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  • 'World Cup win was because of strong team, not just the captain'


    Virender Sehwag, whose differences with captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni came to fore during last year's Australian tour, appeared to take a jibe at the skipper when he said the World Cup was won because India had a strong team.

    "Dhoni got a very strong team. When you get a strong team, it is easier to perform well just like Australia did at one point of time. Australia won three World Cups because they had a strong team and not just because of the captain. We believe we have a very strong team and that's why we won World Cup, backed by Dhoni's captaincy," Sehwag said.

    He was reacting to questions on Dhoni's strengths that enabled him lead the side to two World Cup victories -- 2007 Twenty20 and 50-over in 2011.

    Dhoni and Sehwag's relationship has been a subject intense speculation in the media, particularly after the series in Australia, where there utterances in press conferences made their rift public.

    Tata Docomo Reduces Tariff Rates for Photon Plus (up to 60%)

    Now it offer unlimited 6 GB usage for only Rs 950 rental or unlimited 11 GB for only Rs 1,200. These 2 unlimited plans also offer cashback of Rs 100 per month for 12 months.

    Tata Docomo, the unified telecom brand of Tata Teleservices, has announced the tariff reduction of up to 60 per cent for Tata Photon Plus postpaid and prepaid customers across India.

    Under the new plans Tata Docomo Photon Plus postpaid customers have two unlimited data plan options- 6 GB for Rs 950 rental and 11 GB for Rs 1200. Post consumtion of the data limit of 6 GB and 11 GB consumers will be able to consume data but at a reduced speed. These two unlimited plans also offer cashback of Rs 100 per month for 12 months from date of purchase.

    Tata Docomo reduces data tariff

    On the other hand, prepaid customers can get 2GB dat plan on recharge of Rs 700 and post the 2GB data limit them can continue consuming data but at a reduced speed.

    Also, Tata Docomo entry level packs now cost Rs 250 that offers 1GB of data download as compared to Rs 650 earlier. Likewise Rs 450 pack which earlier cost Rs 750 will offer 2GB.

    Similar to Airtel's Smartbyte, Tata Docomo has launched reload packs, which allows users to buy extra data if they cross their high speed data limit. There are two plans in this category for Photon Plus postpaid customers with 1GB data for Rs 200 and 2GB data for Rs 350. What this essentially means, that customers can now continue to enjoy uninterrupted high speed internet post consumption of their data limit.

    Tata DoCoMo Photon plus service is a CDMA based high speed data service offering speeds up to 3.1 mbps.

    007 Exhibition Looks At Screen Spy As Style Icon

    If there's one thing James Bond has taught us it's that behind every great spy is a great tailor.

    A new exhibition at London's Barbican Centre explores the style of the suave secret agent, displaying costumes, props, set pieces and design drawings from half a century of 007 films.

    Assembled with help from the films' producer, EON Productions_ which has a new Bond movie to promote in the fall – the exhibition includes the spy's tuxedos, Bond girl ball gowns and villains' vestments, as well as a selection of props and gadgets. There are also sketches by the films' influential set designer, Ken Adam, whose cavernous lairs and sleek space stations did much to create the movies' modernist luster.

    The show is both a reflection of the remarkable staying power of Ian Fleming's fictional secret agent and a tribute to the British, European and American craftspeople and designers who have created the look of the quintessentially British icon.

    "The films always attracted the greatest design talent," curator Bronwyn Cosgrave said Thursday. They ranged from the German-born Adam to Academy Award-winning costume designer Lindy Hemming, a Briton who helped put together the exhibition.

    "In the beginning they didn't have the money – but they had the ingenuity," Cosgrave said.

    The money came later, as the globally successful franchise sent Bond to exotic locations around the world – and eventually, in 1979's "Moonraker," into space.

    Clips from the movies are screened throughout the exhibition, which includes items that have become mini-icons, from the white bikini worn by Ursula Andress in the first Bond film, "Dr. No," to the tight blue swim trunks sported by Daniel Craig in "Casino Royale."

    Cosgrave said that since "Dr. No" in 1962, "Bond has consistently led the way" in style.

