Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is Good, But No iPad Killer [REVIEW]

Unboxing the Kindle Fire HD 8.9

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Amazon expands its tablet sights with the bigger, more powerful Kindle Fire HD 8.9. Can it compete against Apple‘s iPad?

If there’s one company that deserves credit for reigniting the iPad competitor market, it’s Amazon. Despite some bugs and an overall blah design, its 7-inch Kindle Fire was the first Android tablet that made sense to consumers who gobbled it up to help the Fire grab 50% of the Android tablet market in just 6 months.

[More from Mashable: 9 Black Friday Deals For iPhone Owners]

That tablet essentially opened the flood gates for a new set of ever-more-powerful 7-inchers from, notably, Barnes & Noble and Google. All three companies have already updated their 7-inch offerings to more powerful components and higher-resolutions screens. They’re all still running Android, though Amazon and Barnes & Noble choose to hide the Google OS behind smarter and much more consumer-friendly interfaces.

All this led Apple to finally enter the mid-sized tablet space with the iPad Mini. It’s easily the best-looking tablet of the bunch, but also $ 120 more expensive than its nearest competitor.

The more interesting development, though, is Amazon‘s (and Barnes & Noble‘s) decision to go toe-to-toe with Apple’s full-size iPad and launch the Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9 (in 4G LTE and WiFi-only). The move is akin to a middle weight boxer putting on the pounds to take on the Heavyweight world champion. Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD is slightly smaller (the iPad is 9.7-inches), lighter (567g vs. 625g), cheaper ($ 369 for 32 GB model vs. $ 599 for the iPad 4th Gen — Amazon subsidizes with sleep-state ads, that I do not mind) and overall somewhat less powerful. In order to win the battle, the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD better be pretty nimble on its feet, while able to throw that all important knockout punch.

Short version of this story: the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 does some serious damage, but the iPad 4th Gen gets the decision and retains the tablet leader title.

The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is by no means a failure. In many ways, it’s as good as the smaller Kindle Fire HD, but throughout my tests I noticed odd bugs and glitches (which should all be fixable by software) and a somewhat disturbing lack of power that’s especially obvious when you put the Fire HD 8.9 next to the iPad 4th Gen

What It Is

If you’ve never seen an iPad and someone handed you the Kindle Fire HD .9, you’d likely say its jet-black, soft-to-the-touch plastic body felt good in your hands and was more than effective at all the core tasks (reading, game playing, e-mail, web browsing).

Design-wise, the 8.9 device looks exactly like the 7-inch model, complete with the too-hard to find volume and power buttons. There are no other physical buttons on this device, but Amazon chooses to hide the few it has by making them the exact same color as the chassis and flush with the body. Every time I use the tablet I do the “where’s the damn button” dance, rotating the Kindle Fire HD round and round until I feel the buttons (since I can barely see them).

I have applauded Barnes & Noble for putting the physical “N” home button right on the face of their Nook HD. Bravo for having the guts to do this. Amazon apparently looks at Apple’s iPad home button and thinks to have anything similar would be seen as “copying” the Cupertino hardware giant, when instead they should realize that it works, consumers like it and tablets without it are at a distinct disadvantage.

Amazon’s interface has you make do with a virtual, slide-out home button that is always available. Problem is, I found times when it wasn’t available. When I played Spider-Man and Asphalt 7, the tiny little left-had bar would disappear and I couldn’t exit the game unless I hit the sleep/power button.

The rest of the Kindle Fire HD 8.9′s body is solid and unremarkable (if you read my Kindle fire HD 7 review, then you know exactly what to expect.). Like the iPad 4th Gen, the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 has a front-facing 720p-capable camera. It’s useful for capturing video, snapping 1 Megapixel images and, probably most important, Skype video chats. Skype has built a fairly sharp-looing Kindle Fire app, though the design doesn’t fully fit the larger 8.9-inch screen. Skype just updated its Android app for better tablet viewing and hopefully, we’ll see this update hit the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 as well.

The iPad also has an HD rear-facing camera. The Kindle fire HD 8.9 does not (Barnes & Noble leave out cameras altogether)

Not Packing a Punch

As a large-screen high-resolution tablet (though iPad’s 2048×1536 retina display beats it), the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 offers plenty of attractive screen real estate for web browsing, book and magazine reading and games. But the results can be mixed. Silk, Amazon‘s custom web browser, was occasionally less than responsive and games, though, they ran well, never looked half as good as they do on the considerably more expensive iPad 4.

