‘Kites’ seeks non-desi US watchers

New York, April 24 — With the record-breaking success for 3 Idiots and My Name is Khan in the United States this year making it a lucrative market for Bollywood films, Reliance Big Pictures will release two versions of the Hrithik Roshan-starrer Kites next month in over 200 screens in America, a new high in terms of theatres in the territory. Other than targeting theatres that specialise in Hindi films, the studio is looking at the mainstream market since over 80 per cent of the film is in English.

And to make the film more appealing to an American audience, the 130-minute original has been trimmed to a 90-minute version Kites: The Remix. Behind the remix is Brett Ratner, the director of the Jackie Chan Rush Hour series as well as X-Men: The Last Stand.

Ratner has removed songs and scenes from the original Kites for a “swift” version that “will target a younger, hipper, more action-oriented crowd than the original.”.

Police called as koala sighting halts Mumbulla logging

Police have been called to the site of an anti-logging protest in the Mumbulla State Forest, on the New South Wales far south coast.

Conservationists say the timber harvesting which began this week will harm a key koala colony.

The program was halted yesterday after evidence was found that a koala was two kilometres from the site.

Forests New South Wales says a pause in the logging will allow for further investigation into evidence of koalas in adjoining areas.

Anti-logging campaigner Harriet Swift says around 70 people are at the protest site, and a barricade was in place this morning until the police intervened.

“We held up loggers and log trucks going into the logging area for about four hours this morning, but eventually they did pass through,” she said.

“But they’ve given us an undertaking that they won’t actually be logging, they’ll just be processing and transporting trees already cut.”

Meatworks sale promises more certainty

Workers and suppliers of Rockdale Beef are being assured of more security when the abattoir and feedlot near Yanco is sold.

The world’s biggest beef processor, JBS of Brazil, is looking to buy Rockdale from its Japanese owners.

The company’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Swift Australia, already owns a 25,000-head feedlot near Griffith.

Rockdale’s general manager, Paul Troja, says the feedlot is operating at only about a quarter of its 50,000-head capacity.

He says things have picked up at the meatworks since cutting 150 jobs last year.

“We came back to a single shift in July of last year but we’ve been able to build it back up to a second shift, [which] is only working at half capacity,” Mr Troja said.

“So a lot of those people that we did let go last year are now back and they are working.

“I’m sure the new owners, once they take hold of the business, will drive the business further, and jobs in the area and the goods and services that the business buys in the area will all be maintained.

“Naturally people are uncomfortable in a changing world and with mortgages and car payments and children at school.

“I can’t speak for the new owners of the business but the indications that we’re getting is that they will certainly look for and support the workforce that creates the products that they make and sell.”

Public get rate rise say

Manning Valley residents are being asked for feedback on the council’s proposed 12 per cent rate rise, which is above the New South Wales Government’s pegged amount of 2.6 per cent.

The Greater Taree City Council’s Craig Swift-McNaire says he thinks local residents understand the council needs extra money to fund a huge infrastructure backlog.

He says from today, residents can have their say on the issue in an online discussion forum on the council’s website and information will also be sent out.

“We’ve got a mail-out that will be going to all our ratepayers of the Manning Valley,” Mr Swift McNaire said.

“We’ve got, via our website, the ability for people to go and understand some of the information about the rate increase we are trying to get, as well as look at all the works projects that are related to those increases.”

Meatworks sale looms

A major Riverina employer, the Rockdale Beef feedlot and abattoir, looks set to change hands.

Its owners, Itoham Foods and Mitsubishi Corporation, have entered due diligence talks with the world’s biggest beef processor, JBS of Brazil, to buy the business near Yanco.

The sale would be through JBS’s wholly owned local subsidiary Swift Australia.

JBS’s website says any sale would be subject to regulatory approval.

JBS already owns feedlots near Griffith and Deniliquin.

Last year, Rockdale cut 150 jobs at its abattoir and workers took a 2.5 per cent pay cut in response to the global financial downturn.

Abattoir workers target live exports

The union representing meat workers blames live exports for an animal shortage at a northern Tasmanian abattoir.

The Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union says the Swift abattoir at Longford has had 35 days of shutdowns since last July because it can not get enough sheep and cattle.

The union has joined forces with animal rights groups to campaign against live exports.

The national president, Grant Courtney, says abattoirs around Australia are having problems sourcing sheep and cattle.

