The Hobbit keeps box office crown

31 December 2012 Last updated at 05:39 ET

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey has topped the North American box office for the third weekend in a row.

The prequel to Lord of The Rings took $32.9m (£20.3m) over the weekend, dwarfing new releases Les Miserables and Django Unchained.

Director Quentin Tarantino's western Django Unchained came in second with $30.7m (£18.9m).

Star-studded musical Les Miserables, directed by Tom Hooper, was third, taking $28m (£17.3m).

Universal's president for domestic distribution, Nikki Rocco, described the musical's takings as "phenomenal, especially considering we went into the weekend with $40m (£24.7m)".

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

Les Miserables surged past The Hobbit with $18.1m (£11.2m) on its opening on Christmas Day.

But Peter Jackson's return to Middle Earth is in its third week of release and has now grossed $222.7m (£137.3m) in North America.

The Hobbit outperformed the US debut of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Peter Jackson's previous best opening in December 2003.

Elsewhere, comedy Parental Guidance, starring Billy Crystal and Bette Midler as grandparents, was fourth with $14.8m (£9.2m).

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• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey ($32.9m)
• Django Unchained ($30.7m)
• Les Miserables ($28m)
• Parental Guidance ($14.8m)
• Jack Reacher ($14m)

Source: Hollywood.com

Tom Cruise's crime drama Jack Reacher, which sees him playing a former military investigator solving a fatal sniper attack, landed in fifth with $14m (£8.7m).

Judd Apatow's This is 40, starring Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann as a middle-aged couple, was sixth with $13.2m (£8.2m).

The movie cost $35m (£21.6m) to produce and has so far taken $37m (£22.8m) after two weeks.

The seventh spot went to Steven Spielberg's historical film Lincoln with $7.5m (£4.6m). It has now made $132m (£81.6) in total domestically.

A rush of high-profile films in December is expected to push 2012 to a domestic box office record.

The current record is $10.6bn, set in 2009.

Meanwhile, James Bond's Skyfall has now topped the $1bn (£618.2m) mark internationally.

Sony Pictures say it is the most successful James Bond film yet in the 50-year franchise.

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US man admits dinosaur smuggling

27 December 2012 Last updated at 20:07 ET

A Florida fossils dealer has admitted smuggling dinosaur bones into the US, including those of a 70-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus bataar from Mongolia.

A court in New York heard that Eric Prokopi sold the skeleton at auction in May for more than $1m (£600,000).

In June, US officials seized the bones after Mongolia said they were stolen.

In a plea bargain, Prokopi gave up any claim to the skeleton as well as to others seized by authorities which included remains from China.

He also admitted illegally importing a Chinese flying dinosaur, two oviraptors and a duckbilled creature known as a Saurolophus.

The court heard that Prokopi, 38, was arrested in October as a lorry arrived at his home loaded with fossils.

He faces a maximum of 17 years imprisonment when he is sentenced in April.

Shopping list

US Attorney Preet Bharara said authorities would now begin the process of returning the fossils to their countries of origin.

"Fossils and ancient skeletal remains are part of the fabric of a country's natural history and cultural heritage, and black marketers like Prokopi who illegally export and sell these wonders, steal a slice of that history," he said.

Mongolia has been seeking the return of the Tyrannosaurus skeleton - which it says was stolen from the Gobi desert - through the US courts.

In court on Thursday, Assistant US Attorney Martin Bell read out a list of the dinosaurs that he said Prokopi had illegally imported.

"It's among the larger dinosaur shopping lists you'll see today," he told Magistrate Judge Ronald Ellis.

He said a second, almost complete, Tyrannosaurus skeleton had been found at Prokopi's home in Gainsville, Florida.

Mr Bell said one oviraptor skeleton was found at Prokopi's home and the other at another residential dwelling in Florida.

One of the Saurolophus skeletons was sold at an auction in California for $75,000 but later confiscated by authorities.

Prokopi admitted illegally importing skeletons from Mongolia and China.

Heritage Auctions in New York, which sold the Tyrannosaurus skeleton in May, said Prokopi had spent a year restoring and remounting what had been a loose collection of bones.

Prokopi was described as a commercial palaeontologist who sold coral, fossils and other items over the internet.

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Pearson invests in Nook tablets

28 December 2012 Last updated at 10:14 ET

UK publisher Pearson has said it will invest in the Nook series of e-readers and tablets.

Pearson said it would pay $89.5m (£55.5m) for a 5% stake in Nook Media, which includes the digital bookstore and 674 stores serving US colleges.

