Have a great weekend and do join us on Monday. But before you go, the stories that were talking points today...

1. SC probe in slain Pak journo's case begins
2. World's first lung transplant on British woman
3. Joshi does a Jaya: Want Chidambaram to quit
4. Joshi: Why did Speaker return PAC report?
5. CBI to SC: Kani will tamper with evidence
6. US to replace planes destroyed in Pak attack
7. New Qaeda boss to target Prince Harry
8. Porn mogul offers sex-tweet Weiner a job
9. Radia tapes: Raja says PC got lots of money
10. Pak cameramen threatened for shooting killings
11. Saudi women begin challenge to driving ban
12. Dey murder: International scribes want results

Just in: The Congres core group meeting begins in Delhi to discuss the Lokpal Bill and Anna Hazare's latest threat -- the August 16, do or die fast.

Read this and be warned -- pull up your pants when you're told to.

A passenger was deboarded from the plane at San Francisco International airport and arrested after he refused to pull up his baggy pants.  

Deshon Marman, 20, who was in San Francisco to attend a former high school teammate''s funeral, was asked to pull up his sagging pants before boarding a US Airways flight to Albuquerque.

Marman's pants were reportedly below his waist, exposing much of his boxer shorts. An airline employee asked Marman to pull up his pants at the boarding gate, and the request was repeated aboard the plane, but he refused.

At that point he was asked to leave the plane, charged with tresspassing and held on a bail of 11,000 dollars.

Speaking of Saleem Shahzad, read the column in the Pakistani paper, Friday Times on the slain journalist.  

Read: Saleem Shahzad, Al Qaeda and ISI

News on the judicial probe into the killing of Pakistani journalist Saleem Shahzad.

The Dawn newspaper says the Supreme Court took up a petition requesting the setting up of a judicial commission to investigate the killing of journalist Saleem Shahzad and issued notices to the federal secretaries for law, interior and information with directions to submit their responses before the court by June 20.

The court heard the petition moved by SCBA president Asma Jehangir on behalf of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists.

The petition requests the setting up of a high-powered judicial commission to investigate Shahzad's killing.

As CBI prepares its third set of charges in the telecom spectrum allocation scam, the agency today questioned Loop Telecom CEO Sandip Basu in connection with the ownership and shareholding pattern of the company. Basu was questioned on the shareholding patterns and its alleged financial dealings with Essar group.

CBI is investigating whether Loop acted as a front for Essar group in getting telecom licences in alleged violation of rules, an allegation refuted by Essar group.

Becky Jones will always be remembered in medical history.

British surgeons have carried out what they claim is the world's first lung transplant on the 20-year-old woman who was suffering from two fungal conditions.

A team at the University Hospital of South Manchester has successfully carried out the transplant on Becky Jones who was suffering from multi-resistant Aspergillus, a common airborne fungus, and multiple fungal balls in her old lungs.

Lung transplant patients have never before been able to have the operation while suffering from either of these conditions. But, Jones is now able to breathe freely again.

The family of a child killed by Pakistan's Rangers last month has not been able to register a case against them as yet, despite having sufficient evidence.  

The incident took place when the Rangers entered that child's house, claiming that they were conducting a search.

The residents mistook them for burglars and the child's father, Gul Khan, resorted to aerial firing using a licensed gun to scare them away.

His action prompted the Rangers to retaliate, and as a result, 13-year-old Islam Bahadur and another relative, Khan Bahadur, were injured.

But instead of taking the injured to the hospital, the Rangers continued to interrogate them for an hour, and in place of admitting their mistake, the Rangers termed the residents of the house as 'criminals'.

A scandal in the making for Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. The former KGB boss has appointed a glamorous former model as his 'personal photographer', triggering a flurry of comments why she was hired.

Ex-model Yana Lapikova (25), who contested for the Miss Moscow title in 2008, would work as an intern for Putin's two photographers and may eventually become a full-timer.

"She is really a good photographer, and her modelling past is of no interest to us whatsoever because it's not a crime," Putin's spokesperson Peskov said.

