“The Hobbit” keeps box office crown for third week

(Reuters) – The dwarfs and elves of “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” prevailed at the North American box office again over the weekend, as its $ 32.9 million in ticket sales topped both the star-packed musical “Les Miserables” and the western “Django Unchained.”

Despite surging past “The Hobbit” on Christmas day with an $ 18.1 million opening, “Les Miz” managed only third place in U.S. and Canadian sales with $ 28 million as Christmas shoppers returned from the malls to boost Hollywood‘s box office, according to studio estimates.

“The Hobbit,” in its third week of release, has now grossed $ 222.7 million domestically, Warner Bros said.

Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained,” a western starring Jamie Fox as a slave turned bounty hunter, took second with an impressive $ 30.7 million.

Tom Cruise’s crime drama “Jack Reacher,” which features author Lee Child’s former military investigator solving a fatal sniper attack, landed in fifth with $ 14 million, outpaced by “Parental Guidance,” the Billy Crystal-Bette Midler as grandparents comedy which took in $ 14.8 million to nab fourth.

Chris Aronson, president of domestic distribution for Fox, said the “Parental Guidance” performance was “just a tremendous result for our little engine that could.”

Backed by a musical score that made it a Broadway icon, “Les Miz” surged past “The Hobbit” on Christmas day, collecting $ 18.1 million to pass “High School Musical 3: Senior Year” with the biggest midweek opening day by a musical.

But it was not enough to conquer the “Hobbit” juggernaut, which scored its third straight box office weekend win.

Universal’s president for domestic distribution Nikki Rocco called the “Les Miz” $ 28 million take “phenomenal, especially considering we went into the weekend with $ 40 million,” an unexpectedly strong figure for its first few days in release.

“People really love this movie, which is even more rewarding and gratifying,” Rocco said.

“Les Miserables,” which stars Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe and Anne Hathaway, benefited from Oscar buzz and its star power, said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Hollywood.com’s box office division, who said he wouldn’t be surprised to see the musical pass $ 200 million before it’s done.

That would put it among the Hollywood‘s Top 20 best-selling musicals. It would pass the 1972 film “Cabaret,” which grossed $ 191 million in box office sales adjusted for higher ticket prices, and put it close to “Camelot,” which sold $ 204.5 million in 1967, according to the web site the-numbers.com.

The most successful musical is “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” which grossed more than $ 6.3 billion but has been re-released by Walt Disney nine times since its 1937 premiere, according to the site.

A rush of high-profile films in December is expected to push 2012 to a domestic box office record. The current record is $ 10.6 billion, set in 2009.

“Jack Reacher” debuted just days after the Newtown, Connecticut, school shooting sparked new debate about the impact of movie violence. “Reacher” begins with a sniper killing a handful of seemingly random victims. A red-carpet premiere and a screening to promote the $ 60-million production were postponed after the December 14 Newtown tragedy.

Adult comedy “This is 40″ starring Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann as a middle-aged couple was sixth with $ 13.2 million. The Judd Apatow $ 35 million film totaled $ 37 million after two weeks. The seventh spot went to Steven Spielberg’s historical film “Lincoln,” with $ 7.5 million for a $ 132 million domestic total.

Comedy “The Guilt Trip,” starring Barbra Streisand and Seth Rogen as a mother and son on a cross-country drive, pulled in $ 6.7 million for eighth.

Also this week the latest James Bond hit “Skyfall” topped $ 1 billion in worldwide sales, despite falling out of the week’s top 10 films at the box office.

“The Hobbit” was distributed by Time Warner Inc’s Warner Bros studio. Paramount Pictures, a unit of Viacom Inc released, “Jack Reacher” and “The Guilt Trip.” Comcast Corp’s Universal Studios released “Les Miserables” and “This is 40.” “Django Unchained” was released in the United States by the Weinstein Company.

(Reporting By Ronald Grover; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

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It’s a fight over fitness in Santa Monica’s parks

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) — Physical fitness is a way of life on the beautiful beachfront oasis of Santa Monica. From sunrise to sunset, there’s huffing and puffing in the city’s parks as trainers put their students through the paces of every form of exercise imaginable.

All along the 420 acres of greenery paralleling the Pacific Ocean are groups of a dozen or more people furiously pumping iron, doing sit-ups, stepping on and off little benches and stretching on mats. Some flex their muscles with weight machines tied by big rubber bands to pretty much anything that’s anchored to the ground.

