the economy's performance over the coming three to six months, has fallen 1.9 per cent since July.