The maker of Nook, US book chain Barnes & Noble (B&N), sells the devices online in the UK and in its stores as well in the US.

Microsoft is another big investor in the Nook.

After the deal, B&N will hold 78.2% of the Nook business and Microsoft will have about 16.8% , Pearson said.

It added that, subject to certain conditions, Pearson will have the option to buy another 5% stake in Nook Media.

"Pearson and Barnes & Noble have been valued partners for decades, and in recent years both have invested heavily and imaginatively to provide engaging and effective digital reading and learning experiences," said Will Ethridge, chief executive of Pearson North America.

"This new agreement extends our partnership and deepens our commitment to provide better, easier experiences for our customers."

B&N offers its own curated magazine, newspaper, book and app stores - and plans to add a video service offering movies and television shows by early 2013.

Its devices compete with tablets and e-readers from Apple, Amazon, Sony and products using Google's Android software.

B&N does not operate its own stores in the UK, but as well as online, it sells its products through Sainsbury's and the bookstore Blackwell's.

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Woman held for train push killing

29 December 2012 Last updated at 17:59 ET

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CCTV footage shows a woman running after the incident took place

Police in New York have arrested a woman in connection with the death of a man pushed in front of a subway train.

Prosecutors said Erika Menendez, 31, was charged with second-degree murder as a hate crime.

She is alleged to have said that she hates Hindus and Muslims.

The victim, 46-year-old Sunando Sen, originally came from India. Witnesses said he was standing on a platform at a Queens subway station when a woman shoved him on to the tracks.

Mr Sen was a resident of Queens and ran a printing business on the Upper West Side.

Prosecutors said in a statement that Ms Menendez, from Rego Park, Queens, admitted pushing the victim, saying: "I pushed a Muslim off the train tracks because I hate Hindus and Muslims ever since 2001 when they put down the twin towers I've been beating them up."

Queens District Attorney Richard A Brown said that, according to the charges, Ms Menendez was seen talking to herself while seated on a bench at the subway station and was also seen pacing on the platform and muttering to herself.

"The defendant is accused of committing what is every subway commuter's worst nightmare - being suddenly and senselessly pushed into the path of an oncoming train," he said.

"The victim was allegedly shoved from behind and had no chance to defend himself. Beyond that, the hateful remarks allegedly made by the defendant and which precipitated the defendant's actions can never be tolerated by a civilised society."

Prosecutors originally said Ms Menendez was from the Bronx.

Fled the scene

Mr Sen's death on Thursday was the second such killing this month.

Naeem Davis was charged with murder in early December after allegedly pushing a passenger to his death in the Times Square subway station at the beginning of December.

New York's mayor, Michael Bloomberg, said such attacks were rare.

"You can say it's only two out of the three or four million people who ride the subway every day, but two is two too many," he told a press conference.

New York police spokesman Paul Browne said in a statement that investigations into the incidents were continuing.

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US woman missing in Afghanistan

31 December 2012 Last updated at 06:13 ET

The family of a pregnant American woman missing with her husband in Afghanistan have made a fresh appeal for her safe return.

Caitlan Coleman, 27, is due to give birth in January and needs urgent medical attention, her father told the Associated Press news agency.

James Coleman said she had been travelling with her Canadian husband across Central Asia.

There are fears they were abducted, but no ransom has been demanded.

No militant group has said it is holding the couple and AP says when it contacted the Taliban two months ago, a spokesman said no Taliban members were involved.

The couple last contacted their family on 8 October from what Mr Coleman described as an "unsafe" part of Afghanistan.

It is not clear how they entered Afghanistan and what exactly they were doing there - they had also travelled through Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Mr Coleman adds that his daughter needs medical care for a liver ailment.

"Our goal is to get them back safely and healthy," the father told AP. "I don't know what kind of care they're getting or not getting...we're just an average family and we don't have connections with anybody and we don't have a lot of money."

One Afghan official contacted by AP says the trail has gone cold, after initially suggesting that they may have been abducted in Wardak province in an area about 25 miles (40km) west of the capital Kabul.

But there has been no independent confirmation of this - at the time the couple went missing officials in Wardak told BBC Afghan that they had no information about them.

The US State Department and Canadian Foreign Affairs Ministry say they are looking into the disappearance, AP says.

Correspondents say that the kidnapping of foreigners has become relatively common in parts of Afghanistan since the US-led invasion of the country in 2001.

