Boeing working on 787 battery changes for fire risk: WSJ


(Reuters) - Boeing Co is working on battery design changes that would minimize fire risks on its grounded 787 Dreamliner and could have the passenger jet flying again as soon as March, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.


Separately, U.S. aviation regulators said they would allow Boeing to make a one-off 787 flight from Texas to the aircraft maker's facility in Washington State, under strict conditions. Boeing said the plane, scheduled for delivery to China Southern Airlines , would be a "ferry" flight - used to relocate a plane without carrying passengers or conducting tests.


Regulators around the world grounded the technologically advanced 787 in mid-January after a battery fire in Boston and a second incident involving a battery on a flight in Japan.


Boeing is looking at changes within the 787's lithium-ion battery to keep heat or fire from spreading, though technical details have not yet been finalized or approved, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed government and industry officials. One of the paper's sources added that, under a best-case scenario, passenger flights could resume in March.


The Dreamliner's launch customer All Nippon Airways Co Ltd , which has the biggest fleet of the 250-seat planes, said it will cancel 1,887 flights, affecting more than 25,000 passengers, from March 1 to 30. The airline said on Thursday it had no information on Boeing's latest battery plans.


Boeing declined to comment on the newspaper report. GS Yuasa Corp , the Japanese firm that makes batteries for the 787, also declined to comment.


INVESTIGATIONS ONGOING


Air safety investigators from the United States and Japan have been investigating the battery incidents for three weeks. On Wednesday, the head of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said it was "probably weeks away" from completing its probe.


The NTSB is conducting the U.S. probe with help from Boeing, GS Yuasa, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and battery experts from other U.S. federal agencies. No one has yet identified what caused the battery failures.


In Tokyo, one official said Japanese regulators had not been notified of any breakthrough in the U.S. battery investigation. "The investigation will continue as scheduled. Resuming flights in March ... seems far too optimistic to me," said the official who didn't want to be named as the investigation is ongoing.


One source familiar with the investigation told Reuters that Boeing engineers sprang into action "almost immediately" after the first battery incident to ensure the company could meet special FAA-approved conditions to allow lithium-ion batteries on the aircraft. "They can't afford to sit around with their planes on the ground," said the source, who was not authorized to speak publicly.


Boeing was pursuing multiple solutions to mitigate and contain a fire if one started in the batteries, part of a determined effort to get the 787s back in the air while a more permanent solution - possibly even a different battery - was explored.


Three or four different approaches would be pursued to ensure the batteries did not breach their containment systems, even if they caught fire, said the source.


"FERRY" FLIGHT


Boeing asked the FAA this week for permission to conduct new test flights of the 787, suggesting it is making progress in finding a solution to the problems, but the government agency has not yet announced a decision.


While that request is pending, the FAA said on Wednesday it would allow a one-time 787 "ferry" flight. The plane, with a minimum crew, would have to land immediately if the flight computer displays any battery-related messages. It was not immediately clear when the flight would take place.


Some 50 Dreamliners have been grounded while investigators try to solve the battery mystery.


Japan Airlines Co Ltd said this week it will talk to Boeing about compensation for the 787's grounding, which it expects to cost nearly $8 million from lost earnings through March. ANA has said it would seek compensation from Boeing once the amount of damages was clearer.


JAL said on Thursday it was also unaware of any Boeing plans to test new batteries.


(Reporting by Andrea Shalal-Esa in Washington, Bill Rigby in Seattle, Peter Henderson in San Francisco and Mari Saito in Tokyo; Editing by Gary Hill, Bernard Orr, Eric Walsh, Andre Grenon and Ian Geoghegan)



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Japan Spends Heavily to Keep Whaling Industry Afloat, Report Says





TOKYO — A wildlife conservation group said in a report on Wednesday that Japan has been propping up its whaling industry with nearly $400 million in tax money in recent years, stepping up subsidies even as consumption of whale meat here has slumped.




The report, compiled by the International Fund for Animal Welfare, in Yarmouth Port, Mass., challenges assertions by the Japanese government that whaling is a tradition with wide support among Japanese consumers.


