Beauty pageants may be relics of a bygone era, but the canine counterpart is more popular than ever, as evidenced by the sellout crowds who packed Madison Square Garden on Monday for the first day of the Westminster Kennel Club’s annual dog show.

Aging dogs rubbed muzzles with puppies, dog lovers cheered their favorites, fathers went up against offspring and three breeds made their premier appearances at the 134th prestigious competition.

With about 2,500 dogs representing 173 different breeds and varieties, the WKC show has become the nation’s top dog event, thanks in part to its nationwide final-night telecast in recent years on USA Network. The final night of the two-day competition will be shown on Tuesday.

As a U.S. sporting event, the WKC show ranks only behind the Kentucky Derby in longevity.

This year’s oldest entrant is a 12 1/2-year-old Shiba Inu called Mr. Miyagi, from Rockaway, New Jersey. Like many competitors, Mr. Miyagi’s owner insists he is primarily a family dog.

She cited the dog’s role in easing the transition for the couple’s newly adopted child, who had never seen a dog or a stuffed animal. Mr. Miyagi kept away from the little girl’s high chair when she cried, only inching closer when she was quiet. It didn’t take long before the toddler was feeding the dog portions of her dinner, Alyssa Goldman said.

Sutter, a frisky 10-month-old miniature bull terrier from Petaluma, California, is the show’s youngest competitor.

Owner Giselle Simonds said Sutter is known to leap onto end tables and pose, perhaps inspired by the popular 2006 best-in-show winner Rufus, the first bull terrier to take the top prize.

Three breeds will be competing for the first time at Westminster — the Irish red-and-white setter, the Norwegian buhund and the Pyrenean shepherd.

Dog handler Lisa Donnelly, who guided Lola to the winner’s circle in the show’s first competition for the buhund breed, said she was glad to be part of history.

The secret of Lola’s victory? “She sat, and she doesn’t normally do that,” Donnelly said with a laugh.

Sachin Tendulkar is hoping he can mark his 20 years in international cricket by leading India to become the world’s top ranked one-day team.The premier batsman made his India debut as a 16-year-old against Pakistan in November 1989, since setting many batting records, including test and one-day aggregates and hundreds.

India enter the ICC Champions Trophy in South Africa starting next week as strong contenders after staying unbeaten in one-day series over the past one year.

They are third in the ODI rankings, just one rating point behind world champions Australia and South Africa going into the premier eight-team event starting on Tuesday.

“We definitely have the ability, the spirit, the desire, the hunger to get there (number one team),” the 36-year-old former skipper told the CNN-IBN channel on Friday.

“Playing cricket for India means the world to me. I grew up dreaming about playing cricket for India. I am living my dream.”

Tendulkar underlined his continued desire to excel, scoring his 44th one-day hundred last week to set up a tri-series final win over hosts Sri Lanka in Colombo.

“It is going to be a challenging season, a lot of cricket,” he said. “I wish we had more test cricket, we only have three test matches this season.”

India’s best performance in the Champions Trophy was finishing as joint winners in 2002 alongside hosts Sri Lanka

“We have to see to it that we live up to the expectations of the entire nation and get to where we as a team have targeted,” he said. “We want to be there at the top, just go out and give our best.”

“We’ve been working towards it,” he said. “If you look at our performances in the last couple of years, it has been terrific.”

“A couple of hiccups here and there are always going to be there,” he said. “It is never going to be a smooth journey. That is what keeps us together.”

Barack & Michelle Obama’s Marriage Is Happy, Boring

US First Lady Michelle Obama reveals that the stress of being president may be getting to Barack Obama, reports the dailyexpress.co.uk.

“When he is really sort of brooding about something, it’s late at night and there is a lot of little note-writing going on that’s when I know,” Michelle, 45, was quoted as saying.

She also said that the secret to their successful marriage was to keep their troubles behind closed doors.

“The truth is that everybody struggles with it – we just don’t talk about it,the daily quoted Michelle.

U.S. President elect Barack Obama kisses his wife Michelle after Obama gave his victory speech during an election night gathering in Grant Park on November 4, 2008 in Chicago, Illinois. Obama defeated Republican nominee Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) by a wide margin in the election to become the first African-American U.S. President elect.

Mumbai cinemas turn fortresses for MNIK
Theatres in Mumbai turned fortresses on Friday for the release of ‘My Name is Khan’ whose star Shah Rukh Khan is locked in a duel with a radical Hindu group Shiv Sena, sparking worries India’s financial hub is being undermined by parochial politics.