Peskov said the two regular photographers are "squeezed dry" by their exhaustive schedule, which he compared to "penal servitude." But he said that finding one more photographer was hard because government pay is no match for salaries at news agencies.

Her work includes scantily-clad photographs of glamorous models, cats and birthday cakes, and have drawn scathing comments over her appointment.

PAC chairman Dr Murli Manohar Joshi has demanded that union home minister P Chidambaram, should be dropped from the cabinet for "leaking the PAC report, sending wrong data of most-wanted persons to Pakistan, his role in the 2G spectrum scam and the hike in gas and petrol prices" when he was the finance minister of India.

Rediff.com's Onkar Singh quotes Joshi as saying, "Chidambaram, who got himself elected by fradulent means as alleged by Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa, should be dropped from the cabinet", Joshi said while addressing a press conference at the BJP headquarters in New Delhi today.

He wanted to know how the confidential report submitted by him to the honourable speaker Mrs Meira Kumar was leaked out to the press even before it was officially made public.

"I think there is a issue of privilege and we would consult the constituational expert and file a breach of privilege motion against Chidambaram," Joshi said.

Just in: Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar has given "no reason" for returning the PAC report on the 2G scam, says Murli Manohar Joshi.

Public Accounts Committee chairman and BJP MP Murli Manohar Joshi had submitted the report to her at the end of his previous tenure on April 30.

Joshi's report on the alleged scam in the 2007 allocation of 2G spectrum had been sharply critical about Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, his office and the then finance minister P Chidambaram.

It had come also down heavily on former telecom minister A Raja.

The Pakistani paper Dawn says the US has decided to supply two P3C Orion aircraft to Pakistan to replace the aircraft that were destroyed in the PNS Mehran attack on May 22nd.

According to sources, the US will also be supplying F-16 aircraft and its spare parts. Read more

Ahead of Father's Day, Time magazine takes a look at the 10 worst fictional fathers.

Great read

If you've wondered why there wasn't a peep out of the CBI over DMK MP Kanimozhi's bail plea to, first the High Court and then the Supreme Court, here's the CBI's response.

The CBI today opposed the bail plea on the ground that if released, Kanimozhi and Kalaignar TV MD Sharad Kumar, could tamper with evidence and influence witnesses.

In an affidavit filed before the apex court, the investigating agency contended that Kanimozhi and Kumar were key conspirators and Rs 200 crore transferred to the Kalaignar TV was part of the "bribe" amount and not a loan as claimed by the accused.

The agency said that since investigation in the 2G case is at an advanced stage, it will not be proper for the apex court to grant bail to the accused.

Jilted just days before his wedding, Playboy mogul, Hugh Hefner now says he feels happy to be saved from a ruined marriage after his fiance Crystal Harris backed out of the nuptials at the last moment.

Hefner says he is not heartbroken as the worst happened before late. The 85-year-old mogul was scheduled to tie the knot with Crystal Harris (25) on June 18. The business tycoon, who insists not having any clue about Harris' back out, felt relieved that the worst things got over before the marriage, reported Daily Star online.

"Crystal did an interview with Ryan Seacrest this morning to explain everything, but I still don't have a clue. "I didn't see any of this coming, but I'm glad things went wrong before the marriage instead of after. Live & learn," wrote Hefner Twitter.

Guess even all that money didn't convince Crystal to become Mrs Hefner.

It's a fear that's oft repeated and reported and so, here it is again.

Fears have been raised that Al Qaeda's new Chief Ayman al-Zawahiri may target Prince Harry, as he vowed to launch a "big" attack on the West to avenge Osama bin Laden''s death.  

Reports indicate that Zawahiri would instruct his Taliban followers in Afghanistan to shoot down the Prince, after reports emerged that he was returning to Helmand to fly Apache helicopters.  

Killing a high value target like Harry, third-in-line to the throne, would be a propaganda coup for al-Qaida, and the terrorist group's new chief would try to take full advantage of it to establish himself as a 'more effective and relevant' leader than Osama bin Laden.

