Paris does Shanghai

People

Celebrity Paris Hilton checked out Shanghai fashions, cuddled stuffed pandas and sauntered along the famous Bund waterfront Thursday while visiting China's most style-conscious city for the MTV Style awards. "Shanghai looks like the future!" Hilton said in a news conference.

Hillary booster

U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton won surprise backing from Bernadette Chirac, wife of former French President Jacques Chirac, on Thursday, and pledged to join her on the campaign trail. "She's a woman who is not liked by everybody. But she's strong and she has convictions," said Chirac, who expressed interest in attending the Democratic convention in Denver in August. "And if I can be of any use to her somewhere in the campaign, I'm available."

Nye seeks protection

Bill Nye, formerly of Seattle, wants a woman he once said was his wife out of his life. Nye, who hosted the PBS series "Bill Nye, the Science Guy," is seeking a permanent restraining order against Blair Tindall, alleging she tried to poison his vegetable garden, according to court records. He said Tindall came to his Studio City, Calif., home late Sept. 3 dressed in black and carrying "two plastic bottles filled with some sort of solvent," according to court papers filed last week in Los Angeles Superior Court. Nye, 51, identified Tindall as his ex-fiancée, even though the two said in February 2006 that they were married by the Rev. Rick Warren, pastor and author of "The Purpose-Driven Life." Tindall admitted in a declaration that she emptied two bottles of weedkiller in the garden but said she is not a threat to Nye. A Dec. 20 hearing was scheduled in the case.

Never mind

Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, the former Saudi ambassador to the United States who put a $135 million price tag on his Aspen, Colo.-area estate, has taken the property off the market because he got no suitable offers, his attorney and agent said. The 90-acre ranch and 56,000-square-foot mansion went up for sale in 2006. Real-estate experts said at the time that the asking price could set a U.S. record. Among the property's amenities: 15 bedrooms, 16 bathrooms, a racquetball court and an indoor pool.

Oops

Well, both start with C

A Michigan man may be prosecuted after fatally shooting a neighbor's cow that he says he thought was a coyote. The undersheriff in northern Michigan's Benzie County says he doesn't see how anyone could confuse a 1,400-pound, pregnant cow with a coyote, which typically weighs 20 to 45 pounds. The 42-year-old man told authorities he was out to shoot coyotes Saturday when he killed the cow, Hannah, Undersheriff Rory Heckman said. Heckman said the man then tried to drag the cow home. Hannah's owner, DeAnn Mosher, said, "It didn't make any sense to me."

Sold!

Failed ad brings $5.3M

The earliest known full-length portrait of Queen Elizabeth I by Antwerp artist Steven van der Meulen, thought to have been commissioned to help the English monarch "advertise" herself to potential suitors, sold Thursday for 2.6 million pounds ($5.3 million) at Sotheby's. Elizabeth, who was under pressure to find a husband from early in her reign and despite a string of suitors never married, was dubbed the Virgin Queen.

Passages

Victor Rabinowitz, 96, a lawyer who represented leftist causes and clients such as Alger Hiss, the Black Panthers, Fidel Castro and Weather Underground member Kathy Boudin, died last Friday at his Manhattan home.

Lester Ziffren, 101, who broke news of the Spanish Civil War as a young U.S. reporter in Madrid, Spain, and whose subsequent career took him to Hollywood as a movie writer, South America as a diplomat and New York as a public-relations executive, died Nov. 12 at his home in Manhattan.

Frances Louise Murphy II, 85, the granddaughter of the founder of The Afro-American Newspapers chain who worked as a reporter, editor and eventually publisher, died Wednesday of multiple myeloma, a type of cancer, at Sinai Hospital of Baltimore.

Today in History

1903: Singer Enrico Caruso made his U.S. debut at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, in "Rigoletto."

1936: Life, the photojournalism magazine created by Henry Luce, was first published.

1971: The People's Republic of China was seated in the U.N. Security Council.

1980: Some 2,600 people were killed by a series of earthquakes that devastated southern Italy.

Today's Birthdays

Actor Franco Nero, 66. Actor Steve Landesberg, 62. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., 57. Musician Bruce Hornsby, 53. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., 52. Actor Oded Fehr, 37. Actress-singer Miley Cyrus (TV: "Hannah Montana"), 15. Actor Austin Majors, 12.

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