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

TV Watch

American Idol

By Jamie Bufalino

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.

Read More..

New whooping cough strain in US raises questions

NEW YORK (AP) — Researchers have discovered the first U.S. cases of whooping cough caused by a germ that may be resistant to the vaccine.

Health officials are looking into whether cases like the dozen found in Philadelphia might be one reason the nation just had its worst year for whooping cough in six decades. The new bug was previously reported in Japan, France and Finland.

"It's quite intriguing. It's the first time we've seen this here," said Dr. Tom Clark of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The U.S. cases are detailed in a brief report from the CDC and other researchers in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

Whooping cough is a highly contagious disease that can strike people of any age but is most dangerous to children. It was once common, but cases in the U.S. dropped after a vaccine was introduced in the 1940s.

An increase in illnesses in recent years has been partially blamed on a version of the vaccine used since the 1990s, which doesn't last as long. Last year, the CDC received reports of 41,880 cases, according to a preliminary count. That included 18 deaths.

The new study suggests that the new whooping cough strain may be why more people have been getting sick. Experts don't think it's more deadly, but the shots may not work as well against it.

In a small, soon-to-be published study, French researchers found the vaccine seemed to lower the risk of severe disease from the new strain in infants. But it didn't prevent illness completely, said Nicole Guiso of the Pasteur Institute, one of the researchers.

The new germ was first identified in France, where more extensive testing is routinely done for whooping cough. The strain now accounts for 14 percent of cases there, Guiso said.

In the United States, doctors usually rely on a rapid test to help make a diagnosis. The extra lab work isn't done often enough to give health officials a good idea how common the new type is here, experts said.

"We definitely need some more information about this before we can draw any conclusions," the CDC's Clark said.

The U.S. cases were found in the past two years in patients at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children in Philadelphia. One of the study's researchers works for a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, which makes a version of the old whooping cough vaccine that is sold in other countries.

___

JournaL: http://www.nejm.org

Read More..

Village mourns latest victim of runaway tour bus crash

MOUNTAIN HOME VILLAGE — Smoke from the warm fire inside Fred Richardson's home hung in the mountain air outside his house Wednesday, masking the heartbreak inside and throughout the tiny creekside town where he lived for seven decades.

His son, Steve, grieved silently on the front porch. Along with the wind sifting through the pines and sycamores, the only other sound came from traffic winding down the mountain highway just a few blocks away — the same highway that took his father's life.

Richardson, 72, was driving to his home in the San Bernardino Mountains on Sunday evening, after wrapping up a landscaping job in Yucaipa, when an out-of-control tour bus traveling down California 38 from Big Bear smashed into his Ford pickup truck.

Richardson clung to life until Wednesday morning, when he died of massive head and chest trauma. He was the eighth fatality resulting from the horrific crash, which killed seven bus passengers.

"We're all still struggling," his son said before turning to go inside with the rest of the family.

Down the street, Richardson's older sister, Jan Fagerstedt, shared her fondest memories. Since he was a toddler, her little brother loved to fish for rainbow trout in the nearby creeks. He was a church deacon. He delivered firewood to homebound neighbors, and once helped save the town from a raging flood.

"He was the most warm-hearted man you'd ever met," she said, pausing to gather strength. "He lived a life. He lived a good moral life.... I miss my brother so."

The night of the deadly crash, Fagerstedt was outside gathering kindling when she heard commotion on the highway less than 100 feet from her home.

"I heard this terrible loud honking. I jumped. And I went in and told my husband, 'You know, I think we have a runaway truck,' " she recalled. "But it had to be that bus. A little while later that accident happened. So that bus went by here, and I heard it. And I thought, 'I hope nobody's in the way.' "

Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board and California Highway Patrol on Wednesday began a "full mechanical breakdown" of the tour bus and other vehicles involved in Sunday's crash. Investigators continue to pore over maintenance records and interview employees of the bus company, Scapadas Magicas in National City, NTSB spokesman Eric Weiss said.

The investigation will focus heavily on the brakes and other mechanical equipment of a bus that has a history of safety violations, including faulty brakes.

CHP spokesman Mario Lopez said the bus driver, Norberto Perez, has been released from the hospital. The 52-year-old San Ysidro man has not been charged in connection with the accident, Lopez said.

The tour bus left Tijuana early Sunday with 38 passengers, including children, and was returning from the ski resort town of Big Bear Lake when the driver lost control on the sweeping, downhill bends of the mountain road. The bus clipped a sedan and then flipped, ejecting passengers, before hitting Richardson's pickup truck.

