Danny Puff

(Reuters) - A dog's life in Formula One, if your owner is Lewis Hamilton, means a VIP pass to the races and being pampered by the sport's supremo Bernie Ecclestone.

Hamilton, the 2008 champion who moved from McLaren to Mercedes at the end of last year, has acquired a bulldog called Roscoe which accompanied him to the last pre-season test in Barcelona.

The Briton told reporters before this weekend's Australian season-opener in Melbourne that he had asked Ecclestone for a paddock pass for his "new best buddy" and had sent him a photograph of the puppy wearing a set of headphones.

"He has - and, yes, he will get it. I am a huge fan of bulldogs," Ecclestone, 82, told the official formula1.com website on Wednesday.

"I have told him that I would also be happy giving the dog a pass for the grid. And I will be happy to look after the dog while he is racing."

Animals are usually banned from racetracks, for safety reasons more than for their own welfare, with stray dogs causing problems in the past at some venues such as India.

In the United States, the Target Chip Ganassi IndyCar team have a bull-terrier mascot 'Bullseye' that has made appearances at race weekends including the Indy 500 winner's news conference with Dario Franchitti in 2012.

(Reporting by Alan Baldwin in London, editing by Alison Wildey)

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If he lived in England, he'd surely be Sir Bob Dylan.

The most influential songwriter of his time has become the first rock star voted into the elite, century-old American Academy of Arts and Letters, where artists range from Philip Roth to Jasper Johns and categories include music, literature and visual arts. According to executive director Virginia Dajani, officials couldn't decide whether he belonged for his words or for his music, so they settled on making him an honorary member, joining such previous choices as Meryl Streep, Woody Allen and a filmmaker who has made a documentary about Dylan, Martin Scorsese.

"The board of directors considered the diversity of his work and acknowledged his iconic place in the American culture," Dajani said recently. "Bob Dylan is a multi-talented artist whose work so thoroughly crosses several disciplines that it defies categorization."

Dylan's manager, Jeff Rosen, had no immediate comment on Dylan's reaction Dylan did accept membership, a condition for the vote to go through or whether he would attend the academy's April dinner or May induction ceremony. Dylan usually tours in the spring and is already booked for much of April for shows in the East and Midwest, none of them in the New York City area.

"I would guess it's unlikely," Dajani said of whether Dylan would show up for either occasion.

On Tuesday, the academy announced three other honorary choices, all from overseas: Spanish architect Rafael Moneo, South African writer Damon Galgut and Belgian artist Luc Tuymans. Voted into the academy's core membership were the novelist Ward Just, known for his stories set in Washington, D.C.; the influential minimalist artist Richard Tuttle and the acclaimed painter and printmaker Terry Winters.

Excluding honorary picks, the academy consists of 250 artists, musicians and writers. Openings occur upon a member's death, with current inductees nominating and voting in new ones. Members have no real responsibilities beyond agreeing to join, although some become active in the academy, which awards prizes worth as much as $200,000.

Founded in 1898 and based in upper Manhattan, the academy once was designed to keep the likes of Dylan away, shunning everyone from jazz artists to modernist poets. Even now, the vast majority of the musicians come from the classical community, with exceptions including Stephen Sondheim and Ornette Coleman. Dajani and other officials have said that the academy is reluctant to vote in rock performers because they already have organizations, such as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, to honor them.

The 71-year-old Dylan is already the first rock performer to receive a nomination from the National Book Critics Circle, for his memoir "Chronicles: Volume One"; and the first to receive a Pulitzer Prize, an honorary one in 2008. He's routinely mentioned as a Nobel candidate and for decades has been scrutinized obsessively by academics and popular critics.

Dylan has had fans and even friends in the academy, among them the late poet Allen Ginsberg. A Dylan admirer and 2012 inductee, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon, will give the keynote address at the May ceremony. The title will be "Rock 'n' Roll."

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Online:

http://www.artsandletters.org/

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By Tim Kenneally

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Sharon Stone just can't seem to find good (or at least non-litigious) help these days.