“It’s starting to look like a 24-Hour Fitness gym out there,” complained Johnny Gray, an assistant track coach at UCLA and former Olympic runner who says he’s often forced to navigate around weight machines, barbells and other exercise impediments as he runs.

In recent years, fitness classes have become as ubiquitous in Santa Monica’s signature Palisades Park as dog walkers and senior citizens playing shuffleboard.

Karen Ginsberg, the city’s director of community and cultural services, said other park users are complaining about fitness enthusiasts not only blocking pedestrian walkways but also making too much noise, killing the park’s grass with their weights and damaging its trees and benches with all the exercise gadgets they connect to them.

“Some people have also expressed concerns about people operating a business on city land and putting the city at risk of liability because they aren’t carrying insurance,” she said.

So now the City Council is considering requiring that fitness trainers who conduct workouts in Santa Monica’s parks and on its beaches pay an annual $ 100 fee and turn over 15 percent of their gross revenues to the city.

The council was to take up the issue of regulating fitness trainers this month, but that’s now been pushed back to at least March. Meantime, Ginsberg said city officials are looking at what restrictions they might put on the use of weights, bands and other equipment.

Although classes offering everything from fitness training to yoga to meditation can be found at several city parks and all over Santa Monica’s beaches, Palisades Park, with its stunning ocean views, is by far the most popular place.

As a result, city officials are considering limiting exercise class sizes there to no more than two students per trainer. Under the proposal being considered, other venues could still accommodate the larger groups as long as trainers pay the fees and provide proof of insurance.

The trainers respond that, like any responsible business operators, many already are insured and also know CPR. They also point out that they currently pay the city for business licenses and police-issued permits to hold their classes in the park. Although they don’t have to pay rent to anyone, they believe that’s enough overhead.

“I could easily go back indoors but that’s what I wanted to get away from,” said Ruben Lawrence, who has been offering boxing and fitness training classes at Palisades and other parks for six years. “I wanted to provide these programs to the masses at affordable rates to the community in a place people enjoy.”

Since the city began discussing the additional regulations, Lawrence said, he’s moved most of his classes to other parks in Santa Monica. If he has to pay the additional fees, however, he said he’ll likely just relocate to a gym.

Raisa Lilling, who offers vigorous exercise classes to the mothers of newborns, said she and other trainers have been working to keep their students quiet and out of the way of dog walkers, camera-toting tourists and others.

“I can absolutely see where they’re coming from, but a complete ban, I think, is a little extreme,” said Lilling, adding that the sides can always find a middle ground.

Lilling offers Stroller Strides classes in which mothers push kids in strollers across the park. As part of their workout, they’ll stop from time to time for vigorous bursts of cardio activity, including running up and down the park’s steep stairways to the beach while Lilling watch the kids.

“It’s not just a stroll in the park,” laughed the trainer, who is certified in CPR, carries insurance and also teaches yoga classes.

Ginsberg, emphasizing that planners are still fine-tuning the proposed regulations, agreed there should be a middle ground.

“I think we have to strike a balance between wanting an active community, which I think we do want, with the need to have some sort of ability for all users to enjoy our parks, particularly Palisades Park,” she said.

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Pakistan militants kill 41 in mass execution, attack on Shi’ites

PESHWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) – Pakistani militants, who have escalated attacks in recent weeks, killed at least 41 people in two separate incidents, officials said on Sunday, challenging assertions that military offensives have broken the back of hardline Islamist groups.

The United States has long pressured nuclear-armed ally Pakistan to crack down harder on both homegrown militants groups such as the Taliban and others which are based on its soil and attack Western forces in Afghanistan.

In the north, 21 men working for a government-backed paramilitary force were executed overnight after they were kidnapped last week, a provincial official said.

Twenty Shi’ite pilgrims died and 24 were wounded, meanwhile, when a car bomb targeted their bus convoy as it headed toward the Iranian border in the southwest, a doctor said.

New York-based Human Rights Watch has noted more than 320 Shias killed this year in Pakistan and said attacks were on the rise. It said the government’s failure to catch or prosecute attackers suggested it was “indifferent” to the killings.

