World Cup over for luckless Broad.

Stuart Broad has today been ruled out of the remainder of the ICC Cricket World Cup due to a side strain injury suffered during England's six-run win over South Africa on Sunday.

Broad suffered the injury while bowling during the second innings and subsequent tests have confirmed the 24-year-old has a side strain that will require him to return to the UK for treatment.

He will depart the England squad, currently based in Chittagong ahead of Friday's Group B match against Bangladesh, in the next 48 hours for further assessment in the UK that will determine his recovery and rehabilitation timescale.

Any participation in the forthcoming IPL will be determined according to his rehabilitation timescale established in due course.

ECB chief medical officer Dr Nick Peirce said: "Stuart felt some discomfort following the South Africa match and our initial assessment indicated a strain to his left side.

“Subsequent scans have confirmed a significant side strain injury - where the muscle attaches the rib - that will rule him out of the remainder of the World Cup.

“This is a new injury, separate from the abdominal tear suffered during the Ashes, that requires a period of recuperation and rehabilitation and the duration of this recovery period will be determined following further assessment in the UK."

The England selectors will decide on a player replacement in due course before submitting an application to the ICC event technical committee.

Broad is the second England player to be ruled out of the remainder of the World Cup due to injury.

England batsman Kevin Pietersen has returned to the UK to undergo hernia surgery in the next week and, while he will take no part in the forthcoming IPL, he is expected to be fully fit for England's first summer Test match against Sri Lanka on May 26 at Cardiff.

Pietersen has been replaced by Eoin Morgan, who joined the England squad today in Chittagong ahead of Friday's match.

2 space crews mark 1 week together in orbit.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – The 12 astronauts aboard the orbiting shuttle-station complex shared a few more maintenance chores Saturday, taking out the trash and doing their part for clean air as their weeklong visit wound down.

The hatches between Discovery and the International Space Station will close Sunday afternoon, and the shuttle will undock first thing Monday.

Both crews worked to rejuvenate the space station's air system. The oxygen generator as well as the carbon dioxide removal system have been acting up.

They also made sure a Japanese cargo carrier was loaded properly with garbage.

The supply ship will be let loose at the end of this month and plunge through the atmosphere, burning up. The vessel is full of packing foam from all the equipment that was delivered by Discovery. The foam encasing the humanoid robot R2 will be stuffed in as well, once the astronauts unwrap it.

R2 is the first humanoid robot in space. It was part of the new stowage unit delivered last Saturday by shuttle Discovery.

Mission Control gave Discovery's six astronauts two extra days at the 220-mile-high lab — for a total of nine days — to help with all the unloading and repair work.

"Hope you are enjoying your extended stay in your out-of-this-world accommodations. The innkeeper says you can stay a couple more days if you behave," Mission Control joked.

It's the last voyage for Discovery, NASA's oldest and most traveled shuttle. The spaceship will be retired following Wednesday's planned touchdown and sent to the Smithsonian Institution for display.

Only two more shuttle missions remain. Endeavour is set to soar in mid-April, followed by Atlantis at the end of June.

572-Pound Spokesman of Unhealthy Eatery Dies.

PHOENIX — A 572-pound man who gained fame as spokesman for the Heart Attack Grill -- a Phoenix-area restaurant that unabashedly touts its unhealthy, high-calorie menu –- died Thursday, MyFoxPhoenix.com reported.

Friends of 29-year-old Blair River say he died Tuesday, possibly from contracting pneumonia after a bout with the flu.

Standing at 6’8”, River gained attention from around the globe after signing on to be the larger-than-life spokesman for Chandler's Heart Attack Grill last fall. There, servers are dressed like nurses and the owner wears a doctor's lab coat, but the menu is the opposite of health-conscious.

Jon Basso, the restaurant's founder, teared up a bit Wednesday when he was asked about the 29-year-old's sudden death.

