Gayla spent 10 years at Saks Fifth Avenue as Director of The Fifth Avenue Club, their exclusive personal shopping service. With a desire to learn more about style and expand her horizons, Gayla left Saks to begin her business, Cou-Tours, which offered private, personalized shopping excursions to Paris.

At this time she also developed a pseudonym, Dr. Styles, who on the local morning shows, along with her assistant Nurse Accessory, would drive her fashion ambulance to Houston businesses and ambush women to make them over.

Meanwhile, American Express Co. became the first major financial institution to formally request permission to return federal bailout money provided under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.

Wells Fargo & Co. said it’s seeking to raise $6 billion by offering common stock to investors. The San Francisco-based bank announced the plans after the government’s stress test results showed that Wells Fargo needs $13.7 billion in new capital to withstand a deeper recession.

The stress test results showed that Morgan Stanley needs $1.8 billion in fresh funds. Minutes after their release, the New York-based investment bank said it’s seeking to raise $2 billion through a public stock offering.

It said it will also try to raise $3 billion through an offering of senior debt that won’t be guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Raising capital without federal guarantees is a requirement for banks that want to return TARP funds.

Wells Fargo shares closed down nearly 8 percent at $24.76 on heavy trading volume. In after-hours trading, the stock fell 2.4 percent to $24.17.

Morgan Stanley shares ended 4.8 percent lower at $27.14. The stock fell 0.7 percent to $26.95 in after-hours trading.

Separately, Citigroup Inc. said it’s planning to convert an extra $5.5 billion of preferred shares into common stock after the stress tests determined it needs an equal amount in fresh capital.

A conversion would not actually give Citigroup more cash, but it would increase Citi’s “common equity,” a yardstick being used by the government to measure a bank’s ability to absorb losses.

The aim of the stress tests was to see how the nation’s 19 biggest banks would manage if the economy gets worse. Officials hope the tests will restore investors’ confidence in the battered banking sector. They have said none of the 19 banks will be allowed to fail.

Besides Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley, banks requiring additional capital are: Bank of America Corp. ($33.9 billion); Citigroup Inc. ($5.5 billion); Fifth Third Bancorp ($1.1 billion); GMAC LLC ($11.5 billion); KeyCorp ($1.8 billion); PNC Financial Services Group Inc. ($600 million); Regions Financial Corp. ($2.5 billion); and SunTrust Banks Inc. ($2.2 billion).

The 10 banks will have until June 8 to develop a plan to raise capital and have it approved by their regulators.

Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at California State University, Channel Islands, said the moves to raise funds by Wells Fargo and other banks could leave them overcapitalized, “assuming the economy continues to recover.”

Meanwhile, American Express and eight other companies won’t need new capital. Immediately after the release of the results, American Express chairman and chief executive Kenneth I. Chenault announced the credit card lender has filed a request with the Federal Reserve and the Treasury to repay its $3.4 billion in TARP funds.

American Express chief financial officer Daniel Henry said talks with regulators to return the TARP funds could begin Friday.

“We’ll take whatever action we need to take” to pay back the money, Henry said in a conference call with analysts.

Chafing under a litany of government restrictions, major banks including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley have said they want to return their share of the $700 billion TARP program. Twelve smaller banks have already repaid funds.

Speaking to analysts Thursday evening JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon reiterated his desire to repay TARP funds.

“Obviously, we’ll be in that process as soon as we can, and hopefully we’ll be allowed to pay it,” Dimon said.

Congress approved the TARP program in October as the worsening credit crisis threatened to cause a collapse of the banking system. A service of YellowBrix, Inc. (Associated Press/AP Online) By: Stevenson Jacobs.

I won’t make the intro long. So here’s what’s I want to post. There are times before where I receive an instant message from an unknown Yahoo! ID. Well, simply, that was spamming. I suspect the spammers were able to get my email address from forums or at the Yahoo! Chatrooms. But then lately (I believe it started last year), I am receiving “wierd” IMs from my yahoo buddies (those are my friends). The first one, as I recalled, was in a different language (Korean or something). I then asked that friend if some one else was using here computer. She told me nobody’s using her PC aside from her, I suspected an account hacking.

I then asked some “pro” regarding this and they told me that most probably, this was caused by a malware or a “worm”. I asked my friend to do a virus scan. She wiped out her hard drive and made a fresh install. Since then, there were no more “spam” from her.

However, another buddy got “infected” by this and sends out IMs also on a different language. But lately, I was surprised because one of my buddies were sending me IMs (in English) regarding a “diet pill” (sample of the message below). I thought he was just promoting something. But when almost 5 buddies were sending the message, I was alarmed that they might be infected by a worm or malware.