Most cinemas began showing ‘My Name is Khan’ by afternoon after initial reluctance for fear of attacks by the hardline Shiv Sena party.

“This is a slap in the face of the Sena,” said a woman exiting a Mumbai multiplex, giving the thumbs-up sign.

The controversy was sparked by the film’s hero Shah Rukh Khan’s recent criticism that no Pakistani cricketers had been picked for the Indian Premier League.

Thousands of police in riot gear were deployed to protect cinemas with plainclothesmen also inside the halls. Police detained 2,000 Shiv Sena members as a precaution, and beat back protesters outside some theatres.

Protests also spread to some other cities.

Analysts and politicians have warned the Sena’s tactics may hurt Mumbai’s image as a cosmopolitan city and its efforts to model itself as an international financial centre like Dubai or Singapore. Mumbai is also home to the Bollywood film industry.

Shiv Sena, which runs the Mumbai municipality, draws political sustenance from hardline Hinduism and an ultra-nationalism that includes strident opposition to Pakistan.

“I came to see the movie because it’s been so controversial, and because I am a huge fan of Shah Rukh Khan,” said Subhash Kandrep who was waiting for the first show at Inox in Mumbai.

“I don’t see why a movie should not be shown just because some people are protesting over what Khan said.”

The Sena, which upholds the rights of Mumbai’s indigenous Marathi community, has in recent weeks also turned its ire on industrialist billionaire Mukesh Ambani and cricketer Sachin Tendulkar for remarks the Sena perceived as being anti-Mumbai.

The Sena’s stance has triggered a heated debate across the country, with politicians, film stars and businesses weighing in.

Khan, arguably Bollywood’s most successful star, plays an autistic man subject to racial bias in the United States after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

He kept up a torrent of tweets through the night from the Berlin film festival where his movie is showing.

It was ironic, he said, that a film made for peace “has led to so much angst in my own house. My city. My country. Am I political or politically incorrect?”

Trade analysts say about 1.2 billion rupees ($26 million) is at stake, with Mumbai and Maharashtra state typically accounting for more than a quarter of a Bollywood film’s revenues.

The skirmish in Mumbai comes as local politics have also rattled other cities in India, including the IT hub of Hyderabad, home to Indian operations of multinationals including Microsoft and Amazon, which has been repeatedly shut down over protests for the creation of a new state carved out of Andhra Pradesh state.

In addition to the risks associated with directly inhaling cigarette smoke, smokers also face significant risk from their own secondhand smoke.Very few studies have evaluated adverse effect of passive smoking exposure among active smokers, probably due to the assumption that dose of toxic compounds that a smoker inhales by passive smoke is negligible when compared to their dose inhaled by active smoking, Health News reported.

To see if smokers are at risk from passive smoke as well, researchers followed newsstand agents in Genoa, Italy. News agents were chosen because they work alone in small newsstands, and any tobacco smoke in the air they breathe is strictly correlated to the number of cigarettes smoked by that news agent.

The researchers studied the contribution environmental tobacco smoke made to carcinogen exposure in 15 active smokers.

The finding challenges the widely held belief that the threat posed to smokers by secondhand smoke is negligible.

It was found that smoking 14 cigarettes a day results in secondhand smoke exposure that’s equivalent to smoking an extra 2.6 cigarettes. This indicates that both active and passive smoking exposures are harmful to a smoker’s health.

Yes, we had a secret nikaah

Adnan Sami is 3rd Time getting married to German girl Roya Faryabi

Adnan Sami’s scheduled wedding on January 31 to his Afghani-German girlfriend Roya Faryabi in Munich fell through, it now comes to light that the couple had a secret nikaah ceremony at Adnan’s residence in Mumbai on Friday, January 30, a day before the wedding cards announced the wedding in Munich.Only close family members of Adnan were present at this nikaah.

Says a source close to Adnan, “The wedding in Munich had to be cancelled because the courts did not allow Adnan to leave the country. There are serious charges of domestic violence against him.” Rather than cancel the wedding, Adnan decided to have a flash ceremony in Mumbai. All the arrangements were made by Adnan’s son Azaan.

At first Adnan was reluctant to confirm the development, but finally said, “Yes, we got married last Friday in a secret nikaah. And we’re loving it.”

