Sure, the Golden Globes fashion was predictably glam, but some of the best gowns that weekend never made it to your TV screen. Check out the looks you may have missed
Credit: Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic
Updated: Thursday Jan 17, 2013 | 01:00 PM EST
By: Alex Apatoff
The number of older people hospitalized with the flu has risen sharply, prompting federal officials to take unusual steps to make more flu medicines available and to urge wider use of them as soon as symptoms appear.
The U.S. is about halfway through this flu season, and "it's shaping up to be a worse-than-average season" and a bad one for the elderly, said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
It's not too late to get a flu shot, and "if you have symptoms, please stay home from work, keep your children home from school" and don't spread the virus, he said.
New figures from the CDC show widespread flu activity in all states but Tennessee and Hawaii. Some parts of the country are seeing an increase in flu activity "while overall activity is beginning to go down," Frieden said. Flu activity is high in 30 states and New York City, up from 24 the previous week.
Nine more children or teens have died of the flu, bringing the nation's total this flu season to 29. That's close to the 34 pediatric deaths reported during all of the last flu season, although that one was unusually light. In a typical season, about 100 children die of the flu and officials said there is no way to know whether deaths this season will be higher or lower than usual.
The government doesn't keep a running tally of adult deaths from the flu, but estimates that it kills about 24,000 people most years.
So far, half of confirmed flu cases are in people 65 and older. Lab-confirmed flu hospitalizations totaled 19 for every 100,000 in the population, but 82 per 100,000 among those 65 and older, "which is really quite a high rate," Frieden said.
"We expect to see both the number and the rates of both hospitalizations and deaths rise further in the next week or so as the flu epidemic progresses,'" so prompt treatment is key to preventing deaths, he said.
About 90 percent of flu deaths are in the elderly; the very young and people with other health problems such as diabetes are also at higher risk.
If you're worried about how sick you are and are in one of these risk groups, see a doctor, Frieden urged. One third to one half of people are not getting prompt treatment with antiviral medicines, he said.
Two drugs — Tamiflu and Relenza — can cut the severity and risk of death from the flu but must be started within 48 hours of first symptoms to do much good. Tamiflu is available in a liquid form for use in children under 1, and pharmacists can reformulate capsules into a liquid if supplies are short in an area, said Dr. Margaret Hamburg, head of the Food and Drug Administration.
To help avoid a shortage, the FDA is letting Tamiflu's maker, Genentech, distribute 2 million additional doses of capsules that have an older version of package insert.
"It is fully approved, it is not outdated," just lacks information for pharmacists on how to mix it into a liquid if needed for young children, she said.
This year's flu season started about a month earlier than normal and the dominant flu strain is one that tends to make people sicker. Vaccinations are recommended for anyone 6 months or older. There's still plenty of vaccine — an update shows that 145 million doses have been produced, "twice the supply that was available only several years ago," Hamburg said.
About 129 million doses have been distributed already, and a million doses are given each day, Frieden said. The vaccine is not perfect but "it's by far the best tool we have to prevent influenza," he said.
Carlos Maisonet, 73, got a flu shot this week at New York's Brooklyn Hospital Center at the urging of his wife, who was vaccinated in August.
"This is his first time getting the flu shot," said his wife, Zulma Ramos.
Last week, the CDC said the flu again surpassed an "epidemic" threshold, based on monitoring of deaths from flu and a frequent complication, pneumonia. The flu epidemic happens every year and officials say this year's vaccine is a good match for strains that are going around.
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Online:
Flu vaccine finder: http://www.flu.gov
CDC flu info: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/index.htm
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AP Photographer Bebeto Matthews in New York contributed to this report.
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Follow Marilynn Marchione's coverage at —http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were little changed on Friday as a weak outlook from tech heavyweight Intel offset a better-than-expected quarterly profit at Morgan Stanley.
Still, the S&P 500 was on track for a third week in a row of gains and remained near a five-year high.
Shares of Intel Corp
On a positive note, Morgan Stanley
"Intel earnings weren't that bad, although their revenue was weak. It sparks fears about not only the company but about the whole PC sector, and that's pressuring the market today," said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer of Solaris Group in Bedford Hills, New York.