Instead, government figures tallied in the report paint a picture of a struggling industry employing fewer than 1,000 people and dependent on public handouts, including money meant for reconstruction after the devastating earthquake and tsunami of March 2011.


Most Japanese consumers have turned away from whale meat. The industry shipped just 5,000 tons in 2011, compared with 233,000 tons at the peak in 1962, according to data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. Demand this year is so low that the industry has cut its planned shipments by half, to 2,400 tons.


“Whaling is unprofitable, and survives only with substantial subsidies, something cultural and nationalist arguments for whaling obscure,” said Patrick Ramage, the director of the animal welfare fund’s whale program. He said the country would be better off economically and ecologically if it promoted whale-watching tourism instead of hunting whales.


Japan’s Fisheries Agency declined to comment on the report, saying it had not yet studied its contents.


But an official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said there was “nothing wrong with these subsidies, which fund an important program,” though it was “not the government’s responsibility to make whaling economically viable.”


A world moratorium on commercial whaling took effect in 1986, but Japan has taken advantage of an exception allowing whaling for research purposes to continue hunting, though environmental activists who chase whaling boats have made those hunts increasingly difficult. Japan has captured and killed more than 14,000 whales since the moratorium began.


The meat from the whales is sold off as “byproducts” of research, and it makes its way to supermarkets, restaurants and even school lunches. A government Web site says the most popular whale dishes are fried whale, whale sashimi and medium-rare whale steak.


According to figures from the Institute of Cetacean Research, the nonprofit organization set up to run the whaling program, income from whale meat has failed to cover the costs of whaling for the past five years. So subsidies have been increased, and some disaster aid has been diverted to the industry, prompting a public outcry.


The dire financial picture prompted the government to announce a plan last year to cut costs by reducing the annual catch and to sell more whale meat directly to schools for lunches. But experts doubt that those measures will make the whaling industry self-sufficient again. 


“The Japanese government has desperately defended whaling for years, but the question has increasingly become: for what?” said Yusuke Saskata, a professor of environmental economics at Kinki University in Osaka. “Supporting whaling culture is one thing, but maintaining whaling at this scale makes no sense.”


Hisako Ueno contributed research.



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Shutterfly beats estimates, driven by holiday season






(Reuters) – Online photo-sharing service provider Shutterfly Inc’s results beat analysts‘ estimates in the traditionally strong fourth quarter on higher demand during the holiday season, particularly in its enterprise unit.


The company’s shares were up 13 percent in after-market trading.






Revenue at the enterprise business, earlier called the commercial print service, is derived from the printing and shipping of direct marketing and other variable data-print products and formats.


In 2011, the business represented about 3 percent of Shutterfly’s total sales of $ 473.3 million.


The company, which gets most of its revenue from professionally bound photo books, greeting and stationery cards and other photo-based merchandise, traditionally generates more than 50 percent of its annual revenue in the fourth quarter.


Net income rose to $ 53.0 million, or $ 1.40 per share, in the quarter ended December 31, from $ 35.4 million, or 97 cents per share, a year earlier.


Analysts had expected earnings of $ 1.01 per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.


Revenue increased 33 percent to $ 351.8 million, above analysts’ expectations of $ 309.7 million. [ID:nBw6GFrDza] The company’s revenue has now beaten analysts’ estimates for nine consecutive quarters.


Revenue at the enterprise segment rose 79 percent to $ 8.3 million.


Shutterfly, which competes mainly with Hewlett-Packard’s Snapfish, Webshots and Facebook Inc, expects a loss of between 39 cents and 42 cents per share on revenue of $ 107.2 million to $ 110 million for the first quarter.


Analysts were expecting a loss of 32 cents per share on revenue of $ 108.7 million.


The company’s shares, which have risen about 15 percent in the last three months, closed at $ 33.59 on the Nasdaq on Tuesday.


