fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too Cna yuo raed tihs? i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae.

The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

A US federal judge in California granted Stephen Slesinger Inc., which claims the rights to Winnie the Pooh, a "summary judgment" that effectively ends Disney's efforts to take back the copyright, said attorney Barry Slotnick. "The court once again has once ruled that Disney's claims against Slesinger are improper," Slotnick said in a statement.

"Now that Disney's misguided claims have been dismissed, we can focus on pursuing Slesinger's claims against Disney for damages, trademark and copyright infringement, breach of contract, and fraudulently underpaying royalties, and seeking in excess of two billion dollars in compensatory and general damages," he said. The heirs of Stephen Slesinger, who bought the US rights from "Pooh" author A.A. Milne in 1930 and began licensing them to Disney in 1961, claim the powerful firm has cheated them out of hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties.

Slesinger's widow agreed to negotiate the rights deal with Disney after his death. A first agreement was reached in 1961 and re-negotiated in 1983. Milne's granddaughter, Claire, has sought to claim back the rights to the honey-guzzling bear with Disney's support.

The ruling, disclosed on the court's Web site today, eliminates a procedural hurdle to Slesinger seeking more than $2 billion in damages from Disney. Disney had tried to terminate Slesinger's rights to characters the media company has marketed for more than four decades. Slesinger acquired the rights from Milne in 1930.

"This is definitely a setback for Disney," said Carole Handler, an intellectual property lawyer with Foley & Lardner in Los Angeles. "They tried to dismantle the license of the party that has been most troublesome to them in court."

The ruling is part of a larger 16-year legal battle between Burbank, California-based Disney and closely held Slesinger that's being fought in state and federal courts and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Last week, Los Angeles-based Slesinger asked the Patent Office to cancel rights to 25 Pooh-related names obtained by Disney since 1996. Disney "was not the owner of the registered marks at the time that these filings were made," Slesinger said in a petition. The company was "at most, only a licensee."

Ellenshaw began his association with Walt Disney in 1947, when he was tapped to work on the Studio's first live-action film, "Treasure Island" (1950), and continued working there until his retirement in 1979 following "The Black Hole."

Commenting on Ellenshaw's passing, Roy E. Disney said, "Peter was a Disney legend in every sense of the word and played a vital role in the creation of many of the Studio's greatest live-action films from the very beginning. He was a brilliant and innovative visual effects pioneer who was able to consistently please my Uncle Walt, and push the boundaries of the medium to fantastic new heights. From his incredibly beautiful and effective matte paintings for films like 'Mary Poppins,' 'Treasure Island,' and '20,000 Leagues...,' to his landmark painting of the iconic Disneyland map, he was a true master of his art. Outside of the Studio, he was a fantastic painter in his own right, and I always loved his Irish paintings and felt that he did the best seascapes in the world."

Film critic and historian Leonard Maltin added, "Long before the era of modern special effects, Peter was working his magic in Disney films. People never knew how he accomplished his visual feats. 'Darby O'Gill and the Little People' remains one of the most amazing, eye-popping achievements in all of film history. And when you think that 'Mary Poppins' was made without anyone ever setting foot outside a soundstage -- let alone visiting London -- you get some idea of what he was able to pull off."

Craig Barron, president of Matte World Digital and co-author of the book The Invisible Art: The Legends of Movie Matte Paintings, observed, "Ellenshaw's matte work was truly the stuff that movie magic dreams were made of. He took audiences on cinematic journeys to the most incredible places like Captain Nemo's volcanic island from '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,' or the fairy mountain cave of 'Darby O'Gill and the Little People,' or a tour of London's magical rooftops for 'Mary Poppins.' His matte painting work belongs to that unsung craft that's now virtually disappeared. With only a small crew, he created, almost single-handedly, incredible movie making locations with just the sublime artistry of brush strokes -- literally the 'art' in movies that generations of audiences have appreciated unawares, thanks to the skill of this great-departed movie artist."

Born in Great Britain in 1913, Ellenshaw began his film career in the early 1930s, when he apprenticed for visual effects pioneer W. Percy (Pop) Day, O.B.E. He worked on such productions as "Things to Come," "Rembrandt," "Elephant Boy," "Sixty Glorious Years," "A Matter of Life and Death," and the Michael Powell-Emeric Pressburger classic "Black Narcissus."