"We all have a very, very brief time on this earth, and the measure of a man is how he leaves the world after he's been here, and I can tell you Blair River was my friend," Basso told MyFoxPhoenix.

Many criticize the eatery that offers meals in excess of 8,000 calories. They feature huge hamburgers, milkshakes and fry their fries in pig lard. A sign in front of the building reads, "Caution. This establishment is bad for your health."

Basso says he expects the criticism, but the message beneath the outrageous menu is one of caution. Even some diners agree -- it's your choice to eat there or not to eat there.

"We are absolutely guilty for glorifying obesity, it's what we do, but if you stop and think about why we glorify obesity and come into the Heart Attack Grill diet center I think you'll get it," Basso told the website.

When MyFoxPhoenix talked to River in November about his modeling contract, he said he felt healthy and had no regrets about the way he lived his life.

River was a genuine person who told us the Heart Attack Grill gig, at $100 an hour, was all in good fun. Basso wants him to be remembered as a gentle giant and not someone who represented poor eating habits.

The founder said River was a creative genius who had been planning to take part in the shooting of a promotional spot called, "Heart Attack Grill: The Musical."

River started as a state champion high school football player and wrestler from Payson, Ariz. He leaves behind a young daughter.

A day trip to Chernobyl.

Want to visit a European city so quiet you can hear distant birdsong at noon in the main street? A place where the internet is unknown and mobile phone chimes never break the calm? Do you dream of car-free streets where wild animals can wander as the fancy takes them?

French adventurer sets out for Tahiti from Peru on board kite boat.

French national Anne Quemere set sail for Tahiti from Peru after having to abandon her first attempt a day earlier due to poor wind conditions.

Quemere is hoping to traverse more than 7,000 kilometres aboard her kite boat. The kite boat is six metres long and two metres wide and will be pulled by a giant kite.

The vessel was designed specifically for Quemere to sail the 7,500 kilometres from the Callao port in Lima.

Quemere will be able to sleep in one compartment on the vessel, which also includes a storage compartment for additional kites of various sizes.

iPad 2 expected to be thinner, faster, supports camera.

SAN FRANCISCO:  More than a year after igniting the tablet computing craze, Apple Inc prepares to unveil the second version of its blockbuster iPad on Wednesday — possibly minus lead showman Steve Jobs.

Plenty has changed over the course of the year. The iPad became a bona fide smash, essentially creating the tablet category and triggering a wave of me-too products that are just starting to hit the market.

Now, as rivals Motorola and Research in Motion race to catch up, Apple itself is going through a transformation.

There is as much speculation about whether iconic Chief Executive Jobs will take the stage at Wednesday’s event in San Francisco as there is about the new device.

Jobs traditionally launches major products with a pizzazz and style that reflect his eye for detail and design. But he took indefinite medical leave last month and Apple has not given details of the cancer survivor’s medical condition.

His absence is bound to spark a fresh round of speculation on his condition. And his presence will be scrutinized equally closely for any signals on his health.

The new model will support the same 10-inch screen but should be lighter, thinner and faster, according to a plethora of analyst and blog reports. Apple is expected to add a camera to enable video chat using the FaceTime application.

Shares of some Taiwanese component makers rose in Asian trade on Wednesday ahead of the launch.

Camera module maker Genius Electronic Optical Co Ltd and lens manufacturer Largan Precision Co Ltd were starting new supply deals with Apple, two sources said in December, but neither could confirm for which product the modules were intended.

Genius jumped as much as 5.1 per cent before ending 2.5 per cent lower, while lens manufacturer Largan edged up 0.2 per cent in a broader market down 1.2 per cent. Hon Hai Precision , whose parent Foxconn manufactures Apple products, eased 1.8 per cent.

“The launch of iPad2 should have been priced in, but another new features released, for example more powerful hardware, could push relevant stocks into another round of growth,” said Mike Fang, a fund manager at Paradigm Asset Management in Taipei.

