Justin Bieber is in love with Selena Gomez.

Justin and Sel have been together since March last year and he admits he has completely fallen for her.
When asked if he was in love with Selena, Justin replied, “I wouldn’t be with somebody if I wasn’t in love.”
Justin loves Sel because she is “hot” but he also insists they share a connection because of their similar family backgrounds.
“Everybody can see she is hot and that’s great, but there is so much more to her than that. She makes me laugh and she puts up with my practical jokes. She has really strong family values as well. We were both raised by our moms in single-parent households, and that’s given us a lot of the same family values in life,” he said.
He added:
“At the moment we’re so busy, it’s pretty much hotel rooms for me for most of the year. She could be in one part of the world and I could be in the other. We are just a young couple who are enjoying spending time with each other . But we both took time off last month and it was just really cool to be able to spend time together and just do normal things like go to the beach and have dinner together.”

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Meet Lil Wayne's New Girlfriend Dhea

It's cuffing season for Lil Wayne. The superstar rapper has been running around Miami with a new chick for the past week and we like to investigate around here, so a few us pulled up some facts about Weezy's mystery woman.
Brendan found this tweet:

@TMZ: Lil Wayne's new lady? http://t.co/wYHoiyd @LilTunechi” --her name's Dhea, she from Scottsdale worked at suede
less than a minute ago via Twitter for iPhone Favorite Retweet Reply
 

---

Alex Navidi™ ®

RealAlexNavidi

Then Anthony found her Facebook. Dhea is of Italian descent and from Scottsdale, AZ. We don't know her last name. Although her profile lists it as Suede, as the tweet above mentions, that's just where she works—or, worked. We confirmed that and placed a location on Suede Restaurant & Lounge in her city Scottsdale. One of Dhea's pictures has her with a group of ladies in matching (work) uniforms. One of the girls tagged in the picture also lists her last name as Suede. Maybe we'll start changing our last names to Complex on Facebook.
Was this a little stalker-ish? Yes, but at least now you know. She might be the next Amber Rose or something. We'll keep you posted if we dig up anymore details.

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Penguins, flying first class, delight passengers on Delta flight (VIDEO)

"Is anyone here allergic to penguins?" the captain of Delta Flight 486 from Atlanta to New York asked passengers—including this writer—on Wednesday night. "No? Alright, we have a surprise for you."
"How would we even know if we were?" I asked the woman seated next to me in seat 33D.
"He can't be serious," she said, pausing briefly as she flipped through her copy of Sky Mall.
But sure enough, after the plane reached a cruising altitude of 30,000 feet and the seat-belt sign was turned off, a pair of penguins waddled down the aisle from first class.
"You can take pictures, but we ask that you don't touch them," the captain announced. The flight's 300-plus delighted passengers heeded the warning, snapping photos and videos with camera phones lighting the aisle as if it were a red carpet.
The foot-and-a-half tall penguins, Pete and Penny, ages 6 and 12, were en route to the New York premiere of "Frozen Planet," a new Discovery Channel documentary series narrated by Alec Baldwin. The screening, held Thursday at the Lincoln Center, was followed by a "polar-themed" party, hosted by Baldwin, Dustin Hoffman and Glenn Close, among other environmentally-conscious luminaries.
[ SLIDESHOW: Penguins attend 'Frozen Planet' premiere ]
Oddly enough, this is not the first time penguins were allowed to roam the cabin on a commercial flight. In fact, it happens fairly frequently, judging by videos uploaded to YouTube.
Just last month, three penguins on Southwest's Orlando-to-LaGuardia trek emerged from their kennels midflight, surprising passengers.
Last March, a world-traveling waddler from Sea World made an appearance on a Southwest flight to San Diego from San Francisco, where it attended a science convention.

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'BeetleCam' captures daily life of lions

In 2009, British brothers Will and Matt Burrard-Lucas embarked on a project to capture unique close-up, ground-level photographs of African wildlife. To achieve this they built the 'BeetleCam,' a remote controlled buggy with a DSLR camera mounted on top, and traveled to Tanzania. However, the camera was almost destroyed in their only encounter with a lion. They created two new BeetleCams in 2011, one with more advanced capabilities and one with an armored shell, and ventured to Kenya to photograph the lions of the Masai Mara. Though battered, BeetleCam exceeded expectations and returned with a breath-taking portfolio of lion photographs.

