Watch Amy MacDonald in concert.

Michael Phelps surpassed Mark Spitz as the most successful swimmer and Olympian of all time as he won an unprecedented eighth gold at the 2008 Games.

The win gave him his eighth gold at these Games, one more than Spitz in 1972, and his 14th in all, five more than anyone in the Olympics' 112-year history.

His 2008 Olympics goes down as one of the greatest athletic feats of all-time.

American Michael Phelps scorched to his sixth gold and his sixth world record in the Water Cube pool, closing in on Mark Spitz's 1972 record of seven golds in a Games. The 23-year-old now has 12 career Olympic golds, three more than anyone else. Like Spitz in 1972, all of his golds at these Games have come in world record times.

Nastia Liukin led an american 1-2 punch and won a gold in the women's all round gymnastics. A dazzling floor exercise by Liukin somersaulted her to victory ahead of fellow American Shawn Johnson and China's Yang Yilin. Victory was sweet after China had profited from nervous mistakes by the U.S. women to win their first team gold.

American swimmer Michael Phelps won his first gold medal of the 2008 games in the 400 meters individual medley final in Beijing's futuristic Water Cube with a time of 4.03.84, knocking more than a second of his own previous world record.

The Hall of Fame induction ceremony turned Hog wild Saturday.

Former Washington Redskins Art Monk and Darrell Green were inducted into the National Football Hall of Fame.

"Standing up here on this platform is much different than I imagined," Monk said. "The reality of getting into the Pro Football Hall of Fame didn’t really hit me till a few days ago. And then to see the magnitude of all of this, and all of you, it’s been something amazing."

The largest ovation was for Monk, who retired in 1995 as the NFL’s career receptions leader with 940 catches—apparently not enough to make it into the Hall of Fame on his first seven chances.

As usual, Green, did his own thing, though. The only player in the ‘08 class selected in his first year of eligibility was also the only one to cry, and he was proud of it. "Deacon Jones said I was gonna cry. You bet I’m gonna cry," he said after his son, Jared, introduced him. ...read more here...

And the Washington Redskins won their first game under new head coach Jim Zorn, by beating the Indiaapolis Colts in the Hall of Fame game in Canton, Ohio, 30-16.

Exxon Mobil just announced the biggest quarterly profit of any corporation in U.S. history, breaking its own previous record with $11.68 billion in earnings during the second quarter of 2008.

The company's revenue surged 40 percent, to $138.07 billion for the quarter. If it were a country, the company would have the 18th-largest economy in the world.

What's in a barrel of crude oil? The chart below shows.

For a complete breakdown on why gas cost $4.00 a gallon, who uses it, where it comes from and how the price of a gallon of gas has changed, see this chart at The Washington Post

It's true, Shannen Doherty will be joining her fellow "Beverly Hills 90201" cast mates Jennie Garth and Tori Spelling on the new CW spin-off "90210."

Olsson's Books, one of the oldest independent booksellers in Washington D.C., plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, founder John Olsson said yesterday. Pressed by creditors who have filed claims against the company's inventories and by rising overhead costs, Olsson's is closing at least one store and will evaluate its ability to operate its remaining five properties, an attorney for the company said.

"The book business is getting a little soft. It's not selling as much as it used to," Olsson said. "Our music sales went from 50 percent of our business to maybe 15. We lost a lot of revenue, and at the same time rents went up and real estate taxes went up. I don't know what we would have done differently. It's a killer."

Olsson's closed its Penn Quarter store, which opened 15 years ago. Olsson said rents and taxes had risen beyond affordability at the store and acknowledged falling behind on payments to booksellers.

Olsson, 76, began selling books and records in the District 50 years ago and has battled the economic forces of big-box competition and Internet sales. But ultimately his business is being strained by forces close to home. "We sort of helped make the neighborhood what it is. And it's a great neighborhood, but we can't afford the rent," Olsson said. A few years ago, the store's rent in the renovated Lansburgh department store building was $30 a square foot. Now, it has risen to $50 to $60 a square foot.

Over the years, Olsson's has battled to maintain profitability against the megastores like "Borders" and "Barnes and Noble", eventhough Olsson's was one of the first to combine books, music and a coffee cafe in the same store, long before the meagastores started doing it.

The closing leaves Olsson's with five stores, down from the nine the company operated around 2002. My favorite is still the store in old town Alexandria, Virginia.

Happy 4th of July!!!