Also see: Harry tortured and taunted

Meanwhile, 17 Indians on death row for the murder of a Pakistani national in Sharjah in a bootlegging rivalry have been granted over a month's time by a UAE appeals court to reach a blood money settlement with the victim's family. 

The judge asked the two parties to reach a compromise by July 20.

More dirt on Weiner...

The first thing former US Representative Anthony Weiner did following his resignation speech at a press conference in New York Thursday afternoon, was to head out for grocery shopping with his pregnant wife Huma Abedin.    Weiner was trying to hide under a baseball cap but Huma was surprisingly smiley as the couple tried to remain incognito even attempting to exit through a side door before realizing they'd trip the alarm.  

"Weiner seemed unaffected by all the drama in his life, singing along to the 50's love songs that were playing on the store's radio. "I don't think the cashier recognized him but made a comment to me that she was 'creeped out' by him,' a source said.

We told you a while ago that disgraced US politician Anthony Weiner has finally resigned from Congress for sending sexually explicit messages to several women.  

Now, it seems, he has a job waiting for him.

Porn mogul Larry Flynt, who owns Hustler, said he would pay Weiner, who posted pictures of his intimate anatomy to a number of women on Twitter, 20 per cent more than what he earned in the House of Representatives.  

The offer also includes relocation costs.

No comebacks from Weiner yet.

Union Minister for Rural Development and former Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh today said the Adarsh Society land belonged to the state and was never reserved for defence personnel or Kargil war heroes.

In an affidavit filed before the two-member Adarsh Commission, set up to probe irregularities in scam-tainted Adarsh Society, Deshmukh said, "The records maintained with the office of the Collector of Mumbai clearly show that the land belonged to the state government. The ownership of the land was never an issue at any stage so far I am concerned."

Deshmukh's statement is similar to that of Union Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, who filed an affidavit in this regard last week.

Corporate lobbyist Niira Radia is back in the news again, two days after she met with the CBI director. A story in the Sunday Guardian. 

Former Telecom Minister A Raja told corporate lobbyist Niira Radia in a telephone conversation, which was intercepted by the government that Home Minister P Chidambaram had "taken a lot of money and further expressed his annoyance on the functioning of Chidambaram on minerals and gas matters".

The conversation took place in May 2009, after the UPA returned to power in the Lok Sabha elections. Read more

Our Delhi correspondent tells us that the Election Commission is to meet on July 5 to finalise the dates for the Gujarat, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu Rajya Sabha vacancies. The EC is also expected to announce the single seat byelection to the RS from Tamil Nadu.

Informed sources in the EC say that the first week of August is probably when the three states will go to the RS polls.

On driving ban on Saudi women, read Sabria Jawhar's columnin the Huffington Post on how "the driving ban is no longer a distraction to Saudi women's quest for their rights, but could very well be the centerpiece of our struggle to obtain rights long denied us."

The Delhi Police has just filed its reply in the Supreme Court justifying the crackdown on yoga guru Ramdev and his followers at the Ramlila Grounds in Delhi on June 5.

The Delhi Police says the crackdown was carried out because the congregation at the Ramlila Maidan was illegal. However, it said it did not resort to lathicharge during the crackdown on Ramdev supporters.

The court asked them to reply as to what were the circumstances under which the people had to be dispersed in the midnight by the use of force.

Activists urging women in Saudi Arabia to defy a ban on driving say some have taken to the road in a planned challenge against the restrictions.

A protest organiser, Benjamin Joffe-Walt, says Saudi women drove around the capital Riyadh before dawn Friday without incident.

Web message boards set up by campaigners say other women also got behind the wheel.

The campaign follows the nine-day detention last month of a Saudi woman after she posted a video of her driving.

There is no written Saudi law banning women from driving, but it stems from religious edicts by clerics.

Meanwhile, read this bizarre report in Arab News on the luxury and necessity of women driving.