Heading into a three-day weekend, investors were cautious about the chances for settling of major differences in Congress about government debt and spending. U.S. markets will be closed on Monday for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday
"Governmental policy, or lack thereof, is again pushing forth this wait-and-see attitude on the part of investors. So the market is flat and with low volume and low volatility because investors are waiting to see what happens with the debt ceiling and spending cuts," said Bryant Evans, investment adviser and portfolio manager at Cozad Asset Management, in Champaign, Illinois.
There were signs that the question of raising the U.S. debt limit would be put off for a while. House Republican leaders said they would seek to pass a three-month extension of federal borrowing authority next week to buy time for the Democratic-controlled Senate to pass a budget that shrinks deficits.
Overall, S&P 500 fourth-quarter earnings rose an estimated 2.5 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 8.69 points, or 0.06 percent, at 13,604.71. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 0.17 points, or 0.01 percent, at 1,481.11. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 8.61 points, or 0.27 percent, at 3,127.39.
On Thursday, the S&P 500 rose to its highest since late 2007, and that could prompt investors to lock in recent gains, analysts said.
Reflecting the complacency, the CBOE Volatility index <.vix>, Wall Street's so-called fear gauge, fell 7.4 percent. The VIX usually moves inversely to the S&P 500 as it is used as a hedge tool against further market decline.
Economic data from China provided some support to the market, though the focus remained on U.S. corporate earnings. The country's economy grew at a modestly faster-than-expected 7.9 percent in the fourth quarter, the latest sign the world's second-biggest economy was pulling out of a post-global financial crisis slowdown which saw it grow in 2012 at its weakest pace since 1999.
General Electric
Despite the gains by Morgan Stanley, financial stocks sagged as Capital One Financial
(Additional reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)
ALGIERS/IN AMENAS, Algeria (Reuters) - More than 20 foreigners were still either being held hostage or missing inside a gas plant on Friday after Algerian forces stormed the desert complex to free hundreds of captives taken by Islamist militants.
More than a day after the Algerian army launched an assault to seize the remote desert compound, much was still unclear about the number and fate of the victims, leaving countries with citizens in harm's way struggling to find hard information.
Reports on the number of hostages killed ranged from 12 to 30, with anywhere from dozens to scores of foreigners still unaccounted for.
Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, eight of whose countrymen were missing, said fighters still controlled the gas treatment plant itself, while Algerian forces now held the nearby residential compound that housed hundreds of workers.
Leaders of Britain, Japan and other countries expressed frustration that the assault had been ordered without consultation. Many countries were also withholding information about their citizens to avoid helping the captors.
Night fell quietly on the village of In Amenas, the nearest settlement, some 50 km (30 miles) from the vast and remote desert plant. A military helicopter could be seen in the sky.
An Algerian security source said 30 hostages, including at least seven Westerners, had been killed during Thursday's assault, along with at least 18 of their captors. Eight of the dead hostages were Algerian, with the nationalities of the rest of the dead still unclear, he said.
Algeria's state news agency APS put the total number of dead hostages at 12, including both foreigners and locals.
Norway's Stoltenberg said some of those killed in vehicles blasted by the army could not be identified. "We must be prepared for bad news this weekend but we still have hope."
Northern Irish engineer Stephen McFaul, who survived, said he saw four trucks full of hostages blown up by Algerian troops.
The attack has plunged international capitals into crisis mode and is a serious escalation of unrest in northwestern Africa, where French forces have been in Mali since last week fighting an Islamist takeover of Timbuktu and other towns.
"We are still dealing with a fluid and dangerous situation where a part of the terrorist threat has been eliminated in one part of the site, but there still remains a threat in another part," British Prime Minister David Cameron told his parliament.
A local Algerian source said 100 of 132 foreign hostages had been freed from the facility. However, other estimates of the number of unaccounted-for foreigners were higher. Earlier the same source said 60 were still missing. Some may be held hostage; others may still be hiding in the sprawling compound.
Two Japanese, two Britons and a French national were among the seven foreigners confirmed dead in the army's storming, the Algerian security source told Reuters. One British citizen was killed when the gunmen seized the hostages on Wednesday.
Those still unaccounted for on Friday included 10 from Japan and eight Norwegians, according to their employers, and a number of Britons which Cameron put at "significantly" less than 30
France said it had no information on two Frenchmen who may have been at the site and Washington has said a number of Americans were among the hostages, without giving details. The local source said a U.S. aircraft landed nearby on Friday.