Pakistan, seen as critical to U.S. efforts to stabilize the region before NATO forces withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, denies allegations that it supports militant groups like the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network.

Afghan officials say Pakistan seems more genuine than ever about promoting peace in Afghanistan.

At home, it faces a variety of highly lethal militant groups that carry out suicide bombings, attack police and military facilities and launch sectarian attacks like the one on the bus in the southwest.

Witnesses said a blast targeted their three buses as they were overtaking a car about 60 km (35 miles) west of Quetta, capital of sparsely populated Baluchistan province.

“The bus next to us caught on fire immediately,” said pilgrim Hussein Ali, 60. “We tried to save our companions, but were driven back by the intensity of the heat.”

Twenty people had been killed and 24 wounded, said an official at Mastung district hospital.

CONCERN OVER EXTREMIST SUNNI GROUPS

International attention has focused on al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban.

But Pakistani intelligence officials say extremist Sunni groups, lead by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) are emerging as a major destabilizing force in a campaign designed to topple the government.

Their strategy now, the officials say, is to carry out attacks on Shi’ites to create the kind of sectarian tensions that pushed countries like Iraq to the brink of civil war.

As elections scheduled for next year approach, Pakistanis will be asking what sort of progress their leaders have made in the fight against militancy and a host of other issues, such as poverty, official corruption and chronic power cuts.

Pakistan’s Taliban have carried out a series of recent bold attacks, as military officials point to what they say is a power struggle in the group’s leadership revolving around whether it should ease attacks on the Pakistani state and join groups fighting U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan.

The Taliban denies a rift exists among its leaders.

In the attack in the northwest, officials said they had found the bodies of 21 men kidnapped from their checkpoints outside the provincial capital of Peshawar on Thursday. The men were executed one by one.

“They were tied up and blindfolded,” Naveed Anwar, a senior administration official, said by telephone.

“They were lined up and shot in the head,” said Habibullah Arif, another local official, also by telephone.

One man was shot and seriously wounded but survived, the officials said. He was in critical condition and being treated at a local hospital. Another had escaped before the shootings.

Taliban spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan claimed responsibility for the attacks.

“We killed all the kidnapped men after a council of senior clerics gave a verdict for their execution. We didn’t make any demand for their release because we don’t spare any prisoners who are caught during fighting,” he said.

The powerful military has clawed back territory from the Taliban, but the kidnap and executions underline the insurgents’ ability to mount high-profile, deadly attacks in major cities.

This month, suicide bombers attacked Peshawar’s airport on December 15 and a bomb killed a senior Pashtun nationalist politician and eight other people at a rally on December 22.

(Additional reporting by Saud Mehsud in DERA ISMAIL KHAN and Gul Yousufzai in QUETTA; Writing by Katharine Houreld; Editing by Michael Georgy and Ron Popeski)

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GOP Senate leader urges Biden to break ‘fiscal cliff’ impasse

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is shown in this C-Span video footage as he addresses the Senate …Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell urged Vice President Joe Biden on Sunday to jump into “fiscal cliff” talks in hopes of breaking an impasse that threatens Americans with sharply higher income taxes come January 1.

In a brief speech on the Senate floor, McConnell complained that Democrats had not yet placed a counter-offer to a new Republican proposal, delivered at 7 pm on Saturday, “despite the obvious time crunch.”

“I’m concerned about the lack of urgency here,” the Kentucky lawmaker said. “I think we all know we’re running out of time.”

Besides conferring with his Democratic counterpart, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, McConnell said he had reached out to Biden "to see if he could help jump-start the negotiations on his side.”

McConnell added, “The vice president and I have worked together on solutions before, and I believe we can again."

Absent a breakthrough by tomorrow, income tax rates will rise across the board while government spending on domestic and defense programs will be slashed – a combination that some experts warn could plunge the economy into a new recession.

President Barack Obama has pressed for extending Bush-era tax rates on income up to $250,000 but letting them expire above that threshold. Republicans have resisted raising taxes on income at all levels. The two sides have also been at odds on issues like the estate tax and whether to extend unemployment benefits that stand to expire for some two million Americans.

Republican aides said that McConnell and Biden had spoken several times. A Biden aide said the vice president went to the White House after spending Christmas with his family in Delaware.

