Cyber Monday sales best ever, for Amazon’s Kindle too

(Reuters) – Internet sales jumped more than 30 percent on Cyber Monday, making it the biggest online shopping day ever, according to data released on Tuesday.

Walmart.com, the online division of Walmart U.S., had its best sales day in history, a spokeswoman said.

Cyber Monday also was a record day for sales of Amazon.com Inc’s Kindle devices, the online retailer said, without specifying the number sold.

Still, eBay Inc, operator of one of the largest online marketplaces, outperformed its arch rival Amazon.com over the crucial first five days of the holiday shopping season, according to one closely watched measure.

Cyber Monday has been the biggest online shopping day in recent years, as workers return to offices and make holiday purchases on their computers. This year, the boom in smart phone and tablet adoption has added extra fuel to online shopping.

Cyber Monday sales online jumped 30.3 percent from the same day last year, according to International Business Machines Corp, which analyzes transactions from 500 U.S. retailers.

Mobile devices accounted for 18 percent of visits to retailer websites and 13 percent of sales on Cyber Monday. That was up 70 percent and 96 percent, respectively, compared with the same day last year, IBM reported.

To that end, Walmart.com said Cyber Monday online traffic from Walmart’s mobile apps jumped 280 percent versus a year ago.

On Monday, when retailers offered big Cyber Monday online deals, web shopping peaked at 11:25 a.m. EST (1625 GMT), IBM said. That timing suggests shoppers continue to check out online offers while still at work, even though more people have high-speed Internet access at home than in previous years.

AMAZON’S KINDLE DEAL

Amazon.com cut the price of its 7-inch Kindle Fire tablet by $ 30 to $ 129 on Monday, and it was the company’s most successful Cyber Monday deal ever, the retailer said.

Nine of the top 10 best-selling products on Amazon.com have been Kindles, Kindle accessories and digital content since the company unveiled new devices on September 6, it said.

Worldwide sales of Kindle devices more than doubled during the Thanksgiving weekend from the 2011 period, Amazon said.

“Demand for Kindle Fire is stronger than expected,” said Chad Bartley, an analyst at Pacific Crest Securities. “This suggests Amazon is competing effectively against Apple and Google in the near term, and increased device ownership could drive sales of digital media and physical products over the long term.”

Bartley raised his estimate for fourth-quarter Kindle Fire unit sales to 8 million from 5.5 million and increased his forecast for Amazon’s fourth-quarter revenue to $ 22.75 billion from $ 22.25 billion.

Shares of Amazon closed down almost 0.1 percent at $ 243.40 on Nasdaq. Stock in Wal-Mart Stores Inc shed 0.6 percent to close at $ 69.50.

A FIRST FOR EBAY

Still, eBay sales may have outperformed Amazon during the early part of the holiday shopping season, according to ChannelAdvisor, which helps third-party merchants sell more via websites including eBay.com and Amazon.com.

ChannelAdvisor data excludes sales specifically by Amazon, so the data does not capture Kindle device revenue and many other transactions. About 60 percent of Amazon’s unit sales are generated by the company itself, while 40 percent come from third parties operating on its platform.

ChannelAdvisor said client sales – sales generated by third-party merchants using the company’s service – soared 55.2 percent on eBay.com on Cyber Monday from a year earlier. That was about five times faster than last year’s growth.

For the five-day period from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, which ChannelAdvisor calls the “Cyber Five,” client sales on eBay.com rose 38.3 percent compared with the same days in 2011.

ChannelAdvisor said client sales on Amazon.com jumped 42.4 percent on Cyber Monday compared with a year earlier. Over the “Cyber Five,” client sales on Amazon.com rose 37.7 percent, the firm said.

This is the first time since at least 2007 that client sales on eBay.com have grown faster than client sales via Amazon.com during the holiday season, according to Scot Wingo, chief executive of ChannelAdvisor. The firm started tracking this in 2007, he noted.

EBay shares lost 0.5 percent to close at $ 51.15 on Tuesday. The stock rose almost 5 percent to a new multi-year high on Monday after ChannelAdvisor released its early Cyber Monday results.

EBay’s holiday advertising campaign, which included TV commercials, likely attracted more shoppers to its online marketplace, Wingo said.

EBay was also “aggressive” with holiday promotions and gift guides, and the company’s category-specific websites focused on things like fashion and electronics, were well integrated with the broader holiday promotions, unlike last year, Wingo explained.

However, the main driver may have been mobile shopping, an area in which eBay and its payments division PayPal invested early and heavily, Wingo added.

“With less than 10 percent of commerce coming from mobile devices and far higher levels ahead, we believe this trend will carry eBay Marketplace and PayPal for the next few years,” Gil Luria, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, wrote in a note to investors on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Alistair Barr in San Francisco and Jessica Wohl in Chicago, additional reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles; Editing by Sofina Mirza-Reid, Lisa Von Ahn, Gunna Dickson and David Gregorio)

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Man accused of stealing Tim Allen’s Chevy Impala

DENVER (AP) — A man suspected of stealing one of Tim Allen‘s custom cars says the comedian left the keys so he could drive it to Denver.

Denver police spokesman Sonny Jackson said Monday that 34-year-old Faustino Ibarra is being held without bond while awaiting extradition to California after his arrest on Saturday.

In a jailhouse interview with KDVR-TV (http://bit.ly/TpJirK ), Ibarra claimed Allen adopted him years ago. Jackson said there is no evidence of any adoption.

Ibarra said Allen had left the door to his garage open along with the keys.