The attackers had initially claimed to be holding 41 Western hostages. Some Westerners were able to evade capture by hiding.
They lived among hundreds of Algerian employees on the compound. The state news agency said the army had rescued 650 hostages in total, 573 of whom were Algerians.
"(The army) is still trying to achieve a ‘peaceful outcome' before neutralizing the terrorist group that is holed up in the (facility) and freeing a group of hostages that is still being held," it said, quoting a security source.
MULTINATIONAL INSURGENCY
Algerian commanders said they moved in on Thursday about 30 hours after the siege began, because the gunmen had demanded to be allowed to take their captives abroad.
A French hostage employed by a French catering company said he had hidden in his room for 40 hours under the bed, relying on Algerian employees to smuggle him food with a password.
"I put boards up pretty much all round," Alexandre Berceaux told Europe 1 radio. "I didn't know how long I was going to stay there ... I was afraid. I could see myself already ending up in a pine box."
The captors said their attack was a response to a French military offensive in neighboring Mali. However, some U.S. and European officials say the elaborate raid probably required too much planning to have been organized from scratch in the single week since France first launched its strikes.
Paris says the incident proves that its decision to fight Islamists in neighboring Mali was necessary.
Security in the half-dozen countries around the Sahara desert has long been a pre-occupation of the West. Smugglers and militants have earned millions in ransom from kidnappings.
The most powerful Islamist groups in the Sahara were severely weakened by Algeria's secularist military in a civil war in the 1990s. But in the past two years the regional wing of Al Qaeda gained fighters and arms as a result of the civil war in Libya, when arsenals were looted from Muammar Gaddafi's army.
Al Qaeda-linked fighters, many with roots in Algeria and Libya, took control of northern Mali last year, prompting the French intervention in that poor African former colony.
The Algerian security source said only two of 11 militants whose bodies were found on Thursday were Algerian, including the squad's leader. The others comprised three Egyptians, two Tunisians, two Libyans, a Malian and a Frenchman, he said.
The plant was heavily fortified, with security, controlled access and an army camp with hundreds of armed personnel between the accommodation and processing plant, Andy Coward Honeywell, who worked there in 2009, told the BBC.
The apparent ease with which the fighters swooped in from the dunes to take control of an important energy facility, which produces some 10 percent of the natural gas on which Algeria depends for its export income, has raised questions over the value of outwardly tough security measures.
Algerian officials said the attackers may have had inside help from among the hundreds of Algerians employed at the site. The attackers benefitted from bases and staging grounds across the nearby border in Libya's desert, Algerian officials said.
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said those responsible would be hunted down: "Terrorists should be on notice that they will find no sanctuary, no refuge, not in Algeria, not in North Africa, not anywhere.... Those who would wantonly attack our country and our people will have no place to hide."
WARNING OF MORE ATTACKS
The kidnappers threatened more attacks and warned Algerians to stay away from foreign companies' installations, according to Mauritania's news agency ANI, which maintained contact with the group during the siege.
Hundreds of workers from international oil companies were evacuated from Algeria on Thursday and many more will follow, said BP, which jointly ran the gas plant with Norway's Statoil and the Algerian state oil firm.
The overall commander of the kidnappers, Algerian officials said, was Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a one-eyed veteran of Afghanistan in the 1980s and Algeria's bloody civil war of the 1990s. He appears not to have been present.
Algerian security specialist Anis Rahmani, author of several books on terrorism and editor of Ennahar daily, told Reuters about 70 militants were involved from two groups, Belmokhtar's "Those who sign in blood", who traveled from Libya, and the lesser known "Movement of the Islamic Youth in the South".
Britain's Cameron, who warned people to prepare for bad news and who canceled a major policy speech on Friday to deal with the situation, said he would have liked Algeria to have consulted before the raid. Japan made similar complaints.
U.S. officials had no clear information on the fate of Americans. Washington, like its European allies, has endorsed France's military intervention in Mali.
(Additional reporting by Ali Abdelatti in Cairo, Eamonn Mallie in Belfast, Gwladys Fouche in Oslo, Mohammed Abbas in London and Padraic Halpin and Conor Humprhies in Dublin; Writing by Philippa Fletcher and Peter Graff; Editing by Andrew Roche)
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Manti Te’o, the Notre Dame linebacker entangled in a girlfriend hoax that gives a whole new meaning to the term “air kiss,” is inspiring a new fad racing through social media: Te’oing.
