"Dark Knight" fastest to $300 million

By Dean Goodman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Batman buried his rivals at the North American box office for a second weekend on Sunday, racing past $300 million in a record 10 days.

The Caped Crusader’s blockbuster outing, “The Dark Knight,” sold an estimated $75.6 million worth of tickets during the three days beginning Friday, taking its total to $314.2 million, distributor Warner Bros. Pictures said.

A week after it scored a record-breaking $158 million opening, “The Dark Knight” added a new title to its impressive list of superlatives: the best second weekend, surpassing the holiday-boosted $72 million haul of 2004’s “Shrek 2.”

"Sun-eating dragon" returns to China

PARIS (AFP) — Earth, the Sun and the Moon will align in a celestial ballet on Friday, rewarding China, where the first record of an eclipse was made more than 4,000 years ago, with a dazzling show.

Longingly awaited, the first total solar eclipse since March 2006 kicks off at 0923 GMT, when the lunar shadow touches down on the fringes of Nunavut province in northern Canada.

The dark, narrow disc, known as the umbra, then races across the roof of the world before alighting in northern Siberia, where it will skip across central Russia and central Asia and head into Mongolia and northwestern China.

It then curves to the southeast before expiring near the city of Xian at 1120 GMT, after a trek of some 10,200 kilometres (6,375 miles).

Turn Off Your Cell Phone

Cell phones make life easier for all of us and there are some who never turn theirs off. But there are some places where you’re not allowed to have a cellular device. In a special report Robert Burns show’s us some of the dangers cell phones bring.

Cellular devices have made life more accessible for many of us. We take them everywhere we go but thanks to the signals that these devices send, there are still some places that you can’t take your phones.

Places like emergency rooms, radiology, surgery, intensive care, units where patients are being telemetry monitored or on ventilators are all off limits.

There have been plenty of studies done that both agree and disagree with the fact that the signals made from cell phones have an effect on the electrical equipment in places such as airplanes and hospitals.

Dealers exploit aboriginal Australian artists, TV show reports

Australia’s booming aboriginal art market is open to manipulation, and artists and consumers are being exploited, the Australia Broadcasting Corp. reports.

Four Corners, Australia Broadcasting Corp.’s current affairs television program, on Monday reported that it found a group of mostly elderly aboriginal artists working and living in fenced-in blocks of land around Alice Springs.

Another group of artists produces more pictures from a highway motel, Four Corners reported.

Critics say the facilities are sweatshops and, in some cases, virtual prisons for the artists.