"Basic Instinct" actress Stone has been sued by a domestic worker - the second one to file suit against her in as many years.

In a complaint filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Monday, Angelica Castillo claims that she was fired after two-plus years as a housekeeper. Castillo claims that, after she injured her back while performing her duties, Stone refused to let Castillo honor her doctor's orders - going so far as to call her "stupid" and "crazy."

Castillo claims that, in June 2012, she injured her back while unloading groceries, causing her "extreme and severe physical pain."

According to Castillo, on September 28, she was placed on modified duty at work by her doctor, and told to "undertake a brief period of bed rest." However, the lawsuit claims, Castillo was told that she was made to come into work that day. Moreover, she alleges, "Despite physician's orders to avoid lifting heavy objects, Plaintiff was required to perform her regular duties including but not limited to grocery shopping, lifting and moving heavy items as part of cleaning the residence."

A spokesman for Stone has not yet responded to TheWrap's request for comment.

On October 1, Castillo claims, while she was still in "severe pain," Stone "repeatedly yelled at Plaintiff for performing her duties more slowly, and called her 'crazy' and 'stupid.'"

Castillo says she was fired that same day, after Stone and other, unnamed defendants refused to even look at her doctor's report.

Alleging wrongful termination, wrongful retaliation, failure to provide accommodation and failure to engage in good faith interactive process, Castillo is seeking unspecified damages, plus a declaration that Stone has engaged in unlawful employment discrimination, lawsuit costs, interest, and attorney and expert witness fees.

Last May, Stone was sued by a woman claiming to be her former nanny, who said that Stone made disparaging remarks about her ethnicity and religious beliefs, and illegally fired her for receiving rightfully obtained overtime pay.

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By David Beasley

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Lawyers for an Atlanta woman who says basketball legend Michael Jordan is the father of her 16-year-old son asked a judge Tuesday to order Jordan to immediately take a DNA test.

Pamela Smith, 48, filed a paternity suit against Jordan last month seeking child support. Jordan denies he is the father of the child and has also filed a counterclaim seeking sanctions against Smith for making false claims.

Smith acknowledged in a divorce proceeding that her now ex-husband is the father of the child, according to Jordan's lawyers.

"It is unfortunate that well known figures are the target of these kind of claims," Jordan's spokeswoman, Estee Portnoy, said in a statement.

However, Smith attorney Randy Kessler said Tuesday that a simple $300 saliva test will prove or disprove the paternity question.

In a court filing Tuesday, Kessler asked Fulton County Superior Court Judge Wendy Shoob to order Jordan to submit to "immediate genetic testing." There was no immediate ruling from Shoob following a 20-minute hearing Tuesday in the judge's chambers, Kessler said.

"My son has the right to know who his father is," Smith told reporters after the hearing. "He has had an issue with it over the years."

If Jordan is ordered to pay child support it would only be for about two years until the 16-year-old graduates from high school, Kessler said.

"If this was about money, she would have filed suit 10 years ago," the attorney said.

Jordan's attorney, John Mayoue, declined to comment following Tuesday's hearing. Jordan himself did not attend the hearing.

Jordan, 50, is widely hailed as the best basketball player of all time and was a member of six NBA championship teams with the Chicago Bulls. He is majority owner of the NBA's Charlotte Bobcats team.

(Editing by Tom Brown. Editing by Andre Grenon)

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(Reuters) - Apple Inc has a 25 percent chance of missing its quarterly revenue forecast as iPhone sales slow and Samsung launches its highly anticipated Galaxy S4 smartphone, Jefferies analyst Peter Misek said.

Misek, who has previously raised red flags when Apple cut orders to suppliers, cut his iPhone sales estimate for the quarter ending March to 35 million from 37.5 million.

He cut his target price on Apple's stock to $420 from $500. Misek, who has drawn comparisons between Apple and fading handset makers such as BlackBerry and Motorola, had a price target of $900 on Apple shares in August.

"When handset makers fall out of favor they fall faster/further than expected," he said in a research note.

Apple's stock was down 1.8 percent at $430.20 on the Nasdaq on Tuesday.

