Looks like Kim Kardashian‘s divorce is going to be down and dirty!

This afternoon, Kim arrived in justice and sat sensitively as a box was called, in hopes that currently would finish her prolonged time onslaught to get a divorce — though Kris Humphries didn’t even uncover up!

Kris won’t settle for anything reduction than an nullification on drift of fraud. Kim refuses to acknowledge their matrimony was a scam!

No consternation they weren’t means to strech an agreement! Kris’s counsel Lee Hutton said:

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[Image around WENN.]

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A glass-bottomed vessel glides along H2O in Silver Springs, Fla. The springs, once a vital traveller destination, have declined both in volume and in H2O quality.

Greg Allen/NPR

A glass-bottomed vessel glides along H2O in Silver Springs, Fla. The springs, once a vital traveller destination, have declined both in volume and in H2O quality.

Greg Allen/NPR

Before Disney World, Silver Springs in Central Florida was for decades one of a state’s many renouned traveller destinations.

Even if you’ve never visited Silver Springs, we competence have seen it — if you’re aged enough. The 1960s radio uncover Sea Hunt was filmed here, as were large cinema including Tarzan and Creature from a Black Lagoon.

The transparent transparent H2O of Silver Springs done it useful to Hollywood. Guy Marwick, a owner of a Silver River Museum, says it drew over a million visitors a year.

“It was not an entertainment park in a clarity of Coney Island and a rides that one competence associate with it,” Marwick says. “It was kind of a healthy Florida, and we consider that’s what people are anticipating to see it go behind to now.”

Repairing The Springs

Later this year, Florida’s park use will take over Silver Springs and start operative to revive it to a some-more healthy state. That is a outrageous task, however, and over a past dual decades Silver Springs — and many springs in Florida — have depressed on tough times.

Drought, expansion and extreme groundwater pumping have cut a volume of H2O issuing here in half. From a corridor that overlooks a conduct spring, a H2O is still blue and transparent clear, with fish, turtles and alligators clearly visible.

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Alligators object themselves along a open waters in Silver Springs, Fla.

Greg Allen/NPR

Alligators object themselves along a open waters in Silver Springs, Fla.

Greg Allen/NPR

But executive of a Florida Springs Institute Robert Knight says demeanour closer and you’ll see a problem: wickedness from cultivation and residential expansion has helped cloak a open with algae.

“This open was white on a bottom,” Knight says. “It was a sandy bottom and [with] shells; it was only lustrous … Now, it’s immature on a bottom since it’s lonesome with algae. It’s only not intense during we a approach it used to.”

When a park use takes over operations during Silver Springs, a rides and a invertebrate farm, with a dual albino alligators, will be gone. But a signature captivate of a springs — a famous glass-bottom boats — will remain.

Glass-bottom vessel captain Oscar Collins has seen large changes during Silver Springs over his 44 years spent operative there. On a new day, only a few dozen people are in a park, a large contrariety with Silver Springs’ heyday in a 1960s.

“We were doing 4 and 5 thousand people in a center of a day and on weekends 6 and seven,” Collins says. “We are losing people here.”

The boats slip over a open vents that broach millions of gallons of H2O from Florida’s aquifer into a Silver River. Like all springs in Florida, many reduction H2O that was constructed only 10 years ago.

Fish are no longer abundant, yet there are some like a long-nosed gar. Most of a nautical plants are lonesome by algae. Nitrates in a open water, many of it from fertiliser widespread on farms and lawns, promotes a expansion of algae and Knight says, eventually kills a plants.

“It would be comfortless to remove all this foliage in Silver Springs,” he says. “But a other springs, we’ve already mislaid all a plants.”

State Intervention

A dozen years ago, alarm over a decrease of Florida’s springs drew a courtesy of domestic leaders in Tallahassee. Then-Gov. Jeb Bush launched an beginning to save a some-more than a thousand springs via a state. That module was defunded final year by Florida’s stream governor, Rick Scott.

But for Silver Springs during least, a state takeover is good news. To urge a H2O peculiarity of a springs, Florida regulators have set targets for shortening a volume of nitrates. Hitting those targets yet will meant addressing a sources of pollution, putting thousands of septic tanks on open cesspool systems and aggressively shortening a volume of fertiliser used by homeowners and farmers.

Drew Bartlett of Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection acknowledges it’s a large endeavour that could take decades.

Related NPR Stories

“Well, it positively is a challenge,” Bartlett says, “and my response has radically [been] that’s not an forgive not to get started.”

Springs advocates are generally involved about a intensity new source of wickedness only a few miles from Silver Springs. Water government officials are deliberation skeleton for a outrageous cattle plantation that would repel millions of gallons a day from a aquifer that feeds a springs.

The 15,000 to 20,000 conduct of cattle would furnish as many as a million pounds of fertiliser a day.