(This story was fixed to correct headline to “driven by holiday season” from “driven by enterprise business“)


(Reporting by Chandni Doulatramani in Bangalore; Editing by Maju Samuel)


Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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American Idol: It's a Guys' Night in Hollywood






American Idol










02/06/2013 at 11:00 PM EST







From left: Randy Jackson, Mariah Carey, Ryan Seacrest, Nicki Minaj and Keith Urban


George Holz/FOX


Caution: Contains spoilers!

"It does feel a bit like The Hunger Games," said Keith Urban, ramping up the drama as American Idol kicked off the first day of Hollywood Week. Although producers didn't unleash any tracker jackers on the contestants, they did throw in a couple unexpected twists: This season the week started off as a guys-only competition (the girls arrive in Hollywood next week), and after surviving a round of sudden death solo sing-offs, contestants would then be put into groups from which they couldn't escape.

During the solo round, the standouts included two memorable contestants from the nationwide auditions. First up, Navy man Micah Johnson, who developed a speech impediment after suffering through a botched surgery to remove his tonsils. After a rousing rendition of Elton John's "Bennie and the Jets," Johnson was the first to get the green light to the next round.

Joining him soon after was Cuban-American Lazaro Arbos, a 21-year-old ice cream scooper from Naples, Fla., who speaks with a severe stutter but sings with ease. Although Arbos admitted to being both "scared" and "petrified," he quickly won the judges over – Nicki Minaj made her fingers into a heart-shape while he sang – with his take on the Robbie Williams hit, "Angels."

When it came time to form groups of four, the Idol producers threw a few more curveballs – such as pairing a couple of country crooners with two flamboyant (think glitter and faux fur) dudes Ryan Seacrest described as the show's "resident divas."

The result: a quartet that dubbed themselves Country Queen, which delivered a train wreck of a performance. Still, somehow three of the four made it through.

Meanwhile, Arbos's group experience also proved to be a bit of a disaster – which some of his cohorts blamed on his inability to quickly learn the lyrics and melody to the Beach Boys hit "Wouldn't It Be Nice." Although his main nemesis got the boot, a tearful Arbos got the chance to sing another day.

The day of auditions came to a close with what was possibly the most heartbreaking Idol exit ever. New York City subway singer Frankie Ford got a case of the jitters before going on stage, then proceeded to screw up the lyrics and sing off key – leaving the judges no choice but to pull the plug on his dreams. Before walking off into the night, a sobbing Ford stared into the camera and said, "I swear to God I'm coming back next year and I'm going to win."

There will be more solos Thursday (8 p.m. ET), as the judges have to whittle the 43 men left in the competition down to 20 lucky fellas.

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Critics seek to delay NYC sugary drinks size limit


NEW YORK (AP) — Opponents are pressing to delay enforcement of the city's novel plan to crack down on supersized, sugary drinks, saying businesses shouldn't have to spend millions of dollars to comply until a court rules on whether the measure is legal.


With the rule set to take effect March 12, beverage industry, restaurant and other business groups have asked a judge to put it on hold at least until there's a ruling on their lawsuit seeking to block it altogether. The measure would bar many eateries from selling high-sugar drinks in cups or containers bigger than 16 ounces.


"It would be a tremendous waste of expense, time, and effort for our members to incur all of the harm and costs associated with the ban if this court decides that the ban is illegal," Chong Sik Le, president of the New York Korean-American Grocers Association, said in court papers filed Friday.


City lawyers are fighting the lawsuit and oppose postponing the restriction, which the city Board of Health approved in September. They said Tuesday they expect to prevail.


"The obesity epidemic kills nearly 6,000 New Yorkers each year. We see no reason to delay the Board of Health's reasonable and legal actions to combat this major, growing problem," Mark Muschenheim, a city attorney, said in a statement.


Another city lawyer, Thomas Merrill, has said officials believe businesses have had enough time to get ready for the new rule. He has noted that the city doesn't plan to seek fines until June.


Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other city officials see the first-of-its-kind limit as a coup for public health. The city's obesity rate is rising, and studies have linked sugary drinks to weight gain, they note.


"This is the biggest step a city has taken to curb obesity," Bloomberg said when the measure passed.


Soda makers and other critics view the rule as an unwarranted intrusion into people's dietary choices and an unfair, uneven burden on business. The restriction won't apply at supermarkets and many convenience stores because the city doesn't regulate them.