“There are plants all over Australia at the moment that are only operating on at around 60 per cent capacity,” he said.

“Clearly we’ve had a gutful and our members have had a gutful of government saying that they support local communities and that they support Australian jobs when all they’re doing is shipping off a raw commodity which is the livestock that we need to process.”

The Director of Swift, John Berry, says he is concerned about live exports but the problems at Longford are mainly due to Tasmania’s recent drought.

Invading black holes cause ‘cosmic flashes’

Washington, September 19 (ANI): Mathematicians at the University of Leeds, UK, have determined that cosmic flashes, known as gamma ray bursts, are produced by jets of plasma that originate from invading black holes.

Gamma ray bursts are beams of high-energy radiation that are similar to the radiation emitted by explosions of nuclear weapons.

The orthodox model for this cosmic jet engine involves plasma being heated by neutrinos in a disk of matter that forms around a black hole, which is created when a star collapses.

But, mathematicians at the University of Leeds, have come up with a different explanation: the jets come directly from black holes, which can dive into nearby massive stars and devour them.

Their theory is based on recent observations by the Swift satellite, which indicates that the central jet engine operates for up to 10,000 seconds – much longer than the neutrino model can explain.

Mathematicians believe that this is evidence for an electromagnetic origin of the jets, that is, that the jets come directly from a rotating black hole, and that it is the magnetic stresses caused by the rotation that focus and accelerate the jet’s flow.

For the mechanism to operate, the collapsing star has to be rotating extremely rapidly.

This increases the duration of the star’s collapse as the gravity is opposed by strong centrifugal forces.

One particularly peculiar way of creating the right conditions involves not a collapsing star, but a star invaded by its black hole companion in a binary system.

The black hole acts like a parasite, diving into the normal star, spinning it with gravitational forces on its way to the star’s centre, and finally eating it from the inside.

“The neutrino model cannot explain very long gamma ray bursts and the Swift observations, as the rate at which the black hole swallows the star becomes rather low quite quickly, rendering the neutrino mechanism inefficient, but the magnetic mechanism can,” said Professor Komissarov from the School of Mathematics at the University of Leeds.

“Our knowledge of the amount of the matter that collects around the black hole and the rotation speed of the star allow us to calculate how long these long flashes will be – and the results correlate very well with observations from satellites,” he added. (ANI)

US Ambassador meets Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Update- US Ambassador)

New Delhi, Sept 18 (ANI): The United States Ambassador to India, Timothy J Roemer, today met Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh at his residence.

The meeting took place after Roemer met Union Home Minister P. hidambaram.

Speaking to reporters, after a meeting with Chidambaram, Roemer said bringing the culprits to justice and going after Saeed were important to both India and the United States.

“Swift and mighty punishment for the six Mumbai suspects in Islamabad, is important for United States and is important for India. And going after Saeed is very important and dismantling the infrastructure of LeT in that region is extremely important to the United States and to India,” said Roemer.

The meeting took after reports of two FIR’s against Saeed came late last night.

He has been charged under Pakistan’s Anti-Terrorism Act for making anti-state speeches where he urged activists of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the frontline organisation for LeT that he heads, to wage a ‘jehad’.

Saeed has also been charged for heading a charity collection drive during the Ramazan month according to the police.

Earlier, Roemer had called on Pakistan to take action against Saeed.

“There are five, probably six, suspects currently being held in Islamabad in connection with the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks. It is extremely important that these six people be brought to justice and put behind bars and receive sentences commensurate with their crimes against India, US and the world,” a news channel quoted Roemer, as saying

“I hope that in future the action on 26/11 includes people like Hafiz Saeed. Recently he was put into an Interpol red flag list,” he added.

The remarks follows Chidambaram’s visit to US, where he had briefed several ministers under the Barack Obama administration about Islamabad’s inaction against perpetrators of the Mumbai carnage.

The attacks, which drew widespread condemnation across the world, began on 26 November 2008 and lasted until 29 November, killing at least 173 people and wounding at least 308. Among the dead were 28 foreign nationals from 10 countries.

Ajmal Amir Kasab, the only attacker who was captured alive, has disclosed that the attackers were members of LeT, which is considered a terrorist organization by the Government of India, the United States, and the United Kingdom, among others.