 

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Full Titanic site mapped for 1st time

SOUTH PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Researchers have pieced together what's believed to be the first comprehensive map of the entire 3-by-5-mile (5-by-8-kilometer) Titanic debris field and hope it will provide new clues about what exactly happened the night 100 years ago when the superliner hit an iceberg, plunged to the bottom of the North Atlantic and became a legend.

Marks on the muddy ocean bottom suggest, for instance, that the stern rotated like a helicopter blade as the ship sank, rather than plunging straight down, researchers told The Associated Press this week.

An expedition team used sonar imaging and more than 100,000 photos taken from underwater robots to create the map, which shows where hundreds of objects and pieces of the presumed-unsinkable vessel landed after striking an iceberg, killing more than 1,500 people.

Explorers of the Titanic — which sank on its maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City — have known for more than 25 years where the bow and stern landed after the vessel struck an iceberg. But previous maps of the floor around the wreckage were incomplete, said Parks Stephenson, a Titanic historian who consulted on the 2010 expedition. Studying the site with old maps was like trying to navigate a dark room with a weak flashlight.

"With the sonar map, it's like suddenly the entire room lit up and you can go from room to room with a magnifying glass and document it," he said. "Nothing like this has ever been done for the Titanic site."

 Click here to see the Video

The mapping took place in the summer of 2010 during an expedition to the Titanic led by RMS Titanic Inc., the legal custodian of the wreck, along with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Falmouth, Massachusetts, and the Waitt Institute of La Jolla, California.

They were joined by other groups, as well as the cable History channel. Details on the new findings at the bottom of the ocean are not being revealed yet, but the network will air them in a two-hour documentary on April 15, exactly 100 years after the Titanic sank.

The expedition team ran two independently self-controlled robots known as autonomous underwater vehicles along the ocean bottom day and night. The torpedo-shaped AUVs surveyed the site with side-scan sonar, moving at a little more than 3 miles per hour (4.8 kph) as they traversed back and forth in a grid along the bottom, said Paul-Henry Nargeolet, the expedition's co-leader with RMS Titanic Inc. Dave Gallo from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution was the other co-leader.

The AUVs also took high-resolution photos — 130,000 of them in all — of a smaller 2-by-3-mile (3-by-5-kilometer)area where most of the debris was concentrated. The photos were stitched together on a computer to provide a detailed photo mosaic of the debris.
The result is a map that looks something like the moon's surface showing debris scattered across the ocean floor well beyond the large bow and stern sections that rest about half a mile apart.
The map provides a forensic tool with which scientists can examine the wreck site much the way an airplane wreck would be investigated on land, Nargeolet said.
For instance, the evidence that the stern rotated is based on the marks on the ocean floor to its west and the fact that virtually all the debris is found to the east.
"When you look at the sonar map, you can see exactly what happened," said Nargeolet, who has been on six Titanic expeditions, the first in 1987.
The first mapping of the Titanic wreck site began after it was discovered in 1985, using photos taken with cameras aboard a remotely controlled vehicle that didn't venture far from the bow and stern.
The mapping over the years has improved as explorers have built upon previous efforts in piecemeal fashion, said Charlie Pellegrino, a Titanic explorer who was not involved in the 2010 expedition. But this is the first time a map of the entire debris field has looked at every square inch in an orderly approach, he said.
"This is quite a significant map," he said. "It's quite a significant advance in the technology and the way it's done."
At Lone Wolf Documentary Group in South Portland, producers are putting the final touches on the History documentary. Rushmore DeNooyer, the co-producer and writer of the show, points out the different items on the map, displayed on a screen.
They include a huge tangle of the remains of a deckhouse; a large chunk of the side of the ship measuring more than 60 feet long and weighing more than 40 tons; pieces of the ship's bottom; and a hatch cover that blew off of the bow section as it crashed to the bottom. Other items include five of the ship's huge boilers, a revolving door and even a lightning rod from a mast.
By examining the debris, investigators can now answer questions like how the ship broke apart, how it went down and whether there was a fatal flaw in the design, he said.
The layout of the wreck site and where the pieces landed provide new clues on exactly what happened. Computer simulations will re-enact the sinking in reverse, bringing the wreckage debris back to the surface and reassembled.
Some of those questions will be answered on the show, said Dirk Hoogstra, a senior vice president at History. He declined to say ahead of the show what new theories are being put forth on the sinking.