While the dispute plays out in court, "the impacted businesses would like some more certainty on when and how they might need to adjust operations," American Beverage Industry spokesman Christopher Gindlesperger said Tuesday.


Those adjustments are expected to cost the association's members about $600,000 in labeling and other expenses for bottles, Vice President Mike Redman said in court papers. Reconfiguring "16-ounce" cups that are actually made slightly bigger, to leave room at the top, is expected to take cup manufacturers three months to a year and cost them anywhere from more than $100,000 to several millions of dollars, Foodservice Packaging Institute President Lynn Dyer said in court documents.


Movie theaters, meanwhile, are concerned because beverages account for more than 20 percent of their overall profits and about 98 percent of soda sales are in containers greater than 16 ounces, according to Robert Sunshine, executive director of the National Association of Theatre Owners of New York State.


___


Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz


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Dell to go private in landmark $24.4 billion deal


SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Michael Dell struck a deal to take Dell Inc private for $24.4 billion in the biggest leveraged buyout since the financial crisis, partnering with the Silver Lake private equity firm and Microsoft Corp to try to turn around the struggling computer company without Wall Street scrutiny.


The deal, which requires approval from a majority of shareholders excluding Dell himself, would end a 24-year run on public markets for a company that was conceived in a college dorm room and quickly rose to the top of the global personal computer business - only to be rendered an also-ran over the past decade as PC prices crumbled and customers moved to tablets and smartphones.


Dell executives said on Tuesday that the company will stick to a strategy of expanding its software and services offerings for large companies, with the goal of becoming a full-service provider of corporate computing services in the mold of the highly profitable IBM. They played down speculation that Dell might spin off the low-margin PC business on which it made its name.


Dell did not give specifics on what it would do differently as a private entity, angering some shareholders who said they needed more information to determine whether the $13.65-a-share deal price - a 25 percent premium over Dell's stock price before buyout talks leaked in January - was adequate.


"This feels like the ultimate insider trade. Why weren't the plans and projections that Michael Dell has going forward been shared with me and other shareholders?" said Frederick "Shad" Rowe, general partner of Greenbrier Partners and a trustee of the $22 billion Texas Employees Retirement System. Rowe said he dumped about 400,000 shares of Dell on Tuesday, adding, "I was so irritated I didn't want to think about it anymore.


Dell spokesman David Frink said the board had conducted an extensive review of strategic options before agreeing to the buyout to ensure that the best interests of all stockholders were served.


Although Dell shares were trading at more than $18 a year ago, many analysts said they believed the majority of shareholders will accept the buyout because of pessimism over the growth prospects of the PC business.


"A private Dell is likely to more aggressively cut costs, in our view. But we think merely restructuring only postpones the inevitable, creating a value trap," said Discern Inc analyst Cindy Shaw. "Dell needs to do more than reduce its cost structure. It needs to innovate."


Dell was regarded as a model of innovation as recently as the early 2000s, pioneering online ordering of custom-configured PCs and working closely with Asian component suppliers and manufacturers to assure rock-bottom production costs. But it missed the big industry shift to tablet computers, smartphones and high-powered consumer electronics such as music players and gaming consoles.


As of 2012's fourth quarter, Dell's share of the global PC market had slipped to just above 10 percent from 12.5 percent a year earlier as its shipments dived 20 percent, according to research house IDC.


Some of Dell's rivals took pot shots at the deal, in unusually pointed comments that reflect how bitter the struggle is in a commoditized PC industry that has wrestled to reverse a decline in sales globally.


Hewlett-Packard Co, which itself has suffered years of turmoil in the face of challenges in the PC business, said in a statement that Dell's deal would "leave existing customers and innovation at the curb," and vowed to exploit the opportunity.


Lenovo, which consists largely of the former IBM PC unit, referred to the "distracting financial maneuvers and major strategic shifts" of its rival while emphasizing its own stability and strong financial position.


