The procedure was performed early to ensure the twins had the “best possible conditions” in which to be born, said their doctor Michel Sussman.

The girl is named Vivienne Marcheline after Jolie’s mother Marcheline who died in 2007 of cancer. The boy goes by Knox Leon. Jolie and the twins will remain in the hospital for a few days.

Proud papa Brad Pitt was in the operating room for the birth.

The couple has four other children: Maddox, 6; Pax, 4; Zahara, 3, and Shiloh, 2

In June alone, 179 people fell ill to salmonella. Tomatoes were blamed initially and taken off shelves and off menus at restaurants around the nation; however, they are obviously not the only culprit as people continue to become sick.

“Disease detectives” with the Center for Disease Control have been interviewing victims of the outbreak about their diets at the time they became ill, and looking for any possible commonalities. Officials wonder whether foods or vegetables commonly served with tomatoes may be the real cause, but are remaining tight-lipped about specifics. Dr. David Acheson, chief of food safety with the Food and Drug Administration says, “…there is clearly a need to think beyond tomatoes.” Tomato growers have already suffered millions of dollars in losses from this outbreak, and are pressuring Congress to investigate how the CDC and FDA have handled the inquiry.

This instance of salmonella poisoning has already lasted much longer than these food-poisoning epidemics normally do.

Ironically, countries with less-stringent drug laws have lower rates of abuse, as compared to the U.S. who has a high legal drinking age, and some of the strictest illegal drug enforcement policies in the world.

The study also found a marked difference in illegal and legal drug use among the different socioeconomic subgroups in each country. “The use of drugs seems to be a feature of more affluent countries,” researchers discovered.

54,068 people in 17 countries were surveyed, and discovered that 16.2 percent of United States citizens had experimented with cocaine – a rate astoundingly higher than the second place country, New Zealand, where only 4.3 percent of their citizens admitted to cocaine consumption.

Americans were again the winner in the use of cannabis, or marijuana, with 42 percent of survey participants agreeing to having used the drug. New Zealand closely follows the US with 41 percent usage, Dr. Louisa Degenhardt and colleges of the University of New South Wales in Sydney also found.

United States citizens also love their tobacco products, and according to the study 74 percent of participants had used tobacco at some point in their lives, however, current U.S. smoking rates are at a low 21 percent. Other countries life-time smoking rates were lower with Lebanon clocking in at 67 percent, Ukrainians at 61 percent, and Mexico closing in on 60 percent admitting to having ever smoked or used tobacco.

Throughout their face-to-face interviews, researchers uncovered that alcohol was the most commonly used substance by participants. “Alcohol use by age 15 years was far more common in European countries,” researchers found, with 99 percent of Europeans saying they had tasted alcohol, as apposed to 93 percent of Americans.

U.S. National Institutes of Health director Dr. Elias Zerhouni reiterates that “drug use is a still a major problem in this country, pointing to the need for more effective prevention interventions.”

Internet content contained in Adobe’s Flash platform remains unread by search engines, an ongoing frustration for Web designers. This move by Adobe is aimed at increasing the relevance of search results and automatic rankings of pages that offer dynamic content.

According to Adobe’s press release, the goal of the partnership is simple: “RIA developers and rich Web content producers won’t need to amend existing and future content to make it searchable — they can now be confident it can be found by users around the globe.”

While interactive content has become more and more prevalent - allowing Web developers to offer a wider range of creative content - it has been difficult to index because of the constant change inherent in such dynamic content.

“Until now it has been extremely challenging to search the millions of RIAs and dynamic content on the Web, so we are leading the charge in improving search of content that runs in Adobe Flash Player,” said David Wadhwani, general manager and vice president of the Platform Business Unit at Adobe.

“Through our recent collaboration with Adobe, we now help Web site owners that choose to design sites with Adobe Flash software by indexing this content better. Improving how we crawl dynamic content will ultimately enhance the search experience for our users,” said Bill Coughran, senior vice president of engineering at Google.

The 1,100 Kmart pharmacies nationwide also have 50 generic drugs for women including oral contraceptives, prenatal and osteoporosis medications at prices up to $25 for a ninety-day supply.

The retailer is hoping to boost sales as its parent company, Sears Holding Corp., restructures operations and to compete with the low cost generic programs at Wal-Mart and other grocery store pharmacies.

A Toyota Prius gets 45 mpg on the highway which is only slightly better than a Toyota Corolla at 37 mpg. These aren’t the kinds of numbers that will help global warming researchers sleep better at night. Why then are hybrids embraced so fervently by the environmental community?

Hybrid cars advance technology in many areas such as battery systems and regenerative breaking in a production scale environment. Advances in these and other areas will serve as building blocks as our world moves away from traditional gasoline powered automobiles. Although hybrids are not revolutionary green machines they are certainly worthy of a green check mark. Keep up the good work hybrids.

About 70% of the stores going dark have been open fewer than three years. Starbucks has been in the forefront of exuberant chain store expansion and, as of filings last September, operated 6,793 stores in the United States. Some analysts have speculated that Starbucks saturated the market to the point where the newer stores were taking significant business away from the more established stores.

The closings will affect about 12,000 workers although the corporation said it will try to relocate many of the employees in existing stores. It is not yet known how many workers will eventually be laid off.

Apparently, the financial turmoil which is shaking up middle class households throughout the country has hit home for many of the loyal customers. One of the first items to be eliminated from the personal budget often is the daily trip to Starbucks.

The company will begin to close the 600 underperforming stores later this month.

Romance seems to be in the air for this tumultuous couple, but there has been no comment from the Spears or Federline spokespeople.

The seal adorning the front of Obama’s podium at a Democratic governors meeting in Chicago on Friday, showed a bald eagle clutching arrows and an olive branch with a Latin saying above its head, “Vero possumus” meaning “Yes, we can.”

The real presidential seal has the Latin saying “E plurbis unum”—“Out of many, one.” The Obama web site was prominently displayed underneath the eagle, which also had an “O” for Obama in the center of its chest instead of a shield on the real presidential version.

A campaign staffer says it was a ‘one-time use’ podium decoration for this event specifically, but another staffer told Atlantic.com that the reactions to the seal were mixed, and the campaign feared it would be perceived as a sign of Obama’s arrogance, so it has been done away with.

If McCain is president he plans to issue a “Clean Car Challenge” which will commit a $5,000 tax credit for every customer who buys a zero emission car. This is a huge incentive for automakers because their zero emission cars would have a $5,000 edge when competing with polluting cars.

McCain will also propose a $300 million prize to improve battery technology for use in electric and hybrid cars. The battery should deliver a power source at 30 percent of the current costs.

These are a small part on McCain’s plan to rework America’s energy policy. His new ad highlights more of his vision:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0n49qkoXoY0

The star was admitted to the Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica June 22 after complaining of chest pain where he later died.

The bearded iconic stand-up comic and best-selling author is best known for his “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” routine, which often got him arrested after performing. (The cases were always dismissed.) The bit, however, led to a Supreme Court case, which found that the routine was indecent, but it did not stop Carlin from performing it.

Carlin enjoyed a 50 year career, but was open about battling drugs and alcohol.

Carlin is survived by his second wife Sally Wade; daughter Kelly Carlin McCall; and brother Patrick. His first wife, Brenda, died of cancer in 1997.