Yesterday, I asked my brother if he was receiving messages like that and he said yes. I the asked if he received one from me, I believe he said no but when I came to office, he had sent me an email with a message coming from me. We talked in the morning and the message was timestamped at 10:35 in the evening.. I left home 10 in the evening.
Before the message reach you, your “buddy” will first “buzz” (hitting ctrl+g on yahoo messenger client will buzz or shake the other contacts IM window to get attention) you and then send out the message. If you could notice in the image, the buzz was made 10:35:01pm and the message was sent at the exact same second. With the length of that message, it is imposible to type it in split second, unless you copy – paste very quickly. The worst thing is, I am using Pidgin, an opensource, multi platform/protocol (you can have AIM, Gtalk, YM, IRC, multiple accounts on same protocol) instant messenging client. And this program doesn’t have the “buzz” feature. I am sure my wife didnt’ use YM cause she knew about Pidgin. (Thought I’m not going to make this long??)

So the question is, is my account being “hacked”. Was someone able to figure out the passwords of these users (including me) and then send spam to all our contact on our list? Or it is a worm the controls not the IM client, but the connection itself so it can send messages and command without opening an IM windows and execute a feature (the “buzz”) even if it is not supported by your client. Most probably it is a worm or malware.

I tried searching the net but not enough info. My brother gave me a link to a forum (on a different language). But when I try google’s transaltor, it is filtered in our office. So my resolution is to do a full system scan. Also run anti-malware/spyware scan. Then reformat and reinstall everything (which I will be doing anyway since my partitioning sucks), and delete any programs I downloaded from the net that I don’t need (well, those are clean programs, but I don’t need it).

Another question is, how did I get that malware/worm. Honestly, I don’t know. There are actually 3 computers at home. Two desktops and a laptop. The other desktop, is owned by my wife’s sister. I used to secure that computer but my wife’s nephew wants to do it “his way”. I turned of file and print sharing then. However the laptop was being used by my father-in-law and other people. File and print sharing is active on that one. In any case, some worm/malware can penetrate other computers on the network even if file and print sharing is off. And there are viruses, worms, and malware on the other desktop.

The laptop’s LCD is broken, and I already disconnected the other desktop from the network. Maybe this time, everything will be fine after reinstall.

Lesson to learn: Don’t trust everything on the net (websites/files/etc.) and always do a system scan (anti malware/spyware etc….) once in a while. And buy a good router with good firewall settings (that’s what I’m going to do).

That they felt compelled to openly air such conclusions about a nominally close U.S. ally — for which the administration is proposing billions in new aid dollars — was a measure of the desperation that seems to have infected the Obama administration’s dealings with Pakistan’s weak civilian government and obtuse military leadership. In the months since the administration took office, as in the last months of the Bush administration, private cajoling of President Asif Ali Zardari and Army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani to fight the Taliban has done little good. It’s not yet clear whether the public campaign will have more effect — but it is sure to get many in Washington stirred about what Ms. Clinton described as the “mortal threat” a Taliban regime armed with nuclear weapons could pose to the United States.

That threat is certainly real. The government’s decision to tolerate what amounts to Taliban control of the Swat Valley northwest of Islamabad has emboldened the extremists, who now are seeking to infiltrate neighboring districts even closer to the capital. The Pakistani army, untrained in counterinsurgency and rigidly focused on India, is reluctant to take on the militants; when it has tried to fight them in areas near the Afghan border, it has been mostly ineffective. Though the vast majority of Pakistanis oppose the Taliban’s fundamentalism, most also dislike Mr. Zardari’s government and suspect that operations against the insurgents serve U.S. interests more Pakistan’s.

The loud U.S. warnings did provoke the Zardari government and Gen. Kiyani to say that they would fight the Taliban if it continued to advance; the black-turbaned fighters subsequently withdrew from one district on Friday. Pakistani officials say that the public support needed for the military offensive Washington wants won’t be forthcoming unless Pakistanis believe that their government has tried all peaceful options. It is certainly the case that Pakistanis as well as their government must embrace the fight against the Taliban as their own, and not as a proxy war for the United States. It is also true that, apart from mounting missile strikes by remote-controlled aircraft, there is little the United States can do directly to defeat the Pakistani Taliban; the administration must try to work through the government and army.

But the United States has leverage: Without the billons flowing into Pakistan in direct U.S. aid as well as from other donors marshaled by Washington, Pakistan’s economy would collapse. Perhaps the dire U.S. warnings will galvanize the country’s political class into demanding action from the army and government — or replacing the latter. But shouts of ‘”fire” have risks: They can also cause panic, or go unheeded.