The deal will be financed with cash and equity from Michael Dell, $1 billion cash from private equity firm Silver Lake, a $2 billion loan from Microsoft Corp, and between $11 billion and $12 billion in debt financing from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Credit Suisse and RBC Capital Markets.


The company said Michael Dell will contribute his 16 percent stake in the company but did not say how much cash he would inject. The company will now conduct a 45-day "go-shop" process in which others might make higher offers.


"Though we were hoping for a higher price, we trust that the Dell board has properly done its job by conducting a process open to any third-party offers and reviewing all strategic options," said Bill Nygren, who manages the $7.3 billion Oakmark Fund and $3.2 billion Oakmark Select Fund, which have a $250 million position in Dell.


"Should we hear evidence to the contrary, we'll raise a ruckus."


Sources with knowledge of the matter said Dell's board, advised by the Boston Consulting Group, had considered everything from a leveraged recapitalization to a breakup of the company before agreeing to the LBO.


Although the deal will load Dell with more debt, some Wall Street analysts said that was relatively low compared to the cash the company generates.


Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi said that if Dell were to use 40 percent of its annual cash flow of about $2.5 billion to $3 billion to pay down debt, a sale of the company in about five years could net Silver Lake, Mike Dell and other investors close to $10 billion, or 5 times free cash flow at the time.


Helped by acquisitions, Dell has been building a business selling servers, IT services and other products for corporate clients that - while still dwarfed by IBM's and HP's - is growing at a near-10 percent clip. Critics say it will not be easy for Dell to beat IBM and HP in this area, no matter what its corporate structure.


Sales of PCs still make up the majority of Dell's revenues. Dell said in a regulatory filing that no new job cuts were expected but it indicated more acquisitions down the road. The company has spent $13 billion since fiscal 2008 to acquire more than 20 companies including several large software and services companies as it seeks to reconfigure itself as a broad-based supplier of technology for big companies.


"We recognize this process will take more time," Chief Financial Officer Brian Gladden told Reuters. "We will have to make investments, and we will have to be patient to implement the strategy. And under a new private company structure, we will have time and flexibility to really pursue and realize the end-to-end solutions strategy."


Gladden said the company's strategy would "generally remain the same" after the deal closed, but "we won't have the scrutiny and limitations associated with operating as a public company."


Shares of Dell closed 1.1 percent higher at $13.42.


FALL FROM GRACE


Michael Dell returned to the company as CEO in 2007 after a brief hiatus but has been unable to engineer a turnaround thus far. Analysts said Dell could be more nimble as a private company, but it will still have to deal with the same difficult market conditions.


There is little history to suggest whether going private makes such a transition easier. IBM's famously successful transition from hardware vendor to corporate IT partner took place while it was trading on public markets.


Freescale, formerly the semiconductor division of Motorola, was taken private in 2006 for $17.6 billion by a group of private equity firms including Blackstone Group LP, Carlyle Group and TPG Capital LP. Analysts say the resulting debt load hurt its ability to compete in the capital-intensive chip business. Freescale cut just under 5 percent of its work force last year as it continued to restructure.


Microsoft's involvement in the Dell deal piqued much speculation about a renewed strategic partnership, but the software company is providing only debt financing and Dell said there were no specific business terms attached to the transaction. Dell has long been loyal to Microsoft's Windows operating system, which has been at the heart of its PC business since its inception.


Microsoft's loan will take the form of a 10-year subordinated note with roughly 7 percent to 8 percent interest, a source close to the matter told Reuters.


The Dell deal would be the biggest private equity-backed leveraged buyout since Blackstone Group LP's takeout of the Hilton Hotels Group in July 2007 for more than $20 billion and is the 11th-largest on record.


The parties expect the transaction to close before the end of Dell's 2014 second quarter, which ends in July. News of the talks first emerged on January 14, although they reportedly started in the latter part of 2012. Michael Dell had previously acknowledged thinking about going private as far back as 2010.


J.P. Morgan and Evercore Partners were financial advisers, and Debevoise & Plimpton LLP was the legal adviser to the special committee of Dell's board. Goldman Sachs was financial adviser, and Hogan Lovells was legal adviser to Dell.


Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz was legal adviser to Michael Dell. BofA Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Credit Suisse and RBC Capital Markets were financial advisers to Silver Lake, and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP was its legal adviser. Lazard Ltd advised Microsoft.


(Additional reporting by Aaron Pressman in Boston; Writing by Ben Berkowitz and Edwin Chan; Editing by Tiffany Wu, Leslie Gevirtz and Cynthia Osterman)



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Tsunami Fear After Quake Off Solomons





AUCKLAND, New Zealand — Residents of islands from the South Pacific to Australia were alerted to the possibility of a damaging tsunami on Wednesday after an 8.0-magnitude earthquake off the Solomon Islands, according to scientists and news reports from the area, but the warnings were called off a few hours later.




Edmal Palmer, the chief reporter of the Solomon Star newspaper in Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands, said in a telephone interview that reports from Lata, the capital of the Temotu province, were sketchy but indicated that the wave apparently had struck three villages.


“We have heard that a wave 103 centimeters high” — nearly three and a half feet — “has hit Lata, swamping the town, and five people are still missing at the moment,” Mr. Palmer said.


Lata, where the quake struck, is in Temotu Province, where the population is around 30,000. It is a three-hour flight from the Solomons’ capital, Honiara, which was not damaged by the earthquake or tsunami.


Mr. Palmer said Honiara residents were not concerned by the tsunami: “Most of us are getting ready for tonight’s UB40 concert.”


“Sea level readings indicate a tsunami was generated,” the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said on its Web site. The earthquake struck around 11 a.m. local time in the Santa Cruz Islands, part of the Solomon chain. There were conflicting reports as to the depth of the quake.


The center said the tsunami warning was limited to the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu, New Caledonia, Kosrae, Fiji, Kiribati, Wallis and Futuna.


A lesser alert, a tsunami watch, was declared for American Samoa, Australia, Guam, the Northern Marianas, New Zealand and eastern Indonesia.


The earthquake was not only powerful but also “shallow,” giving it significant potential to do damage, said Barry Hirshorn, a geophysicist with the National Weather Service in Hawaii. Moreover, it was a thrust earthquake, he said, meaning that the sea floor moved up or down, not sideways, contributing to the potential for a dangerous tsunami.


But after the earthquake, as scientists watched to see how far a tsunami might spread, there were few early indications of a major threat beyond the immediate area, Mr. Hirshorn said. A water rise of about three feet had been observed close to the quake, he said, still high enough to be potentially damaging but probably not big enough to threaten distant shores.


In New Zealand, thousands of people were at the beach, swimming in the sea on a glorious summer afternoon on Waitangi Day, a national holiday — quite oblivious to the potential for a tsunami. Tsunami sirens were set off late in the afternoon there, and people in coastal areas were being told to stay off beaches and out of the sea, rivers and estuaries.


The New Zealand Herald reported Wednesday afternoon on its Web site that tsunami sirens in Suva, the capital of Fiji, had been warning people to stay inside or go to higher ground.


The Sydney Morning Herald reported on its Web site Wednesday that the Solomon Islands’ National Disaster Management Office had advised those living in low-lying areas, especially on Makira and Malaita, to move to higher ground.


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HTC bills its ‘ultrapixel’ camera as an historic event







HTC (2498) wants you to know that its upcoming “ultrapixel” camera is a big deal. How big, you ask? So big that it deserves to be on a timeline with the invention of the Polaroid and the world’s first camera phone. The Verge points us to a post on HTC’s official blog that outlines “a brief history of photography” and that concludes with a “mystery entry” for 2013 that reads, “HTC kicks off a new sound and camera experience.” Although HTC has not yet announced details surrounding its new camera on the upcoming M7 smartphone, leaked details provided to Pocket-Lint suggest it will be a 13-megapixel camera that will feature “three 4.3-megapixel sensor layers” that are “combined to give a resulting single image.” Regardless of whether this sort of innovation deserves to be placed on the same pedestal as the invention of the Polaroid camera, it does sound intriguing.