Granted, you can’t always find the same high-quality immersive action games on both Android and iOS, but Asphalt 7 Heat is a notable exception and it throws the performance differences between the two tablets into stark contrast. Game play is equally responsive on both platforms: the Kindle Fire HD 8.9’s accelerometer reads my moves just as well as the iPad.

The graphics on the Kindle Fire HD, however, are reduced to blobs and blocks (palm trees without distinct leaves, buildings without discernible windows) . The iPad’s quad-core graphics simply overmatch the Kindle Fire. I have never, for example, seen an iPad draw the game as I was playing, as I did when I tried out The Amazing Spider-Man.

Additionally, I experienced more than my share of crashes with games and even magazine apps like Vanity Fair.

The Good

Not everyone, however, will compare the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 to the iPad. Some will see the $ 299 entry-level price point (for the 16 GB model) and appreciate the power, flexibility and utility of this device. Like all Fire’s before it, the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 makes it easy to consume mass quantities of content. Nearly every menu option: Games, Apps, Books, Music, Videos, Newsstand, puts you just one click away from shopping for fresh content. If you have an Amazon account (and who doesn’t) your desired book, music or movie is just a click away. Plus, you can still easily store any of it locally, and worry about running out of storage space, or in the cloud, and never worry about space or accessibility—you can get to that purchased Kindle content from any Kindle app or registered Amazon device.

Watching movies on the tablet is a pleasure. I streamed a couple through Amazon Prime; they looked good on the 1920 x 1200 screen and the Dolby Stereo speakers produced sharp, loud, almost room-filling sound—an impressive feat not even the iPad can match.

The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 also includes a mini-HDMI-out port, which prompted me to connect the tablet to my 47-inch LED HDTV so we could watch Disney’s Brave. Yes, I had to get up and tap on the Kindle screen each time I wanted to pause and restart the move, but otherwise, I was pretty impressed with how the Kindle handled the task.

Obviously I yearn for an Apple Airplay-like feature on Android tablets (rumor has it one is coming), but this is the next, best thing.

There isn’t a lot to say about the Kindle Fire HD 8.9-inch interface that I did not say in the Kindle Fire HD 7 review. I will note, however, that the increased real estate makes the trademark task carousel seem almost too big. Icons for everything from your recently played Spider-Man game to magazine apps, books and Web sites all sit side-by-side-by side. Some, like book covers, look gorgeous.

Others like a broken web-page link look stupid. Worse yet, none of them have labels, which can occasionally make it hard to identify which app or task you’re looking at. I’m just not sure this interface metaphor is sustainable.

Personally I prefer either the clean consistent look of iOS, or the uber-user friendly, family-oriented Nook HD profile-based one. Amazon may want to take a hard look at those and start over.

Staying Connected

The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is also Amazon’s first cellular-based tablet. That fact puts it even more squarely in competition with the iPad (which obviously has always had 3G models and now offers blazing fast 4G LTE ones as well on all major carriers).

Amazon’s mobile broadband plans are a little more conservative, with just the AT&T 4G LTE option (the 32 GB 4G model that I tested lists for $ 499, which is still $ 224 less than a comparable iPad 4th Gen).

In my experience, the connectivity is superfast and fairly ubiquitous. Amazon‘s $ 49 (a year) flat fee plan is attractive, but with a cap of 250MB per month of data, it’s unlikely it will satisfy the most data-hungry users. If you do need more data, users can also get 3GB and 5GB data plans directly from AT&T on the device.

At press time, Amazon had not enabled streaming video over LTE. Having it sounds nice, but even with the most generous data plans, streaming video would eat it up faster than you can say, “I’m streaming Back to the Future in HD over 4G LTE on my Kindle fire HD!”

The reality for most users is that WiFi is plentiful and you’ll be hard pressed to find a spot where you can’t connect for free or a small one-off fee. It’s the reason Barnes & Noble’s line of HD Nooks do not include a cellular option.