An avalanche of pictures of people hugging empty chairs or puckering up to an otherwise empty room were posted to Twitter with the hashtag #Te’oing days after the college football star’s story about his girlfriend’s cancer death was exposed as a fraud. Not only did she never have leukemia, she never existed.
Notre Dame officials said Te’o told them he had been duped into believing he had an online relationship with the fictitious woman.
“Te’oing – Mile High Club edition” read one tweet with a photo of a man hugging the air in an airplane bathroom, an apparent reference to the whispered practice of having sex in mid-flight.
Clint Eastwood was hailed in several tweets as a “Te’oing” pioneer for the actor’s interlude with an empty chair at the 2012 Republican Convention. Other tweets showed Ronald McDonald Te’oing on his cozy bench and President Barack Obama spending quality time Te’oing with a vacant seat.
“Just some afternoon bubbly with my baby” said one Te’oing tweet with a photo of a man clinking his champagne flute against another that appeared to be suspended in mid-air.
The snarky social media frenzy recalled another similar trend called the “Tebowing,” named for New York Jets quarterback Tim Tebow, who frequently kneeled for on-field prayers and inspired copy-cat poses by people whose pictures flooded social media last year.
In its own riff on emptiness and romance, a Kentucky minor league baseball team, the Florence Freedom, has announced it will give away Manti Te’o Girlfriend Bobblehead dolls – actually empty boxes – to the first 1,000 fans at the May 23 game.
One section of the Florence, Kentucky, stadium has been reserved “for fans to sit with their imaginary friends, girlfriends/boyfriends or spouses” who may be caught on the “pretend kiss cam” and are invited to compete in an air guitar contest or an imaginary food fight.
(Writing by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Paul Thomasch and Vicki Allen)
Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News
01/17/2013 at 11:00 AM ET
What’s in a name? Apparently every last one on Uma Thurman‘s list of favorites!
After the actress and her boyfriend Arpad Busson revealed they had decided on Rosalind Arusha Arkadina Altalune Florence for their baby girl born in July, it was Thurman’s 14-year-old daughter Maya who found reason in their multitude of monikers.
“[Maya] came up with the best excuse, [which] was that I probably wouldn’t get to have any more children, so I just put every name that I liked into [Luna's],” the Playing for Keeps star, 42, said during a Monday appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
Joking that there is a bit of logic behind their “crazy” choice — “The last part makes sense, right?” she says of Luna’s surname – Thurman admits she and Busson couldn’t compromise.
“We couldn’t quite agree on the name,” she shares. “We call her Luna, so she’s lucky that way.”
Lloyd Bishop/NBC
And, in the long run Thurman and Fallon agree that the “full Catholic” 6-month-old will have no problems brainstorming baby names for her future family.
“The rest she can just name her own children all these interesting names,” quips the proud mama. “Proper Catholic, observant!”
– Anya Leon
NEW YORK (AP) — A new study shows New York City is doing better than Los Angeles in the battle against childhood obesity, at least for low-income children.
From 2003 to 2011, obesity rates for poor children dropped in New York to around 16 percent. But they rose in Los Angeles and ended at about 20 percent.
The researchers focused on children ages 3 and 4 enrolled in a government program that provides food and other services to women and their young children.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the study Thursday.
The authors noted that the Los Angeles program has many more Mexican-American kids. Obesity is more common in Mexican-American boys than in white or black kids.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks climbed on Thursday, with the S&P 500 advancing to a five-year intraday high on signs of strength in the housing and job markets and on better-than-expected results from online marketplace eBay
The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell to a five-year low last week and housing starts jumped last month to the highest since June 2008.
Strength in the housing and labor markets is key to sustained growth and higher corporate profits. Job market improvement helps stimulate consumer spending while a recovery in housing means more purchases of appliances, furniture and other household goods as well as a source of employment.
The S&P is on track for its third consecutive advance, which pushed the index above an intraday peak set in September to its highest since December 2007. The PHLX semiconductor index <.sox>, up 1.7 percent, reached its highest level in eight months.
"Having consolidated really for the last two weeks, the fact that we broke out, I think that that's sucking in quite a bit of money," said James Dailey, portfolio manager of TEAM Asset Strategy Fund in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
In the housing sector, PulteGroup Inc
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 110.01 points, or 0.81 percent, at 13,621.24. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 10.96 points, or 0.74 percent, at 1,483.59. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 22.52 points, or 0.72 percent, at 3,140.07.