News of Richardson's death Wednesday overwhelmed his hometown. Fewer than 100 families live amid the narrow snaking roads of Mountain Home Village, a town hidden in the folds of the San Bernardino Mountains. Some homes, Richardson's among them, were hand-crafted with stones hauled up from nearby Mountain Home Creek.

California 38 used to wind right through town. And it has brought heartache to the Richardson family before.

In the 1960s, Fred Richardson's 4-year-old niece was struck and killed by a passing car after she stepped out of the town market. Another niece, Beaumont City Councilwoman Brenda Knight, was with her cousin when it happened.

"It just doesn't seem fair that a family should suffer so," she said.

phil.willon@latimes.com

Times staff writer Ari Bloomekatz contributed to this report.

Read More..

Ally of Ahmadinejad Freed Amid Political Fight, Reports Say

TEHRAN — As President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad escalated a bitter political fight this week with Iran’s most influential political family by disclosing secret film recordings of what he purported were fraudulent business deals, Iran’s political maneuvring took a new turn Wednesday when an imprisoned associate of the president was reported to have been freed.

The release of Saeed Mortazavi, reported by two Iranian news agencies, came as the latest chapter in several days of political drama playing out with prominence in the public eye.

During a Sunday session of Parliament, broadcast on state radio, Mr. Ahmadinejad singled out the head of the Parliament, Ali Larijani, a political rival with strong links to influential Shiite Muslim clerics and one of several brothers who have held top positions in the Iranian government.

His younger brother Sadegh, 52, heads Iran’s judiciary, while his oldest brother, Mohammad Javad, a Berkeley-educated mathematician, is also a judiciary official.

On Monday, a conservative newspaper, Kayhan, hinted that the nation’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had been forced to step in to prevent both men from giving potentially damaging news conferences, which were both canceled at the last minute.

This was not the first time Ayatollah Khamenei has been forced to intervene in this feud. In October, he issued an edict aimed at stopping the infighting, saying that those creating divisions before the June 14 presidential elections “betray” the country.

Mr. Ahmadinejad, who went to the Parliament in a failed attempt to head off the impeachment of his labor minister, Abdolreza Sheikholeslami, said Mr. Larijani and his fellow lawmakers had obstructed the government, stepped beyond their constitutional boundaries and written letters ordering the annulment of government decisions.

Instructed by Mr. Larijani to stick to the subject of the impeachment, Mr. Ahmadinejad said, “Don’t order me to close my mouth because you say it’s the law.”

With that, Mr. Ahmadinejad, who for years has threatened to reveal the names of corrupt officials, played a video clip of a conversation in which another of Mr. Larijani’s brothers, Fazel, appeared to discuss the purchase of a state company under favorable terms, the semiofficial Tabnak Web site reported. While Fazel Larijani used to head a medical association in Iran, his current position is unclear.

The public accusation, rare in Iran, could signal a new phase in an already intense conflict between Mr. Ahmadinejad, who represents a powerful group of young, ambitious politicians, and Mr. Larijani, who is the official representative of the holy city of Qum, the center of Shiite scholarship in Iran.

Mr. Ahmadinejad said his associate, Mr. Mortazavi, 45, was also at the taped meeting. In January, Mr. Mortazavi was dismissed as the head of Iran’s enormous social welfare organization under pressure from Parliament. Some days later, however, he was rehired by the president in the same position, this time as official caretaker.

During the conversation, read out in part by Mr. Ahmadinejad to astonished lawmakers, Fazel Larijani appears to try to use his family connections to buy a factory from the social welfare organization. He promises leniency for Mr. Mortazavi, the former Tehran prosecutor who faces several criminal proceedings over accusations that he played a role in the deaths of three protesters in a substandard prison in 2009.

Mr. Mortazavi was arrested Monday evening, the Fars news agency reported, though no reason was given. But, in a new turn to what is likely to be a protracted saga, he was freed on Wednesday, news reports quoted Iranian media as saying. The terms of his release were unclear.

In Parliament on Sunday, the Iranian Students’ News Agency said, Mr. Ahmadinejad declared: “These are audio and video, and the tape is clear.”

He added: “If the honorable Parliament speaker sees fit, we can turn over the 24 to 25 hours to you,” he said of the recordings. On Monday, Iran’s Islamic Republic News Agency, a mouthpiece for Mr. Ahmadinejad, deepened the split by publishing the audiotape on its Web site.

Ali Larijani, cheered on by the Parliament, which has lost nearly every serious political battle with the president, silenced the room, saying: “Let him tell his words. If there is anything about my family, then let him talk about it.”

Mr. Larijani called the video a “mafia film” and recalled how he had a meeting with Mr. Ahmadinejad’s estranged brother, Davoud. “He said many things against you,” Mr. Larijani told the president, “about economic corruption, about your inner circle and your relations with foreign countries.”