Review continues after FreeTime Gallery

FreeTime

Kindle HD FreeTime Start

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Perhaps the best new addition to the Kindle Fire family is not a piece of hardware or new component, but the new FreeTime app. Amazon put a lot of loving care into this parental control interface, but almost mucks the whole thing up by hiding the tool under an app that you have to scroll down to (or search) to find. By contrast profiles and age and content controls are baked into the Barnes & Noble Nook HD in a way that makes them impossible to ignore.

Even so, once you do access FreeTime, I think you’ll be pleased with the level of control it gives you. I added test profiles for my two children and then hand-picked every app and piece of content they could access. I was also able to block broadband mobile and even set time limits for access to content and overall screen viewing time (on a per profile basis). The set-up is a bit wonky and it bizarrely switches between landscape and profile screens, but I still applaud the effort. It would make sense for Amazon to move FreeTime into a device set-up screen. If the user has no additional family members or kids using the device, they can easily skip it.

To Buy or Not to Buy

Amazon’s expansive content and shopping ecosystem has always been a strong draw and it’s just as good in this large screen tablet as it was in the very first Kindle Fire. Still, you have to compare it with the equally strong iOS ecosystem, which is no slouch in the content shopping department. Apple doesn’t connect you as seamlessly to physical products, but there’s nothing difficult about shopping on Amazon.com via your iPad. It’s also notable that tablet competitor Barnes & Noble has added movie and TV viewing, rental and purchase.

Ultimately, all of these tablets are offering more and more of the same content options, apps, and features. The decision will likely come down to price, app selection, interface and overall ease of use. The Amazon Kindle fire HD 8.9 scores well on all of these, but does not always lead.

For the price, it’s a great value, but I want Amazon to focus on hardware and interface design for the next big update. Then, they may get my full endorsement.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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How Ethan Zohn Is Raising Money with His Mustache

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11/21/2012 at 05:00 PM ET

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While he was battling cancer, Ethan Zohn couldn’t even fathom growing a thick, full beard. But these days, the former Survivor star and two-time cancer survivor is growing one heck of a mustache as part of the men’s cancer charity, Movember.

“As a full-time cancer crusher, I’m always looking for fun ways to get involved with the fight against cancer,” Zohn tells PEOPLE in the clip above. “What better than to have an excuse to let yourself get really hairy for cancer research?”

We recently caught up with Zohn at MiN New York — an apothecary in SoHo — where the star got a little facial hair TLC courtesy of men’s groomer Kumi Craig. Though she kept his mo intact, she cleaned up his growing beard and just trimmed his ‘stache, since as part of the Movember challenge, Zohn has to keep his mustache growing for the 30 days of November.

“Now that it’s getting a little more full and hairy, it’s exciting,” Zohn says. “My girlfriend [fellow Survivor star Jenna Morasca] likes it … although she jokes that I look like a bum walking around the street. But she’s getting used to it.”

Though Zohn wasn’t able to recruit any friends or family members to join him in the facial hair fun — “It didn’t go over so well for them,” he jokes — he’s just feeling happy to have his health, and to be helping other men in need.

“For me, to be able to even grow my facial hair is a pretty big deal,” he says proudly. Hear more from Zohn in the clip above, and to help the Movember movement, visit movember.com.

–Kate Hogan

GOT A GUY WITH A GREAT ‘STACHE? SHOW US A PHOTO!

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Study finds mammograms lead to unneeded treatment

Mammograms have done surprisingly little to catch deadly breast cancers before they spread, a big U.S. study finds. At the same time, more than a million women have been treated for cancers that never would have threatened their lives, researchers estimate.

Up to one-third of breast cancers, or 50,000 to 70,000 cases a year, don't need treatment, the study suggests.

It's the most detailed look yet at overtreatment of breast cancer, and it adds fresh evidence that screening is not as helpful as many women believe. Mammograms are still worthwhile, because they do catch some deadly cancers and save lives, doctors stress. And some of them disagree with conclusions the new study reached.

But it spotlights a reality that is tough for many Americans to accept: Some abnormalities that doctors call "cancer" are not a health threat or truly malignant. There is no good way to tell which ones are, so many women wind up getting treatments like surgery and chemotherapy that they don't really need.