Now, however, a new study in the Journal of the Geological Society throws all of that into question. The asteroid impact and the dinosaur extinction, argue the authors, may not have been simultaneous, but rather may have occurred 300,000 years apart. That’s an eye-blink in geological time, but it’s a relevant eye-blink all the same, one that occurred at just the right moment in ancient history to have sent the extinction theory entirely awry. (See pictures of meteors striking the earth.)

The controversial new paper was written by geoscientists Gerta Keller of Princeton University and Thierry Addate of the University of Lausanne, in Switzerland — and both researchers knew that challenging the impact doctrine would not be easy. The asteroid charged with killing the dinosaurs, after all, left more than the Chicxulub crater as its calling card. At the same 65-million-year depth, the geological record reveals that a thin layer of iridium was deposited pretty much everywhere in the world. Iridium is an element that’s rare on Earth but common in asteroids, and a fine global dusting of the stuff is precisely what you’d expect to find if an asteroid struck the ground, vaporized on impact and eventually rained its remains back down. Below that iridium layer, the fossil record shows that a riot of species was thriving; above it, 65% of them went suddenly missing. (Read about China’s dinosaur fossils.)

But Keller and Addate worried that we were misreading both the geological and fossil records. They conducted surveys at numerous sites in Mexico, particularly at a spot called El Peñón, very near the impact crater. They were especially interested in a 30-ft. layer of sediment just above the iridium layer. That sediment, they calculate, was laid down at a rate of about 0.8 in. to 1.2 in. per thousand years, meaning that the entire 30 feet took 300,000 years to settle into place. (See pictures of Mexico’s swine flu outbreak.)

Analyzing the fossils at this small site, they counted 52 distinct species just below the iridium layer. Then they counted the species above it. The result: the same 52. It wasn’t until they sampled 30 feet higher — and 300,000 years later — that they saw the die-offs.

“The mass extinction level can be seen above this interval,” Keller says. “Not a single species went extinct as a result of the Chicxulub impact.”

Keller’s and Addate’s species samplings are not, of course, conclusive, and plenty of other surveys since 1978 do tie the extinctions closely to the asteroid. But since the new digs were so close to ground zero, the immediate species loss ought to be have been — if anything — greater there than anywhere else in the world. Instead, the animals seemed to escape unharmed. Other paleontologists, however, believe that the very proximity of El Peñón to the impact site makes the results not more reliable, but less. Earthquakes and tsunamis that resulted from the collision could have wrought havoc on the sedimentary record, causing discrete strata to swirl together and completely scrambling timelines. Keller disagrees, pointing out that the slow accretion of sediment she and Addate recorded is completely inconsistent with a sudden event like a tsunami. (See pictures of animals in space.)

“The sandstone complex was not deposited over hours or days,” she says. “Deposition occurred over a very long time period.”

So if the Chicxulub asteroid didn’t kill the dinosaurs, what did? Paleontologists have advanced all manner of other theories over the years, including the appearance of land bridges that allowed different species to migrate to different continents, bringing with them diseases to which native species hadn’t developed immunity. Keller and Addate do not see any reason to stray so far from the prevailing model. Some kind of atmospheric haze might indeed have blocked the sun making the planet too cold for the dinosaurs — it just didn’t have to have come from an asteroid. Rather, they say, the source might have been massive volcanos, such as the ones that blew in the Deccan Traps in what is now India at just the right point in history. (See pictures of the space race.)

For the dinosaurs that perished 65 million years back, extinction was extinction and the precise cause was immaterial. But for the bipedal mammals who were allowed to rise once the big lizards were finally gone, it is a matter of enduring fascination. By: Jeffrey Kluger

HAVANA – Fidel Castro wrote in an essay published yesterday that President Obama had “misinterpreted” his brother Raul’s seeming conciliatory remarks regarding the United States, and he bristled at the suggestion that Cuba should free political prisoners or cut taxes on dollars that Cuban Americans send to the island.

His comments put into doubt the true meaning of his brother’s statements and raised questions about Cuba’s position on detente with the United States.

Although he surrendered the presidency to Raul in February 2008, Fidel Castro retains enormous influence and remains head of Cuba’s Communist Party.

Raul Castro touched off speculation last week that the United States and Cuba could be headed toward a thaw after nearly a half-century of chilly relations. He said his government would be willing to sit down with its U.S. counterparts and discuss “everything, everything, everything,” including human rights, freedom of the press and expression, and political prisoners.

