Dainton died Oct. 16 at a nursing home in Camborne, England, according to Peter Visick, a distant relative. Her funeral was held Monday at Truro Cathedral, Visick said Thursday.

Elizabeth Gladys “Millvina” Dean of Southampton, England, who was 2 months old at the time of the Titanic sinking, is now the disaster’s only remaining survivor, according to the Titanic Historical Society.

The last American survivor, Lillian Gertrud Asplund, died in Massachusetts last year at age 99.

Dainton, born in Bournemouth in southern England in 1911, was too young to remember the night when the huge liner hit an iceberg and sank in the Atlantic in April 1912, killing 1,500 people, including her father, Edwy Arthur West.

He waved farewell as the lifeboat carrying Barbara; her mother, Ada; and her sister, Constance, was lowered into the ocean, according to Karen Kamuda of the Titanic Historical Society in Indian Orchard, Mass. His body was never identified.

The Titanic did not have enough lifeboats for all of 2,200 passengers and crew. Only a small number of those unable to find a place on the boats survived the freezing waters.

Dainton returned to England after the accident. She married in 1952.

She avoided publicity associated with the Titanic and even insisted that her funeral take place before any public announcement of her death, Kamuda said.

“We respected her privacy,” Kamuda said. “We’re so open with everything and our emotions nowadays, but people at that time, they just didn’t talk about it.”

Astronaut Scott Parazynski will attempt a repair to the damaged solar array on Saturday.

NASA says one of the problems must be solved before any more shuttles can fly to the orbiting outpost. The space agency is focusing on the wing because further damage could force officials to junk the important  and expensive piece of equipment.

The agency hopes to send veteran spacewalker Scott Parazynski to conduct the repairs on Saturday.

It will be a difficult and potentially dangerous mission for Parazynski, who runs the risk of being shocked as he tries to fix the damaged panel.

Parazynski also will be farther from the safety of the station than NASA would like, upping the ante for problems such as glove tears or spacesuit malfunctions.

The safety concerns led the space agency to delay the outing a day to give experts on the ground more time to analyze every detail. Astronauts aboard the linked shuttle-station complex were spending Friday studying the plans and preparing equipment.

Engineers believe the 115-foot wing snagged on a guidewire or guidewire support as it was being unreeled Tuesday. Until Parazynski gets close to the damage, NASA can only theorize what he’ll need to do to fix it.

The partially deployed solar wing is producing power, and there is no way to turn it off, flight director Derek Hassmann said. Parazynski has been warned not to touch the electricity-generating solar cells that cover virtually the entire wing. If the metal of a tool he was holding melted, it could burn a hole into his glove.

The metal parts of Parazynski’s spacesuit will be covered with insulating tape, as will his wire cutters, pliers and other tools.

Astronaut David Wolf, who heads the spacewalking branch in Houston, acknowledged that it’s conceivable — but extremely unlikely — that Parazynski could be electrocuted. But he said the agency has done everything reasonable to keep that from happening.

The other problem is the long distance between the damaged wing and the pressurized compartments where the astronauts work and live. NASA normally likes to keep spacewalkers no more than 30 minutes away from the cabin hatch in case of an emergency, but Parazynski could be up to an hour away.

The station’s residents will delve into the other power problem after Discovery leaves. That involves a malfunctioning rotary joint that controls the solar wings on the right side of the station. A spacewalking astronaut found steel shavings in the right joint last weekend, the apparent result of grinding parts.

King Abdullah accused Britain of not doing enough to fight international terrorism.

In an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation that aired on Monday, the Saudi king said Britain failed to act on information provided by Saudi security services ahead of the suicide bombings on London’s transport network in July 2005, that killed 52 people and injured more than 770.

“We sent information to Great Britain before the terrorist atrocities in Britain, but unfortunately no action was taken and it may have been able to avert the tragedy,” the monarch told the BBC.

King Abdullah’s arrival in London on Monday will mark the first state visit by a Saudi monarch in 20 years.

In the BBC interview, he refused to elaborate on the details of the intelligence, saying that disclosing specific information “may cause sensitivities” between the two countries’ security services.

However, he went on to say that Britain was among a number of countries that were not taking the issue of global terrorism seriously.

A British Home Office spokesman strenuously denied that any intelligence from Saudi Arabia had been overlooked in the run-up to the atrocities and that information provided by the Saudis “was materially different from what actually occurred on 7 July and clearly not relevant to those acts.”

“We have made it clear that if we had intelligence that could have prevented the attacks we would have acted upon it,” the spokesman told CNN.