Misek said he expected Apple to report second-quarter revenue of $41 billion, at the low end of the company's own forecast of $41 billion to $43 billion.

Analysts on average expect current quarter revenue of $43 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Apple missed Wall Street's revenue forecast for the quarter ended December 31 and disappointing holiday sales reinforced fears it was losing its dominance in smartphones.

The launch of the iPhone 5S may be delayed, said Misek who is rated four stars out of five by Thomson Reuters StarMine for the accuracy of his earnings estimates on Apple.

"Apple's suppliers are having problems with the new casing colors leading to a push out from Jun to Jul-Sep after Apple hoped to pull forward the update," he said.

(Reporting by Sayantani Ghosh in Bangalore; Editing by Joyjeet Das)

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ST. LOUIS (AP) Mark Mihal was having a good opening day on the links when he noticed an unusual depression on the 14th fairway at Annbriar Golf Club in southern Illinois. Remarking to his friends how awkward it would be to have to hit out of it, he went over for a closer look.

One step onto the pocked section and the 43-year-old mortgage broker plunged into a sinkhole. He landed 18 feet down with a painful thud, and his friends managed to hoist him to safety with a rope after about 20 minutes. But Friday's experience gave Mihal quite a fright, particularly after the recent death of a Florida man whose body hasn't been found since a sinkhole swallowed him and his bedroom.

"I feel lucky just to come out of it with a shoulder injury, falling that far and not knowing what I was going to hit," Mihal, from the St. Louis suburb of Creve Coeur, told The Associated Press before heading off to learn whether he'll need surgery. "It was absolutely crazy."

Annbriar general manager Russ Nobbe described the sinkhole as "an extremely unfortunate event, an event we feel is an act of nature."

"We don't feel there is any way we could have foreseen this happening," he told a Tuesday news conference.

Mihal said it was a real downer on what had been a fine outing.

With winter finally nearing an end, "it was the first day to get to play in a long time," he said. "So I wasn't expecting too much."

Golfing with buddies, Mihal was waiting to hit his third shot, some 100 yards from the pin on the par 5, when he noticed a bathtub-looking indentation about knee deep just behind him on the fairway. At just one over par for the round, the golfer with a 6 handicap was on a roll.

Then the ground gave way beneath him.

"It didn't look unstable," Mihal said. "And then I was gone. I was just freefalling. It felt like forever, but it was just a second or two, and I didn't know what I was going to hit. And all I saw was darkness."

His golfing buddies didn't see him vanish into the earth but noticed he wasn't visible, figuring he had tripped and fallen out of sight down a hill. But one of them heard Mihal's moans and went to investigate.

"He just thought it was some crazy magic trick or something," Mihal said.

Hardly.

Getting panicky and knowing his shoulder "was busted," Mihal assessed his dilemma in pitch darkness as he rested on a mound of mud, wondering if the ground would give way more and send him deeper into the pit that was 10-feet wide at the opening, then broadened out into the shape of a bell below the surface.

"I was looking around, clinging to the mud pile, trying to see if there was a way out," he said. "At that point, I started yelling, "I need a ladder and a rope, and you guys need to get me out of here.'"

A ladder hustled to the scene was too short, and Mihal's damaged shoulder crimped his ability to climb.

"At some point, I said, 'I need to get out of here. Now,'" Mihal recalled.

One of his golf partners, a real-estate agent, made his way into the hole, converted his sweater into a splint for Mihal and tied a rope around his friend, who was pulled to safety.

While disturbing, such sink-holes aren't uncommon in southwestern Illinois, where old underground mines frequently cause the earth to settle. In Mihal's case, the culprit was subsurface limestone that dissolves from acidic rainwater, snowmelt and carbon dioxide, eventually causing the ground to collapse, said Sam Panno, a senior geochemist with the Illinois State Geological Survey.

That region "is riddled with sinkholes," with as many as 15,000 recorded, Panno said.

Nobbe told the AP other golfers are not in danger and the Annbriar course will remain open while officials seek geologist recommendations for what to do about the 14th hole's sinkhole.

