Why Wal-Mart’s First India Store Isn’t A Wal-Mart

After years of controversy and opposition from local retailers, Wal-Mart this month is poised to open its first store in India, launching an expansion that will include 10 more big-box outlets in the potentially vast Indian market over the next two years. But Indian consumers won’t be able to partake of Wal-Mart’s everyday low prices

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Jay Leno: ’10 o’clock is like the new 11:30′

Jay Leno plans "something really unusual and different" when he hands over "The Tonight Show" to Conan O’Brien on May 29, 17 years after Johnny Carson left the hosting duties to him. But don’t expect an emotional final show, since Leno and most of his staff are just moving across the NBC lot to produce a nightly prime time show debuting in September. The traditional desk, chair and guest sofa probably won’t follow Leno to his 10 p.m.

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Shuttle Atlantis ready for liftoff

Final preparations are under way for Monday’s scheduled launch of the space shuttle Atlantis from Kennedy Space Center in Florida in a repair mission for the Hubble Space Telescope. The countdown timeline is on target, and “Atlantis is ready to fly,” said Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, NASA’s test director. Preparations for the 2:01 p.m

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Weekend Box Office Obsessed With Beyonce

There’s nothing like an enraged diva — Beyoncé Knowles giving a head butt to the psychopathic blond who’s trying to kill her and steal her husband — to bring out the crowds on a spring weekend. Enough customers were transfixed by the fatal-distraction drama Obsessed to place it at the top of the weekend’s box office chart with a surprisingly robust $28.5 million, according to early studio estimates. The PG-13 thriller more than doubled the take of its nearest competitor, 17 Again, and earned nearly as much over the weekend as the total of the three other movies that opened in wide release

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Indians begin voting in epic elections

India begins voting Thursday to choose a new government in a mammoth exercise covering more than three million square kilometers of the planet in scattered polling until next month. India currently has 714 million registered voters, up 43 million from the last vote.

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Porto no Champions pushovers warns Ronaldo

Cristiano Ronaldo has warned holders Manchester United that Champions League quarterfinal opponents Porto will be no pushovers, ahead of Tuesday’s first leg clash at Old Trafford. “Porto are a very good team,” said Portugal’s World Player of the Year. “They are top of the league back home, ahead of Sporting Lisbon and Benfica and we know how strong they can be.” But Ronaldo, who scored twice in the dramatic 3-2 win over Aston Villa that sent United back to the top of the Premier League, is confident enough to predict that United will reach the last four “The good thing is we have two games against them and I feel that will be enough to get us through,” he said.

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Funeral bombing kills at least 14 in Iraq

A suicide bomb exploded at a Kurdish funeral in the northern Iraqi town of Jalawla Monday evening, killing at least 14 people and wounding 31 others, according to local police. The ongoing fierce gun battles in the densely forested and foliaged mountain range of Shamswari, the deadliest in recent months, entered its fourth day Monday. “The thorough combing operation is in progress, and it is expected that a few more terrorists may be holed up in the area including an isolated house,” Lt

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