NATO planes resumed bombardments of Tripoli after Muammar Gaddafi's son said the Libyan leader was willing to hold elections and step aside if he lost, an offer rejected by rebels and the United States, reports Reuters.

Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam told an Italian newspaper that the elections could be held within three months and transparency could be guaranteed through international observers.

He said his father would be ready to cede power if he lost the election, though he would not go into exile

Sex-text maniac, Representative Anthony Weiner has resigned from the Congress after confessing to having sent sexually explicit messages to several women.  

The 46-year-old Democrat made the announcement after pressure mounted on him to resign from office.  

Weiner admitted to sending lewd messages and pictures to at least six women over the social networking sites, Facebook and Twitter over a period of three years.  

"I am here today to again apologise for the personal mistakes I have made and the embarassment I have caused. "I make this apology to my neighbors and my constituents, but I make it particularly to my wife." Weiner said.

If you've quite finished puking, here's some sober news.

Amid growing political unrest in Greece and escalating protests against the government's austerity measures, the European Union has postponed a decision on a second multi-billion euro rescue package for the debt-ridden nation at least until mid-July.

However, the European Commission, the executive arm of the 27-nation EU, said on Thursday that a bankruptcy will be averted by releasing the fifth tranche of 12 billion euros from last year's bailout package of 110 billion euros (159 billion dollars) when euro zone finance ministers meet in Luxembourg over the weekend.

This will help prevent Greece defaulting on its debt repayments due next month and ensure that it will remain solvent until September.

More meat for the foodie... game for a poop burger?

Japanese scientist Mitsuyuki Ikeda has been busy playing Dr Frankenstein -- he's developed a "burger" made from protein extracted from human faeces. Yes, real human poop.

He combined the synthesized protein with soya and added some stake sauce for taste and dubbed it a burger, reports the Huffington Post.

See it being made (if you can stomach it)

The humble, and frankly quite boring, upma has made it big.

Indian-origin chef Floyd Cardoz has been crowned the winner of America's much-watched Top Chef Masters contest and took home a whopping USD 100,000 prize after wowing the judges with upma.

Mumbai-born Cardoz whipped up an upma of semolina and mushroom to beat favorites Mary Sue Milliken of Los Angeles's Border Grill and Traci Des Jardins of San Francisco's Jardiniere, despite never winning a quickfire challenge.

Cardoz often came in second place to Milliken, who won four elimination challenges during the course of the Top Chef Masters Season 3 finale contest in Los Angeles.

"I was totally shocked and surprised," Cardoz told Bravo channel, after being declared the winner. New York-based Cardoz said that as a chef he was used to be in control but entering the competition took control away from him.

"That was the hardest part of me," he said. Cardoz, who used to work for Danny Meyer Indian restaurant Tabla which closed in 2010, said that good food is about "how you feel and how your guest feels."

The finale began with the chefs being tasked to create a three-course meal of a lifetime based around food memories.

Two Iranian doctors, who are brothers, and are imprisoned for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government have been awarded a global health prize -- the Jonathan Mann Award for Global Health and Human Rights.

The bbc.co.uk reports that Kamiar and Arash Alaei were arrested in June 2008 and accused of communicating with the US to unseat the regime of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

One of the two brothers, released earlier this year, was able to accept the award in Washington. Kamiar Alaeia, 37, said they had never been involved in politics.

Read

In a bizarre case, Yahoo Japan  and another company have been ordered to pay 660,000 yen in compensation over a photo of a handcuffed man carried on Yahoo Japan's Website. Yahoo Japan's public relations department said they believed this is the first time a Web site operator has been ordered to pay damages for news articles or photos originally distributed by media outlets.

The complainant said her husband committed suicide because of the picture. But get this, the handcuffed picture was carried by Yahoo in 1985, while the man committed suicide in 2008. That's 23 years lag time!

Read the story

One of the world's most celebrated photographers called it the decisive moment -- the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as the precise organization of forms which gives that event its proper expression. -- Henri Cartier-Bresson.