"We've got this vision of the entire wreck that no one has ever seen before," he said. "Because we have, we're going to be able to reconstruct exactly how the wreck happened. It's groundbreaking, jaw-dropping stuff."

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DAD WHO SHOT DAUGHTER'S LAPTOP AFTER FACEBOOK RANT

'He overreacted a little bit... but I understand': Teenager whose father shot her laptop after her Facebook rants reveals they have now made up.

 

• North Carolina father Tommy Jordan made hilarious video for Hannah, 15
• Daughter apparently refused to do chores and complained about parents
• Destroyed laptop with his .45 gun and describes it as 'tough love' for her
• Hannah spoke out about the incident for the first time today

The father-daughter duo who have been the focus of national attention since he shot her laptop, following a Facebook rant against her parents’ chore demands, seem to have come to a truce.
Speaking out about the incident for the first time, Tommy Jordan's daughter Hannah Marie tersely admitted to learning her lesson.
‘We got home, we talked about it, and then we went our separate ways for a little while but we came back together but we were laughing about it soon afterwards,’ she said Wednesday morning. 

The whole gang: Hannah's mother and Tommy's wife Amy (left) joined the pair on the show and said that they talked about the shooting before he did it, deciding it was a good way to show how internet postings can go viral

‘I think he overreacted a little bit but I understand.’
Mr Jordan and his daughter appeared on the Today show this morning talking about how their lives have changed since he videotaped himself shooting off a round of his .45 at the center of her laptop one month ago.
Though he believes that what he did was right and he stands by his decision, he did express some slight remorse on presenting his parenting lesson on such a public stage rather than simply within the confines of their family. 

‘Possibly in hindsight, considering all of the(Children’s Protective Services) and (Division of Social Services) involvement in that kind of stuff, maybe that was the right thing to do,’ Mr Jordan told interviewer Matt Lauer.
‘However I can't change that I did what I did and I stood behind what I did and I still do.’
Mr Jordan said how he has received anywhere between 10,000 and 20,000 emails in response to the incident, as it has sparked public outcry and support from fellow parents.

Tense truce: Tommy Jordan and his daughter Hannah Marie talked about how she is still grounded and does not have a new computer

 

 

Angry: Tommy Jordan, of Albemarle, North Carolina, reads out his 15-year-old daughter Hannah's grumbling Facebook post in which she complains about having to do chores at home

Aim: Mr Jordan gets out his pistol to shoot the laptop, left, which he has placed in the dirt and grass - before he starts to fire at it, right, shooting nine bullets including one from Hannah's mother.

‘There's more good mail then bad mail, but there is a large amount of bad mail,’ he lamented.
‘I have an email folder called good, bad, and press.’
Since the video has become viral, Mr Jordan has written a series of posts on his Facebook page, saying that he’s not an awesome parent, just a ‘normal guy with a reasonable moral compass that I try very hard to keep pointed North.’
The incident started when his 15-year-old daughter posted a scathing rant on her Facebook page that complained about the chores she was made to do- like making her bed and emptying the dishwasher.
While she hid the rant from her groups labelled Family and Church, her father saw it when he posted a funny photo of the family dog on the profile that they have for the animal.
On the Today show, Mr Jordan and his wife Amy said that they were consciously trying to make a point about how careful their daughter- and children in general- have to be when they post things online.
‘That's the point: a lot of what we were trying to make with her in the beginning was don't post anything on the web that you don't want the entire world to see and that's one of the reasons why we were upset with her in the first place,’ Mrs Jordan said.
To date, the video of Mr Jordan shooting her laptop has been viewed over 31 million times on YouTube.
‘I think all of this has driven the point home,’ Mrs Jordan continued. 

Irreparable: He shoots nine bullets into the computer, which he tells Hannah she will have to pay for as well.