Adnan now intends to host a wedding reception in Munich at Roya’s place and then another reception in Mumbai for all his friends. But as things stand now, Roya and Adnan are man and wife.

Speaking from Munich, Adnan’s third wife Roya Faryadi says, “Adnan is the perfect man for me. I love not just the man but also his mother and son. In fact, Adnan’s son Azaan and I get along like a house on fire. We often gang up together and tease the hell out of Adnan.”

Roya says she is not the least perturbed by Adnan’s past record of broken marriages. “What happened in the past is the past. What I see is a man I’d like to spend my life with. Adnan is kind, caring and gentle. I hope we can make our marriage last forever. Like any good wife, I plan to shift to Mumbai to be with Adnan and his family. But I’ll keep visiting Germany. That’s where my parents stay.” Roya’s parents are from Afghanistan. They moved to Germany 30 years ago and hold German passports.

Sword eater sets world record in Australia

Australian performance artist set a new Guinness World Record on Monday by simultaneously swallowing 18 swords, each nearly as long as two and a half rulers.

Chayne Hultgren, also known by his stage name The Space Cowboy, beat the record he had set in 2008 by swallowing the swords, each 72 cm (28.35 inches) long, at an outdoor event in central Sydney.

The 31-year-old said he started practising with swords when he was 16 and has used different methods to perfect the art, including stretching his throat with hoses.

He said that while the stunt was not dangerous, he spent many hours training for it. “Wow, I did it, it feels good, thank you very much, it feels really good actually,” he said after setting the record.

Sheikh Rasheed injured in attack; 4 killed

Chief of Awami Muslim League Sheikh Rashid sustained bullet injuries in an armed attack on his election office here on Monday, Sheikh Rashid’s personal assistant told our sources.

Javed Qureshi, the personal assistant of Sheikh Rashid was talking to our sources from 1122 ambulance in which Sheikh Rashid was being shifted to a hospital. He said Sheikh Rashid was hit on one of his feet.

Sheikh Rashid was coming out of his office when he was attacked by unknown assailants carrying Kalashnikov(s), he said. However, the attack killed at least four guards of AML Chief.

President Asif Ali Zardari has ordered inquiry into the attack and submission of its report immediately.

Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif also ordered the commissioner and RPO to investigate into the incident.

Some of the bullets hit the Land Cruiser of Sheikh Rashid shattering its window panes.

Later, workers of AML took to the streets to protest the attack.

Celina Jaitley has already dabbled in Telugu and Kannada films and the former beauty queen now wants to work in a Bengali film, preferably one with Rituparno Ghosh.

“I have spent a lot of time in West Bengal and this is the reason I can easily associate myself with the place, culture and the language. I would really love to work in a Bengali movie because I feel they make very emotional and interesting movies,” Celina told in an interview.

“The way they weave stories is fascinating. They simply touch the human chord. I would love to work with Ritu-da (Rituparno Ghosh). This would be one of my targets for the next year,” she said. Celina is riding high after winning the best female actor award for her performance in the English film “Love Has No Language” at the 33rd Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF) held Nov 10-20. The movie was a New Zealand entry at the film festival.

“This year has been so good. Winning this award has been an icing on the cake. These awards work as a motivation factor and help you perform better. As the role was a bit different from the conventional roles I do, it worked,” said the actress. “I have always seen that whenever I have attempted something different, I have been appreciated,” she added.

“Love Has No Language”, an engaging romantic movie, was directed by Ken Khan and stars New Zealand actor Ben Mitchell as well as Hindi film actors Rati Agnihotri and Kiran Kumar. The 28-year-old, who has featured in Hindi movies like “Janasheen”, “No Entry” and “Golmaal Returns”, has seven movies in her kitty and is confident that she will make her presence felt on the big screen next year.

The model-turned-actress doesn’t understand why people question her if she opts to do only a few movies. “If Aamir Khan does one movie at a time, he is applauded but if Celina Jaitley chooses to do a few movies, she is criticised.

Why such disparity?” the actress asked. Apart from acting, Celina is involved with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and is also a gay rights activist.

“In my free time, I love to work for the causes I strongly feel for. All these things are no substitute for romance but they are something that I feel responsible for,” she said. “I choose to live my life fully and it deserves appreciation,”

she added. The actress will soon be seen in movies like “Accident On Hill Road”, “Run Bhola Run” and “Chai Garam”.