Men have heard a similar message about PSA tests to screen for slow-growing prostate cancer, but it's relatively new to the debate over breast cancer screening.

"We're coming to learn that some cancers — many cancers, depending on the organ — weren't destined to cause death," said Dr. Barnett Kramer, a National Cancer Institute screening expert. However, "once a woman is diagnosed, it's hard to say treatment is not necessary."

He had no role in the study, which was led by Dr. H. Gilbert Welch of Dartmouth Medical School and Dr. Archie Bleyer of St. Charles Health System and Oregon Health & Science University. Results are in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

Breast cancer is the leading type of cancer and cause of cancer deaths in women worldwide. Nearly 1.4 million new cases are diagnosed each year. Other countries screen less aggressively than the U.S. does. In Britain, for example, mammograms are usually offered only every three years and a recent review there found similar signs of overtreatment.

The dogma has been that screening finds cancer early, when it's most curable. But screening is only worthwhile if it finds cancers destined to cause death, and if treating them early improves survival versus treating when or if they cause symptoms.

Mammograms also are an imperfect screening tool — they often give false alarms, spurring biopsies and other tests that ultimately show no cancer was present. The new study looks at a different risk: Overdiagnosis, or finding cancer that is present but does not need treatment.

Researchers used federal surveys on mammography and cancer registry statistics from 1976 through 2008 to track how many cancers were found early, while still confined to the breast, versus later, when they had spread to lymph nodes or more widely.

The scientists assumed that the actual amount of disease — how many true cases exist — did not change or grew only a little during those three decades. Yet they found a big difference in the number and stage of cases discovered over time, as mammograms came into wide use.

Mammograms more than doubled the number of early-stage cancers detected — from 112 to 234 cases per 100,000 women. But late-stage cancers dropped just 8 percent, from 102 to 94 cases per 100,000 women.

The imbalance suggests a lot of overdiagnosis from mammograms, which now account for 60 percent of cases that are found, Bleyer said. If screening were working, there should be one less patient diagnosed with late-stage cancer for every additional patient whose cancer was found at an earlier stage, he explained.

"Instead, we're diagnosing a lot of something else — not cancer" in that early stage, Bleyer said. "And the worst cancer is still going on, just like it always was."

Researchers also looked at death rates for breast cancer, which declined 28 percent during that time in women 40 and older — the group targeted for screening. Mortality dropped even more — 41 percent — in women under 40, who presumably were not getting mammograms.

"We are left to conclude, as others have, that the good news in breast cancer — decreasing mortality — must largely be the result of improved treatment, not screening," the authors write.

The study was paid for by the study authors' universities.

"This study is important because what it really highlights is that the biology of the cancer is what we need to understand" in order to know which ones to treat and how, said Dr. Julia A. Smith, director of breast cancer screening at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York. Doctors already are debating whether DCIS, a type of early tumor confined to a milk duct, should even be called cancer, she said.

Another expert, Dr. Linda Vahdat, director of the breast cancer research program at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, said the study's leaders made many assumptions to reach a conclusion about overdiagnosis that "may or may not be correct."

"I don't think it will change how we view screening mammography," she said.

A government-appointed task force that gives screening advice calls for mammograms every other year starting at age 50 and stopping at 75. The American Cancer Society recommends them every year starting at age 40.

Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, the cancer society's deputy chief medical officer, said the study should not be taken as "a referendum on mammography," and noted that other high-quality studies have affirmed its value. Still, he said overdiagnosis is a problem, and it's not possible to tell an individual woman whether her cancer needs treated.

"Our technology has brought us to the place where we can find a lot of cancer. Our science has to bring us to the point where we can define what treatment people really need," he said.

___

Online:

Study: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1206809

Screening advice: http://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/uspsbrca.htm

___

Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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Girlfriend helped actor killed 2 college students, police say

The former fiancee of a community theater actor charged in the double slaying of an Orange Coast College student and his tutor has been arrested by Costa Mesa police.

Rachel Buffett, 25, of Long Beach was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of being an accessory to murder after the fact and is being held on $1-million bail, according to police.

Police said Buffett remained a suspect during the two-year investigation. "She was never out of our focus," Costa Mesa Police Lt. Paul Dondero told the Daily Pilot. "She's always been in focus, along with other aspects of the case."

