News & Updates

HOUSTON -- A man accused of robbing a GameStop during a Black Friday door-buster sale in North Houston has been arrested, police said. The robbery happened around 3 a.m. at the GameStop located in the 5500 block of the North Freeway near Tidwell. Police said the man took cash from the register and fled, but was later caught. No injuries were reported. 

When Lucasfilm announced it was killing the Star Wars  Expanded Universe, I was heartbroken. The galaxy George Lucas had dreamed up took form in the original movies, but it was populated and fully realized by the authors, artists, and video game developers that helped build  Star Wars'  back stories. Now, like a blaster taken to my childhood memories, that Expanded Universe was gone. I thought the damage would be permanent. But I've just seen the  Star Wars: The Force Awakens  trailer. I've seen it, and I want to go back to the galaxy far, far away  right now . I don't mind that Luke won't ever meet Mara, I don't mind that the Yuuzhan Vong are scrubbed from existence. I don't even care that this is now a universe that will potentially never feature cybernetically advanced Ewok pilot Lieutenant Kettch. The trailer shows that the new movie still has the symbols of the soul of Star Wars  — X-Wings and TIE fighters and the Millennium Falcon t...

(CBS SF) — The Best Buy website is back up again after reportedly experiencing technical problems on Black Friday, one of the most busiest shopping days of the year. Shoppers logging onto the website received this message: “We’re Sorry: BestBuy.com is currently unavailable. Check back soon.” The website was first reported down at about 7:05 a.m. and was back online about an hour later. A Best Buy spokesperson told KPIX 5 “a concentrated spike in mobile traffic triggered issues that led us to shut down BestBuy.com in order to take proactive measures to restore full performance.”

PESHAWAR:  We may have been cheering about the  performance  of Rahat Fateh Ali Khan at the Nobel Prize Ceremony but now the Pashto music legend Sardar Ali Takkar has also given us a reason to own the ceremony. Takkar, who hails from the same province as Malala Yousafzai will be performing  Ta Bibi Sheerina Ye  on the first day of the ceremony, a song which he made as a tribute to Malala’s bravery after she was attacked by the Taliban. On the second day, Takkar will perform the famous poem by Ghani Khan,  A zama watan , in which Ghani Khan expressed his love for the country. “This is the moment of pride and honour that a Pakistani and a Pashtun singer will perform at the Nobel Prize award ceremony,” Takkar told  The Express Tribune . “I will be performing Pashto songs for all the Pakistani girls, the language does not matter because the message is to get well educated and be a part of a larger movement towards peace,” said Takkar. Takka...

The trailer for the fourth Jurassic Park film, starring Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, has arrived three days early After a decade of delays, the first trailer for Jurassic World has arrived three days early. A teaser trailer released for the film on Sunday explained that the official first trailer for Jurassic World would appear on Friday. However, the first full trailer for the film has bucked its years of disastrous development by dropping three days early. The sequel takes place 22 years after the events of the first Jurassic Park film, which was released in 1993. A dinosaur safari park, Jurassic World, has been built out of the ruins of the original Jurassic Park on Isla Nublar. As the trailer shows, this Jurassic World includes opportunities to paddle down the river as giant herbivores graze and join the Mosasaurus - an enormous prehistoric crocodile - eat dead sharks in a situation reminiscent of Seaworld's Shamu enclosure. This was expect...

It’s less than a year away Image taken from the Jurassic World trailer The official release date for Jurassic World is June 12 2015 – a spot that suggests the filmmakers are confident the movie will hold its place as one of next summer’s must-see blockbusters. June 12 is also a month and a half after Avengers: Age of Ultron opens, a month after Mad Max: Fury Road, and a good two weeks before Terminator: Genisys, ensuring that Universal’s dinosaurs won’t be facing too much competition during their opening week. 22 years on, Isla Nublar has an up and running theme park Image taken from the Jurassic World trailer The official plot summary for the film reads as follows: “22 years after the events of Jurassic Park, Isla Nublar now features a fully functioning dinosaur theme park, Jurassic World, as originally envisioned by John Hammond. This new park is owned by the Patel Corporation. Owen, a member of Jurassic World’s on-site staff, conducts behavioural research on the Ve...

ISLAMABAD: Dr Vaqar Ahmed, the Deputy Executive Director, Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), Islamabad, has stressed the need for normalizing trade relations between Pakistan and India to benefit both the local manufacturers and consumers besides technology transfer and greater export surplus. He was speaking at a two-day regional consultation on `Deepening Economic Cooperation in South Asia: Expectations from the 18th SAARC Summit' organized by South Asia Watch on Trade, Economics and Environment (SAWTEE) in cooperation with SDPI in Kathmandu. The programme was organized as a side-event to the 18th SAARC Summit to provide useful recommendations to deepen economic cooperation in South Asia. "The Government of Pakistan must take a lead in expediting SAARC-level pending agreements on transport, energy, connectivity and dispute resolution," Dr Vaqar said, adding that the current free trade agreements in the region should be revised to include invest...