Interpol has also issued a Red Corner Notice against Saeed, and Zaki -ur- Rehman Lakhvi (another mastermind of the 26/11 attacks). The notice was issued after a Mumbai court issued non-bailable warrants against both terrorists. (ANI)

US Ambassador Roemer calls for action against Hafiz Saeed

New Delhi, Sept 18 (ANI): Pressurising Pakistan, the United States said it wanted swift and mighty punishment against the perpetrators of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.

Speaking to reporters, after a meeting with Union Home Minister, P. Chidambaram, the United States Ambassador to India Timothy J Roemer said, bringing the culprits to justice and going after Saeed were important to both India and the United States.

“Swift and mighty punishment for the six Mumbai suspects in Islamabad, is important for United States and is important for India. And going after Saeed is very important and dismantling the infrastructure of LeT in that region is extremely important to the United States and to India,” said Roemer.

The meeting took after reports of two FIR’s against Saeed came late last night.

He has been charged under Pakistan’s Anti-Terrorism Act for making anti-state speeches where he urged activists of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the frontline organisation for LeT that he heads, to wage a ‘jehad’.

Saeed has also been charged for heading a charity collection drive during the Ramazan month according to the police.

Earlier, Roemer had called on Pakistan to take action against Saeed.

“There are five, probably six, suspects currently being held in Islamabad in connection with the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks. It is extremely important that these six people be brought to justice and put behind bars and receive sentences commensurate with their crimes against India, US and the world,” a news channel quoted Roemer, as saying

“I hope that in future the action on 26/11 includes people like Hafiz Saeed. Recently he was put into an Interpol red flag list,” he added.

The remarks follows Chidambaram’s visit to US, where he had briefed several ministers under the Barack Obama administration about Islamabad’s inaction against perpetrators of the Mumbai carnage.

The attacks, which drew widespread condemnation across the world, began on 26 November 2008 and lasted until 29 November, killing at least 173 people and wounding at least 308. Among the dead were 28 foreign nationals from 10 countries.

Ajmal Amir Kasab, the only attacker who was captured alive, has disclosed that the attackers were members of LeT, which is considered a terrorist organization by the Government of India, the United States, and the United Kingdom, among others.

Interpol has also issued a Red Corner Notice against Saeed, and Zaki -ur- Rehman Lakhvi (another mastermind of the 26/11 attacks). The notice was issued after a Mumbai court issued non-bailable warrants against both terrorists. (ANI)

Amber Rose strips off for nude mag shoot armed with weapon!

London, Sept 18 (ANI): Kanye West’s girlfriend Amber Rose has bared all for a magazine shoot along with a weapon.

Rose’s new shoot for complex.com shows her on her knees as she holds a whip with both hands. Another photo shows her wearing a grey sleevless top covering half her breasts, reports the Sun.

The glamour girl has also bared all for Louis Vuitton print ad featuring Kanye West’s new line of sneakers.

The 26-year-old former exotic dancer has been open about her bisexuality and is currently seeing West.

She was also spotted with the rapper at MTV Video Music Awards where West stormed onto the stage during Swift Taylor’s acceptance speech.

However, she has remained mum on the incident. (ANI)

NASA’s Swift satellite makes best-ever ultraviolet portrait of Andromeda galaxy

Washington, September 17 (ANI): NASA’s Swift satellite has acquired the highest-resolution view of a neighboring spiral galaxy ever attained in the ultraviolet.

The galaxy, known as M31 in the constellation Andromeda, is the largest and closest spiral galaxy to our own.

“Swift reveals about 20,000 ultraviolet sources in M31, especially hot, young stars and dense star clusters,” said Stefan Immler, a research scientist on the Swift team at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

“Of particular importance is that we have covered the galaxy in three ultraviolet filters. That will let us study M31′s star-formation processes in much greater detail than previously possible,” he added.

M31, also known as the Andromeda Galaxy, is more than 220,000 light-years across and lies 2.5 million light-years away.

On a clear, dark night, the galaxy is faintly visible as a misty patch to the naked eye.

Between May 25 and July 26, 2008, Swift’s Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT) acquired 330 images of M31 at wavelengths of 192.8, 224.6, and 260 nanometers.

The images represent a total exposure time of 24 hours.

The task of assembling the resulting 85 gigabytes of images fell to Erin Grand, an undergraduate student at the University of Maryland at College Park who worked with Immler as an intern this summer.

“After ten weeks of processing that immense amount of data, I’m extremely proud of this new view of M31,” she said.

Several features are immediately apparent in the new mosaic.