    She said Sean Connery's "conduit cut" suit by Saville Row tailor Anthony Sinclair from the 1960s films is "the men's equivalent of a Chanel suit," while a sharply cut tuxedo is so identified with the character i
    t has become known as "the James Bond look."

    The first time Bond appeared onscreen, in "Dr. No," viewers saw the silk-lined cuff of his tuxedo sleeve before they saw Connery's face.

    Cosgrave said the success of the look is simple to explain.

    "It's sexy," she said. "When does a man look his best? In a tuxedo."

    The exhibition includes tuxes worn by Bonds from Connery (classic Saville Row) to Roger Moore (by designer-to-the-stars Doug Hayward) to Craig, who is dressed by American designer Tom Ford. Ford's lean suits – in neatly circular fashion – draw on the 1960s for inspiration.

    Cosgrave said that because actors typically play 007 over several films – apart from one-off George Lazenby in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" – "each Bond had an opportunity to forge a relationship with their tailor. As a result, they're impeccably dressed."

    All those designer names reveal another Bond secret – 007 is both an international brand himself and a magnet for other luxury labels.

    With the 23rd Bond film, "Skyfall," set for release in October, the exhibition gift shop lets visitors purchase a piece of Bond style, from cocktail shakers and martini glasses to silk ties and gold bars made of chocolate.

    Source: Jeremy Lin to ink offer sheet

    Jeremy Lin has verbally agreed to sign a four-year offer sheet with the Houston Rockets on July 11, according to a source close to the talks.


    The four-year deal is worth $10.2 million over the first two seasons and $9.3 million in each of the last two years. The fourth season is a team option.

    The Knicks would have three days to match the offer after Lin, a restricted free agent, signs it July 11.

    A report in the New York Post on Wednesday, citing a league source, said the Rockets were planning to offer Lin a backloaded deal worth roughly $30 million. According to the same source, the deal would pay Lin $5 million in the first season and $5.2 million in the second, and then would increase to as much as $10 million per year in the third and fourth seasons.

    "Jeremy Lin's an excellent player," Rockets general manager Daryl Morey told the Post. "We got to know him firsthand when he was with the Rockets early this season. We think he'd make a fantastic addition to our team."

    NBA NBA free agency is under way and ESPN.com has you covered with all the latest deals, trades and potential moves.

    The Knicks can offer Lin, a restricted free agent, a four-year deal worth $24.5 million.

    In 35 games with the Knicks this past season, Lin averaged 14.6 points and 6.2 assists per game.

    While both Lin and the Knicks are hoping for a reunion, sources told ESPN The Magazine's Chris Broussard this past weekend that if a club offers Lin a backloaded contract that pays him an eight-figure salary in the third and fourth years, as Houston has done, the Knicks could be given pause about matching the offer.

    With the new collective bargaining agreement employing a more punitive luxury tax, beginning in the 2013-14 season, the Knicks are extremely concerned about the financial ramifications of such a deal, sources said.

    Passenger could be asked to give drink samples to TSA

    Passengers say their problem is not with the rules at the airport. They understand why drinks are not allowed through security, but when they buy one while they wait for their flight, they say the TSA should not ask to test it.

    Passengers say traveling is a big enough stress, but now some are worried the drinks they are getting are not safe.

    The TSA would not say what they are testing for or why they are doing it, but travelers say they have a right to know.

    "I'm always glad that my safety is a priority, I just think testing drinks after they've already been bought might be a little extreme," infrequent flyer Jennifer Smart said.

    "The water or or the juices or anything you buy here in the airport, TSA is going to come over and look and check and test it? That's just ridiculous," world traveler Thomas Burgard said.

    We asked the TSA about the drink testings and they said, "TSA employees have many layers of security throughout airports. Passengers may be randomly selected for additional screening measures at the checkpoint or in the gate at any time."

    Passengers we spoke to also said they think the price of drinks are too expensive. If security is going to test them, it should be before they are purchased, so they do not waste their money.

    Obama's 'American story' faces fresh scrutiny

    When he first took the national stage, with his electrifying keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in the summer of 2004, Barack Obama, then an Illinois state senator, briefly summarized his unusual life story, with its biracial themes and trans-continental setting. "I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story," he said, adding: "In no other country on earth is my story even possible."