Obama responded at the Summit of the Americas by saying Washington was seeking a new beginning with Cuba. But as he prepared to leave the summit Sunday, Obama also called on Cuba to release political prisoners and reduce taxes on remittances from the United States.

That appeared to enrage Fidel Castro, 82, who wrote that Obama “without a doubt misinterpreted Raul’s declarations.”

“When the president of Cuba said he was ready to discuss any topic with the U.S. president, he meant he was not afraid of addressing any issue,” Fidel Castro wrote.

“That shows his courage and confidence in the principles of the revolution,” he wrote.

The former president appeared to be throwing a dose of cold water on growing expectations for improved bilateral relations, suggesting Obama had no right to dare suggest that Cuba make even small concessions.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton offered a different perspective while discussing Cuba policy yesterday with the House Foreign Affairs Committee. She said that while Fidel Castro had “contradicted” his brother’s statements about Cuba’s willingness to discuss a whole range of issues, that showed “there is beginning to be a debate” in Cuba about how to move forward with U.S. relations.

Raul Castro, 77, has not clarified the confusion and is unlikely to, out of respect for his older brother.

Clinton said the Obama administration needs to be ready to engage with Cuba, even though its government is “very difficult to move.”

The different tones, if not policy positions, that the Castro brothers have clearly adopted could mean there is a division in Cuba’s collective communist leadership over whether detente is moving too fast. Or the leaders could be trying to create an appearance of friction that keeps Cuba in the news and may become a bargaining chip in any negotiations.

“It’s a game of political strategy,” said Elizardo Sanchez, the island’s leading rights activist and head of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation.

Fidel Castro, in his essay, defended Cuba’s right to levy a 10 percent fee on every U.S. dollar sent to relatives on the island by Cuban Americans, saying that if the money arriving from abroad “is in dollars, all the more reason we should do it because it is the currency of the country that blockades us.”

All top Cuban leaders routinely call the 47-year-old trade embargo against their country a blockade.

“Not all Cubans have family members overseas that send remittances,” Fidel Castro wrote. He said Cuba used the revenue from fees on exchanging dollars to provide free health care, education and subsidized food to its population.

Fidel Castro has previously expressed admiration for Obama, but he blasted the new U.S. president in the essay for showing signs of “superficiality” and called on him to wait no longer before lifting the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba.

“We are living in a new era. Changes are unavoidable,” he wrote. “Leaders just pass through; peoples prevail.”

Still, some Cubans were irritated yesterday by his insistence that Obama misinterpreted Raul Castro’s sentiments.

Wilfredo O’Farril, 59, a construction worker, said: “I’m not afraid to say it. We are a people without a future.” Fidel Castro “first says one thing, then says another. We’ve been this way for 50 years.” By: Will Weissert (AP)

She just told him the truth: she thinks it’s wrong!

She said, “I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody there.”

Good for her!

If Perez Hilton don’t like her answer, he  shouldn’t have freaking asked. It ain’t like it was a gay pageant. But now he ans the gay mafia are hating on her because she won’t pretend that she thinks two perverts getting married is the same as a man and woman getting married!

No offence to the homo-humpers but a guy sticking his dick or tongue up another guy’s arse ‘ole ain’t normal and they wasn’t born that way. They choose to be perverts just like some sick freaks choose to be peados, tyrannies and goat molesters. Don’t think a man should be able to marry a donkey either!

In an announcement on state-run television, the country said it was ready to step up efforts to develop nuclear weapons and poised for a military response to any moves against it.

“The revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK are always keeping themselves fully ready to go into action any moment to mercilessly punish anyone who encroaches upon the sovereignty and dignity of the DPRK even a bit,” it said.

On Monday the United Nations condemned North Korea — which refers to itself as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK — for launching a rocket.

The United States called the launch a “provocative act” that violated a 2006 Security Council resolution prohibiting Pyongyang from conducting ballistic missile launches.

Pyongyang insists the April 5 launch was a successful mission to place a communications satellite into orbit. The United States says the rocket’s payload did not reach orbit.

The U.N. statement says the rocket launch was “in contravention” to a 2006 Security Council resolution that demanded that North Korea not launch any ballistic missiles.

The 15-member council also voted unanimously for a statement by the council’s president demanding the country make no more launches.

“The Korean People’s Army will consider sanctions to be applied against the DPRK under various names over its satellite launch or any pressure to be put upon it through ‘total participation’ in the PSI (Proliferation Security Initiative) as a declaration of undisguised confrontation and a declaration of a war against the DPRK,” the announcement on state TV said.