After a stint as a pilot in the RAF during World War II, Ellenshaw created matte paintings for MGM's "Quo Vadis." In 1947, his work caught the attention of an art director for the Walt Disney Studios. Disney was in the pre- planning stages of his very first live-action film, "Treasure Island," which would be produced in Great Britain, and the art director inquired if Ellenshaw would be interested in the project. Thus began a professional collaboration and friendship with Walt Disney that would span over 30 years and 34 films.

Ellenshaw regarded Walt Disney as a source of inspiration, a wonderful executive, and over the years, a good friend. "Walt had the ability to communicate with artists," observed Ellenshaw. "He'd talk to you on your level -- artist to artist. He used to say, 'I can't draw, Peter.' But he had the soul of an artist, and he had a wonderful way of transferring his enthusiasm to you."

Among his many projects at Disney, Ellenshaw made major artistic contributions to the television shows "Davy Crockett" and "Zorro," and such classic feature films as "The Sword in the Rose," "The Story of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men," "Darby O'Gill and the Little People," "Third Man on the Mountain," "Swiss Family Robinson," "The Love Bug," "Bedknobs and Broomsticks," and "The Black Hole." He officially retired from the Studio in 1979 but returned years later to paint several matte paintings for the 1990 film, "Dick Tracy." He was designated a "Disney Legend" in 1993.

In addition to his career in the motion picture industry, Ellenshaw became known as one of the finest marine artists of the past century known not only for his dramatic seascapes but his elegant Irish landscapes and vivid oils of the Himalayas and Monet's garden at Giverny.

Ellenshaw's beloved wife of 58 years, Bobbie, passed away in 2000. He is survived by his two children, Lynda Ellenshaw Thompson (an industry veteran visual effects producer), and Harrison Ellenshaw (a visual effects artist who was an Oscar nominee for "The Black Hole," matte supervisor on "Star Wars: Episodes IV and V" and visual effects supervisor for "Tron"), as well as his two grandchildren, Michael and Hilary. Funeral services will be private. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Direct Relief International, Santa Barbara, California.

In an interview, Roy said she would 'stagnate' as a writer if she were to continue to publish only non-fiction. "As a writer I have to go to a different place now. As a person ... I want to step off whatever this stage is that I have been given," said Roy in the interview. "The argument has been made, the battle remains to be fought, and that requires a different set of skills."

Following her Booker win and the monumental success of The God of Small Things, Roy has spent the last decade writing non-fiction and championing grassroots activism as a social and environmental activist, her protest against the Narmada valley dam project in 2002 saw her imprisoned for a day and fined for contempt of court.

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"I also feel very imprisoned by facts, by having to get it right," she said to Reuters' Simon Denyer. "I don't want to play these games of statistics any more, I have done that. I don't want to be imprisoned by that, or by the morality that is expected of activists. I have never been that pristine person, that role model." The report says that Roy would say little about her new book, other than that she has spent a lot of time in the state of Kashmir. The God of Small Things was set in Kerala, the state in which Roy grew up.

"I am very conscious that, from the time of The God of Small Things was published 10 years ago, we are in a different world ... which needs to be written about differently, and I really very much want to do that," she explained. "Just as resistance movements need to reinvent themselves, to shed their tired, old slogans, we all need to find new ways of doing what we've been doing. And that includes me."

Police escorted Elie Wiesel to San Francisco International Airport on Feb. 1 after a man accosted Wiesel in the elevator at the Argent Hotel, at 50 Third St., after Wiesel participated in a panel discussion at a peace conference and before Wiesel was scheduled to catch a flight back to New York. Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor and author of more than 40 books, including the memoir Night, about his experiences at Auschwitz, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. Last fall, the Boston University professor was suggested as a possible replacement for Israeli President Moshe Katsav, who faces sexual assault charges.

Police confirmed this week that the attack took place and that officers escorted Wiesel to the airport following the attack. According to police, the suspect accosted Wiesel in the hotel elevator at around 6:30 p.m., saying he wanted to interview him. Wiesel said he would do the interview in the lobby. That's when the attacker pulled him out of the elevator, police reported.

In a posting Tuesday on the anti-Zionist Web site ZioPedia, a writer using the name Eric Hunt takes credit for the attack: "After ensuring no women would be traumatized by what I had to do (I had been trailing Wiesel for weeks), I stopped the elevator at the sixth floor. I pulled Wiesel out of the elevator. I said I wanted to interview him." Wiesel grabbed at his chest and yelled for help, according to the posting. "I told him, 'Why don't you want people to know the truth?' His expression changed, and he began screaming again. …" the posting reads. Police reported that the suspect tried to force Wiesel into one of the rooms, but ran away when Wiesel started yelling.