“What we’re removing is really complete farms regulating a lot of H2O with really large wells and regulating a lot of fertiliser to maximize their profits,” says Robert Knight. “That’s what’s spiteful a springs.”

In some ways, Florida’s involved springs are a sign of a incomparable problem. With expansion and wells sunk for all from golf courses to bottled H2O plants, Florida’s aquifer is being depleted.

In some areas, a aquifer — that many Floridians rest on for celebration H2O — has forsaken by 60 feet. Some coastal communities are now removing saltwater in their wells, that costs millions to treat.

The many manifest effect of extreme pumping from a aquifer might be Florida’s widespread of sinkholes, including a large one nearby Tampa recently that claimed a man’s life.

Josh Hallet around Flickr

Disney reliable rumors this week that it would be laying off staff in a pierce to streamline a businesses.  

Mouse House cut 150 positions from several film studio divisions, scarcely dual percent of a division’s 7,000 altogether jobs, according to Bloomberg.

Disney’s studio dialect is done adult of theatrical distribution, home entertainment, and television.

Disney announced a cuts as “part of an ongoing examination to safeguard that a Studios’ operational structure and economics align with a final of a stream marketplace” in a orator statement.  

Last week, cuts were reported to be partial of an inner review systematic by Disney CEO and Chairman Bob Iger.

The layoffs were a second turn Disney done in a week after closing Lucasfilm’s video diversion division, LucasArts, and laying off 150 staff members. 

Disney acquired Lucasfilm final December in a $4 billion deal.

Business Insider held adult with Jeff Gomez CEO of Starlight Runner Entertainment to plead a many new layoffs and those during LucasArts. 

Starlight Runner closely marks projects during all of a vital studios. Gomez has worked on Disney’s “Pirates of a Caribbean” and has served as a code prolongation consultant to a company.

Here’s what’s going on during a Mouse House: 

Home melodramatic sales are down

Youtube/OnlyOneMovieCind

A “Cinderella” re-release didn’t go over good with consumers.

During Disney’s Q1 earning’s call in February, Iger concurred an handling income diminution in a home party and melodramatic businesses due to a bad sell performances of “Brave” and a re-release of “Cinderella.” 

“Home party formula faced a formidable comparison given a releases of Cars 2 and a Lion King final year compared to Brave and Cinderella this year. While melodramatic income was aloft in a entertain due to a recover of Wreck-It Ralph, Lincoln and Frankenweenie, handling income declined as a outcome of aloft placement and film amortization costs compared to before year.” 

Disney’s many new 10K SEC filing expands on this more:

Lower home party income reflected a 23% diminution from a diminution in section sales and an 8% diminution from reduce net effective pricing including a impact of a aloft current-quarter sales brew of catalog titles, that have a reduce sales cost than new releases. Significant titles in a stream year included Brave, Cinderella Diamond Release and Marvel’s The Avengers …

As a result, Gomez says the latest turn of layoffs during a studio make a lot of sense.  

“Our mass acclimatisation to a digital and cloud-based multitude is picking adult steam and impacting DVD / Blu-Ray, consumer products and placement to contend a least,” says Gomez. “It creates clarity to pierce people around as a result, or to even cut staff. We final saw this during a studios not prolonged after DVD sales appearance progressing final decade.”

Moving divided from in-house studio films 

Marvel screencap

Another cause that has influenced a studio is Disney’s reduced faith on distributing reduction films by a possess studio.  

Last September, Disney took a reported $50 million write-down on a stop-motion animation plan set to entrance tumble 2013. 

During 2012’s Q4 gain call final November, Chief Financial Officer and Senior Executive Vice President James A. Rasulo mentioned a termination of a film, “Cinderbiter,” was obliged for 98% of a write-downs Q4 2012.

Instead a Mouse House turns to a large 3 acquisitions—Pixar, Marvel, and, now Lucasfilm—to broach hits.

“With Pixar, Lucasfilm and Marvel, some-more of Disney’s pivotal product is being grown off a studio lot and with larger autonomy,” says Gomez. “This taxes a studio correct reduction than in a past, though pulls a concentration to some of Disney’s biggest strengths: selling and distribution, consumer products and thesis parks. You can design these groups to be bolstered in a entrance months.”

This year, a association will recover a sum of ten films. Its large hits for a year embody Marvel’s “Iron Man III” and “Thor: The Dark World,” Pixar’s “Monsters University.”

Four months into a year, a association has only expelled one movie, “Oz a Great and Powerful,” with skeleton to recover 10 this year.

There was a time a Mouse House was putting out triple that series of films in 2000. Last year, Disney expelled 18 movies.

Laying off LucasArts staff

Getty Images

Disney acquired both Lucasfilm and LucasArts during a finish of final year in a $4 billion deal.