The spokesman said an investigation by the British Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) published last year found there was no evidence that intelligence passed on by the Saudis could have prevented the bombings.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband pulled out of a meeting with his Saudi Arabian counterpart in London Monday, but the Foreign Office insisted it was for personal reasons and not a snub.

Miliband has just adopted a baby son and is taking time off to look after him, the British Foreign Office confirmed to CNN.

The Foreign Office insisted Miliband’s decision to pull out of the meeting with Saudi’s Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal was due to personal reasons and was in no way linked to King Abdullah’s comments.

Miliband’s duties are being carried out by junior ministers in his absence.

In a way nobody has seen since the early days of Google(Charts, fortune 500) the collective attention of Silicon Valley is focused on one company. Facebook has everyone riveted for two reasons.

First, it seems to represent the future of the Web because it is such an elegantly-designed way for individuals to connect with each other. The socially-networked Internet is what techies see as the next thing and Facebook is the standard-bearer.

Second, what causes Facebook to stand out from the scores of other social networking companies is its amazing pace of growth.

In today’s conference call Facebook Chief Operating Officer Owen Van Natta said that the company is doubling its base of active users every six months. Today the figure is around 50 million. In a separate conversation with me he said that the company’s growth internationally has been so stunning that users outside the U.S. now represent 60 percent of the total.

The biggest single change in Microsoft’s expanded ad deal, many details of which remain secret, is that the Redmond software company will sell Facebook ads globally, not just in the U.S.

Van Natta also made clear that the ad deal is not financially a part of the equity investment.

“These are two completely separate transactions,” he told me.

So in addition to an immediate payment of $240 million, which will enable Facebook to grow considerably larger with no concerns about financial strain, there will be additional payments of unspecified amounts as Microsolf(Charts, Fortune 500) sells those ads.

Facebook expects to employ about 700 people by the end of 2008, roughly double today’s total, Van Natta said on the conference call. While Facebook was reportedly already getting around $150 million in revenue, mostly from the pre-existing U.S.-only Microsoft ad deal, the equity investment must feel like a comforting cushion to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Zuckerberg wants the company to focus mostly on improving its user experience, to figure out more ways to help people efficiently connect with their friends, and to help software companies build better applications inside the Facebook “social graph,” which is his term for company’s people network. Facebook’s opening of its social graph to applications from outside companies in May supercharged the company’s growth and cemented its status as Silicon Valley’s obsession of the year.

So Microsoft’s $240 million, which amounts to a mere 1.6 percent of Facebook, wins Facebook a years-long insurance policy without it having to give up very much.

From Microsoft’s perspective, it’s a big win and worth every penny, even though it had to accept a Facebook company valuation of a stunning $15 billion. It was as much about keeping Google from buying a piece of Facebook as it was about buying one for itself.

Says analyst Roger Kay, President of Endpoint Technologies Associates: “For everything positive it does for Microsoft, it does something negative for Google, and in some ways that’s the benefit. It’s the return bout for having lost on YouTube, essentially.”

One can only assume that in the deal’s language are clear obstacles for Facebook to take money from Google anytime soon.

Microsoft with this pair of deals blocks Google’s entrée to Facebook, and keeps Google from building an even bigger block of advertising partners to extend its own dominance of Internet advertising. Google has already partnered with MySpace and AOL, among others, at great expense.

Just to make it all the more satisfying for Microsoft, the deal was announced just as Google was conducting its own analyst day on its Mountain View, California campus. This is likely to be the talk of the day there, despite whatever impressive information Google itself is dispensing.

President Bush says Monday he is requesting billions more for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The request comes on top of $147 billion already sought for in the wars. Most of the money goes to Iraq, which is costing the Pentagon an estimated $2 billion a week.

“Parts of this war are complicated, but one part is not — and that is that America should do what it takes to support our troops and protect our people,” President Bush said in an appearance with members of veterans groups at the White House.

Dumbledore, played by Michael Gambon, was in love with his male rival, the author of Harry Potter books says.

J.K. Rowling, author of the mega-selling fantasy series that ended last summer, outed the beloved character Friday night while appearing before a full house at Carnegie Hall. After reading briefly from the final book, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” she took questions from audience members.

She was asked by one young fan whether Dumbledore finds “true love.”

“Dumbledore is gay,” the author responded to gasps and applause.

She then explained that Dumbledore was smitten with rival Gellert Grindelwald, whom he defeated long ago in a battle between good and bad wizards. “Falling in love can blind us to an extent,” Rowling said of Dumbledore’s feelings, adding that Dumbledore was “horribly, terribly let down.”