It sold nearly 15 million iPads in 2010 after an April launch, three or even four times as many as some analysts had predicted. The tablet added more than $9 billion in revenue for the company last year.

NASA research satellite plunges into the sea.

WASHINGTON – For the second time in two years, a rocket glitch sent a NASA global warming satellite to the bottom of the sea Friday, a $424 million debacle that couldn't have come at a worse time for the space agency and its efforts to understand climate change.

Years of belt-tightening have left NASA's Earth-watching system in sorry shape, according to many scientists. And any money for new environmental satellites will have to survive budget-cutting, global warming politics and, now, doubts on Capitol Hill about the space agency's competence.

The Taurus XL rocket carrying NASA's Glory satellite lifted from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and plummeted to the southern Pacific several minutes later. The same thing happened to another climate-monitoring probe in 2009 with the same type of rocket, and engineers thought they had fixed the problem.

"It's more than embarrassing," said Syracuse University public policy professor Henry Lambright. "Something was missed in the first investigation and the work that went on afterward."

Lambright warned that the back-to-back fiascos could have political repercussions, giving Republicans and climate-change skeptics more ammunition to question whether "this is a good way to spend taxpayers' money for rockets to fail and for a purpose they find suspect."

NASA's environmental division is getting used to failure, cuts and criticism. In 2007, a National Academies of Science panel said that research and purchasing for NASA Earth sciences had decreased 30 percent in six years and that the climate-monitoring system was at "risk of collapse." Then, last month, the Obama administration canceled two major satellite proposals to save money.

Also, the Republican-controlled House has sliced $600 million from NASA in its continuing spending bill, and some GOP members do not believe the evidence of manmade global warming.

Thirteen NASA Earth-observing satellites remain up there, and nearly all of them are in their sunset years.

"Many of the key observations for climate studies are simply not being made," Harvard Earth sciences professor James Anderson said. "This is the nadir of climate studies since I've been working in this area for 40 years."

Scientists are trying to move climate change forecasts from ones that are heavily based on computer models to those that rely on more detailed, real-time satellite-based observations like those that Glory was supposed to make. The satellite's failure makes that harder.

Ruth DeFries, the Columbia University professor who co-chaired the 2007 National Academies of Science panel, said in an e-mail that this matters for everyone on Earth.

"The nation's weakening Earth-observing system is dimming the headlights needed to guide society in managing our planet in light of climate change and other myriad ways that humans are affecting the land, atmosphere and oceans," DeFries wrote.

NASA Earth Sciences chief Michael Freilich said it is not that bad.

"We must not lose sight of the fact that we in NASA are flying 13 research missions right now, which are providing the fuel for advancing a lot of our Earth science," Freilich told The Associated Press. He said airplane missions, current satellites and future ones can pick up much of the slack for what Glory was going to do.

However, Freilich, at a budget briefing a year ago, described the Earth-watching satellites as "all old," adding that 12 of the 13 "are well beyond their design lifetimes."

"We're losing the ability to monitor really key aspects of the climate problem from space," said Jonathan Overpeck, a climate scientist at the University of Arizona. "Just about every climate scientist in the world has got to be sad right now."

Glory failed when the rocket's clamshell-shaped protective covering that was supposed to shield it during launch never opened to let the satellite fire into orbit. A similar fiasco happened in 2009 when the Orbiting Carbon Observatory fell back to Earth after the rocket nose cone also failed to separate.

A NASA investigation board and Taurus' builder, Orbital Sciences Corporation of Dulles, Va., will try to figure out what wrong. It was the third failure out of nine launches for that rocket. NASA paid Orbital $54 million for launching Glory. The last failure was traced to the system that jettisons the covering, and Orbital changed its design.

"To make any connection between our investigation of the 2009 ... mishap and Friday's failure of the Glory launch at this time would be purely speculative and wholly inappropriate," said investigative panel chairman Rick Obenschain, deputy director of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.