 

 

 

Hannah is still grounded and still does not have a new laptop, but that is all a part of the lesson that her parents were trying to show her.
In her original Facebook rant, she complained about how she should get paid for doing her chores and that her parents always want her to get a job. Though they did not address the money issue directly, it seems unlikely that it changed.
To prove that he did not act purely out of rage, Mr Jordan surprised Hannah with her hard drive on the morning show.
‘I didn't just go out there and empty an entire clip into my kids laptop, there was a little bit of thought in it,’ he said.
While she did not seem over the moon about the fact that she still had all of her data and photos, that was surely part of the lesson too.

Below is the video of Hannah's Dad !
 

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GADO LEO

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OSHA YAENDELEA KUVIFUNGIA VIWANDA AMBAVYO HAVIZINGATII USALAMA NA AFYA MAHALI PA KAZI

Mfanyakazi wa Kiwanda cha Kamal Steel akiwa anafanyakazi kwenye eneo hatari la kutengeneza nondo,huku akiwa hana viatu maalumu vya kuweza kumkinga asiweze kudhurika endapo ajali itatokea.

 

Mfanyakazi akiwa anafanya kazi katika eneo hatarishi huku akiwa hana Maski wala "gloves" badala yake akiwa amefunga kitambaa kumzuia na gesi hatarishi zinazoweza kumpata kutokana na vyuma hivyo.

 

Mkurugenzi wa Usalama na Afya toka (OSHA) ndugu Alex Ngata akiongea na waandishi wa Habari kwenye Kiwandani Kiwanda cha Kamal steel kuwaeleza maeneo ya kiwanda hicho yaliyofungiwa.

 

Meneja wa Kanda ya Pwani wa OSHA ndugu Benjamini Kisungwe akiwaeleza waandishi wa habari mojawapo ya eneo ambalo ni hatari likiwa wazi bila ya tahadhari yoyote inayotolewa kwa wafanyakazi na watu wanaopita eneo hilo.

Wakala wa Afya na Usalama Mahali Pa Kazi (OSHA) imeendelea na zoezi lake maalum la kukagua viwanda vinavyotengeneza Nondo jijini Dar es Salaam,. Kiwanda cha Kutengeneza Nondo cha Kamal Steel ni mojawapo ya Viwanda ambavyo rungu la kuvifungia limekikumba.

 Mkurugenzi wa Usalama na Afya toka OSHA ndugu Alex Ngata amekifungia Kiwanda cha kutengeneza chuma cha Kamal Steel, kwa kukiuka Usalama na Afya kwa wafanyakazi wa kiwanda hicho.

Katika Ukaguzi wa kushitukiza uliofanywa na Wakala wa Afya na Usalama Mahali Pa kazi (OSHA), umekuta hali isiyoridhisha kwa wafanyakazi wa kiwanda hicho, wakiwa wanafanya kazi katika mazingira hatarishi.

Kabla ya kukifungia Kiwanda hicho, OSHA ilitoa Notisi ya wiki mbili ili wamiliki wakiwanda hicho wahakikishe wanazingatia Sheria ya Usalama na Afya Mahali Pa kazi, hata hivyo baada ya kufanya ukaguzi wa kushitukiza wamekuta hakuna maboresho yoyote yaliyofanyika, na hivyo kuamua kufunga baadhi ya maeneo ambayo yalionekana kuwa yanahatarisha zaidi usalama kwa wafanyakazi, baadhi ya maeneo yaliyofungiwa ni pamoja na sehemu ya kuyeyushia chuma, na eneo la kukusanyia vyuma chakavu.

SOURCE:

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MBUZI WAKIVUKA BARABARA MAENEO YA KINONDONI

Kamera yetu leo imewanasa Mbuzi hawa wakikatiza Barabara ya Kinondoni jijini Dar huku magari yakiwa yamepanga mruru kusubiri kupita kwa mbuzi hao ambao walikuwa wakizunguka hovyo katika maeneo hayo.

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BEYONCE AND JAY-Z DEBUT BLUE IVY CARTER

New parents Beyonce and Jay-Z welcomed their first child Blue Ivy Carter on January 7th, and now in an online posting, the Carters debut their beautiful one month old bundle of joy to the universe and "welcome you to share in [their] joy".