Authorities did not detail her alleged involvement in the killings.

At the time of the crimes, Buffett and Daniel Patrick Wozniak, 28, lived in the Camden Martinique complex in Costa Mesa, as did 26-year-old Samuel Herr, one of the victims.

Police said Wozniak, a noted community actor, killed Herr in the theater of the Joint Forces Training Center in Los Alamitos before dismembering his body and leaving his head and hands in nearby El Dorado Park Nature Center in Long Beach.

In May, a prosecutor from the Orange County district attorney's office presented evidence that Wozniak lured Herr to the military base under the pretenses of needing help to move furniture.

Authorities allege Wozniak then killed Herr's friend and tutor, Juri "Julie" Kibuishi, 23, in Herr's apartment, then staged the crime to make it look like a sexual assault.

Wozniak then used Herr's cellphone to text Kibuishi, asking her to come over and talk, police said.

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Cease-Fire Between Israel and Hamas Takes Effect

CAIRO — Israel and Hamas agreed to a cease-fire on Wednesday, the eighth day of lethal fighting over the Gaza Strip, in a deal completed under strong American and Egyptian diplomatic pressure that quieted an aerial battle of rockets and bombs and forestalled — for now — an escalation into an Israeli invasion.

The cease-fire, which took effect at 9 p.m. local time (2 p.m. Eastern), was formally announced by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Foreign Minister Mohamed Amr of Egypt after intensive negotiations in Cairo. It was welcomed by all sides, but whether the cease-fire could hold was uncertain.

Even in the minutes leading up to the effective start time, the antagonists were firing at each other, and the Israeli authorities reported at least five Palestinian rockets were lobbed into southern Israel shortly after the cease-fire had begun. But no damage or injuries were reported and the rocket fire seemed to end in the second hour. In Gaza, thousands of residents came outside to celebrate.

“This is a critical moment for the region,” Mrs. Clinton, who rushed to the Middle East late Tuesday in an intensified effort to halt the hostilities, told reporters in Cairo. She thanked Egypt’s president, Mohamed Morsi, who played a pivotal role in the negotiations, for “assuming the leadership that has long made this country a cornerstone of regional stability and peace.”

Mrs. Clinton also pledged to work “with our partners across the region to consolidate this progress, improve conditions for the people of Gaza, provide security for the people of Israel.”

Mr. Amr said Egypt’s role in reaching the agreement reflected its “historical commitment to the Palestinian cause” and Egypt’s efforts to “bring together the gap between the Palestinian factions.”

The top leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshal, also had strong words of praise for the Egyptian leader, a former official in the Muslim Brotherhood, in which Hamas has roots. At a news conference in Cairo, Mr. Meshal thanked Egypt for its role and said Israel had “failed in all its objectives.”

The negotiators reached an agreement after days of nearly nonstop Israeli aerial assaults on Gaza, the Mediterranean enclave run by Hamas, and the firing of hundreds of rockets into Israel from an arsenal Hamas had been amassing since the three-week Israeli invasion four years ago.

Under the terms distributed after the cease-fire was announced, Israel agreed to stop all land, sea and air hostilities in Gaza, including the “targeting of individuals” — a reference to militants of Hamas and its affiliates who have been killed. The cease-fire also called on the Palestinian factions in Gaza to stop all hostilities against Israel, including rocket attacks and attacks along the border.

But the terms also state that underlying grievances of Gazans, most notably the border restrictions Israel has imposed that impede the movement of people and goods through Gaza, will be addressed starting 24 hours after the cease-fire is in effect. Precisely how they will be addressed was left unclear.

Also left unclear was how the agreement would be enforced, but the terms stated that “each party shall commit itself not to perform any acts that would breach this understanding.”

The agreement came despite a bus bombing in Tel Aviv earlier in the day, applauded by Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups, which invited Israeli reprisals and threatened to derail the talks. Also complicating the path to the cease-fire were Israeli strikes overnight on Gaza.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, who had been threatening to start another ground invasion if the Gaza rockets did not stop, said in a statement that he was satisfied, for the moment, with the outcome. But he left open the possibility of more military action.

The statement issued by his office said Mr. Netanyahu had spoken with President Obama and “responded positively to his recommendation to give a chance to the Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire and to allow an opportunity to stabilize the situation and to calm it down before there is a need to use much greater force.”