"Every geologist we've talked to says it is unreasonable and unnecessary" to survey the entire grounds for other sinkhole threats, he added.

Mihal, meanwhile, is debating a return to Annbriar.

"It's a great course. I love the course," Mihal said, having played Annbriar a couple dozen times during the past decade. "But I would have a tough time probably walking down that hole again."

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Associated Press writer Herb McCann contributed to this report from Chicago.

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By Noel Randewich

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Shipments of tablets running Google Inc's Android will overtake the iPad this year for the first time, research house IDC predicted on Tuesday, as Apple Inc cedes more mobile market share to hard-charging rivals around the globe.

A growing variety of smaller and cheaper Android tablets from Google to Amazon.com Inc will catch on this year with more consumers and chip away at Apple's dominance since the first iPad launched in 2010, International Data Corp said.

iPad and iPhone shipments are expected to keep growing at enviable rates, but arch-rival Samsung Electronics and others have hurt Apple with a combination of savvy marketing, greater variety and rapid technology adoption.

On Thursday, Samsung takes the wraps off the fourth generation of its flagship Galaxy, the smartphone that helped the South Korean giant knock the iPhone off its top ranking for part of last year.

A growing perception that the company co-founded by Steve Jobs may be losing its competitive edge has weighed on its shares, which have lost more than a third of their value since hitting a high in September.

IPHONE COULD GO WAY OF BLACKBERRY?

In the latest criticism from Wall Street, Jefferies analyst Peter Misek on Tuesday compared Apple to Blackberry saying the iPhone is now on the defensive against Samsung's devices.

"Historically when handset makers fall out of favor (e.g., the Razr, Blackberry, HTC) they fall faster/further than expected," Misek said.

Now, IDC says Apple may begin losing some its lead on tablets as well, though it remains the top seller among manufacturers.

iPad shipments are expected to account for 46 percent of the tablet market in 2013, down from 51 percent last year, IDC said. Devices running Android are expected to grow their market share to 49 percent this year from 42 percent last year.

Google's Nexus 7 tablet and Amazon.com Inc's Kindle, which uses its own customization of Android, made major inroads with consumers last year. In November, Apple launched its own foray into smaller-sized tablets with the iPad mini.

"One in every two tablets shipped this quarter was below 8 inches in screen size. And in terms of shipments, we expect smaller tablets to continue growing in 2013 and beyond," IDC said in a press release.

APPLE REVS GROWTH SLOWS

Last month, Hewlett-Packard Co announced the launch of the Slate 7 tablet powered by Android, a centerpiece of that company's effort to expand from the shrinking personal market into mobile.

Apple is expected to grow its revenue by $26 billion in its fiscal year ending in September, just over half of the $48 billion increase in revenue it saw the year before, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

A group of suppliers that depend on Apple for more than half of their business saw its sales slump 31 percent in February compared to January, according to Topeka Capital Markets analyst Brian White, who does not identify the companies in the group.

Shares of Cirrus Logic, which gets three quarters of its revenue from selling audio chips to Apple, have fallen 23 percent this year, including a 2.89 percent drop on Tuesday.

Many component suppliers to Apple, like Qualcomm and Toshiba, also do significant business with Android device manufacturers.

"The open ecosystem at Android has allowed there to be more suppliers. As a chip guy, I always want to have as many irons in the fire as possible because the ride at the top tends to only last five years," said RBC analyst Doug Freedman.

Underscoring the increasing opportunity in mobile for Apple and its competitors, IDC also raised its 2013 tablet shipment forecast to 190.9 million units, up from its previous forecast of 172.4 million units.

Last year, global tablet shipments grew to 128.3 million units, up from 72 million in 2011, according to IDC.

In the smartphone market, which reached 545 million units shipped last year, Apple has already fallen behind Samsung.

Samsung is likely to sell 290 million smartphones this year, up 35 percent from 2012, according to Strategy Analytics. Apple's smartphone sales are projected to reach 180 million this year, up 33 percent.