    That story, of course, would become even more astonishing, and profoundly American, four years later, when its teller would be elected president of the United States. But the first time Obama related his life story -- and in the greatest detail -- was with the publication of his 1995 memoir, Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.

    The book, which won wide critical acclaim and rose to No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list, recounted the complex tale that is by now familiar to most Americans: the young Obama's racial confusion as the son of a white mother from Kansas and a dark-skinned, absentee father from Kenya; his mother's remarriage to, and eventual split from, the boy's Indonesian stepfather, with a spell in a Muslim school in Jakarta; the boy's rearing by white grandparents in Hawaii, who sent him to a private school there; his journeys through Occidental College and Columbia University, marked by a shifting intellectual worldview and numerous romances, some of them inter-racial; his path-breaking stint as the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review; and his exploits as a community organizer and Chicago lawyer with a deepening interest in politics.

    In the introduction, Obama openly admitted changing some people's names and compressing both characters and chronology, mostly for the sake of narrative flow. Over the years, the president’s biographers have made inroads piecing together which characters were based on which real-life individuals, and which events were compressed or conflated.

    That process has now reached a kind of zenith, with the publication last month of Barack Obama: The Story, a deeply researched, 600-page study of the president's ancestry and early life by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and Washington Post editor David Maraniss. The result reflects the hyper-scrutiny that attaches to our chief executives. It also offers a window into how much of the life story of this self-made man may have been made up.

    By some counts, The Story presents more than three-dozen instances of material discrepancy where Dreams fails to align with the facts as Maraniss reports them. Case in point: Maraniss confirmed that Mr. Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, left his father, Barack Obama, Sr., a volatile bigamist, and not the other way around, as related in Dreams.

    Dreams also related the tale of Obama's paternal grandfather, Hussein Onyango, who was said to have been detained and tortured in a prison outside Nairobi for six months because of his brave defiance of British colonialists. But after a half-dozen interviews and other research, Maraniss deemed the tale "unlikely."

    Maraniss did not respond to several calls requesting an interview, but Fox News caught up with him outside a Washington book signing.  "I think there's a difference between a memoir and the serious, rigorous factual history of a biography," he said. "Some of what he did was the result of mythologies that were passed along from his family, and some were for the purposes of advancing themes in his book which had more to do with finding his racial identity."

    New Zealand equestrians to ride in 7th Olympics

    Mark Todd and Andrew Nicholson will compete at their seventh Olympics after being placed on New Zealand's five-member equestrian team for the London Games on Wednesday.

    Todd won gold medals in the three-day event at the 1984 Los Angeles and 1988 Seoul Olympics. He has twice won world championships in the three-day team event and is a four-time winner of the Badminton Horse Trials and a five-time winner at Burghley.

    Nicholson won a silver medal in the three-day team event at the 1992 Barcelona Games and a bronze in the same event at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. He is also a former world champion in the team event.

    Lakers land Steve Nash for draft picks

    Steve Nash is headed to the Los Angeles Lakers after the Phoenix Suns agreed to a sign-and-trade deal that will bring them four draft picks.

    Steve Nash will get a guaranteed three-year, $27 million contract from the Lakers. (Getty Images)The Lakers will give Nash a three-year, $27 million contract. They used the trade exception they received from last year's Lamar Odom deal with the Dallas Mavericks.

    "He's ecstatic," said Billy Duffy, Nash's agent. "He gets to be close to his children."

    The Suns will get the Lakers' 2013 and '15 first-round draft picks and their 2014 and '15 second-round selections. The Lakers also paid the Suns $3 million to facilitate the trade.


    Phoenix radio station KTAR 620 first broke the news of the Suns' sign-and-trade agreement with the Lakers.

    Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash talked about playing together with Lakers on Monday night, and again late Wednesday afternoon, a league source told Y! Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski.

    The New York Knicks, Toronto Raptors and Dallas Mavericks had all tried to sign Nash, but he turned down more money – three years and nearly $36 million from the Raptors – for an opportunity to chase a title with Bryant and the Lakers, and to be closer to his children. Nash is divorced with two daughters and a son.