[More from BGR: Google’s big potential problem: The ‘Galaxy’ brand is starting to beat the ‘Android’ brand]






This article was originally published on BGR.com


Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Kim Kardashian's Pregnancy Is No Reason to Speed Divorce, says Kris Humphries















02/05/2013 at 09:20 PM EST







Kris Humphries and Kim Kardashian


Seth Browarnik/StarTraks


Kim Kardashian's baby is not even born yet and already is being drawn into mama's divorce.

Kardashian, carrying boyfriend Kanye West's child, has bristled at what she sees as stall tactics by estranged husband Kris Humphries to close the legal books on their 72-day marriage.

But Humphries's lawyer Marshall W. Waller writes that "what is really going on here is that an 'urgency' in the form of an apparently unplanned pregnancy" is being used by Kardashian as "an opportunity to gain a litigation advantage (to) prematurely set this matter for trial."

He adds parenthetically that the pregnancy is "something (Humphries) had nothing to do with."

Waller explains his reasoning for calling the pregnancy as unplanned: "Indeed, why would (she) plan to get pregnant in the midst of divorce proceedings?"

Kardashian, herself, recently addressed the timing.

"God brings you things at a time when you least expect it," she said last month. "I'm such a planner and this was just meant to be. What am I going to? Wait years to get a divorce? I'd love one. It's a process."

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Bullying study: It does get better for gay teens


CHICAGO (AP) — It really does get better for gay and bisexual teens when it comes to being bullied, although young gay men have it worse than their lesbian peers, according to the first long-term scientific evidence on how the problem changes over time.


The seven-year study involved more than 4,000 teens in England who were questioned yearly through 2010, until they were 19 and 20 years old. At the start, just over half of the 187 gay, lesbian and bisexual teens said they had been bullied; by 2010 that dropped to 9 percent of gay and bisexual boys and 6 percent of lesbian and bisexual girls.


The researchers said the same results likely would be found in the United States.


In both countries, a "sea change" in cultural acceptance of gays and growing intolerance for bullying occurred during the study years, which partly explains the results, said study co-author Ian Rivers, a psychologist and professor of human development at Brunel University in London.


That includes a government mandate in England that schools work to prevent bullying, and changes in the United States permitting same-sex marriage in several states.


In 2010, syndicated columnist Dan Savage launched the "It Gets Better" video project to encourage bullied gay teens. It was prompted by widely publicized suicides of young gays, and includes videos from politicians and celebrities.


"Bullying tends to decline with age regardless of sexual orientation and gender," and the study confirms that, said co-author Joseph Robinson, a researcher and assistant professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. "In absolute terms, this would suggest that yes, it gets better."


The study appears online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.


Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, said the results mirror surveys by her anti-bullying advocacy group that show bullying is more common in U.S. middle schools than in high schools.


But the researchers said their results show the situation is more nuanced for young gay men.


In the first years of the study, gay boys and girls were almost twice as likely to be bullied as their straight peers. By the last year, bullying dropped overall and was at about the same level for lesbians and straight girls. But the difference between men got worse by ages 19 and 20, with gay young men almost four times more likely than their straight peers to be bullied.


The mixed results for young gay men may reflect the fact that masculine tendencies in girls and women are more culturally acceptable than femininity in boys and men, Robinson said.


Savage, who was not involved in the study, agreed.


"A lot of the disgust that people feel when you bring up homosexuality ... centers around gay male sexuality," Savage said. "There's more of a comfort level" around gay women, he said.


Kendall Johnson, 21, a junior theater major at the University of Illinois, said he was bullied for being gay in high school, mostly when he brought boyfriends to school dances or football games.


"One year at prom, I had a guy tell us that we were disgusting and he didn't want to see us dancing anymore," Johnson said. A football player and the president of the drama club intervened on his behalf, he recalled.


Johnson hasn't been bullied in college, but he said that's partly because he hangs out with the theater crowd and avoids the fraternity scene. Still, he agreed, that it generally gets better for gays as they mature.


"As you grow older, you become more accepting of yourself," Johnson said.


___


Online:


Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org


It Gets Better: http://www.itgetsbetter.org


___


AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner


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