It is debatable whether a moment captured during the Vancouver's hockey riots can be called decisive, but it's thrown up a lot of questions -- who is the couple and what are they doing.

Lying in the street and seemingly locked in a kiss as chaos erupts around them, a young couple appear oblivious to the charging crowds and baton-wielding riot police.

The photograph, taken amid Vancouver's hockey riots, has been tweeted around the world. But the photographer who took it is still not sure what the picture really shows.

Read the report in the Guardian.

Even as Anna Hazare vows to go on a second fast on August 16 over the Lokpal Bill, (he called it Jokepal), Fali Nariman, noted constitutional expert, has suggested that Hazare should not refrain from another fast.

Speaking to Rediff.com's Onkar Singh in Delhi, Nariman said, "Such things click only once. On the second count you do not get the same support as you do the first time."

Commenting on the progress the two sides had made, Nariman said it was far from satisfactory. "The kind of language used by both sides is despicable. You cannot do this. The government has failed to send a strong message amongst the masses that it is against corruption and it would not tolerate it further and deal with it with an iron hand," he said.

Talking about the Hazare's team, Nariman said civil society members would have done better talking to political parties that are against the government and tried to win over their support. "They shouldn't make comments like Jokepal Bill," he said.

In Pakistan, two cameramen who caught on video, cases of extrajudicial killings by paramilitary police force personnel, say they have been threatened for having recorded the incidents.  

Last week, Pakistan was shaken by a graphic video that showed members of a paramilitary police force shooting an unarmed teenager suspected of stealing in a park in Karachi.  

The TV cameraman - Abdul Salam Soomro - who recorded the shooting received death threats, and came under intense pressure to say that the chilling video, which was broadcast across Pakistan, was fabricated.

No breakthrough in the J Dey murder case, even after Maharashtra CM Prithviraj Chavan promised results. Dey (56), an investigative reporter with the Mid Day newspaper was shot dead by four unidentified assailants in suburban Mumbai on June 11.

Now, the Indian Journalists Association in Europe has expressed disappointment at the lack of progress in the case. The IJA has urged the Maharashtra government to take immediate measures to probe the murder effectively.   

"We call on the Government of Maharashtra to take efficient and expeditious steps to get to the bottom of the matter. If need be, assistance of central authorities should be sought to ensure justice' an IJA statement said.  

"India''s credibility as a democracy cannot be sustained without complete freedom for bona fide journalistic work' IJA statement further added.

Good morning. The top stories this morning...

India could be key target of new al-Qaeda chief  (The Hindu)
India could be one of several new theatres targeted by al-Qaeda's newly-appointed chief to establish his authority over the jihadist group and its allies. Read

US vows to hunt down new al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri (DNA)
Admiral Mike Mullen was quick to point out that given the baggage al-Zawahiri was carrying, it was unlikely that he would enjoy the position Laden did in the extremist network. Read

Team Anna & Govt head for bitter parting (Indian Express)
Lokpal Bill: Anna threatens fast from Aug 16, Govt says will bring Bill by June 30. Read

Chargesheeted may be barred from polls: Moily (The Times of India)
A consensus to debar chargesheeted candidates from contesting elections emerged during regional consultations on electoral reforms, law minister Veerappa Moily said. Read

Assam: Tragedy averted after police diffuse bomb on Kolkata bound train (Indian Express)
Police found the bomb inside an airbag on coach S5 of Kanchenjunga Express during a routine search. Read

Did MV Suez rebuff India's help warship? (The Times of India)

After all the hullabaloo over why India had not promptly dispatched a warship to protect MV Suez during its passage to Salalah port in Oman, missile frigate INS Godavari did sail close to the merchant vessel on Thursday but got no response from it. Read

Maruti ends 13-day strike, output loss $93.5 million (Hindustan Times)

Maruti Suzuki ended a 13-day strike by employees at the Manesar plant that had crippled production and led to more than $90 million in lost output for India's largest car maker. Read