Dumbledore’s love, she observed, was his “great tragedy.”

“Oh, my god,” Rowling concluded with a laugh, “the fan fiction.”Potter readers on fan sites and elsewhere on the Internet have speculated on the sexuality of Dumbledore, noting that he has no close relationship with women and a mysterious, troubled past. And explicit scenes with Dumbledore already have appeared in fan fiction.

Rowling told the audience that while working on the planned sixth Potter film, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” she spotted a reference in the script to a girl who once was of interest to Dumbledore. A note was duly passed to director David Yates, revealing the truth about her character.

Rowling, finishing a brief “Open Book Tour” of the United States, her first tour here since 2000, also said that she regarded her Potter books as a “prolonged argument for tolerance” and urged her fans to “question authority.”

Not everyone likes her work, Rowling said, likely referring to Christian groups that have alleged the books promote witchcraft. Her news about Dumbledore, she said, will give them one more reason.

This moving image shows how police used software to unscramble the image. (Source: Interpol)

The man’s face was disguised by digital alteration, but the images were capable of being restored, according to a bulletin from Interpol — the international police agency based in Lyon, France.

Interpol Secretary General Ronald K. Noble said the pictures have been on the the Internet for several years, but investigators have been unable to determine the man’s identity or nationality.

“We have tried all other means to identify and to bring him to justice, but we are now convinced that without the public’s help this sexual predator could continue to rape and sexually abuse young children whose ages appear to range from six to early teens,” Noble said.

He said there is “very good reason to believe that he travels the world in order to sexually abuse and exploit vulnerable children.”

Interpol has determined the photos were taken in Vietnam and Cambodia.

“The decision to make public this man’s picture was not one which was taken lightly,” said Kristin Kvigne, assistant director of Interpol’s Trafficking in Human Beings Unit.

Mother: Britney Spears drives from a family court in Los Angeles, where a commissioner granted her one supervised overnight visit a week with her sons. Picture: AP

In her bestselling memoir, Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert recalls something that her older sister once told her when she was breast-feeding her first born: “Having a baby is like getting a tattoo on your face. You have to really want one.”

Wise words that Britney Spears should have considered before she brought her two boys into her chaotic world.

I’ve been doing everything I can, save for squeezing my eyes shut, clapping my hands over my ears and repeating the sound “Wah! Wah! Wah! Wah!” to avoid having to listen to anything more about the poor popwreck’s plight. I’m long past Schadenfreude where the “mama-with-the-drama” is concerned.

The former Mouseketeer is unravelling in front of our eyes. It’s frightening — terrifying for her and an indictment that so many of us consider this entertainment. If only “Internet celebrity” Chris Crocker wasn’t just trying to profit off Britney’s breakdown when he pleaded tearfully on YouTube.com for us to just “leave Britney alone”. (I hear he’s inked a deal for his own reality show as a result of those videos. Ugh.)

Spears’s struggles are all the more poignant if you hear what she told Diane Sawyer in 2003: “I would love to have a family. That would be when I’m the most content. My kids and just, I mean, they become your life. It’s not all about you anymore.”

I WAS WORKING at Harper’s Bazaar when they shot the pregnant then- popstar for their cover. The shoot was seen as something of a coup for the magazine and Spears’s life seemed picture perfect. There she was, wearing nothing but diamonds and a fur coat, talking about her happy marriage and her journey to becoming a mom for the second time.

Fast forward just one year and her marriage is over, she’s publicly demeaned herself on more occasions than I can count, and Sean Preston, 2, and Jayden James, 1, have been handed over to dad by the courts to keep them safe from their drug-addict mum. TMZ.com has nicknamed her “Unfitney” and Federline, 29, will retain custody until a new hearing .

Writing in the Washington Post, Paul Williams describes Spears as “a national joke — an out-of-shape hoo-ha flasher”. He says Federline is “a guy you wouldn’t trust to fill up your gas tank”.

The former back-up dancer doesn’t exactly inspire much confidence as a parent, it’s true, but rumour insists that he does at least understand the importance of car-seats when it comes to travelling with his toddlers.

Spears can still visit her kids, but, according to the court papers, “all visitation shall be in the presence of a monitor” who “shall terminate visitation immediately if any conduct or action by [Spears] endangers the minor children”.