The online posting states that the writer intended to "bring Wiesel to my hotel room where he would truthfully answer my questions regarding the fact that his non-fiction Holocaust memoir, Night, is almost entirely fictitious." Later in the posting, the Holocaust is portrayed as a myth.

A Los Angeles judge Wednesday extended an injunction first issued last month prohibiting the former football star from spending any of the reported $1 million advance he received for his ill-fated book and TV special If I Did It, a hypothetical confessional about the slayings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman.

Superior Court Judge Gerald Rosenberg broadened his Jan. 4 ruling, which originally only precluded Simpson from spending money from past book, movie or sports deals. It did not include keeping tabs on his If I Did It payout because the Goldman family had filed a separate federal lawsuit concerning the allocation of that money. However, the Goldmans' federal suit was rejected late last month over issues of jurisdiction, thereby clearing the way for the new order.

The extended ruling bars Simpson from "transferring, conveying, expending, liquidating, encumbering, hiding, concealing or otherwise disposing" of the $1.1 million he purportedly pocketed for If I Did It, though he is allowed to access money for "ordinary living expenses." Ron Goldman's father, Fred, made the injunction request as part of a state lawsuit filed in December, accusing Simpson of fraudulent conveyance—namely, setting up a bogus corporation, Lorraine Brooke Associates, to funnel the advance he received from would-be publisher ReganBooks. The Goldmans claim that the fake account was set up so that Simpson would not be forced to relinquish any money to make good on the $33.5 million wrongful-death judgment the Goldman and Brown families won against the sports star in 1997.

"This is a sad turn of events for book reviews. AP reviews, even small, ran far and wide, and always helped sales," said a book-company publicist who alerted Editor & Publisher to AP's decision. The publicist requested anonymity.

When E&P asked AP about the decision, Linda M. Wagner, the wire service's director of media relations and public affairs, said in a statement today: "AP is revamping its Lifestyles coverage to focus more resources on topics like food and parenting, and as a result we are discontinuing the book-review package that had moved through that department." She added that AP "remains as committed as ever" to covering books—via reviews, features about authors, etc.—through its Arts and Entertainment Department.

"In addition, there is a full-time reporter on AP's national staff, Hillel Italie, whose beat is publishing and books," Wagner said. "[And] we've written a healthy number of spot-news stories related to books, including the announcements of the final Harry Potter installment and the next book pick by both Oprah Winfrey and Starbucks, the National Book Critics Circle finalists, the Newbery-Caldecott prize winners, an obituary of author Tillie Olsen, and a piece about George McGovern's plans to write a biography of Abraham Lincoln."

For instance, Ben Sargent of the Austin (Texas) American-Statesman and Universal Press Syndicate showed Ivins' tombstone engraved with the word "Farewell!" A kid at the site says: "Molly Ivins can't say that, can she?" -- a reference to the title of one of the late columnist's books.

Signe Wilkinson of The Philadelphia Daily News and the Washington Post Writers Group drew a man in a cowboy hat walking past Ivins' grave. He says: "But if everyone thought like her, we'd NEVER start misbegotten wars we can't get out of." Mike Keefe of The Denver Post and the Cagle Cartoons (CC) syndicate showed President Bush with smoking feet no longer held to the fire because they were freed from a feet-holding device with the late Ivins' name on it.

Pat Bagley of The Salt Lake Tribune and CC drew two people looking at a statue of Ivins. The statue's inscription has Ivins saying: "The President does not have the sense God gave a duck -- so it's up to you and me." But the "and me" is crossed out. And Mike Lane of CC showed a whip with Ivins' name on it descending from the clouds and snapping at Bush's heels. "We are the deciders!" is written in the sky as an alarmed Bush asks: "Is that you, God?"

In Inkheart, directed by Iain Softley, Mirren plays Elinor, the reclusive book-loving aunt of Brendan Fraser's Mo, a man with the ability to bring literary characters to life by reading aloud. Andy Serkis and Paul Bettany also star as two characters from a book called Inkheart, who are brought into the world by Mo. The film, based on the best-selling novel by Cornelia Funke, is currently filming at Shepperton Studios in London.

Mirren, who has already won a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild award this year for The Queen, said that working on Inkheart has reminded her of her experience on the 1981 film Excalibur. "I love fantasy movies," she said. "One of the happiest movies of my life was doing Excalibur, which was many years ago and done as Iain was making this, without special [computer] effects. ... Excalibur was done completely with lighting gels and real stuff." Inkheart will be released in 2008.