The couple is known for brokering big deals, hence their move to trademark their baby girl's name, so it is somewhat surprising (yet refreshing) that they decided to forgo magazine deals and introduce Blue on their own terms. She's gorgeous.

View additional photos of the youngest Carter with her superstar parents below:

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The World’s Billionaires 2012

 

Record Numbers, Record Wealth: 128 new billionaires made their debut this year, while 117 dropped out of the ranks. The net result is a record 1,226 billionaires, including the creators of Spanx, Under Armour and 5-Hour Energy.

A quarter century ago Forbes published our first annual list of the World’s Billionaires—and we found 140. This year the list broke records for the most number of billionaires (1,226) and combined net worth, at $4.6 trillion, up from $4.5 trillion. Behind those numbers is a more complicated story of rapid change among the world’s wealthiest. Innovation, strong consumer brands and a rebounding U.S. stock market helped produce 128 newcomers and brought 17 former members back into the ranks, while falling stock markets, particularly in China and Russia, were the main culprit for knocking 117 billionaires off the list. Another 12 members from the 2011 list passed away, including buyout titan Teddy Forstmann and Apple’s Steve Jobs, whose wife Laurene Powell Jobs takes his spot. Overall, 460 billionaires got richer, 441 got poorer and another 180 held steady.

There are now billionaires from 58 countries. The U.S. is still home to more billionaires than any other country, with 425, a gain of 12. Mainland China and Russia were both clobbered. They have 95 and 96, respectively, down from 115 and 101 last year. The BRIC nations, which were such a force of wealth creation a year ago, have 26 fewer ten-figure fortunes, with only Brazil adding to its bounty.

[Also from Forbes.com: Full Gallery: The World’s Billionaires]

Carlos Slim Helú of Mexico tops the ranks for the third year in a row, but the gap between him and Bill Gates is tightening again. His fortune, at $69 billion, is down $5 billion from a year ago. He was one of 7 in the top 20 whose fortunes slipped, including Warren Buffett and Larry Ellison.

Meanwhile Gates, whose foundation helped wipe out polio in India, was $5 billion richer at $61 billion as Microsoft shares hit a ten-year high. Amancio Ortega, the man behind fast fashion chain Zara, moved into the top 5 for the first time, despite having stepped down as chairman the previous year. India’s Lakshmi Mittal, who runs the world’s largest steel company, ArcelorMittal, was the year’s biggest loser. His fortune plummeted by $10.4 billion, knocking him out of the top 10 for the first time since 2004. He is ranked No. 21. In a sign that great fortunes can come from almost anywhere, only 3 of the top 10 richest hail from the U.S., one fewer than last year.

There are lots of ingenious ways to make fortunes, not the least of which is using a popular brand to cater to a world full of consumers. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg is worth $17.5 billion, up $4 billion from a year ago; he may be worth far more once Facebook goes public this spring. Notable newcomers with stellar brands include Kevin Plank, founder of trendy sportswear maker Under Armour, and Sara Blakely, with her Spanx line of newfangled girdles. Blakely, 41, is the world’s youngest self-made woman billionaire. Another notable woman in the ranks is Miuccia Prada, who returns to the list after a six-year absence. Two American immigrants to make their debut are the Jacksonville Jaguars’ Shahid Khan, who came from Pakistan when he was 16 and is the first minority immigrant owner of an NFL team, and 5-Hour Energy’s Manoj Bhargava, who emigrated as a boy from India.

A note on methodology: More than 50 reporters in 16 countries worked on compiling the list this year, valuing individuals' public holdings, private companies, real estate, yachts, art and cash. Net worths were locked in using stock prices and exchange rates from Feb. 14.

The World’s Top 10 Billionaires

REUTERS/ Stringer

1. Name: Carlos Slim Helú and family

Net Worth: $69 billion (DOWN)
Source: Telecom
Citizenship: Mexico 

 

Carlos Slim Helú retains the title of world's richest man for the third year in a row despite a fortune that's $5 billion smaller than a year ago—primarily because of a lower share price for telecom giant America Movil, which accounts for more than half his net worth. In April the company was fined $1 billion by Mexican regulators for monopolistic practices but is appealing the decision. Slim is spending more time working with his Carlos Slim Foundation and the Telmex Foundation than he has in the past. His goal: philanthropic work that develops human capacity.