An agreement had been on the verge of completion on Tuesday, but was delayed over a number of issues, including Hamas’s demands for unfettered access to Gaza via the Rafah crossing into Egypt and other steps that would ease Israel’s economic and border control over other aspects of life for the more than one million Palestinian residents of Gaza, which Israel vacated in 2005 after 38 years of occupation.

David D. Kirkpatrick reported from Cairo, Ethan Bronner from Jerusalem and Rick Gladstone from New York. Reporting was contributed by Jodi Rudoren and Fares Akram from Gaza, Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem, Alan Cowell from London, Andrea Bruce from Rafah and Christine Hauser from New York.

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Kimora Lee Simmons and Djimon Hounsou Separate

People Exclusive

11/21/2012 at 04:15 PM EST

Djimon Hounsou and Kimora Lee Simmons

Shareif Ziyadat/Getty

It's over for Djimon Hounsou and Kimora Lee Simmons.

"Djimon Hounsou and Kimora Lee Simmons have officially separated after 5½ years," the actor's rep tells PEOPLE exclusively. "Though never married, they have one child together, Kenzo Lee Hounsou, who is 3½ years old."

The Amistad star, 48, first met Simmons, 37, now the president and creative director for JustFab, in 2007, following her split from husband Russell Simmons. She later said they were "kind of" engaged.

In 2009, they announced the arrival of their son, their first child together. Simmons also has daughters Ming Lee, 12, and Aoki Lee, 10, with her ex-husband. – Julie Jordan

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US abortions fall 5 pct, biggest drop in a decade

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. abortions fell 5 percent during the recession and its aftermath in the biggest one-year decrease in at least a decade, perhaps because women are more careful to use birth control when times are tough, researchers say.

The decline, detailed on Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, came in 2009, the most recent year for which statistics are available. Both the number of abortions and the abortion rate dropped by the same percentage.

Some experts theorize that some women believed they couldn't afford to get pregnant.

"They stick to straight and narrow ... and they are more careful about birth control," said Elizabeth Ananat, a Duke University assistant professor of public policy and economics who has researched abortions.

While many states have aggressively restricted access to abortion, most of those laws were adopted in the past two years and are not believed to have played a role in the decline.

Abortions have been dropping slightly over much of the past decade. But before this latest report, they seemed to have pretty much leveled off.

Nearly all states report abortion numbers to the federal government, but it's voluntary. A few states — including California, which has the largest population and largest number of abortion providers — don't send in data. While experts estimate there are more than 1 million abortions nationwide each year, the CDC counted about 785,000 in 2009 because of incomplete reporting.

To come up with reliable year-to-year comparisons, the CDC used the numbers from 43 states and two cities — those that have been sending in data consistently for at least 10 years. The researchers found that abortions per 1,000 women of child-bearing age fell from about 16 in 2008 to roughly 15 in 2009. That translates to nearly 38,000 fewer abortions in one year.

Mississippi had the lowest abortion rate, at 4 per 1,000 women of child-bearing age. The state also had only a couple of abortion providers and has the nation's highest teen birth rate. New York, second to California in number of abortion providers, had the highest abortion rate, roughly eight times Mississippi's.

Nationally since 2000, the number of reported abortions has dropped overall by about 6 percent and the abortion rate has fallen 7 percent.

By all accounts, contraception is playing a role in lowering the numbers.

Some experts cite a government study released earlier this year suggesting that about 60 percent of teenage girls who have sex use the most effective kinds of contraception, including the pill and patch. That's up from the mid-1990s, when fewer than half were using the best kinds.

Experts also pointed to the growing use of IUDs, or intrauterine devices, T-shaped plastic sperm-killers that a doctor inserts into the uterus. A study released earlier this year by the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit organization that does research on reproductive health, showed that IUD use among sexually active women on birth control rose from less than 3 percent in 2002 to more than 8 percent in 2009.

IUDs essentially prevent "user error," said Rachel Jones, a Guttmacher researcher.

Ananat said another factor may be the growing use of the morning-after pill, a form of emergency contraception that has been increasingly easier to get. It came onto the market in 1999 and in 2006 was approved for non-prescription sale to women 18 and older. In 2009 that was lowered to 17.