For his part, Fazel Larijani strongly denied any wrongdoing, saying that while he did appear in the clip, the words were not his, but rather had been added in a voiceover. Calling Mr. Ahmadinejad and Mr. Mortazavi “mafialike individuals,” he said he would sue them both for “spreading lies and disturbing public opinion.”

On Monday, several officials criticized Mr. Ahmadinejad and Ali Larijani, accusing them of lacking self-control and bringing shame on the country. “They broke the leader’s heart and gave the friends of the Islamic republic almost a seizure,” said Mojtaba Zolnour, a special consultant to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, the semiofficial Iranian Labor News Agency reported. “They provided ammunition for the foreign media on the eve of our election.”

Alan Cowell contributed reporting from Paris.

Read More..

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

By Mike Fleeman

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."

Read More..

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

Read More..

L.A. rave promoter moving concert to Devore

After complaints about drug use and noise, a Los Angeles-based rave company is moving one of its annual concerts from its longtime home in San Bernardino to Devore, but some neighbors of the new venue are angry about the change.

Insomniac Inc. decided to shift the Beyond Wonderland rave from the National Orange Show Events Center near downtown San Bernardino to the San Bernardino County-owned San Manuel Amphitheater after tensions with Police Chief Robert Handy and residents. It stages at least two other raves a year at the events center.

Handy said the raves have been marred by increases in crime, along with drug and alcohol abuse among concertgoers. He said undercover officers who attend the raves are routinely offered drugs for sale.

In September, an officer was injured while trying to arrest a suspected Ecstasy dealer at an Insomniac rave, the chief added. He also said Insomniac refused a police request to lower the music volume at an October rave after neighbors complained.

"That's where we reached the impasse," Handy said. "They said, 'We will do what we have to do to continue to make a profit,' " Handy said.

Insomniac spokeswoman Jennifer Forkish denied that the company is relocating Beyond Wonderland because of poor relations with the city. She said in an email response to questions that Handy's statements about the October concert were "categorically untrue."

"We are left to believe that the police chief must have been misinformed," Forkish said. "His comments are his personal perspective based upon secondhand information [that] in no way reflects what occurs at our festivals."

The county Board of Supervisors voted 3 to 2 last week to allow raves at the amphitheater for the first time. County officials said the venue manager, Live Nation Entertainment Inc., the Beverly Hills-based concert and ticketing giant, and the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department would deploy extra security staff and sheriff's deputies to keep the concert safe and orderly.

That didn't satisfy Supervisor Janice Rutherford, who voted against the raves and said many Devore residents would not welcome them. "They are just a horrible public safety concern, certainly for the young people who attend," she said. "It's not fair to just transfer the impact."

Rutherford said she was troubled by a Los Angeles Times article about raves that was published Sunday. Citing coroners' and law enforcement records, the article disclosed that at least 14 people who attended raves produced by Insomniac and another L.A.-based company have died in circumstances involving drugs since 2006. Two people fatally overdosed at Insomniac raves in San Bernardino, in 2006 and 2009, according to coroners' reports.

Devore resident Darcee Klapp, 51, said she was unhappy about the prospect of raves held less than two miles from her home. "If it doesn't work in one area, why would you jam it down another area's throat and say it'll work here?" Klapp said.

Supervisor Josie Gonzales, who supported the prospect of raves at the amphitheater (formerly called the Glen Helen Pavilion), said in a statement: "By increasing security and limiting the events to those over the age of 18, we can make these events as safe as any other concert we have at the amphitheater. If that proves not to be the case for the first concert, I will urge the Board of Supervisors to join me in banning future events like this."

San Bernardino City Atty. James Penman, who is pushing for an end to raves at the events center, said the move to Devore was not a solution.

"I'm very disappointed that the Board of Supervisors made the decision that they made," Penman said. "The focus ought to be the illegal drug activity that's going on there — that's what caused the deaths."

Forkish, the Insomniac spokeswoman, said in her email that the city attorney's perspective "does not reflect reality."

"We look forward to having a discussion with him and educating him on the issues," she said.

Beyond Wonderland will be held March 16.

ron.lin@latimes.com

paul.pringle@latimes.com

Read More..

British Ministers Seek Support for Gay Marriage Law

LONDON — As the British Parliament prepared to vote Tuesday on a law permitting same-sex marriage that has divided church and state, senior cabinet ministers launched a last-minute attempt to deflect an embarrassing rebellion by Conservative lawmakers against Prime Minister David Cameron’s support for the new legislation.

A day after the newly-confirmed archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, took office saying he shares the Church of England’s opposition to marriage between people of the same gender, three cabinet officials said in a letter published in The Daily Telegraph that the new legislation was “the right thing to do at the right time.”