 

 

Add caption

 2. Name: Bill Gates

Net Worth: $61 billion (UP)
Source: Microsoft
Citizenship: USA

 

First part of mission accomplished: The most generous person on the planet (he’s given away $28 billion already) has helped eradicate polio in India. In January the country announced its first polio-free year. Gates will continue to chip in $200 million a year to rid the world of a disease that is still endemic in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria. He also has a new endeavor in the works: fixing agriculture. His foundation has committed more than $2 billion to small farmers. Less than one-fourth of his net worth is still held in Microsoft, whose shares are trading higher than they’ve been in 10 years and helped boost his fortune, which is up $5 billion. The rest is in private equity, bonds and stocks such as Ecolab and Mexican broadcaster Televisa.

[Also from Forbes.com: The World’s Billionaire Women]

 

AP Photo/Richard Drew

3. Name: Warren Buffett

Net Worth: $44 billion (DOWN)
Source: Berkshire Hathaway
Citizenship: USA

 

Who will replace the Oracle of Omaha at the helm of Berkshire Hathaway? Buffett announced in February he’d finally made the decision, but he wouldn’t give a name. In December he chose his farmer son, Howard, as the future nonexecutive chairman and “guardian of the firm’s values.” New Senate legislation requiring the rich to pay at least a 30% tax rate has been dubbed the “Buffett Rule” in homage to the billionaire’s frequent public statements that the wealthiest should pay more than the average Joe. His net worth is down $6 billion year on year because of a 7% slump in Berkshire’s stock. In his latest annual letter he confessed to some mistakes, including being “dead wrong” about a housing comeback.   

Eric Piermont/AFP/Getty Images

4. Name: Bernard Arnault

Net Worth: $41 billion (EQUAL)
Source: LVMH
Citizenship: France

 

The world’s ultimate arbiter of good taste and Europe’s richest person once again, Arnault orchestrated another stellar year at his luxury-goods empire, LVMH. Sales were up 16%, as Europe, Asia and the United States all did well. Louis Vuitton, in particular, thrived. Arnault called 2011 “another great vintage.” LVMH extended ties to two major brands: first, the Bulgari family transferred its majority stake in its eponymous brand to LVMH in exchange for shares and seats on LVMH's board; second, LVMH acquired a 20% stake in Hermes. The group also formed a JV with one of the world’s leading tanneries of crocodile leather, Heng Long.  Arnault hasn’t done as well with his more pedestrian investment in supermarket chain Carrefour, which is worth $1 billion less than it was a year ago. Among his personal high-end collection: He owns yacht builder Royal Van Lent, Indigo Island in the Bahamas (rent: $300,000 a week) and ski chalet Cheval Blanc in Courchevel.
 

Javier Rodriguez El Pais Photos/Newscom

 5. Name: Amancio Ortega

Net Worth: $37.5 billion (UP)
Source: Zara
Citizenship: Spain

 

Ortega stepped down as chairman of his global fashion firm, Inditex, in July 2011, but the company hasn’t missed a beat. Shares are up one fourth in the past year, helping boost his fortune by $6.5 billion and pushing him into the global top 5 ranks for the first time. Ortega paid $536 million to billionaire Esther Koplowitz in December for Torre Picasso, a 43-story skyscraper in Madrid. He also owns Epic Residences & Hotel, a luxury 54-story waterfront condo and hotel development in Miami. Other personal holdings include a stake in a soccer league and a horse-jumping circuit. A railway worker's son, he started as a gofer in a shirt store. With then-wife Rosalia Mera, also a billionaire, he started making dressing gowns and lingerie in his living room. His daughter Marta, who works for Inditex, married Spanish equestrian star Sergio Alvarez Moya in February.

[Also from Forbes.com: The World’s Billionaire Newcomers]

 

Kimihiro Hoshino

 6. Name: Larry Ellison

Net Worth: $36 billion (DOWN)
Source: Oracle
Citizenship: USA

Oracle’s stock has been oscillating for months. It’s rebounded since its August low but is still off 15% year on year due to a slowdown in the software and hardware giant’s sales, enough to knock $3.5 billion off Ellison’s fortune. Seeking to profit from cloud computing, Oracle acquired Taleo in February for $1.9 billion and RightNow in October for $1.5 billion. Ellison has been tagged as one of the clutch of billionaires interested in buying the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team. His big sport is yachting: he won the America's Cup in 2010 and is bringing the 34th edition of the America’s Cup Finals to the San Francisco Bay in 2013. This will be the first time the event has been held in the United States in 18 years.