    "His intention, as related to the Suns, was if he left that they would get value, that he would have the ability as his career was winding down to come to a competitive situation," Duffy said. "But his most important aspect was his ability to be close to his children. He's an hour from his children. I've never seen him happier because of that fact alone."

    Duffy said Nash briefly considered retiring at the end of last season.

    "Everything in his mind was predicated on his children," Duffy said. "It put me in an interesting situation because I knew that dynamic. It wasn't about the most money. He turned down a lot of money and aspects of other deals for the well being of his family."

    The Lakers were one of 10 teams to contact Nash on the first day of free agency, but the Knicks and Raptors appeared to be his most likely destinations. The Knicks also tried to work a sign-and-trade deal with the Suns.

    "He was either going to go to New York or Toronto," Duffy said. "He was comfortable with either situation."

    The Lakers stepped up their interest on Monday.

    "The dynamic with his family made [the Lakers] more compelling," Duffy said. "It began, really, two days because of the Lakers' willingness to step up and [Suns owner] Robert Sarver's willingness to work with us collectively to bring him back value. [Nash] could have gone to Toronto outright and the Suns got nothing. Steve likes this because he knows the Suns are getting assets back."

    Big Bay Boom indeed: San Diego fireworks go up all at once

    Those watching the Big Bay Boom in San Diego's Glorietta Bay witnessed what was either an accidental fireworks display -- or a very disappointing fireworks show.

    Port District authorities said a "technical difficulty" resulted in all the fireworks going off at once.

    About 5 minutes before the show was supposed to start, a sudden burst of fireworks shot into the air near the bay. Throughout downtown San Diego, a large rumble could be felt just before 9 p.m. on Wednesday night.

    See the original report at NBCSanDiego.com

    It appeared that hundreds of fireworks were set off at the same time. The explosions lasted a few seconds.

    At about 9:20 p.m., people waiting for the display were told to return home. The fireworks show was canceled, a radio announcement said.

    The Port hires the company Garden State Fireworks to operate the fireworks show. Calls to the company were not immediately returned.

    No injuries were reported.

    Here's a collection of responses from social media users who witnessed the seemingly botched display:

    Porn Star James Deen: I'm Not Having Sex With Lindsay Lohan

    Porn star James Deen might be known for his sexual abilities on-screen, but he isn't sharing his talents with his "The Canyons" co-star Lindsay Lohan off-screen -- or so he tells Animal New York.

    “I can definitely, honestly say Lindsay Lohan and I are not having sex!," he told the website, adding, "[If I was] I think I would tell everybody."

    The inevitable rumors about the two began as soon as they were photographed grabbing a smoke together outside a restaurant. And though Deen beds women for a living, he says things with Lohan are strictly professional.

    "I don’t know anything about her except for that she’s a really nice, down-to-earth, normal twenty-five-year-old girl," he told the magazine (for the record, Lohan turned 26 on July 2). "We went to a business dinner and she was very professional. She drank coffee and water. Then she had to call for a car because she couldn’t walk ten feet from the door because of the paparazzi.”

    Deen will play Lohan's boyfriend in Bret Easton Ellis' "The Canyons," and though there were reports the film would require graphic sex scenes between the two, Deen is quick to downplay the on-screen action.

    "It’s all necessary to the story. This is not an adult film. We are not trying to arouse people. If someone does get aroused, well, it happens. It’s like 'American Psycho,' 'Less Than Zero.'" he told the website, making reference to Ellis' other novels which have been turned into films. "It’s not graphic sex for the sake of graphic sex. In the script you don’t see anything like, ‘You see [Lindsay's character] turn around and flash her boobs!’”

    "The Canyons" is scheduled to start filming on July 9, and it will mark Deen's first foray into mainstream fare. Deen is taking the role seriously and told Animal New York he's enrolled in acting classes and will take a break from the adult industry while filming.

    "I will definitely take time off to do this. My intention is that from the day we start rehearsing to the day that the movie is wrapped, I will be giving this movie my full attention," he said, adding that he's never not working. “Uh, I don’t. I’ve never really gone without working. My life is pretty much a perpetual vacation, so I never felt the need to take time off. This will be the first time in eight years.”

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