Gomez says a preference to absolved of Lucasfilm’s gaming multiplication many expected had to do with a LucasArt’s placement record. 

“Although LucasArts have done some good games over a years, a division’s record for hits was inconsistent, that was something Disney was already informed with,” says Gomez.

Plus a Mouse House doesn’t need another video diversion multiplication that might broach flops.

The shred posted waste for 19-consecutive quarters. Despite posting its first increase in Q1 2013, Interactive is still Disney’s slightest essential division.

Gomez adds it’s rarely doubtful that a LucasArts cancelled diversion “Star Wars 1313,” that was rumored to revolve around annuity hunter Boba Fett, fell in line with Disney’s line of family-friendly material.

“Major projects in prolongation like a Star Wars 1313 diversion might have been significantly afield tonally (e.g., most darker) from a kinds of films and radio shows now being designed for a franchise. Fortunately we’re saying indications that some of a good talent from that multiplication will be anticipating their approach into film prolongation during Lucasfilm.”

Later this year, Disney is anticipating on a large strike from a video diversion dialect with a recover of an interactive game, “Disney Infinity,” something Iger hinted can be a make or mangle for a Interactive division in February.

“The biggest pitch cause for a year, as we pronounced in my remarks, is Infinity,” pronounced Iger. “If Infinity does well, it bodes really good for a bottom line for this unit. If it doesn’t do well, a conflicting will be a case.”

The game’s recover date has already been pushed behind from Jun to Aug of this year.

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On a surface, Game of Thrones competence not seem to have all that many in common with Disney’s criterion of classical charcterised films. GOT is mostly brutally aroused and brimful with nudity, though take those things divided from during slightest one sold storyline and you’ve got all a mixture of a classical Disney fairytale.

Daenerys Targaryen, an banished princess with an love for mythic creatures and a large child pining after her, unequivocally does fit a mold, doesn’t she? Give her a small strain to sing and she’s many Aurora from Sleeping Beauty.

So that’s accurately what YouTubers AVbyte did. In their clip, Daenerys (Evelina Barry) looks out on a open sea and sings “Out there opposite a sea / Where my life was meant to be / My home and people wait for me.” Later in a song, Daenerys’ ever-faithful and lovesick menial Jorah Mormont (Peter Hollens) arrives to announce her “all that I’ve been emotional for.”

It’s a unequivocally well-done (and frankly, flattering reverential) parody. Check it out below.

Read more:
‘Game of Thrones’ producers QA: Why deteriorate 3 is a many epic yet
‘Game of Thrones’ ratings solid for second episode
‘Game of Thrones’ Emilia Clarke says Dany gets fast-paced deteriorate 3

What’s cute, furry, and iOS all over? MinoMonsters!

MinoMonsters is a mobile gaming startup that expelled vital updates to a diversion currently and common some news surrounding a company’s progress. MinoMonsters is a Pokémon-inspired diversion in that players collect, train, and conflict “minos.” The renouned app is No. 75 on a tip grossing charts in a Apple App Store, now has some-more than 2.5 million players, and generates millions in revenue.

Today, MinoMonsters also announced that it acquired a tiny HTML5 gaming startup, sealed a kids’ book understanding to assistance renovate into a bigger brand, and is now underneath illustration of WME, one of Hollywood’s biggest talent agencies. Founder and CEO Josh Buckley pronounced that a association is starting to ramp adult their chartering into toys, trade cards, TV, movies, and so on … and subsequent week, MinoMonsters will launch charcterised shows on YouTube.

“We’re formulating one of a biggest kids brands in a world,” Buckley pronounced in an email. “Big brands used to start out as TV shows or movies; however, now a indication is changing. Hollywood is coming us. The subsequent Disney is going to start out as a character-driven mobile game, and we’re during a forefront.”

Buckley went by Y Combinator during a age of 18, a youngest owner in a module during a time. After graduating from a open 2011 class, he lifted $2 million from Andreessen Horowitz, SV Angel, General Catalyst, Ignition Partners, and Alexis Ohanian.

This expert child from Kent, England began freelance programming during a age of 11. He built a array of applications and sole Menewsha, a village for people to emanate avatars, for 6 total when he was only 15 years old. He afterwards became a immature angel investors and went on to emanate MinoMonsters in 2010. His ultimate prophesy is to be a cross-channel code that extends over a gaming world.

At first, MinoMonsters was paid-for download, though now it is giveaway with a further of in-app purchases. Buckley also altered a concentration of a diversion divided from an scrutiny to battle. The new refurbish lets players conflict anybody in a world, and new animations will be expelled subsequent week.

Photo credit: MinoMonsters

GamesBeat 2013 is a fifth annual discussion on intrusion in a video diversion market. You’ll get 360-degree perspectives from tip gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in a industry. Our thesis this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full eventuality sum here, and squeeze your early-bird tickets here!