“We’re willing to work with whoever, whoever can help,” McConnell said. “There’s no single issue that remains an impossible sticking point. The sticking point appears to be a willingness, an interest, or frankly the courage to close the deal.”

“I’m willing to get this done, but I need a dance partner,” he said.

Reid said he had spoken several times on Sunday with Obama but acknowledged that his side had been “unable” to present a counter-offer to the latest Republican proposal.

“He and the vice president, I wish them well. In the meantime I will continue to try to come up something but at this stage I don’t have a counter-offer to make,” Reid said. “We are apart on some pretty big issues.”

Reid said he remained "hopeful but realistic" about the prospects for a breakthrough.

But he also seemed to confirm that one key sticking point was a Republican demand for reducing Social Security payments but adopting a less generous cost-of-living calculation known as “chained CPI” (the CPI being “consumer price index,” a measure of inflation).

“We’re not going to have any Social Security cuts,” Reid declared, saying it would not be “appropriate” in a short-term deal. Democratic leaders have cautiously signaled support for that approach – but only as part of a larger-scale deal that would see the U.S. debt limit raised for a significant stretch of time. Republicans want to use the debt ceiling fight to wrangle deeper government spending cuts.

“We're willing to make difficult concessions as part of a balanced, comprehensive agreement,” Reid said, “but we'll not agree to cut Social Security benefits as part of a small or short-term agreement, especially if that agreement gives more handouts to the rich.”

Republican aides bristled at Reid's characterization, noting that Democrats had not yet returned with a counter-offer. "If they don't like the CPI thing, they can strike it out," one told Yahoo News.

Republican senators, meanwhile, emerged from a closed door party meeting saying that chained CPI was off the table for now. The proposal was "not a winning hand" in the current standoff, John McCain told reporters drily.

Republican House Speaker John Boehner has said that it's up to the Senate to craft a compromise that can clear both chambers of Congress. Boehner suffered an embarrassing setback 10 days ago when conservative opposition forced him to withdraw legislation that would have let taxes rise on income of above $1 million. But a senior Republican aide noted that the exercise allowed the speaker to gauge how many of his rank-and-file would accept any increase in tax rates.

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Autonomy’s Lynch defends record as HP confirms Federal probe

LONDON (Reuters) – Mike Lynch, the founder of the software firm sold to Hewlett-Packard last year in a deal tainted by accusations of accounting fraud, said he would defend the company’s accounts to U.S. Federal investigators.

HP confirmed in a filing late on Thursday that the U.S. Department of Justice was investigating Autonomy‘s books.

The PC and printer maker bought the British company for $ 11 billion last year to lead its push into the more profitable software sector.

Autonomy did not deliver the growth expected, resulting in Lynch’s departure earlier this year.

But worse was to come last month when HP wrote off some $ 5 billion of the company’s value and accused its former management of accounting improprieties that inflated its value.

The Silicon Valley company said it had passed information from a whistleblower to the U.S. Department of Justice, the SEC and Britain’s Serious Fraud Office.

“On November 21, 2012, representatives of the U.S. Department of Justice advised HP that they had opened an investigation relating to Autonomy,” it said in the filing.

“HP is cooperating with the three investigating agencies.”

Lynch launched a robust defense of his track record almost immediately after HP made the accusations.

He said on Friday that he was still waiting for a detailed calculation of HP’s $ 5 billion writedown of Autonomy’s value and a published explanation of the allegations.

“Simply put these allegations are false, and in the absence of further detail we cannot understand what HP believes to be the basis for them,” he said in a statement.

“We continue to reject these allegations in the strongest possible terms. Autonomy’s financial accounts were properly maintained in accordance with applicable regulations, fully audited by Deloitte and available to HP during the due diligence process.”

Lynch said he had not been approached by any regulatory authority, but he would co-operate with any investigation and looked forward to the opportunity to explain his position.

HP has refused to concede to Lynch’s demands for more information about the allegations.

“While Dr. Lynch is eager for a debate, we believe the legal process is the correct method in which to bring out the facts and take action on behalf of our shareholders,” it said in response to an open letter from Lynch last month

“In that setting, we look forward to hearing Dr. Lynch and other former Autonomy employees answer questions under penalty of perjury.”