7. Name: Eike Batista

Net Worth: $30 billion (EQUAL)
Source: Mining, oil
Citizenship: Brazil

  

 Brazil’s richest man is riding high on oil fever. His oil and gas driller, OGX Petroleo e Gas, produced its first oil in a test well offshore in late January; his 61% stake in the company is worth $19.8 billion-two-thirds of his net worth. The bombastic entrepreneur is also betting on his former passion, gold: In February 2011 he spent $1.5 billion to take private Canadian-listed Ventana Gold, which owns what he says is an incredibly promising mine in Colombia.

stock&people/Newscom

8. Name: Stefan Persson

Net Worth: $26 billion (UP)
Source: H&M
Citizenship: Sweden

 

 His cheap-chic apparel chain H&M added Versace and Marni to its stable of designers last year and opened its first stores in Croatia, Singapore and Romania. It now has 2,500 shops in 43 countries. Persson, who is chairman, bought 5 million additional shares of the company and then gifted 4 million, worth $150 million, to a new employee­incentive program. 

 

Photoshot/Newscom

 9. Name: Li Ka-shing

Net Worth: $25.5 billion (DOWN)
Source: diversified
Citizenship: Hong Kong

 

 Despite a small drop in fortune, Li Ka-shing moves back into the top 10 for the first time since 2007 and reclaims the title of Asia’s richest for the first time since 2004. One of the great empire builders, Li’s businesses employ 270,000 people around the world in 53 countries; he built one out of every 7 residences in Hong Kong, his Hutchison Port Holdings handles about 13% of the world’s container traffic, and his recently acquired Northumbrian Water supplies clean drinking water to 4.5 million people in England and sewerage services to another 2.7 million. Li also has personal investments in tech startups like Facebook and Spotify. Says the octogenarian: “A person investing in technology will feel younger.” One of Asia’s most generous, his foundation has donated more than $1.6 billion to date, largely to education and medical research. 

10. Name: Karl Albrecht

Net Worth: $25.4 billion (DOWN)
Source: Aldi
Citizenship: Germany

 

His $39 billion (estimated sales) discount supermarket giant, Aldi Sud, has some 4,500 stores, including 1,200 across 32 U.S. states. It opened its first New York City locations in 2011, one in Queens and another in the Bronx. To keep costs low, Aldi stores do not accept credit cards. He and his late brother Theo built their mother's corner grocery store into Aldi after World War II. They split ownership in 1961; Karl took the more profitable stores in southern Germany, plus the rights to the brand in the U.K., Australia and the U.S. Theo got northern Germany and the rest of Europe.

Click here to see the rest of the World’s Billionaires.

 

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Whitney Houston leaves everything to her daughter

 In this Sept. 1, 2009 file photo, singer Whitney Houston, right, sings with her daughter Bobbi Kristina

ATLANTA (AP) — Whitney Houston left everything to her 19-year-old daughter, Bobbi Kristina.
The pop superstar's will doesn't mention specific assets, but leaves all of her furnishings, clothing, personal effects, jewelry and cars to her surviving children. Bobbi Kristina was her only child.
Inside Edition first reported the will, filed in Atlanta, on Wednesday.
Houston's money will be put in a trust. Her sister-in-law and manager, Patricia Houston, was appointed the administrator of the estate.
Upon turning 21, Bobbi Kristina will receive part of the money, more of it at age 25 and the balance at age 30. Houston's trustees can give her money from the trust for various purposes, including tuition, to buy a home and to start a business.

The will was signed on Feb. 3, 1993, about a month before Houston gave birth to her daughter. The 48-year-old died Feb. 11 in California.

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Sun Fires Off 2 Huge Solar Flares in One-Two Punch

The sun unleashed a cosmic double whammy Tuesday (March 6), erupting with two major flares to cap a busy day of powerful solar storms. One of the flares is the most powerful solar eruption of the year, so far.