Earlier this month an American doctor who had been abducted by the Taliban in eastern Afghanistan was rescued.

Dilip Joseph, of the Morning Star Development aid group, was freed by US and Afghan forces in a joint operation that killed seven of his captors.

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Nine killed in Oregon bus crash

31 December 2012 Last updated at 14:33 ET

Nine people died and 26 were treated in hospital after a tour bus crashed through a guard rail and plunged 100ft (30m) in Oregon, authorities say.

Around 40 travellers were believed to have been on board when the vehicle veered off Interstate 84 down an embankment on Sunday morning.

The passengers were reportedly South Korean tourists on a casino outing.

They had been travelling along the western Blue Mountains amid wintry conditions, Oregon State Police said.

Over a dozen rescue workers used ropes to help people from the wreckage.

'Severe weather'

The bus crashed close to the start of a seven-mile (12km) stretch of road that winds down a hill, landing upright at the bottom of a slope.

According to reports, the bus had been heading from Las Vegas, Nevada, to Vancouver, British Columbia.

The bus driver was among the survivors, but had not yet spoken to police because of the seriousness of his injuries.

The injured were treated at St Anthony Hospital in Pendleton, which drafted in additional staff to cope with the extra patients, hospital spokesman Larry Blanc said.

According to the state transportation department, the area witnesses "some of the most changeable and severe weather conditions in the Northwest".

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Briton, 21, denies US sex charges

31 December 2012 Last updated at 15:55 ET

A British man has pleaded not guilty to six charges of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl in the United States.

Adam Robinson, 21, is accused of committing "lewd acts upon a child" between 15 and 23 December.

Mr Robinson, from Fleet, Hampshire, is accused of meeting the girl online with the alleged offences taking place in a motel in Redlands, California.

He appeared at San Bernardino Superior Court earlier and will face a further hearing on 9 January.

A defence lawyer has been appointed for Mr Robinson with bail set at £620,000.

Court papers prepared for the Californian court allege four of the offences took place on 15 December with two others on 23 December.

The girl turned 14 on Christmas Eve.

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Clinton clot 'behind right ear'

31 December 2012 Last updated at 17:24 ET

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is making "excellent progress" after a blood clot was found between her brain and skull, doctors say.

They said she will make a full recovery and will be released from hospital once a blood-thinning dosage has been set.

Mrs Clinton, 65, was admitted to a New York hospital on Sunday, having suffered a concussion earlier in the month when she fainted and fell over.

She is due to stand down before President Obama begins his second term.

Doctors said an MRI scan on Sunday had revealed the formation of a "right transverse sinus venous thrombosis" - a clot in the vein behind Mrs Clinton's right ear in the space between the brain and the skull.

"It did not result in a stroke, or neurological damage," said Dr Lisa Bardack and Dr Gigi El-Bayoumi, who were treating Mrs Clinton at New York's Presbyterian hospital.

The secretary of state was said to be in good spirits and "engaging with her doctors, her family, and her staff," added the doctors in a statement.

Doctors discovered the clot during a routine follow-up MRI scan on Sunday, said her spokesman, Philippe Reines, adding that she was being treated with anti-coagulants.

Gruelling schedule

At the time of her faint, Mrs Clinton was reported to have had a stomach virus and to have passed out after becoming dehydrated.

Mrs Clinton is due to give evidence before a Congressional committee in January in connection with the attack in September on the US consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi.

The US ambassador to Libya and three American officials were killed in the incident.

Mrs Clinton was appointed secretary of state at the start of Mr Obama's first term, in January 2009.

Her most recent foreign trip was to Dublin earlier in December: she is renowned for keeping a gruelling travel schedule.

She is the most travelled secretary of state in history, having visited 112 countries while in the job, the Associated Press says.

Earlier this month, President Obama nominated Senator John Kerry - the Massachusetts Democrat who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee - to replace Mrs Clinton as secretary of state.

She has repeatedly said she only intended to serve one term in the post.

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Tenants 'shot in snow-shovel row'

31 December 2012 Last updated at 20:36 ET

A 74-year-old US landlord has shot dead two teenage tenants after an argument about snow-shovelling, police say.

James Pak walked into the couple's flat attached to his house in Maine, and said he was going to shoot them before carrying out his threat, police said.

He has been charged with murdering 19-year-old Derrick Thompson, and his girlfriend, Alivia Welch, 18.

Mr Thompson's mother, Susan Johnson, survived Saturday's shootings by playing dead after she was shot.