(Reporting by Paul Sandle; Editing by Helen Massy-Beresford)

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Actress Katie Holmes’ Broadway show to close

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Actress Katie Holmes‘ return to Broadway has been cut short, with producers announcing that the play “Dead Accounts” in which she co-stars will close on January 6, nearly two months early.

Holmes, the ex-wife of actor Tom Cruise, played Lorna, a wan, beaten-down woman living with her parents in the five-character play by Theresa Rebeck which opened on November 29 to mostly negative reviews.

No reason was given for the play’s early closing, but media reports said it was earning only a fraction of its box office potential.

Many reviewers said Holmes acquitted herself alongside a roster of Broadway veterans, who included Tony-winning actor Norbert Leo Butz as the brother who returns to his Midwestern family and unleashes havoc in the comedy.

The New York Daily News said “she throws herself gamely into her second Broadway show … (but) Holmes’ efforts add up to zilch.”

Most critics laid blame on an undeveloped, sketchy play by the author of last season’s better-received “Seminar.”

Holmes, 34, reached a high-profile divorce settlement with Cruise last summer. She lives in New York with her young daughter, Suri. Holmes will co-star in an upcoming film which will be a modernization of Chekhov’s “The Seagull” along with Allison Janney and William Hurt.

(Reporting by Chris Michaud; Editing by Patricia Reaney and Vicki Allen)

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Obama: “modestly optimistic” fiscal cliff deal can be reached

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2 arrested after Guinea treasury chief killed

CONAKRY, Guinea (AP) — Officials in the West African nation of Guinea say they’ve arrested two suspects in the case of the killing of the country’s treasury chief, who was shot to death nearly two months ago.

Authorities paraded the pair in front of journalists Friday. Aissatou Boiro was killed as she was driving home. She had launched an investigation into the loss of 13 million francs ($ 1.8 million) which went missing from the state coffers.

The government says the suspects were found with Boiro‘s computer memory stick and mobile telephone.

The men denied any involvement in her slaying and said a friend had given them the items.

Boiro’s colleagues say she had zero tolerance for corruption and was intent on putting an end to the mismanagement of state funds.

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Senate leaders aim to craft fiscal bill by Sunday

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate leaders are working to craft legislation by Sunday that averts the year-end "fiscal cliff" of tax hikes and spending cuts, but many details needed to be worked out after a crucial meeting with President Barack Obama on Friday.

U.S. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid and his Republican counterpart Mitch McConnell, termed the meeting "constructive" and "positive" and said they would keep working on trying to find a solution over the weekend.

After adjourning on Friday, Reid he would probably not call the Senate back into session until about 1 p.m. EST/ 1800 GMT on Sunday to give leaders time to hash out a deal.

"We are engaged in discussions, the majority leader and myself and the White House, in the hopes that we can come forward as early as Sunday and have a recommendation that I can make to my conference and the majority leader can make to his conference," McConnell said on the Senate floor.

"So we'll be working hard to try to see if we can get there in the next 24 hours. So I'm hopeful and optimistic," he added.

An aide to House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said it was agreed at the White House meeting that the Senate should act first.

"The speaker told the president that if the Senate amends the House-passed legislation and sends back a plan, the House will consider it - either by accepting or amending," the aide said.

However, Reid said it would be difficult to craft a solution that can win passage in both the House and Senate, adding that it involves "big numbers."

"Whatever we come up with is going to be imperfect," Reid said. "Some people aren't going to like it. Some people will like it less. But that's where we are and I feel confident that we have an obligation to do the best we can."

(Reporting By David Lawder, Rachelle Younglai; editing by Christopher Wilson)

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NORAD Santa trackers draw record number of phone calls, social media followers

PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. – NORAD says it drew a record number of phone calls and social media followers during its NORAD Tracks Santa operation on Christmas Eve.

The North American Aerospace Defence Command said Friday volunteers answered more than 114,000 calls, up 12,000 from 2011.

NORAD’s Santa Facebook page had more than 1.2 million followers, up from about 1 million last year. More than 129,000 people followed on Twitter, up from 101,000 last year.

NORAD got 11,000 emails, up from 7,700 in 2011.

More than 1,250 volunteers answered phone calls, including first lady Michelle Obama.

NORAD Tracks Santa began in 1955 when a newspaper listed the wrong number for children to call Santa. They wound up calling the Continental Air Defence Command, NORAD’s predecessor.

The operation is based at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo.

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