EBay's shares rose 2.7 percent to $54.33 a day after it reported holiday quarter results that just beat Wall Street expectations. It gave a 2013 forecast that was within analysts' estimates.
Gains were tempered somewhat by weakness in the financial sector, with Bank of America
Bank of America's fourth-quarter profit fell as it took more charges to clean up mortgage-related problems. Citigroup posted $2.32 billion of charges for layoffs and lawsuits.
The S&P financial sector index <.spsy> slipped 0.14 percent as the only one of the 10 major S&P sectors to decline.
S&P 500 earnings are expected to have risen 2.3 percent in the fourth quarter, Thomson Reuters data showed. Expectations for the quarter have fallen considerably since October when a 9.9 percent gain was estimated.
(Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)
ALGIERS (Reuters) - Algeria said several hostages were killed on Thursday when its forces stormed a remote desert gas plant occupied by Islamist militants in retaliation for French intervention in Mali, and local sources said six foreigners were among the dead.
Amid reports of many more casualties in one of the biggest international hostage crises in decades, Western leaders expressed anger they had not been consulted before the operation and scrambled for word of their citizens. Some eight hours after the army assault began, Algerian state media said it was over.
Americans, Britons, Norwegians, French, Romanians and an Austrian, were among those taken, their countries said.
Algeria said its troops had been forced to act to free them due to the "diehard" attitude of their captors.
"When the terrorist group insisted on leaving the facility, taking the foreign hostages with them to neighboring states, the order was issued to special units to attack the position where the terrorists were entrenched," the government spokesman, Communication Minister, Mohamed Said told the state news agency.
The standoff began when gunmen calling themselves the Battalion of Blood stormed the natural gas facility early on Wednesday morning. They said they were holding 41 foreigners and demanded a halt to a French military operation against fellow al Qaeda-linked Islamist militants in neighboring Mali.
Said said the military operation, which Western officials were told had begun around noon (6:00 a.m. EST) on Thursday, resulted in "the liberation of a large number of hostages and the destruction of a large number of terrorists".
The raid increased fears jihadist militants could launch further attacks in Algeria, a vast desert country with large oil and gas reserves that is only just recovering from a protracted conflict with Islamist rebels during the 1990s which cost an estimated 200,000 lives.
A local source told Reuters six foreign hostages were killed along with eight captors when the Algerian military fired on a vehicle being used by the gunmen.
He said 40 Algerians and three foreigners were freed by the army as it continued its operation into Thursday evening. An Algerian security source said earlier that 25 foreign hostages had escaped.
Algeria's official APS news agency said about half the foreign hostages had been freed and about 600 Algerian workers at the site, under less tight guard, had managed to escape.
MILITANTS KNEW THEIR WAY AROUND
In a rare eyewitness account of Wednesday's raid, a local man who had escaped from the facility told Reuters the militants appeared to have good inside knowledge of the layout of the complex and used the language of radical Islam.
"The terrorists told us at the very start that they would not hurt Muslims but were only interested in the Christians and infidels," Abdelkader, 53, said by telephone from his home in the nearby town of In Amenas. "We will kill them, they said."
Mauritanian agency ANI and Qatar-based Al Jazeera said that 34 of the captives and 15 of their captors had been killed when government forces fired from helicopters at a vehicle.
Those death tolls, far higher than confirmed by the local source, would contradict the reports that large numbers of foreigners escaped alive. On Thursday evening, ANI said it had lost its previously regular contact with the kidnappers.
Britain and Norway, whose oil firms BP and Statoil run the plant jointly with the Algerian state oil company, said they had been informed by the Algerian authorities that a military operation was under way.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said people should prepare for bad news about the hostages. He earlier called his Algerian counterpart to express his concern at what he called a "very grave and serious" situation, Cameron's spokesman said.
"The Algerians are aware that we would have preferred to have been consulted in advance," the spokesman added.
Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said he had been told by his Algerian counterpart the action had started at around noon. He said they had tried to find a solution through the night, but that it had not worked.
"The Algerian prime minister said they felt they had no choice but to go in now," he said.