“Now that the group officially declared confrontation and war against the DPRK, its revolutionary armed forces will opt for increasing the nation’s defense capability including nuclear deterrent in every way, without being bound to the agreement adopted at the six-party talks,” it continued, apparently referring to the Security Council.

Referring to South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, the statement added, “The Lee group of traitors should never forget that Seoul is just 50 kilometers (31 miles) away from the Military Demarcation Line.”

That line was established by the 1953 Armistice Agreement between the two Koreas — which are still technically at war.

A Friday report North Korea’s official KCNA news agency, seemed to blame the “war hysteria” on the United States and South Korea after the two countries carried out a combined air force operation in South Korea.

The “‘South Korea-U.S. military alliance’ oft-repeated by them is, in essence, nothing but a ‘war alliance’ and ‘alliance for aggression’ aimed at invading the DPRK,” the report said.

“When a nuclear war will break out due to the war chariot of the ‘South Korea-U.S. military alliance’ is a matter of time,” it said. “The U.S. and South Korean warmongers would be well advised to stop acting rashly, properly understanding who their rival is.”

Less than four years later, the do-it-yourself social network site with a $500 million valuation has reached another major milestone — 1,000,000 Ning networks.

On their way to 1,000,000 social networks, Ning’s come along way from their early days, when they experimented with three distinct sites that let you build your own YouTube, Flickr, or MySpace. We’ve since seen these services rolled into the core product that now allows for video, photos, and groups to harmoniously coexist in one place.

Being at the forefront of the social web, Ning has also seen a myriad of direct competitors who’ve done little to throw the social network hub off its way to the top of the social food chain. Sites like Me.com (which no longer exists; the domain is now home to Mobile Me), Big Tent, and BricaBox (shutdown in summer of 2008) did their best to copy Ning’s style, but pretty much failed at replicating Ning’s success and popularity.

Now at 1,000,000 networks strong, you’re bound to find an active social group on any topic, cause, or event that strikes your fancy. Some examples include the very popular Twitter Moms group with upwards of 13,000 members, the This is 50 fully branded social hub for 50 Cent’s 400,000 adoring fans, and Ning’s MuggleSpace, where 15,000 plus Harry Potter fans gather together.

That’s the Washington mystery du jour.

The identity of the first puppy — the one that the Washington press corps has been yelping about for months, the one President Obama has seemed to delight in dropping hints about — leaked out yesterday. This despite White House efforts to delay the news until the big debut planned for Tuesday afternoon.

The little guy is a 6-month-old Portuguese water dog given to the Obama girls as a gift by that Portuguese water dog-lovin’ senator himself, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts. The girls named it Bo — and let it be noted that you learned that here first. Malia and Sasha chose the name, because their cousins have a cat named Bo and because first lady Michelle Obama’s father was nicknamed Diddley, a source said. (Get it? Bo . . . Diddley?)

Bo’s a handsome little guy. Well suited for formal occasions at the White House, he’s got tuxedo-black fur, with a white chest, white paws and a rakish white goatee.

A really big story
Clearly, the identity of the dog was information too big to contain. A mysterious Web site called http://firstdogcharlie.com published a picture of a Portie yesterday morning, complete with a Q and A with the dog, which it said was originally named Charlie. The celebrity gossip Web site http://TMZ.comlinked to the picture. So much for the big White House unveiling.

For an Obama team that ran a famously tight-knit press operation during last year’s presidential election campaign, it was a sign of how tough it can be to keep a leash on information in Washington.

It’s not for lack of trying, though. Bo’s story starts sometime around the Ides of March. Word on the street was that the White House was going to plant a vegetable garden. Health gurus had been pushing the Obamas to plant seedlings for months, hoping it would set a good example for children everywhere.

A Washington Post food reporter was making calls, probing, pushing. But the White House was mum. Word filtered out that the exclusive had been promised to the New York Times. But the White House offered The Post, the newspaper that cracked Watergate, a mollifier: A puppy exclusive.

These kinds of arrangements get made all the time in Washington. For a while, the puppy deal seemed to be holding up. Sure, reporters here and there nipped at the story. There were hints that the puppy was a gift. There were reports that the Kennedys were involved — but the senator’s press people professed no knowledge.

Photograph surfaces
But then came yesterday morning. The FirstDogCharlie site included a photograph of a Portuguese water dog that looked exactly like the dog in a White House photograph — right down to the multicolored lei. (FirstDogCharlie was registered anonymously on Friday on the Web site http://godaddy.com. Will its creators surface to take credit?)

The White House dismissed the Web site picture as “bogus.” Both photos are reproduced here; you decide.  By: Manuel Roig-Franzia