San Francisco  - Actress Natasha Richardson was in serious condition at a Montreal hospital Tuesday after suffering head injuries Monday afternoon in a skiing accident, according to Canadian news reports.

The British actress, 45, is a member of the Redgrave acting dynasty and the wife of Liam Neeson. She suffered the injury at the Mont Tremblant ski resort in Quebec, according to People magazine online.

Los Angeles - Legendary protest singer Bob Dylan is getting some protests of his own over a portable toilet at his exclusive Malibu compound which neighbors say is fouling up the neighbourhood's ocean air, the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday.

Borrowing one of the folk bard's most famous lines, the report said that the stench "blowin' in the wind" had made members of one family ill and forced them to abandon their bedrooms on warm nights.

The family claimed that Dylan, 67, has ignored their complaints for six months.

Washington - US President Barack Obama on Tuesday defended his ambitious budget proposals, which have been strongly resisted by conservatives, telling skeptics that his plans were in line with the enormity of the problems faced by the country's economy.

"The challenges we face are too large to ignore," Obama said after a meeting with members of the congressional budget committees.

Washington, Mar. 17 : President Barack Obama has decided that he is too busy to attend the Gridiron's annual banquet later this month.

He will be the first president since Grover Cleveland to skip the white-tie-and-tails affair in his first year in office.

The official line from the Gridiron Club - a society of Washington reporters, columnists, and bureau chiefs - is, "We understand."

But some Gridiron veterans make clear they don't understand.

New York, Mar 17 : A loudmouth on the sets of `American Idol' has claimed that the producers and judges of the show have already decided which contestants will make it to the final four in the competition.

One of the lady staffers has said that the bosses on the show have already picked the final four contestants, and that too when 11 contestants are still battling to be the latest pop star.

Washington, Mar 17 : Researchers have developed a new technique in which DNA patches are used to treat dogs with the canine version of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a paralysing and often fatal disease of muscles.

Called "exon skipping", the technique uses tailor-made snippets of DNA-like molecules as molecular "patches", which cover up mutant DNA sequences that code for making an important muscle protein.