The first is the striking difference between the galaxy’s central bulge and its spiral arms.

“The bulge is smoother and redder because it’s full of older and cooler stars,” Immler explained. “Very few new stars form here because most of the materials needed to make them have been depleted,” he added.

Dense clusters of hot, young, blue stars sparkle beyond the central bulge.

M31′s disk and spiral arms contain most of the gas and dust needed to produce new generations of stars.

Star clusters are especially plentiful in an enormous ring about 150,000 light-years across.

“Swift is surveying nearby galaxies like M31 so astronomers can better understand star- formation conditions and relate them to conditions in the distant galaxies where we see gamma-ray bursts occurring,” said Neil Gehrels, the mission’s principal investigator at NASA Goddard. (ANI)

Kate Winslet, Michelle Obama among People’s 2009 Best-Dressed Women

New Delhi, Sept 17 (ANI): British actress Kate Winslet has been named the best dresser on red carpet in People magazine’s 10 best-dressed women of 2009, while America’s first lady Michelle Obama has bagged the spot for “best accessible glamour.”

Winslet, 33, has been named as the woman with the finest dress on the red carpet, “with her unique brand of sexy sophistication, modern Hollywood glamour and those enviable curves,” reports China Daily.

Walk the Line star Reese Witherspoon has also made it to the list for wearing the “best short dresses,” and actress Vanessa Hudgens has been named as the “best hippie chic.”

People listed former American Idol judge Paula Abdul and actress Renee Zellweger among the fashion flops.

People’s choice of the Top 10 Best-Dressed Women of 2009 are:

Kate Winslet – Best Red Carpet

Vanessa Hudgens – Best Hippie Chic

Reese Witherspoon – Best Short Dresses

Cameron Diaz – Best Jeans

Michelle Obama – Best Accessible Glamour

Freida Pinto – Best Use of Color

Taylor Swift – Best Sparkle

Nicole Richie – Best Maternity

Beyonce – Best Street Chic

Kim Kardashian – Best Bikinis. (ANI)

Taylor Swift gets new home

Washington, Sept 16 (ANI): Country singer Taylor Swift has bought a new apartment.

The ‘You Belong With Me’ hitmaker has been moving out of her family home in Tennessee, where she has been living with her mum.

“I just got my first condo,” Contactmusic quoted her as saying.

The 19-year-old singer has become the first country artist to win an MTV Video Music Award at the weekend (13Sep09) when she claimed Best Female Video.

Meanwhile, singer Kanye West ruined Swift’s excitement of winning the award when he jumped up on the stage and stated that Beyonce Knowles should have won. (ANI)

Manchester City stadium ‘target of loner’s Columbine-style massacre plot’

London, Sep.8 (ANI): A teenage loner accused of plotting a Columbine-style gun massacre at his school also considered targeting Manchester City’s stadium.

According to The Sun, Matthew Swift, 18, was said to have sent his idea in a computer message to 16-year-old co- accused Ross McKnight.

A jury at Manchester Crown Court heard how he told McKnight: “I was thinking of targets to attack – like the City stadium.”

Both teens allegedly plotted a killing spree at Audenshaw High School, Manchester, on the tenth anniversary of the Columbine massacre.

Swift also wrote in a diary: “I cannot wait for Judgment Day. It is going to be awesome.” he friends deny conspiracy to murder and to cause explosions.

The trial continues. (ANI)

Taylor Swift – Taylor Swift bags most prestigious country music honour

Keith Urban Washington, June 17: Taylor Swift has become the reigning queen of country music, after landing the top honour at the CMT Awards in Nashville, Tennessee on Tuesday.

The singer bagged the most prestigious prize of the night by scooping the award for Best Video for her single ‘Love Story’.

She was also handed the Best Female Video honour for the same song, and she paid tribute to her loyal supporters as she came on stage for her award.

“Thank you to the fans that come out to my shows and spend such hard work making these amazing scrapbooks and writing me letters. Reading your letters and reading your MySpace comments, anytime I have a bad day, you make those days good,” Contactmusic quoted her as saying to the crowd,

Brad Paisley won the best Male Video category for ‘Waitin’ on a Woman’, and also took home a trophy for his duet with Keith Urban.

Paisley and Urban’s ‘Start a Band’ song was named Collaborative Video of the Year.

Rascal Flatts scooped Group Video of the Year for ‘Every Day’ and Sugaland were named Duo of the Year, for their hit ‘All I Want to Do’.