The 44-year-old, who shared the Biddeford flat with the two victims and her six-year-old son, said she had hidden behind a Christmas tree.

Mr Pak allegedly told police he spared the boy's life but thought he had killed the three adults, AP reported.

Police had been called to the home after Mr Thompson reported Mr Pak was threatening him and banging on windows, but they left when the teenager told them he did not fear his landlord.

Moments later, they received a call from Ms Johnson telling them of the shootings.

They had reportedly been arguing over late rent, shovelling snow and parking cars in the drive, police said.

The defendant, a stonemason, is being held without bail after refusing to enter a plea during a court appearance on Monday in York County Superior Court.

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US Senate approves key tax deal

1 January 2013 Last updated at 05:47 ET

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President Obama said a larger deal could be accomplished "in several steps"

The US Senate has approved a deal to avert general tax hikes and spending cuts known as the "fiscal cliff".

The bill, which raises taxes for the wealthy, came after lengthy talks between Vice-President Joe Biden and Senate Republicans.

The House is due to consider it later. Spending cuts have been delayed for two months to allow a wider agreement.

Congress missed the deadline to pass a bill, but few effects will be felt as Tuesday is a US public holiday.

Tax cuts approved during the presidency of George W Bush formally expired at midnight (05:00 GMT).

Without approval in the House, huge tax rises for virtually all working Americans will kick in automatically.

Analysts warned that if the full effects of the fiscal cliff were allowed to take hold, the resulting reduction in consumer spending could spark a new recession.

Continue reading the main story

"Start Quote

American politicians certainly know how to take it to the wire - and just a little bit beyond"

End Quote

The compromise deal reached on Monday seeks to avoid this by extending the tax cuts for Americans earning under $400,000 (£246,000) - up from the $250,000 level Democrats had originally sought.

A huge spending cut that would see $1.2tn shorn from the federal budget over 10 years has been deferred for two months, allowing Congress and the White House to reopen negotiations.

The Senate approved the compromise bill by 89-8. "If we do nothing, the threat of a recession is very real," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, said. "Passing this agreement does not mean negotiations halt, far from it."

In addition to the income tax rates and spending cuts, the package includes:

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What is the fiscal cliff?

• On 1 January 2013, tax rises and huge spending cuts come into force - the so-called fiscal cliff
• The deadline was put in place in 2011 to force the president and Congress to reach agreement on the budget over the next 10 years
• Date coincides with expiry of Bush-era tax cuts
• There are fear that raising taxes while massively cutting spending will have a huge impact on households and businesses
• The fiscal squeeze could also push the US into recession, and have a global impact

• Rises in inheritance taxes from 35% to 40% after the first $5m for an individual and $10m for a couple

• Rises in capital taxes - affecting some investment income - of up to 20%, but less than the 39.6% that would prevail without a deal

• One-year extension for unemployment benefits, affecting two million people

• Five-year extension for tax credits that help poorer and middle-class families

'Imperfect solution'

President Barack Obama welcomed the Senate vote.

"Leaders from both parties in the Senate came together to reach an agreement that passed with overwhelming bipartisan support today that protects 98% of Americans and 97% of small business owners from a middle class tax hike," he said in a statement.

Continue reading the main story

Press reaction

Jennifer Steinhauer in The New York Times writes: "The confusing struggle to head off a national fiscal crisis has made one thing crystal clear: The era of the Big Deal is over."

In The Washington Post, David A Fahrenthold says:"The New Year's Eve agreement between [Vice-President Joe] Biden and [Senate Minority Leader Mitch] McConnell provided a glimpse at the ways that personality quirks and one-to-one relationships can still change the course of Washington politics."

The Wall Street Journal says: "The wider deal doesn't do much to control the US's long-term budget woes, which are driven largely by entitlement spending, especially on health care, left untouched in this agreement."

"While neither Democrats nor Republicans got everything they wanted, this agreement is the right thing to do for our country and the House should pass it without delay."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, said: "It took an imperfect solution to prevent our constituents from a very real financial pain, but in my view, it was worth the effort."

The BBC's Mark Mardell in Washington says many of the Republicans who dominate the House dislike the deal and may stand on their principle.

Speaker John Boehner said the House would consider the deal but left open the possibility of amending the Senate bill - which would spark another round of legislation.

"Decisions about whether the House will seek to accept or promptly amend the measure will not be made until House members... have been able to review the legislation," Mr Boehner and other House Republican leaders said in a statement.

The current House can legislate until Wednesday, when it is replaced by a new chamber chosen during last November's election.

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