KARACHI: Pakistan Billiards and Snooker Association’s (PBSA) Alamgir Sheikh has said that European countries are reluctant to travel to Pakistan for next year’s World Championship. PBSA is expected to host the championship, which includes 6-Red, ladies event, team championship, in August 2015 and Sheikh said that the association is working on getting rid of the feeling of fear among the delegates. Sheikh is currently in India for the ongoing IBSF World Championship and is expecting a positive outcome after the executive meeting of snooker’s world body. “My main purpose for traveling to India is to try and get the finalised dates for the World Championships,” Sheikh told  The Express Tribune . “The month of August is final so the dates are the only issue. In addition, there are some reservations among the European countries regarding traveling to Pakistan next year as per their travel advisory. However, I’ve spoken on a one-to-one basis with various delegates as we ...

WASHINGTON - Nuclear and missile arms race between India and Pakistan is showing no sign of abating even though atomic arsenals are shrinking in the rest of the world, a New American think-tank report “Although both States claim to seek only a credible minimum deterrent, regional dynamics have driven them to pursue a range of nuclear and missile capabilities.” according to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) report, entitled “Strategic Stability in the Second Nuclear Age”.   “While Pakistan is focused predominantly on the threat posed by India, it is reportedly also concerned by the potential for the United States to launch a military operation to seize or disarm Pakistani nuclear weapons,” the report says.   “This concern is based in part on reported contingency planning by the US military to prevent Pakistani nuclear weapons from falling into the hands of terrorists. Pakistan’s sensitivity to such a disarming operation was heightened by the 2011 Abbottabad raid t...

        Finally, the first biting political spoof from   Saturday Night Live   in a while: the Bill from   Schoolhouse Rock explains to a student how he becomes a law, only to be violently beat up by Barack Obama and his new best friend, “Executive Order.” Even then, the poor Executive Order still thinks he’s used for simple things, like declaring holidays and creating national parks, until Obama informs him that he’s going to be used to grant amnesty to 5 million undocumented immigrants. His reaction: “Whoa.”

—  Mandela Tribute Art Rebuked:  Last Thursday, a giant pair of stainless steel Ray Bans by artist  Michael Elion  made their debut on Cape Town’s Sea Point promenade. Titled “Perceiving Freedom,” the statue is noted on its plaque as a tribute to  Nelson Mandela  — because, in the words of the artist, the lenses “symbolize the invisible barriers and prejudices that exist in our perceptions and shape the way we view the world.” This week, however, a slew of critical articles have emerged, decrying the apparent disingenuousness of this “corporate advertising masquerading as public art,” in the words of Daily Maverick reporter Rebecca Hodges. [CityLab, Daily Maverick, Rand Daily Mail] —  Gehry’s Latest Design Complete:  The  University of Technology Sydney   laid down $180 million for a building by  Frank Gehry  — the architect’s first in Australia — which is now all set to open in February 2015. “As with most Fr...

Even though we’ve mentally evolved past falling for the hunkiest caveman in the tribe, it turns out that part of our brain  hasn't .   (Photo courtesy of People). Given the fact that he is a Norse god, it’s no surprise that Australian actor Chris Hemsworth, best known for his role asThor, has been named People magazine’s 2014 “Sexiest Man Alive” (sorry, Adam Levine—it was a good run). Even if Hemsworth isn’t your cup of tea, it’s hard to deny that he is traditionally handsome. The facial features of Hemsworth and other celebs like him—think Daniel Craigand David Beckham—possess the smoldering masculine attributes that humans have evolved to find attractive and sexy. “It’s that rugged handsomeness,” social and consumer psychologist Debbie Then, PhD., told Yahoo Health. “They’re men’s men, and they’re strong—there’s that protection factor.” The most attractive characteristics of Hemsworth’s face and how humans subconsciou...

Days after declaring that its  investigation into the bidding for soccer’s 2018 and 2022 World Cups  had not found any evidence pointing to a corruption of that process, FIFA announced on Tuesday that it was turning over the report from the inquiry to the Swiss authorities because it suspected that its investigators had uncovered criminal activity. In  an interview with FIFA’s website , Hans-Joachim Eckert, the German judge who reviewed the report submitted by the ethics committee’s lead investigator, said he had urged FIFA’s president, Sepp Blatter, to file the criminal complaint with Switzerland’s attorney general because, while he had not found enough evidence in the report to call into question the entire bidding process, he had determined that there was “suspected unlawful activity in connection with Switzerland” committed by unidentified people related to the vote. A  FIFA statement  said that “in isolated cases, international transfers of assets...