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Spears' custody battle with Federline continues

The custody fight between Britney Spears and Kevin Federline will go another round next year.

A Los Angeles Superior Court commissioner made no changes to the couple's custody arrangements on Tuesday after their attorneys spent 90 minutes behind closed doors. Commissioner Scott Gordon also moved back a scheduled hearing from January to February.

Neither Federline nor Spears, 26, were in court while their attorneys argued the case.

The couple has been wrangling for months over the custody of their sons, 2-year-old Sean Preston and 1-year-old Jayden James.

Federline attorney Mark Vincent Kaplan said the court considered a motion to continue various matters, allowing more time for "some of the discovery that we weren't able to start last week", because Spears called in sick to her court-ordered deposition.

"Our main concern was that we not have to proceed in a time frame without that information that we could possibly glean from her deposition," Kaplan said.

A representative from the celebrity Web site TMZ.com submitted to the court video of Spears driving with a friend on the same day that she called in sick to her court-ordered deposition. Gordon did not view the tape.

Federline, 29, has temporary custody while Spears is allowed monitored visits with her children.

Kaplan said he and Spears' attorneys agreed upon a date for the pop star to be deposed but would not say when or where it will happen.

Spears attorney Sorrell Trope declined comment after the hearing.

Spears and Federline, who were married in 2004, have been in court repeatedly about custody since they split. Their divorce was final in July.

Jolie named sexiest queen of screen

Angelina Jolie has topped a list of the most sexually alluring movie stars of all time.

The Tomb Raider actress beat stiff competition from Hollywood beauties Marilyn Monroe, Scarlett Johansson and Keira Knightley for the top spot.

British movie magazine Empire deems Jolie "precision built to turn cinema audiences into drooling wrecks." It adds, "The pneumatic figure, the feline eyes, the lips that could have been stung by several hives of bees. Simply unimprovable."

Birth the end, not beginning

The birth of Kate Hudson and Chris Robinson's son Ryder left the former couple convinced their marriage needed help.

The pair sealed the end of their seven-year union with a divorce in October, and now Hudson has revealed her son Ryder's birth in January 2004 was the beginning of the end.

She says, "We had Ryder, and we both sort of looked at each other and went, 'Something's off.'"

But Hudson insists she and the Black Crowes rocker are still close, adding, "(Divorce was) the most difficult thing I've ever done in my life. The process of discovering with somebody that you love that you don't ...work is so painful. And thank goodness I did it with Chris ... We helped each other through it.

"Now we're both single and since the day we separated, we have talked multiple times."

Agencies

(China Daily 12/20/2007 page18)