Russian Soyuz space capsule carrying two astronauts from the International Space Station landed safely in northern Kazakhstan on Thursday.

Russia's Mission Control announced that NASA astronaut Jeff Williams and Russian flight engineer Maxim Suraev landed without any difficulty in the vast steppe near the town of Arkalyk in northern Kazakhstan.

Making announcement of Soyuz space capsule’s return, Russia's Mission Control said, “The descent capsule of the Soyuz TMA-16 ... has landed.”

Though Palm Inc. managed to lower its losses in fiscal third quarter, it cautioned of considerably poorer revenue in the current quarter. Plummeting sales of the company's smart phones has caused a great amount of apprehension.

The sale of the company's Pre and Pixi smart phones haven't matched expectations. The reason for the drop in sales is that Palm Inc. has received great competition from gigantic corporations like Apple. Marketing by rival carriers has also impaired the sale of the phones.

PepsiCo Inc. Chief Financial Officer Richard Goodman is reported to leave by the month end and be succeeded by 20-year company veteran Hugh Johnston as the soda and snack-food giant initiates integrating its two largest bottlers into its operations.

Pepsi last month reportedly shut its purchase of the stakes in Pepsi Bottling Group and PepsiAmericas.

The US Federal Communications Commission has released country’s first national broadband plan that aim at providing American with the fastest and most extensive wireless network in the world.

The plan aims at assuring that at least 100 million homes have affordable access to broadband networks by 2020.

The access to broadband network will allow users to download data from Internet at speeds of at least 100Mbps, about 25 times faster than the current average.

U. S researchers are revealed to develop a genetic test for autism currently classified as a secondary approach, which is an inch closer to be able to pick out the main reason for the condition at a rate more than three times that of a screening considered to be a first-tier test.

The standard genetic tests usually fail to spot the genes which are responsible for causing autism.

Colorado is lagging behind other regions of the country in the use of federal government's Home Affordable Modification Program.

Data compiled the U. S. Treasury & Housing and departments of Urban Development showed that the number of HAMP-related mortgage-loan modifications in Colorado reached 14,320 by the end of February.

Out of a total of 14,320, Colorado's permanent modifications and active trial modifications were reported at 2,613 and 11,707 respectively.

State banking regulators shut down three banks on Friday, pushing the total number of failed financial institutions to 30 this year.

Regulators closed Park Avenue Bank in New York, Old Southern Bank in Florida and Statewide Bank in Louisiana.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said that Home Bank of Lafayette in Louisiana had agreed to assume all the deposits of Statewide Bank; however, it would not pay the FDIC a premium.

In addition, Home Bank will purchase almost all the assets of the Statewide Bank.

The retail sales in U. S. registered an unexpectedly surged in February as shoppers braved blizzards to visit the malls, signaling that consumers will massively add more to economic growth.

"The storms were apparently not quite as disruptive as anticipated," said Adam York, an economist at Wells Fargo Securities LLC in Charlotte, North Carolina, whose forecast for a 0.6 percent gain excluding autos was the highest of those surveyed.

United States’ leading electronics retailer Best Buy has teamed up with Japan’s Panasonic Corp. to exclusively sell its first 3D TV home-entertainment system bundle in the US.

The bundle, which costs $2,899.99 in total, includes a 50-inch plasma 3D Viera set, a Blu-ray based disc player and viewing glasses.

The bundle was made available for purchase on Wednesday via Minneapolis-based Best Buy's Magnolia Home Theater unit.

In order to combat HIV/AIDS, major of causing maximum number of deaths in black women in Washington DC, it has been planned that female condoms will be offered free of cost for the females in easily approachable places like beauty salons, convenience stores and high schools.

The comprehensive electronic health records (EHR) is to be submitted by the hospitals and physicians in the U. S. Though, some health care experts are of the view that quality of e-health systems might be at risk as it has to cater to deadlines that are unrealistic, and a chaos still prevails about what is the primary thing to do.

At Thursday's summit in Washington, President Barack Obama initiated an attempt to get Democrats and Republicans, seeking common ground, but one void couldn't be bridged: How to deal with the uninsured?

This is crucial as 25% Texans is not shielded with a health insurance, the highest rate in the country -- and our 6 million uninsured will climb without reforms. That will hurts hospitals, doctors and everybody else, apart from hampering their well-being because they have to absorb the costs.

Deutsche Telekom is revealed to be in talks with banks discussing options for its U. S. operations and the development of the U. S. market in general, said Andreas Leigers, a spokesman for the German company, who confirmed comments made by Chief Financial Officer Timotheus Hoettges to Dow Jones.

In 2009, T-Mobile USA contributed about 24 percent of the group's revenue and 21 percent of adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.

Nymex crude oil futures fetched a stable posture near $80 a barrel on Monday, pulling back from an earlier gain to a six-week high, with the dollar down as investors assessed the prospect of an earlier U. S. interest rate rise than previously expected.

"Skeptical as we are of the advance, we cannot fight the current run higher as prices are now within striking distance of their recent highs and likely on track to test them", said Edward Meir, analyst at MF Global.

US experts for ascertaining which chemicals initiate breast cancer are up for a toxicity test on chemicals.

Megan Schwarzman, a physician and environmental health researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, said, "We're currently not identifying chemicals that could be contributing to the risk of breast cancer."

Schwarzman added that out of over 200 chemicals that are present in the environment, only a handful are linked to mammary tumors when they were tested on animals in lab and these have been regulated by the US authorities