“Marriage has evolved over time. We believe that opening it up to same-sex couples will strengthen, not weaken, the institution. Attitudes toward gay people have changed. A substantial majority of the public now favor allowing same sex couples to marry, and support has increased rapidly.”

The three ministers — George Osborne, the chancellor of the Exchequer, Foreign Secretary William Hague and Home Secretary Theresa May — also asked whether it was “any longer acceptable to exclude people from marriage simply because they love someone of the same sex.”

The debate has divided Britain’s Conservatives, who rule in uneasy coalition with the smaller Liberal Democrats. Political analysts forecast that, when the vote is held on Tuesday evening in Parliament, it will be approved despite opposition by scores of Conservative lawmakers because the bulk of Liberal Democrat and opposition Labour legislators are in favor.

However, that outcome could embarrass Mr. Cameron since he will be securing approval for a change that he has championed with the support of his political adversaries and in the teeth of opposition from within his own ranks. The size of the likely revolt among Conservative lawmakers is uncertain, but Mr. Cameron’s allies are trying to reduce it, seeing the vote as a test of his authority.

Opponents of the legislation say it will alienate traditional Conservative voters, jeopardizing Mr. Cameron’s prospects at the 2015 national election. But supporters say it will bring in new backing from outside the party.

Coincidentally, the vote is scheduled a day after Archbishop Welby, 57, was confirmed in his new post to replace the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, who has retired 10 years in office.

The new archbishop, the spiritual head of the world’s 77 million Anglicans, endorsed the traditional view that while the Church of England has no objection to civil partnerships between people of the same gender, it is, as a recent church statement put it, “committed to the traditional understanding of the institution of marriage as being between one man and one woman.”

Ed Miliband, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, said Monday that he would be “voting for equal marriage in the House of Commons, and I’ll be doing so proudly.” He also said he would urge his 255 legislators in the 649-member body to vote with him, although a small group will likely vote against.

“I’ll be voting for equal marriage for a very simple reason: I don’t think that the person you love should determine the rights you have,” Mr. Miliband said on Monday.

The legislation, which applies to England and Wales, would permit civil marriage between same-sex couples, but specifically exempt the Church of England and other faiths from an obligation to perform such ceremonies. Some faith groups, including the Quakers, have said they want the legal right to perform same-sex marriages.

In their letter, Mr. Osborne, Mr. Hague and Ms. May said: “Our party also has a strong belief in religious freedom, a vital element of a free society. The Bill ensures that no faith group will be forced to conduct same-sex marriages. The legal advice is clear that these protections for religious groups cannot be overturned by the courts.”

“Religious freedom works both ways. Why should faith groups, such as the Quakers, that wish to conduct gay marriages be forbidden from doing so? This Bill will enhance religious freedom, not restrict it.”

Read More..

Jillian Michaels: My Son Phoenix Is 'Fiery' Like Me

Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog

02/04/2013 at 03:00 PM ET

Gregg DeGuire/WireImage

Jillian Michaels‘ son Phoenix is already taking after his mama — just not the expected one!

Although The Biggest Loser trainer expected her baby boy to inherit her partner’s laidback approach to life — Heidi Rhoades delivered their son in May — the 8-month-old’s budding personality is the polar opposite.

“He wants to walk and he gets really pissed about it when he can’t. He gets frustrated,” Michaels, 38, told PEOPLE at the recent TCAs.

“He’s a fiery little sucker, he’s just like me. I’m like, ‘You were supposed to be like Heidi!’ But he’s not. It’s not good, not good.”

Admitting she is “terrified for when he’s a teenager,” Michaels has good reason to be: Recently she spotted her son — who is “crawling aggressively” — putting his electrician skills to the test in the family room.

“He’s into everything, which is kind of a nightmare to be totally honest,” she says. “We have an outlet in the floor in the living room and I caught him eating the outlet on the floor … I was like, ‘Mother of God!’”

Phoenix’s big sister Lukensia, 3, has also been busy keeping her mamas on their toes. “Lu just had her first ski trip and she had a little crush on her teacher, Ollie,” Michaels shares.

“At first I was like, ‘Oh my God, we’re letting our baby go!’ The second day we took her she ran right to him — loves Ollie.”

');var brightcovevideoid = 2096123300001

');var targetVideoWidth = 300;brightcove.createExperiences();/* iPhone, iPad, iPod */if ((navigator.userAgent.match('iPhone')) || (navigator.userAgent.match('iPad')) || (navigator.userAgent.match('iPod')) || (location.search.indexOf('ipad=true') > -1)) { document.write('

Read More..

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

Read More..