IBT Staff Reporter

Jittery Asian stocks surrendered early gains and turned lower on Monday, adding to last week's steep losses, while gold shot to new highs as investors worried about the sluggish U.S. economic outlook and Europe's festering debt crisis.

The union representing 62,000 grocery workers in southern California has received the go-ahead from members to call a strike if an acceptable contract deal cannot be reached with Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons supermarkets, officials said on Sunday.

Asian stocks turned positive on Monday, recovering a small portion of last week's steep losses, while gold shot to new highs as investors worried about the sluggish U.S. economic outlook and Europe's debt crisis.

The rupee is expected to inch up in early trade on Monday, tracking firm Asian peers, with the performance of local shares seen providing further direction during the day.

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Sunday he expects to be judged in the 2012 election over his governance of the American economy, which he said was still not growing fast enough.

Asian stocks turned positive on Monday, recovering a small portion of last week's steep losses, while gold shot to new highs as investors worried about the sluggish U.S. economic outlook and Europe's debt crisis.

Nearly 300 students from Irene-Wakonda School District in southeastern South Dakota will no longer have Friday classes, as the schools here have adopted a four-day school week for reducing costs and dealing with state budget cuts to education.

Anna Hazare whose hunger strike has galvanised millions to hold the biggest protests in decades appeared on Sunday ready to end a standoff with the government, saying he was open to dialogue.

Researchers said that they have discovered how a human egg captures a human sperm for fertilization. The discovery may be the breakthrough that infertile couples have been searching for.

A study that evaluates sci-fi scenarios for extraterrestrial encounters, published in the journal Acta Astronautica, said that E.T. could decide whether we're a threat to intergalactic order and may try to kill us. At the heart of these scenarios is the possibility that intrinsic value may be more efficiently produced in our absence, the researchers wrote.

A microbial bacteria fossil may be proof of life before oxygen on Earth 3.4 billion years ago. The Strelley Pool Formation in Western Australia was once a beach but is now more than 100 Km inland and houses stromatolites, which have been preserved there.

Seems like former Golden Girls actress Betty White really does have the Midas touch.

For about two dozen documentary filmmakers, the road to Oscar just might begin in a small West Hollywood multiplex and a downtown New York arthouse.

More misfortune has befallen the Real Housewives franchise.

Ray Bradbury's classic American novel Dandelion Wine is coming to the movies.

Ryan Reynolds' and Allan Loeb's new TV production company, DarkFire, has sold its first project -- a single-camera comedy -- to Fox.

When news came that the West Memphis Three would be freed on Friday, documentary filmmaker Joe Berlinger and his collaborator Bruce Sinofsky dropped everything and flew down to Arkansas.

Atom Egoyan, the Egyptian-born director, plans to start shooting a movie based on convicted murderers the West Memphis Three - the subjects of the 1996 documentary Paradise Lost - in early spring 2012, TheWrap has confirmed.

Comcast has dropped the ball in its court offensive against DirecTV's NFL Sunday Ticket package, Comcast announced on its corporate blog Friday.

First things first: All eight scratch-and-sniff scents on the Aroma-Scope card I was handed at Spy Kids 4D: All the Time in the World smelled like Trix cereal and cardboard.

Rebel fighters streamed into Tripoli as Muammar Gadhafi's forces collapsed and crowds took to the streets to celebrate, tearing down posters of the Libyan leader.

Johnson & Johnson, which could face billions of dollars in costs over an artificial hip recall, is taking an unusual approach to managing the crisis -- one that could limit its financial exposure, legal experts say.

Kinetic Concepts Inc , a maker of medical devices used in wound care, got a rival takever big from Avista Capital Partners LLC's ConvaTec Inc that exceeds the existing $5 billion bid from Apax Partners LLP, according to Bloomberg.

Deryl Dedmon, who is accused of killing a black autoworker, is being held in isolation without bond in Hinds County, Mississippi. The nineteen-year-old allegedly ran over 49-year-old James Craig Anderson June 26 in a parking lot.

Chely Wright, the first mainstream country performer to come out as lesbian, married her partner, activist Lauren Blitzer, on Saturday in Connecticut, People magazine reported.

Emmy-winning former CBS News vice president Lane Venardos, who produced coverage of such historic events as the Persian Gulf War and China's Tiananmen Square protests, has died. He was 67.

The maids of The Help proved far mightier than muscle-flexing Conan the Barbarian and three other new releases at the weekend box office, taking the top spot with an estimated $20.5 million in U.S. and Canadian ticket sales.

Comedian Jerry Lewis will not be back next month to host the annual muscular dystrophy telethon that he has headlined since 1966 despite a media report to the contrary, his spokeswoman said on Sunday.

Russell Armstrong, the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills husband found dead by suicide Monday, will receive two funeral services -- one in Los Angeles and one in Texas, his attorney confirms to TheWrap.