Washington, Apr 25: Mischa Barton is so determined to land a role in a Shakespearean play that she has taken a course on the playwright to boost her chances of landing a part.

The beauty wants to concentrate on her stage career, and therefore, has decided to take a break from pursuing movie roles.

Barton insists that gaining a part in one of the Bard''s works is her top priority, reports Contactmusic.

She says, "I recently did a Shakespeare course because they don''t teach Shakespeare properly in American schools.

Within six months of its October 2008 launch, T-Mobile's Google Android smartphone - which already makes up nearly two-third of the 3G devices available on the T-Mobile network - finds itself amid and enviable milestone; that of touching the noteworthy 'one million' mark in US sales!

Going by a T-Mobile announcement earlier this week, the G1 smartphone handset has thus far sold a million units, and has had quite a few updates to enhance functionality and fix bugs in the operating system. T-Mobile also intends shifting more smartphones over to the Android OS.

London, Apr 25: Britain's Got Talent judge Simon Cowell has told the show's star Susan Boyle to "get herself together" if she wants to win the competition.

Cowell, 49, who is apparently fed up with stories about 47-year-old Boyle''s unkempt hair, bushy eyebrows and pet cats, urged her to concentrate on winning the television talent competition rather than on the attention surrounding her.

Bhagalpur, Apr 25: Political parties in Bihar have begun playing politics using the infamous Bhagalpur riots of 1989 that claimed over 1000 lives.

Earlier this week, the Congress accused the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief, Lalu Prasad, of protecting the main conspirators of the riots. Lalu blamed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for killing of minorities.

Shami Begum, a riot victim who lost four members of her family, said politicians highlight this issue during every election to garner votes from themselves.

Chennai, Apr 25: Home Minister P. Chidambaram on Saturday said the Davis Cup event is completely safe and secure.

Chidambaram's statement came after the Tennis Australia decided to pull out of the Davis Cup tie against India, which is to be held in Chennai next month.

"The Davis Cup event is completely safe and secure. Foolproof security will be provided for the three days event. It is one event, one stadium, three days no security problem," Chidambaram told reporters here.

Despite having posted the quite favorable 2009 second quarter results, there are indications that Apple is cutting costs in order to battle out the impact of the still-ongoing financial meltdown - laying-off full-time retail employees being one of the practical measures undertaken by the company.

In its 10-Q form filed with the SEC, Apple has made a mention of 14,000 full-time retail employees at the end of the last quarter; though the number of employees mentioned in the same document, for the December 2008 quarter, was 15,600.