RAISING THE STAKES
The incident dramatically raises the stakes in the French military campaign in neighboring Mali, where hundreds of French paratroopers and marines are launching a ground offensive against Islamist rebels after air strikes began last week.
"What is happening in Algeria justifies all the more the decision I made in the name of France to intervene in Mali in line with the U.N. charter," French President Francois Hollande said, adding that things seemed to have taken a "dramatic" turn and he was still seeking details.
He said earlier that an unspecified number of French nationals were among the hostages. A French national was also among the hostage takers, a local source told Reuters. A large number of people from the former French colony live in France.
Algerian Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia said the kidnappers were led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a veteran Islamist guerrilla who fought in Afghanistan and set up his own group in the Sahara after falling out with other local al Qaeda leaders.
A holy warrior-cum-smuggler dubbed "The Uncatchable" by French intelligence and "Mister Marlboro" by some locals for his illicit cigarette-running business, Belmokhtar's links to those who seized towns across northern Mali last year are unclear.
A local source told Reuters the hostage takers had blown up a petrol filling station at the plant.
NUMBERS UNCONFIRMED
The precise number and nationalities of foreign hostages could not be confirmed, with some countries reluctant to release information that could be useful to the captors.
Britain said one of its citizens was killed in the initial storming on Wednesday and "a number" of others were held.
The militants had said seven Americans were among their hostages. The White House said it believed Americans were among those held but U.S. officials could not confirm the number. "This is an ongoing situation and we are seeking clarity," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters, expressing concern about the reported loss of lives.
Statoil said it had no word on nine of its Norwegian staff who had been held but that three Algerian employees were now free. BP said some of its staff were held but would not say how many or their nationalities.
Japanese media said five workers from Japanese engineering firm JGC Corp. were held, a number the company did not confirm. Vienna said one hostage was Austrian, Dublin said one Irish hostage had been freed and Bucharest said an unspecified number of those held were Romanian.
BP, Statoil and Spanish oil company Cepsa all said they had begun to evacuate personnel from elsewhere in Algeria, an OPEC member.
Hollande has received public backing from Western and African allies who fear that al Qaeda, flush with men and arms from the defeated forces of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, is building a desert haven in Mali, a poor country helpless to combat fighters who seized its northern oasis towns last year.
However, there is also some concern in Washington and other capitals that the French action in Mali could provoke a backlash worse than the initial threat by militants in the remote Sahara.
The militants, communicating through established contacts with media in neighboring Mauritania, said on Wednesday they had dozens of men armed with mortars and anti-aircraft missiles in the compound and had rigged it with explosives.
They condemned Algeria's secularist government for letting French warplanes fly over its territory to Mali and shutting its border to Malian refugees.
The attack in Algeria did not stop France from pressing on with its campaign in Mali. It said on Thursday it now had 1,400 troops on the ground in Mali, and combat was under way against the rebels that it first began targeting from the air last week.
The French action last week came as a surprise but received widespread international support in public. Neighboring African countries planning to provide ground troops for a U.N. force by September have said they will move faster to deploy them.
Nigeria, the strongest regional power, sent 162 soldiers on Thursday, the first of an anticipated 906.
A day after launching the campaign in Mali, Hollande also ordered a failed rescue in Somalia on Saturday to free a French hostage held by al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab militants since 2009. Al Shabaab said on Thursday it had executed hostage Denis Allex. France said it believed he died in the rescue.
(Additional reporting by Ali Abdelatti in Cairo, Gwladys Fouche in Oslo, Mohammed Abbas in London and Padraic Halpin in Writing by Peter Graff, Giles Elgood and Philippa Fletcher; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Acting as a tax collector may have hurt Amazon.com, Inc’s holiday sales analysts and industry executives said, but they expect to know more when the internet retailer reports its fourth-quarter results on January 29.
Best Buy Co., an archrival of Amazon in consumer electronics, saw holiday online sales increase in three states where Amazon started collecting sales tax ahead of the period.
“There was a little softness in states where Amazon is now collecting sales tax,” said R.J. Hottovy, an equity analyst at Morningstar. “That isn’t surprising to me. It levels the playing field for brick-and-mortar retailers.”
Critics of Amazon argued it had an unfair advantage because most retailers have had to collect state sales tax on online sales for years because they have stores and other physical operations in these locations.
