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MCCARTNEY, MILLS DIVORCE NEARLY FINAL

Sometimes love isn't all you need.

A judge in London granted a preliminary divorce Monday to former Beatle Paul McCartney and Heather Mills. If no one objects, the divorce will be final in six weeks.

Mills, 40, will emerge from the rancorous divorce with a settlement of $47.5 million but a reputation damaged by her televised outbursts against McCartney.

Neither McCartney nor Mills was in court Monday, which might have been a good thing. At the end of a hearing in March, Mills stole the show by emptying a pitcher of water on the head of McCartney's lawyer, Fiona Shackleton.

"Mrs. Shackleton said something under her breath so I cleansed and baptized her," Mills said afterward. "I thought she looked fantastic -- I thought it did her the world of good."

Mills will retain custody of the couple's 4-year-old daughter, Beatrice. McCartney will retain the bulk of his fortune, estimated by the court at $880 million.

The split makes McCartney, at age 65, the last of The Beatles to get a divorce.

John Lennon left his first wife, Cynthia, for Yoko Ono. Ringo Starr and his first wife, Maureen, divorced after 10. And George Harrison's marriage to Patti Boyd ended after 11 years. But McCartney's marriage to the former Linda Eastman endured 19 years, until her death in 1998.

SPIDEY HAS A RIVAL IN NEIL YOUNG

You can call Neil Young the new spiderman.

A biologist has named a newly discovered trapdoor spider after rock star Neil Young: Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi.

The musician is "worthy of that honor" because he's been an activist for social and political issues, said East Carolina University biologist Jason Bond, who examined the spider in a collection at the American Museum of Natural History in New York where it was identified as a new species that's indigenous to Alabama.

It's not the first time Bond has bestowed a beloved name on a new spider species. He named one species Stasimopus mendelai after South African civil rights leader Nelson Mandela.

Joel Graves, a spokesman for Neil Young's management company, Lookout Management, said the company had no comment.

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