Neither she nor Federline can “consume alcohol or other nonprescription controlled substances” within 12 hours of taking care of their children. This might be difficult for Spears if Star magazine’s report is to be believed. That magazine claims that the bloated former babe is living on handfuls of laxatives, diuretics and amphetamines. They also say that Brit goes to the bathroom once an hour.

BUT THIS CONSTANT monitoring is just what the doctor ordered, it seems. “Don’t leave Britney alone” is the message from Dr Phil, Oprah’s favourite self- help guru. “Right now, I believe Britney is so out of control she probably couldn’t stop this if she wanted to,” he said on a special one-hour show about Spears. “I do think she is a suicide risk. I think in her heart and soul she is a loving and caring mother. But with a toxic brain, sometimes it is hard to do the reasoning.” His suggestion? Spears may need to be committed involuntarily to a mental hospital.

Sinead O’Connor, who told Oprah that she almost killed herself at age 31 before being diagnosed with bipolar disorder and going onto medication, has come out in support of her fellow chanteuse: “I think to attack someone as a mother is very dangerous. Some people may end up really regretting the way they’re treating [Britney].”

But while Spears’s own family are certainly a no- show, lawyers agree that the court is trying to give Spears a wake-up call by taking away her children. “This is a little shock treatment for Britney to get the treatment that she needs,” attorney Gloria Allred, who represents Spears’s former bodyguard, said on Good Morning America.

In the meantime, the public is showing its support by listening to Spears’s new single, Gimme More. It’s the top downloaded song on iTunes and it’s at No 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Deborah Kerr was nominated for six Oscars, including one for “From Here to Eternity.”

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For many she will be remembered best for her kiss with Burt Lancaster as waves crashed over them on a Hawaiian beach in the wartime drama “From Here to Eternity.”

Kerr’s roles as forceful, sometimes frustrated women pushed the limits of Hollywood’s treatment of sex on the screen during the censor-bound 1950s.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominated Kerr a six times for best actress, but never gave her an Academy Award until it presented an honorary Oscar in 1994 for her distinguished career as an “artist of impeccable grace and beauty, a dedicated actress whose motion picture career has always stood for perfection, discipline and elegance.”

She had the reputation of a “no problem” actress.

“I have never had a fight with any director, good or bad,” she said toward the end of her career. “There is a way around everything if you are smart enough.”

Kerr (pronounced CARR) was the only daughter of Arthur Kerr-Trimmer, a civil engineer and architect who died when she was 14.

Born in Helensburgh, Scotland, she moved with her parents to England when she was 5, and she started to study dance in the Bristol school of her aunt, Phyllis Smale.

Kerr won a scholarship to continue studying at the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School in London. A 17 she made her stage debut as a member of the corps de ballet in “Prometheus.”

She soon switched to drama, however, and began playing small parts in repertory theater in London until it was shut down by the 1939 outbreak of World War II.

After reading children’s stories on British Broadcasting Corp. radio, she was given the part of a hatcheck girl with two lines in the film “Contraband,” but her speaking role ended on the cutting-room floor.

After more repertory acting she had another crack at films, reprising her stage role of Jenny, a Salvation Army worker, in a 1940 adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s “Major Barbara,” and receiving favorable reviews both in Britain and the United States.

She continued making films in Britain during the war, including one — “Colonel Blimp” — in which she played three different women over a span of decades.

“It is astonishing how she manages to make the three parts distinctly separate as characterizations,” said New Movies magazine at the time.

Kerr was well-reviewed as an Irish spy in “The Adventuress” and as the tragic girlfriend of a Welsh miner in “Love on the Dole.”

She was invited to Hollywood in 1946 to play in “The Hucksters” opposite Clark Gable. She went on to work with virtually all the other top American actors and with many top directors, including John Huston, Otto Preminger and Elia Kazan.

Tired of being typecast in serene, ladylike roles, she rebelled to win a release from her MGM contract and get the role of Karen Holmes in “From Here to Eternity.”

Playing the Army officer’s alcoholic, sex-starved wife in a fling with Lancaster as a sergeant opened up new possibilities for Kerr.

She played virtually every part imaginable from murderer to princess to a Roman Christian slave to a nun.

In “The King and I,” with her singing voice dubbed by Marni Nixon, she was Anna Leonowens, who takes her son to Siam so that she can teach the children of the king, played by Yul Brynner.

Her best-actress nominations were for “Edward, My Son” (1949), “From Here to Eternity” (1953), “The King and I” (1956), “Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison” (1957), “Separate Tables” (1958), and “The Sundowners” (1960).

Among her other movies is “An Affair to Remember” with Cary Grant.