But many states, hungry for extra tax revenue in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, introduced new laws requiring that Internet-only retailers also collect sales tax. Brick-and-mortar retailers hope the requirement will reduce Amazon’s price advantage and help them recoup lost sales.
CHANNELADVISOR DATA
Amazon, the world’s biggest Internet retailer, began collecting sales tax of 7.25 percent to 9.75 percent in California on Sept 15, about two weeks before the start of the fourth-quarter. Third-party sellers on Amazon.com saw a drop in sales during the quarter, compared to other states, according to an analysis by e-commerce firm ChannelAdvisor.
It also started collecting sales tax in Pennsylvania in September and in Texas in July.
Amazon’s fourth-quarter results should provide clues on whether consumers changed their shopping habits when faced with higher taxes on their purchases from the company’s website.
ChannelAdvisor, which helps merchants sell more online, analyzed its clients’ sales on Amazon.com in California, and compared them to other states before and after the sales tax kicked in.
Before Amazon began collecting the tax in California, ChannelAdvisor client sales were 5 percent to 10 percent above other states. The week before the September 15 start of the tax, sales spiked as high as 70 percent compared to other states.
“The surge before the tax went into effect was much larger than I thought it would be,” said Scot Wingo, chief executive of ChannelAdvisor. “Californians definitely bought a lot in the three or four days before the tax went into effect.”
After Amazon began collecting tax, its California sales leveled with other states. Then, in early November, they slipped as much as 10 percent below other states, ChannelAdvisor data showed.
During one of the busiest holiday periods, in late November and early December, sales dipped further in California vs other states. Toward the end of the holiday period, client sales in California recovered, the data showed.
“There was a sales impact of about 10 percent at the worst point of the dip,” Wingo said. EBay, another Amazon rival, is an investor in ChannelAdvisor. Wingo also owned Amazon shares, but sold them in the fourth quarter for personal tax-related reasons.
Amazon’s tax collection in California had the most impact on fourth-quarter sales of more expensive items priced at $ 200 to $ 250, Wingo said.
PRICES, PROFIT
Amazon probably lowered prices by 8 percent to 9 percent on items most affected by this, although it is tricky to separate such reductions from the usual holiday season promotions that were also happening, Wingo said.
The extra price competition may dent Amazon’s profitability in the fourth quarter, Morningstar’s Hottovy said.
Amazon is expected to make 52 cents a share in the fourth quarter, on revenue of $ 22.3 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. In late October, the company forecast operating results ranging from a profit of $ 310 million to a loss of $ 490 million.
Hottovy expects $ 22.4 billion in revenue and an operating loss of $ 210 million, or a $ 135 million loss after excluding stock-based compensation and other operating expenses.
BEST BUY
In California, Texas and Pennsylvania, Best Buy said it saw a 4 percent to 6 percent increase in online sales during the holiday versus the rest of its chain.
The retailer also saw an increase of 6 percent to 9 percent in online orders that are picked up in its stores in those three states compared with the rest of its chain.
Overall, Best Buy reported better-than-expected holiday sales last week, sending its shares up more than 10 percent.
“This makes Amazon equal to everyone else. They no longer have that sales tax advantage,” said Anne Zybowski, vice president of retail insights at Kantar Retail. “If this had happened to Amazon when they were just a bookseller years ago, they may not be as big as they are now.
Despite the tax changes, Amazon’s consumer electronics prices were still at least 5 percent below Best Buy’s during the holiday season, Zybowski said. But Best Buy may have benefited from even a small change in this area.
“Particularly in consumer electronics, any narrowing of Amazon’s price advantage at the margin is important because Best Buy brings service and other shopper benefits to the category,” she said.
Best Buy will take away people’s old TVs when they buy a new one and the company’s Geek Squad service will install devices in shoppers’ homes, services Amazon does not provide, she noted.
An Amazon spokesman declined to comment when asked if the company saw an impact on fourth-quarter sales from the collection of sales taxes in the three states.
In the past, Amazon executives have said there was little or no impact from such changes in other regions.
Several analysts have argued that shoppers use Amazon for its vast product selection and convenient, fast shipping and returns, and not just its low prices.
“While not great for Amazon, it’s just one of many consumer benefits its service offers,” said Ken Sena, an analyst at Evercore Partners. “And while there may be early effects from this change, I still see usage trends remaining in Amazon’s favor.”
(Editing by Leslie Gevirtz)
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