The performers for the night included Swift, Paisley, Toby Keith, Sugarland, Keith Urban and Rascal Flatts.

Swift flowing rivers causing threat to environment in West Bengal

Kolkata, May 29 (ANI): Swift flowing rivers that change their course frequently and result in massive soil erosion have become serious threat to environment in West Bengal.

Frequent landslides and sediment in the rivers caused by the settlement of debris on riverbeds carried from the mountains lead to rivers changing their course.

Rivers carry rocks, boulders, clay, mud and other sediments from the mountain and due to loss of gradient in the plains it gets accumulated.

As a result, the riverbeds have become elevated making the water flow out of its regular course.

“Many river beds are situated at a much elevated level than the county slope. So it is very simple for the river water to flow beyond its channel creating new channels, evolution is taking place, river is shifting. That is why it can destroy everything, tea gardens, valuable forests, settlements and arable land,” said Subir Sarkar, a Geologist.

“The eastern Himalayan belt is the most fragile part of the Himalayas, youngest part of the Himalayas. Hence there are frequent landslides,” said Animesh Bose, a local resident.

As per the surveys, riverbeds of rivers such as the Jayanti and the Padma in the area have elevated by as much as three metres during the last 20 years.

The change of course in the rivers leading to erosion in forestland is a major environmental hazard causing threat to millions of indigenous species of plants and animals.

Geologists believe that the only solution to the problem lies in the management of the catchment area.

Deforestation needs to be checked. Any kind of construction work in the area needs to be done under proper regulation and strict implementation of the EIA, the Environmental Impact Assistance. (ANI)

Taylor Swift was a loner in junior high school

Washington, May 27 (ANI): Taylor Swift may have crowds falling at her feet now, but the popular young country artist did not have many friends during her high school days.

The 19-year-old singer, who recently kicked off her “Fearless” tour and entertained thousands at the sold-out Staples Center in Los Angeles, said she was an outsider during junior high.

“It doesn’t matter if you don’t have friends in junior high,” Fox News quoted her as saying.

“Being an outsider gave me time to think … But there was a time when my greatest fear was not fitting in at school; I never thought I would be here with a sold-out Staples Center,” she added.

The Love Story hitmaker, who later teamed up with admirer John Mayer onstage, further revealed her signature treatment to deal with heart-breaking beaus, saying she is not the “only girl that burns ex boyfriends’ pictures.”

She added: “If you break my heart, hurt my feelings or mess with friends I’ll have to write a song about you.” (ANI)

Astronomers spot most distant object in the Universe

London, April 28 (ANI): Astronomers have spotted the most distant object yet confirmed in the universe, which is a self-destructing star that exploded 13.1 billion light years from Earth.

According to a report in New Scientist, it detonated just 640 million years after the big bang, around the end of the cosmic “dark ages”, when the first stars and galaxies were lighting up space.

The object is a gamma-ray burst (GRB) – the brightest type of stellar explosion.

GRBs occur when massive, spinning stars collapse to form black holes and spew out jets of gas at nearly the speed of light.

These jets send gamma rays our way, along with “afterglows” at other wavelengths, which are produced when the jet heats up surrounding gas.

The burst, dubbed GRB 090423 for the date of its discovery on April 23, was originally spotted by NASA’s Swift satellite at 0755 GMT.

Within an hour, astronomers began training ground-based telescopes on the same patch of sky to study the burst’s infrared afterglow.

Some of the first observations were made on Mauna Kea in Hawaii with the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope and the Gemini North telescope.

Other telescopes later measured the spectrum of the afterglow, revealing that the burst detonated about 13.1 billion light years from Earth.

“It’s the most distance gamma-ray burst, but it’s also the most distant object in the universe overall,” said Edo Berger of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, a member of the team that observed the afterglow with Gemini North.

This burst lies at a redshift of 8.2, more distant than the previous GRB record holder, which lay at a redshift of 6.7.

Other astronomers have claimed to find galaxies at even greater distances – at redshifts of 10 and 9, but those findings are still ambiguous, according to Joshua Bloom of the University of California, Berkeley, who observed the afterglow using the Gemini South telescope in Chile.

Until now, the record holder for the farthest galaxy had a spectroscopically confirmed redshift of 6.96.

The burst’s immense distance makes the now-dead star the earliest object to be discovered from an era called ‘reionisation’, which occurred within the first billion years after the big bang.