Underlying all this may be the economy, which was in recession from December 2007 until June 2009. Even well afterward, polls showed most Americans remained worried about anemic hiring, a depressed housing market and other problems.

You might think a bad economy would lead to more abortions by women who are struggling. However, John Santelli, a Columbia University professor of population and family health, said: "The economy seems to be having a fundamental effect on pregnancies, not abortions."

More findings from the CDC:

— The majority of abortions are performed by the eighth week of pregnancy, when the fetus is about the size of a lima bean.

— White women had the lowest abortion rate, at about 8.5 per 1,000 women of child-bearing age; the rate for black women was about four times that. The rate for Hispanic women was about 19 per 1,000.

— About 85 percent of those who got abortions were unmarried.

— The CDC identified 12 abortion-related deaths in 2009.

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Pasadena clears way for talks on NFL team

Pasadena officials have cleared the way to begin negotiations with the NFL for bringing a professional football team to the Rose Bowl for up to five years while a new stadium is built in downtown Los Angeles.

More than 100 people packed a Pasadena City Hall meeting that stretched into early Tuesday morning, many of them residents of wealthy neighborhoods surrounding the iconic 90-year-old stadium.

They complained that traffic jams, trash and rowdy fan behavior would disrupt enjoyment of the Arroyo Seco by homeowners and recreational users.

More than 25,000 vehicles would use the stadium grounds on game days, according to a city study, shutting down the Rose Bowl Aquatics Center, Kidspace Museum and Brookside Golf Course.

But allowing a football team to use the Rose Bowl up to 13 Sundays a year while an NFL stadium is built in Los Angeles could also be a financial boon for the city-owned stadium.

The price tag for ongoing renovations to the Rose Bowl, once budgeted at $152 million, has grown to nearly $195 million. Barrett Sports Group, a Manhattan Beach consulting firm hired by the city, projects that an NFL lease could raise $5 million to $10 million for the venue each year.

City Council members ultimately voted to increase the number of events at the Rose Bowl from 12 to 25 a year if a deal is struck with an NFL team. UCLA plays its home football games at the stadium, which also hosts the annual Rose Bowl game.

"I'm not excited about the NFL, and clearly [the Rose Bowl's neighbors] are not excited, but it's the responsible thing to do," Councilwoman Margaret McAustin said.

Councilman Terry Tornek cast the lone vote against the increase, saying that he's not convinced the city should burden neighborhoods near the stadium with shoring up finances for the renovation.

"I think this city has a moral contract with the residents of these neighborhoods," Tornek said.

Leaders of neighborhood groups opposed to professional football at the Rose Bowl threatened to take legal action to reverse the council's decision. Others said they supported the move as a way to boost the local economy, as well as city coffers.

"You're just trying to shove this down people's throats," Paula Shatsky, a resident of the Linda Vista neighborhood, said.

Another Linda Vista resident, Anita Fromholz, broke from her neighbors' views.

"The Rose Bowl is part of Pasadena's heritage. Keeping the NFL option open until we know what comes up is one way to preserve it," Fromholz said.

joe.piasecki@latimes.com

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Clinton Arrives in Middle East as Egypt Says Truce in Gaza Is Close

JERUSALEM — Diplomatic efforts accelerated on Tuesday to end the lethal confrontation between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza on one of the most violent days yet in the conflict, as the United States sent Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to the Middle East and Egypt’s president and his senior aides expressed confidence that a cease-fire was close.

But by late evening there was no announcement, and Mrs. Clinton said she would be working in coming days to complete an agreement. Appearing beside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to speak briefly to the press, Mrs. Clinton said she hoped to achieve an end to the hostilities with a deal that moves “toward a comprehensive peace for all people in the region.”

The diplomatic moves to end the nearly week-old crisis came as the antagonists on both sides intensified their attacks before any cease-fire takes effect.

Israeli aerial and naval forces assaulted several Gaza targets in multiple strikes, including a suspected rocket-launching site near Al Shifa hospital, which killed more than a dozen people. Those deaths brought the total number of fatalities in Gaza so far to more than 130 — roughly half of them civilians, the Gaza Health Ministry said.