Both of the huge flares ranked as X-class storms, the strongest type of solar flares the sun can have. They followed several weaker, but still powerful, sun storms on Tuesday and came just days after another major solar flare on Sunday night.

The first big solar storm was also the most powerful one, ranking as an X5.4-class flare after erupting at 7:02 p.m. EST (0002 March 7 GMT), according to an alert from the Space Weather Prediction Center operated by the National Weather Service. It is the strongest solar flare yet for 2012.

The second event occurred just over an hour later, reaching a maximum strength of X1.3.

Several space-based observatories witnessed the solar flares, including NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory and the agency's Stereo-B spacecraft. The sun-watching observatories spotted huge clouds of charged particles — called coronal mass ejections, or CMEs — erupting from the solar flares.

"First-look data from Stereo-B are not sufficient to determine if the cloud is heading for Earth," astronomer Tony Phillips wrote on his website Spaceweather.com, which monitors space weather events. "Our best guess is 'probably, yes, but not directly toward Earth.' A glancing blow to our planet's magnetosphere is possible on March 8th or 9th." [Worst Solar Storms in History]

According to Phillips, the big X5.4 solar flare erupted from the giant active sunspot AR1429, which was also responsible for the major sun storm on Sunday.

When aimed directly at Earth, X-class solar flares can endanger astronauts and satellites in orbit, interfere with satellite communications and damage power grids on Earth. They can also amplify the Earth's display of northern and southern lights, also known as auroras. Charged particles from the solar storms can interact with Earth's upper atmosphere, resulting in a glow that is typically visible to observers at high northern or southern latitudes.

Astronomers rank solar flares by strength using five categories: A, B, C, M and X. The A-class flares are the weakest sun storms, while the X-class events are the most powerful solar flares.

This ranking system was designed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and resembles the Richter scale used for earthquakes in that each category is 10 times stronger than the one before it, NASA officials have said. So a B-class solar flare is 10 times stronger than an A-class event, while a C-class solar storm releases 10 times more energy than B-class flare (or 100 times more energy than an A-class event).

The categories are also broken down into subsets, from 1 to 9, to pinpoint a solar flare's strength. Only X-class solar flares have subcategories that go higher than 9. The most powerful solar flare on record occurred in 2003 and was estimated to be an X28 on the solar flare scale, NASA officials said. 

Tuesday's X-class solar flares followed a string of other eruptions that included M-class and C-class events, space weather officials said. Both of the day's X-class sun storms were stronger than the X1.1 solar flare of March 5.

Prior to this week, the only huge solar flare of 2012 occurred on Jan. 27, when the sun unleashed an X1.7-class eruption.

The sun is currently going through an active phase of its 11-year weather cycle. The current cycle is known as Solar Cycle 24 and is expected to reach its peak level of activity in 2013, NASA officials have said.

You can follow SPACE.com Managing Editor Tariq Malik on Twitter @tariqjmalik. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

• Photos: Huge X-Class Solar Flares Erupt from the Sun
• Strong X-Class Solar Flare Heralds Geomagnetic Storm | Video
• Latest News About Space Weather, Solar Flares & Sun Storms

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ASHANTI INKS DEAL WITH CASH MONEY

The Young Money - Cash Money family continues to grow. After adding Limp Bizkit and Christina Milian to their program, it appears that the label is ironing out a deal to sign R&B songbird Ashanti - before the release of her new album.

Last year, the Grammy-winning singer signed a distribution deal with eOne and has since released a new single "The Woman You Love", which coincidentally features another newly-signed Cash Money artist Busta Rhymes. Details below:

Lil Wayne Via New York’s 98.7 KissFM:

"As far as Cash Money, they’re always listening and looking at acts, so honestly, it’s like every other day I hear about somebody new just signed to Cash Money. The other day I just found out Limp Bizkit signed to Cash Money.

So they’re signing everybody and everybody’s getting a chance. I don’t wanna step across any boundaries, but I think we’re working with Ashanti right now."

If true this would certainly be a good move for Miss Douglas.

The independent route definitely has its advantages mainly in the ownership aspect, but nothing can override the fact, that few independent-based artists have been able to find success that rivals that of artists with major-label deals.

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