Our minds are blown!

In new weeks Amanda Bynes threatened former friends with lawsuits, invited Drake to knowledge her vagina initial hand, and certified to cutting her relatives out of her life — though that isn’t a whole story!

While a She’s a Man star pushes divided reporters, papparazzi, friends, and family with one hand, she is literally BEGGING to turn a Queen of Twitter with a other!!!

Amanda revealed

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[Image around Ramey Pix.]

PlaySquare, a startup founded by a group of Emmy-winning children’s radio producers interested in bringing “touchable TV” to a iPad, has found a new home and partner in a efforts interjection to an investment from Curious Pictures. The NYC-based prolongation company, famous for renouned children’s programming like Disney’s “Little Einsteins,” Nick Jr.’s “Team Umizoomi,” HBO’s “A Little Curious,” as good as some-more adult-oriented films and games (including RockBand), has invested $660,000 into PlaySquare, and will account adult to an additional $1.5 million over a march of a subsequent dual years.

As a outcome of a funding, PlaySquare will immigrate to Curious’s New York offices, where their now seven-person group will be means to take advantage of a pool of knowledge, talent and infrastructure in a incomparable organization. At any given point, depending on what skill it’s operative on during a time, Curious Pictures competence have adult to 150 people it calls on to assistance design, arise and furnish a programs.

Startups in a kids’ apps space are mostly anticipating homes within incomparable companies these days, or chartering calm with bigger-name kids brands to drawn in their audience. For example, obvious kids’ app builder Toca Boca actually operates as a startup within a 200-year-old Swedish edition company Bonnier, and is now growing through acquisitions. Meanwhile, another kids app firm, Callaway Digital, teamed adult with Hasbro late final year, and FingerPrint, founded by a former LeapFrog exec, partnered with UK’s MindShapes and also licensed calm from third-party brands like VeggieTales.

Like many, PlaySquare is also betting on a energy of a built-in assembly to assistance it benefit traction. In this startup’s case, it has a rights to use a resources from the three-time Emmy-award-winning PBS TV show WordWorld, that it has been transforming into interactive, “touchable” television, enchanting children not usually with stories to watch passively, though also with “in-TV” activities that swell a story. This is some-more than an interactive storybook and it’s opposite from a child’s diversion with an concomitant narrative. It’s truly interactive radio – something children’s TV producers have prolonged sought after, though that hasn’t unequivocally been probable until a iPad.

CEO Alex Kay, who founded WordWorld behind in a day, explains that longer-term a association would adore to get into some-more strange calm like aspirant Kidaptive is doing. But he thinks that going after those who already know about WordWorld is a improved approach to start.

“The business indication is unequivocally tough in this app world,” he says. “It’s formidable to arise above a fray.”

And yet, even with a brand-name approval of an award-winning PBS show, it’s still tough to contest with hundreds of thousands of apps in a iTunes App Store. Today, PlaySquare has tighten to 100,000 downloads – that in a grand intrigue of things is small. Though it’s important that PlaySquare has warranted those eyeballs notwithstanding not carrying finished any graduation for a app, it still has a approach to go.

That being said, children are rarely intent with PlaySquare content, and have spent over 13 million mins in a app given its launch final summer, averaging some-more than 5 mins per session, and returning to play over and over again.

And with a new resources during a ordering around Curious’s investment, PlaySquare has a possibility to grow. It skeleton to recover dual some-more episodes of WordWorld this tumble ($2.99 any around in-app purchase) and has sealed adult a second, still undisclosed skill that will go into prolongation this fall.

Though Curious has relations with folks like Disney and Nickelodeon, for example, Kay explains that PlaySquare won’t be gratified to usually operative with those who have engaged with Curious – it’s going after a possess deals, as is a box with a new, unnamed addition. Longer-term, he feels that PlaySquare can spin a good partner for bigger TV brands that pull out hundreds of episodes of normal programming.

“Most of these – Nick, Disney and PBS – are focused on removing radio calm out, rather than chartering these other income streams and formulating a whole second prolongation studio for these apps,” says Kay. “We’d like to be a studio that helps them get this things to market,” he adds. “If they’re producing a hundred episodes, we can take 10 episodes and spin that into substantial television.”

PlaySquare, a personal favorite in a home we competence add, is a giveaway download here in a App Store.

• PLAYSQUARE

PlaySquare™ is Touchable Television™ – a totally new iPad knowledge for children where they spin partial of a storyworld with a hold of a finger!

PlaySquare was shaped by a group of Emmy endowment winning children’s media and record veterans who have total their efforts to arise a subsequent era of children’s media: “touchable television”. Touchable radio seamlessly combines existent radio episodes with interactive calm to concede a child to step into and attend in a story-world of a television…

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