A delegation visiting from the Arab League canceled a news conference at the hospital because of the Israeli aerial assaults as wailing ambulances brought victims in, some of them decapitated.

Militants in Gaza fired a barrage of at least 200 rockets into Israel, killing an Israeli soldier — the first military casualty on the Israeli side since the hostilities broke out last week. The Israel Defense Forces said the soldier, identified as Yosef Fartuk, 18, died from a rocket strike that hit an area near Gaza. Israeli officials said a civilian military contractor working near the Gaza border was also killed, bringing the total number of fatalities in Israel from the past week of rocket mayhem to five.

Other Palestinian rockets hit the southern Israeli cities of Beersheba and Ashdod, and longer-range rockets were fired at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, but neither main city was struck and no casualties were reported. One Gaza rocket hit a building in the Israeli city of Rishon Lezion, just south of Tel Aviv, injuring one person and wrecking the top three floors.

Senior Egyptian officials in Cairo said Israel and Hamas, the militant Islamist group that governs Gaza, were “very close” to a cease-fire agreement that could be announced within hours. “We have not received final approval but I hope to receive it any moment,” said Essam el-Haddad, President Mohamed Morsi’s top foreign affairs adviser.

Foreign diplomats who were briefed on the outlines of a tentative agreement said it had been structured in stages — first, an announcement of a cease-fire, followed by its implementation for 48 hours. That would allow time for Mrs. Clinton to involve herself in the process on the ground here and create a window for negotiators to agree on conditions for a longer-term cessation of hostilities.

By late evening, however, there was no word on an announcement, and Israeli television was saying the talks needed more time. In Cairo, Egyptian news reports quoted Hamas officials as blaming Israel for delaying a deal and an announcement was unlikely before Wednesday.

The announcement of Mrs. Clinton’s active role in efforts to defuse the crisis added a strong new dimension to the multinational push to avert a new Middle East war. Israel has amassed thousands of soldiers on the border with Gaza and has threatened to invade the crowded Palestinian enclave for the second time in four years to stop the persistent rockets that have been lobbed at Israel.

Mrs. Clinton, who accompanied President Obama on his three-country Asia trip, left Cambodia on her own plane immediately for the Israel, and upon arrival in the late evening went into immediate talks with Israeli leaders.

She was scheduled to visit the West Bank later to meet with Palestinian leaders and then go to Cairo to consult with Egyptian officials.

Mr. Obama made a number of late-night phone calls from his Asian tour to the Middle East on Monday night that contributed to his conclusion that he had to become more engaged and that Mrs. Clinton might be able to accomplish something.

Isabel Kershner reported from Jerusalem; Peter Baker from Phnom Penh, Cambodia; and Rick Gladstone from New York. Reporting was contributed by Jodi Rudoren and Fares Akram from Gaza City, David D. Kirkpatrick from Cairo, Ethan Bronner from Jerusalem and David E. Sanger from Washington.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 20, 2012

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misspelled the family name of the Israeli soldier who was killed in a Palestinian rocket attack on Tuesday. He is Yosef Fartuk, not Yosef Faruk. 

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Kelly Clarkson: I'm Not Engaged - But Am Waiting for That Ring

By Mike Fleeman

11/20/2012 at 03:30 PM EST

Brandon Blackstock and Kelly Clarkson

Rick Diamond/Getty

As hints go, this one wasn't too subtle, seeing as Kelly Clarkson dropped it on national television.

Appearing Tuesday on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, the pop star says she isn't engaged to her boyfriend of nine months, Brandon Blackstock, but just give it a little time.

"We are totally going to get married," says Clarkson. "We love each other. We are totally going to get married one day."

She then holds up her hand and says, "I mean, he's got to put a ring on at some point." She adds: "But I'll wait it out."

Asked by DeGeneres what kind of ceremony she envisions, Clarkson, 30, acknowledges, "Honestly I've never been the girl to plan a wedding."

"We will totally, probably elope," she adds.

No matter when the day comes, Clarkson is just enjoying her relationship with the 35-year-old Nashville-based talent manager (who is also the son of Clarkson's own manager), especially during the holidays.

"This is going to sound like I'm making a joke but it is so not. It is serious," she says. "I am not alone for the first time for Thanksgiving and Christmas – and I am very happy."

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