Purported photo of new BlackBerry phone with QWERTY keyboard leaks

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“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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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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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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Facebook Instagram use dived after photo fiasco: AppData

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Facebook Inc’s Instagram lost almost a quarter of its daily users a week after it rolled out and then withdrew policy changes that incensed users who feared the photo-sharing service would use their pictures without compensation.

Instagram, which Facebook bought for $ 715 million this year, saw the number of daily active users who accessed the service via Facebook bottom out at 12.4 million as of Friday, versus a peak of 16.4 million last week, according to data compiled by online tracker AppData.

The popular app, which allows people to add filters and effects to photos and share them over the Internet or smartphones, experienced the drop over the brief, often-volatile holiday period.

Other popular apps also saw slippage in usage, and some were more pronounced. Yelp, for instance, saw daily active users — again via Facebook — slide to a weekly low of half a million on Thursday, from a high of 820,000 one week ago.

Instagram disputed the AppData survey, which was compiled from users that have linked the photo service to their own Facebook accounts, historically between 20 and 30 percent of Instagram members.

“This data is inaccurate. We continue to see strong and steady growth in both registered and active users of Instagram,” a spokeswoman said in an emailed statement on Friday.

Looking out over a broader timeframe, Instagram’s monthly active users edged up to 43.6 million as of Friday, an increase of 1.7 million over the past seven days, according to AppData.

“We’ll have to monitor the data over the coming weeks to gain perspective on trends in Instagram’s performance,” AppData marketing manager Ashley Taylor Anderson said in an email.

ATTENTION-SEEKING

The sharp slide in activity highlighted by AppData was bound to draw attention on the heels of the controversial revision to Instagram’s terms of service that, among other things, allowed an advertiser to pay Instagram “to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata)” without compensation.

The subsequent public outrage prompted an apology from Instagram founder Kevin Systrom. Last week, a California Instagram user sued the company for breach of contract and other claims, in what may have been the first civil lawsuit to stem from the controversial change.

Instagram subsequently reverted to some of its original language.

The move renewed debate about how much control over personal data users must give up to live and participate in a world steeped in social media.

Analysts say Facebook, the world’s largest social network, was laying the groundwork to begin generating advertising revenue, by giving marketers the right to display profile pictures and other personal information, such as who users follow in advertisements.

Its shares closed down 13 cents or 0.5 percent at $ 25.91 on the Nasdaq, in line with the broader market.

(Reporting By Edwin Chan; Editing by Leslie Adler and Andrew Hay)

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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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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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China tightening controls on Internet

BEIJING (AP) — China‘s new communist leaders are increasing already tight controls on Internet use and electronic publishing following a spate of embarrassing online reports about official abuses.

The measures suggest China’s new leader, Xi Jinping, and others who took power in November share their predecessors’ anxiety about the Internet’s potential to spread opposition to one-party rule and their insistence on controlling information despite promises of more economic reforms.

“They are still very paranoid about the potentially destabilizing effect of the Internet,” said Willy Lam, a politics specialist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “They are on the point of losing a monopoly on information, but they still are very eager to control the dissemination of views.”

This week, China’s legislature took up a measure to require Internet users to register their real names, a move that would curtail the Web’s status as a freewheeling forum to complain, often anonymously, about corruption and official abuses. The legislature scheduled a news conference Friday to discuss the measure, suggesting it was expected to be approved.

That comes amid reports Beijing might be disrupting use of software that allows Web surfers to see sites abroad that are blocked by its extensive Internet filters. At the same time, regulators have proposed rules that would bar foreign companies from distributing books, news, music and other material online in China.

Beijing promotes Internet use for business and education but bans material deemed subversive or obscene and blocks access to foreign websites run by human rights and Tibet activists and some news outlets. Controls were tightened after social media played a role in protests that brought down governments in Egypt and Tunisia.

In a reminder of the Web’s role as a political forum, a group of 70 prominent Chinese scholars and lawyers circulated an online petition this week appealing for free speech, independent courts and for the ruling party to encourage private enterprise.

Xi and others on the party’s ruling seven-member Standing Committee have tried to promote an image of themselves as men of the people who care about China’s poor majority. They have promised to press ahead with market-oriented reforms and to support entrepreneurs but have given no sign of support for political reform.

Communist leaders who see the Internet as a source of economic growth and better-paid jobs were slow to enforce the same level of control they impose on movies, books and other media, apparently for fear of hurting fledgling entertainment, shopping and other online businesses.

Until recently, Web surfers could post comments online or on microblog services without leaving their names.

That gave ordinary Chinese a unique opportunity to express themselves to a public audience in a society where newspapers, television and other media are state-controlled. The most popular microblog services say they have more than 300 million users and some users have millions of followers reading their comments.

The Internet also has given the public an unusual opportunity to publicize accusations of official misconduct.

A local party official in China’s southwest was fired in November after scenes from a videotape of him having sex with a young woman spread quickly on the Internet. Screenshots were uploaded by a former journalist in Beijing, Zhu Ruifeng, to his Hong Kong website, an online clearing house for corruption allegations.

Some industry analysts suggest allowing Web surfers in a controlled setting to vent helps communist leaders stay abreast of public sentiment in their fast-changing society. Still, microblog services and online bulletin boards are required to employ censors to enforce content restrictions. Researchers say they delete millions of postings a day.

The government says the latest Internet regulation before the National People’s Congress is aimed at protecting Web surfers’ personal information and cracking down on abuses such as junk e-mail. It would require users to report their real names to Internet service and telecom providers.

The main ruling party newspaper, People’s Daily, has called in recent weeks for tighter Internet controls, saying rumors spread online have harmed the public. In one case, it said stories about a chemical plant explosion resulted in the deaths of four people in a car accident as they fled the area.

Proposed rules released this month by the General Administration of Press and Publications would bar Chinese-foreign joint ventures from publishing books, music, movies and other material online in China. Publishers would be required to locate their servers in China and have a Chinese citizen as their local legal representative.

That is in line with rules that already bar most foreign access to China’s media market, but the decision to group the restrictions together and publicize them might indicate official attitudes are hardening.

That comes after the party was rattled by foreign news reports about official wealth and misconduct.

In June, Bloomberg News reported that Xi’s extended family has amassed assets totaling $ 376 million, though it said none was traced to Xi. The government has blocked access to Bloomberg’s website since then.

In October, The New York Times reported that Premier Wen Jiabao’s relatives had amassed $ 2.7 billion since he rose to national office in 2002. Access to the Times’ Chinese-language site has been blocked since then.

Previous efforts to tighten controls have struggled with technical challenges in a country with more than 500 million Internet users.

Microblog operators such as Sina Corp. and Tencent Ltd. were ordered in late 2011 to confirm users’ names but have yet to finish the daunting task.

Web surfers can circumvent government filters by using virtual private networks — software that encrypts Web traffic and is used by companies to transfer financial data and other sensitive information. But VPN users say disruptions that began in 2011 are increasing, suggesting Chinese regulators are trying to block encrypted traffic.

Curbs on access to foreign sites have prompted complaints by companies and Chinese scientists and other researchers.

In July, the American Chamber of Commerce in China said 74 percent of companies that responded to a survey said unstable Internet access “impedes their ability to do business.”

Chinese leaders “realize there are detrimental impacts on business, especially foreign business, but they have counted the cost and think it is still worthwhile,” said Lam. “There is no compromise about the political imperative of controlling the Internet.”

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