Other notable roles were in “Beloved Infidel,” “The Innocents” (an adaptation of the Henry James novella “Turn of the Screw”), “The Night of the Iguana” with Richard Burton and “The Arrangement” with Kirk Douglas.

After “The Arrangement” in 1968, she took what she called a “leave of absence” from acting, saying she felt she was “either too young or too old” for any role she was offered.

Kerr told The Associated Press that she turned down a number of scripts, either for being too explicit or because of excessive violence.

She refused to play a nude scene in “The Gypsy Moths,” released in 1968. “It was when they started that ‘Now everybody has got to take their clothes off,’ ” she said. “My argument was that it was completely gratuitous. Had it been necessary for the dramatic content, I would have done it.”

In fact she undressed for “The Arrangement,” even though the scene was later cut. “There the nude scene was necessary, husband and wife in bed together,” Kerr said. “That was real.”

She returned to the stage, acting in Edward Albee’s “Seascape” on Broadway and “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” in Los Angeles.

Her Broadway debut was in 1953, when she was acclaimed as Laura Reynolds, a teacher’s wife who treats a sensitive student compassionately in “Tea and Sympathy.”

After a full season in New York, she took it on a national tour and recreated the role in a movie in 1956.

Kerr was active until the mid-1980s, with “The Assam Garden,” “Hold the Dream” and “Reunion at Fairborough” all in 1985.

She told the AP that TV reruns of her old movies have “kept me alive” for a new generation of film fans.

In 1945 Kerr married Anthony Charles Bartley, whom she had met as a squadron leader in the Royal Air Force. They had two daughters and were divorced in 1959. A year later she married Peter Viertel, a novelist-screenwriter, with whom she lived on a large estate with two trout ponds in the Swiss Alpine resort of Klosters and in a villa in Marbella, Spain.

Kerr is survived by Viertel, two daughters and three grandchildren.

A software development kit will let coders create applications to work directly on the iPhone.

Apple infuriated developers and some iPhone users when it issued a software update September 27 that disabled unofficial programs installed on the handsets.
Until Wednesday, Apple had tried to control which applications consumers had on their iPhones

It is easy to find many unofficial programs for the iPhone on the Internet; users just had to take the risk of installing them, knowing that any damage to the iPhone stemming from unofficial programs was not covered by Apple’s warranty.

“I’m thrilled,” said Erica Sadun, a Denver computer programmer. “I hope it is exactly as they say, full third-party development.”

A Mac enthusiast and blogger — and a critic of Apple’s decision to restrict the iPhone to carrier AT&T Inc. in the United States — Sadun predicted Apple’s change of heart will ultimately help the company sell more iPods and iPhones.

An unknown number of users have “unlocked” their handsets to work on other carrier networks. The September 27 software update reportedly disabled those phones.

It was not clear from Jobs’ statement whether the move was a response to the growing discontent around Apple’s iron grip over its portable gadgets.

Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris declined to say why Apple made the change, noting instead that Jobs said the process of opening the iPhone to third-party programs will take time.

Apple’s change does not affect the Cupertino-based company’s position on keeping the iPhone compatible only with AT&T’s network in the United States, Kerris said.

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Two lawsuits were filed against Apple on October 5, accusing the company of engaging in monopolistic behavior and unlawfully restricting consumer choice by preventing users from “unlocking” their iPhones.

The iPhone, which combines a cell phone with a multimedia and wireless Internet device, was released in late June amid a flurry of anticipation. More than 1 million iPhones have been sold.

Apple had allowed developers to build applications that run on the iPhone’s Safari Web browser but didn’t let programs work directly on the iPhone software platform, which could make them easier to create and make them work more smoothly.

Palm Inc. has always welcomed third-party developers to create applications for its handheld computers, or personal digital assistants. They have created hundreds of programs ranging from medical dictionaries to astrology predictions.

Even without Apple’s blessing, developers created workarounds to install applications onto the iPhone this summer. Some did it for sport, others in order to add capabilities to the device, such as to-do-lists or games.

Jobs said it will take until February to release the software kit because the company wants to give developers an open platform and also protect iPhone users from viruses, malware and privacy attacks.

“There have been serious viruses on other mobile phones already, including some that silently spread from phone to phone over the cell network,” he wrote.

Jobs noted that rival Nokia Corp. also does not allow third-party applications to be loaded onto some of its new phones unless the applications have a digital signature that can be traced to a known developer.

“While this makes such a phone less than ‘totally open,’ we believe it is a step in the right direction,” Jobs wrote of Nokia’s stance.