IDC said tablets running Microsoft's Windows 8 platform would grow their market share from 1 percent last year to 7.4 percent in 2017.

Tablets running the Windows RT operating system, which is not compatible with older software that runs on Windows, will see their market share stay below 3 percent through 2017, IDC said.

"Consumers aren't buying Windows RT's value proposition, and long term we think Microsoft and its partners would be better served by focusing their attention on improving Windows 8," IDC said.

(Editing by Andrea Ricci and Andrew Hay)

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By Liana B. Baker

(Reuters) - Sheryl Sandberg's new book "Lean In" challenges men in the upper echelons of corporate America to take more women under their wing.

Sandberg is on a promotional blitz for the new book, which has been praised as an ambitious reboot of feminism and criticized as a manifesto directed to women from a privileged perch. On Tuesday, she said men need to amp up their mentoring of women, especially younger ones just starting out in their careers.

Noting that men hold 86 percent of the top jobs in corporate America, Sandberg said in a interview Tuesday that, "We want women to get into those jobs, but if we don't get older men to mentor and sponsor younger women, this will never happen."

Sandberg's book was born out of talks she gave starting in 2010 about how the world has scant female leaders in politics and corporations.

After studying at Harvard and working at the U.S. Treasury Department, Sandberg rose to the top of Silicon Valley, jumping from Google to Chief Operating Officer at Facebook while raising two children.

Sandberg acknowledged that there are stereotypes and double standards to tear down in mentoring relationships. An older man and a younger woman seen together at dinner or drinks looks like a date, while two men discussing business together looks perfectly normal, she said.

To underscore Sandberg's point, "Lean In" highlights a study published by the Center for Work-Life Policy and the Harvard Business Review that found men in high positions at companies were nervous meeting a younger woman one-on-one.

She also recounts an encounter with Larry Summers, who as U.S. Treasury Secretary served as her boss. Working on a speech together one night until 3 a.m. in South Africa, Sandberg had to make sure no one saw her step out of Summers' hotel room so late at night. Men, for example, never have to worry about that situation and it helps them move up faster in a corporate environment, she said.

"I want everyone to have the same policies for everyone and get explicit about them," Sandberg said.

Besides mentoring, she said male corporate executives need to be more cognizant of how women are perceived negatively once they start moving up. She calls this a "likeability gap" that holds women back from being ambitious. Managers should think twice before they give a performance review that calls a woman "aggressive," she said.

"As a woman gets more successful, everyone likes her less. This completely changes how women are portrayed in the office. What I believe is if you can make people aware of this bias that we all face - men and women alike - we can change it," she said in a separate television interview with Reuters.

(Additional reporting by Chrystia Freeland; Editing by Peter Lauria and L Gevirtz)

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Olympic gold medalist Gabrielle Douglas, not yet 18, will publish her second memoir next month, publisher Zondervan said on Tuesday.

Douglas, 17, a gold medal winner at the 2012 Summer Olympics in both team and individual all-around gymnastics competition, will publish "Raising the Bar", a follow-up to her 2012 best-selling memoir "Grace, Gold & Glory: My Leap of Faith", on April 30, the publishers said in a release.

Zondervan is a division of HarperCollins that specializes in Christian-oriented books.

The book will offer a behind-the-scenes look into Douglas' life, including color photos, personal stories and details on the athlete's present-day life - from walking red carpets and appearing on TV shows such as "The Vampire Diaries" while also making time for friends, family and training.

"'Raising the Bar' explores what it's like to be an everyday teen with a not-so-everyday life," Zondervan said.

Douglas, who began training at age 6 and became the Virginia State Champion just 2 years later, made history last year when she became the first U.S. gymnast to take home a team and an individual gold medal in the same games. She was first African-American to win the individual gold.

Since the 2012 London Olympics thrust the young gymnast into the public eye, Douglas has appeared at the Democratic National Convention, the MTV Video Awards, on the cover of Time magazine and on special edition boxes of corn flake cereal, along with her gold medal.

(Reporting by Chris Michaud; Editing by Piya Sinha-Roy and Richard Chang)

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