At that time, an obscuring fog of neutral hydrogen atoms was being burned off by radiation from the first stars and galaxies, and possibly also from the annihilation of dark matter particles.

“For astronomy, this is a watershed event,” Bloom told New Scientist. “This is the beginning of the study of the universe as it was before most of the structure that we know about today came into being,” he added. (ANI)

Black Eyed Peas, Miley Cyrus lead singles chart

LOS ANGELES/NEW YORK (Billboard) – The Black Eyed Peas’ “Boom Boom Pow” led Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart for a second week on Thursday, while box office champ “Hannah Montana: The Movie” accounted for six tunes on the tally.

“Hannah Montana” star Miley Cyrus’ “The Climb” rose two places to No. 8. “Hoedown Throwdown,” also from the movie, jumped 34 places to No. 28. Co-star Taylor Swift’s “Crazier” climbed 31 places to No. 38.

Miley Cyrus and Billy Ray Cyrus’ “Butterfly Fly Away” debuted at No. 72. “Let’s Get Crazy” re-entered at No. 75, and “You’ll Always Find Your Way Back Home” moved up nine to No. 88. Both are credited to Cyrus’ alter ego Hannah Montana. The soundtrack album jumped three places to No. 2 on the Billboard 200, which as published on Wednesday.

After the Peas, the top tier of the Hot 100 was barely changed, with Lady GaGa’s “Poker Face” holding at No. 2; Flo Rida’s “Right Round” at No. 3; Soulja Boy Tell’em featuring Sammie’s “Kiss Me Thru The Phone” at No. 4; Jamie Foxx featuring T-Pain’s “Blame It” at No. 5; T.I. featuring Justin Timberlake’s “Dead and Gone” at No. 6; Kid Cudi’s “Day ‘N’ Nite” at No. 7; and the Fray at No. 9 with “You Found Me.” The All-American Rejects fell two to No. 10 with “Gives You Hell.”

Top-debut honors went to Kellie Pickler’s “Best Days Of Your Life,” which entered at No. 50 after the 2006 “American Idol” finalist appeared on the show’s April 8 episode.

(Editing by Dean Gooodman at Reuters)

Rascal Flatts, Miley Cyrus lead U.S. pop chart

By Anthony Colombo and Wade Jessen

NEW YORK (Billboard) – Country combo Rascal Flatts logged its fourth No. 1 on the U.S. pop album chart on Wednesday, while Miley Cyrus enjoyed a big boost for the soundtrack to her new box office champ.

Rascal Flatts’ sixth set of new songs, “Unstoppable,” sold 351,000 copies during the week ended April 12, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

In line with the overall music business, the group’s sales have been on a downward trajectory since “Me and My Gang” blew in with 722,000 copies in 2006. The follow-up, “Still Feels Good,” started with 547,000 units in 2007.

With its fourth chart-topper, the group moves out of a tie with Dave Matthews Band, Disturbed, Linkin Park, Staind and System of a Down, all of whom have three No. 1s on the Billboard 200 this decade.

Cyrus jumped three places to No. 2 with “Hannah Montana: The Movie,” which sold 196,000 copies. The title, which started at No. 2 (136,000) two weeks ago, benefited from the movie’s first-place debut at the North American box office last weekend with ticket sales of $32 million.

A pair of debuts earned the next two spots: Jadakiss’ “Last Kiss” opened at No. 3 with 135,000 copies. The rapper last hit in 2004 when “Kiss of Death” started at No. 1 with 246,000 units. Country rocker Jason Aldean followed with “Wide Open,” which sold 109,000. His last set, “Relentless,” also began at No. 4 in 2007 with 98,000 units.

The multi-artist set “Now 30″ slipped one to No. 5. Taylor Swift, who appears in “Hannah Montana: The Movie,” jumped four places to No. 6 with “Fearless.”

Keith Urban’s reigning champ “Defying Gravity” fell to No. 7, in its second week. The “Twilight” soundtrack slipped one to No. 8. Prince’s Target-exclusive triple-disc set “Lotus Flow3r/MPLSound/Elix3r” slid seven places to No. 9, also in its second week. Lady GaGa’s “The Fame” was down one at No. 10.

Also new was a reissued version of Dolly Parton’s 2008 album “Backwoods Barbie,” which entered the chart at No. 40.

(Editing by Dean Gooodman at Reuters)