Police confirmed that the customized 1996 Chevrolet Impala SS belonged to the “Home Improvement” star but said it hadn’t yet been reported stolen when it turned up in Denver.

Allen’s publicist Marleah (mar-LEE-uh) Leslie said she wouldn’t comment because it’s a police matter.

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New York, New Jersey put $71 billion price tag on Sandy

(Reuters) - New York state and New Jersey need at least $71.3 billion to recover from the devastation wrought by Superstorm Sandy and prevent similar damage from future storms, according to their latest estimates.

The total, which could grow, came as New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Monday the state will need $41.9 billion, including $32.8 billion to repair and restore damaged housing, parks and infrastructure and to cover lost revenue and other expenses. The figure also includes $9.1 billion to mitigate potential damage from future severe weather events, Cuomo said.

Neighboring New Jersey, which saw massive damage to its transit system and coastline, suffered at least $29.4 billion in overall losses, according to a preliminary analysis released by Governor Chris Christie's office Friday. The preliminary cost estimate includes federal aid New Jersey has received so far.

By some measures, Sandy was worse than Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which tore into the U.S. Gulf Coast in 2005, Cuomo said.

Sandy destroyed 305,000 houses in New York state - a still provisional number that's likely to grow - compared to the 214,700 destroyed in Louisiana by Katrina and Rita.

Sandy also caused nearly 2.2 million power outages at its peak in the state, compared to 800,000 from Katrina and Rita in Louisiana, and impacted 265,300 businesses compared to 18,700, Cuomo said.

While Sandy may have damaged more homes and businesses, Katrina took a far greater toll on human lives, killing more than 1,800 people directly or indirectly. Sandy, by comparison, is believed to have killed at least 121 people.

"Hurricane Katrina got a lot of notoriety for the way government handled -- or mishandled, depending on your point of view -- the situation," Cuomo said at a press conference.

But considering the dense population of the area Sandy impacted and costs to the economy, housing, and businesses, the damage done "was much larger in Hurricane Sandy than in Hurricane Katrina, and that puts this entire conversation, I believe, in focus," Cuomo said.

Sandy made landfall in New Jersey on October 29. It blasted through the Northeastern U.S., devastating homes, forcing evacuations, crippling power systems and shutting down New York City's subway system for days.

TAKING SANDY COSTS TO CONGRESS

The total cost to the region is still not known as estimates of the damage, as well as future repair and prevention costs, continue to come in from states, cities and counties.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on Monday he will ask Congress for $9.8 billion to pay for Sandy costs not covered by insurance or other federal funds.

In a letter to New York's congressional delegation, Bloomberg said public, private and indirect losses to the city from the devastating late-October storm stood at $19 billion.

Of that, private insurance is expected to cover $3.8 billion, with Federal Emergency Management Agency reimbursements to cover at least an additional $5.4 billion, Bloomberg said in a statement.

The city still will need the additional $9.8 billion to help pay for costs that FEMA does not cover, like hazard mitigation, long-term housing, shoreline restoration and protection efforts, he said.

Whatever the final tally, officials are beginning to pressure Congress for federal assistance.

Cuomo met on Monday with the state's Congressional delegation and county officials. U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand said in a statement that New York's Congressional delegation will push hard for additional federal funding.

"The federal government has a clear responsibility to commit all of the necessary resources to help us rebuild," she said.

Getting federal funds could be a tough fight, because of pressure on lawmakers to cut spending and raise taxes in order to shrink the federal deficit.

"This will be an effort that lasts not weeks, but many months, and we will not rest until the federal response meets New York's deep and extensive needs," said U.S. Senator Charles Schumer in a statement.

NUMBERS GAME

Cuomo's earlier estimates had pegged the total amount of damages for the region at $50 billion, with about $33 billion of that incurred in New York state.

In New York City, Bloomberg said on Monday that the city had about $4.8 billion of uninsured private losses, $3.8 billion of insured private losses, and $4.5 billion in losses to city agencies.

Reconstructing the city's damaged roads alone could cost nearly $800 million, Bloomberg said. New York City, a financial and tourism center, also lost about $5.7 billion in gross city product, he said.

Included in Cuomo's nearly $9.1 billion of mitigation costs are what he called "common sense" actions, like flood protection for the World Trade center site, roads, subway tunnels and sewage treatment plants, as well as power generators for the region's fuel supply system and backup power for health care facilities.

"We will see new projects," said Mysore Nagaraja, former president of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Capital Construction Co.

"In order to justify whatever money they finally end up getting, they have to come up with this list of projects that need to be done so that the future Sandy will not have the impact it had this time," he said.

Nagaraja is currently chairman of Spartan Solutions LLC, an infrastructure consulting firm.

(Reporting by Hilary Russ; Additional reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Maureen Bavdek, Bill Trott and Phil Berlowitz)

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Dog days in Cuba: from shih tzus to schnauzers

HAVANA (AP) — The Cuban capital has played host to political summits and art festivals, ballet tributes and international baseball competitions. Now dog lovers are getting their chance to take center stage.

Hundreds of people from all over Cuba and several other countries came to a scruffy field near Revolution Plaza this past week to preen and fuss over the shih tzus, beagles, schnauzers and cocker spaniels that are the annual Fall Canine Expo’s star attractions. There were even about a dozen bichon habaneros, a mid-sized dog bred on the island since the 17th century.

As dog lovers talked shop, the merely curious strolled the field, checking out the more than 50 breeds on display while carefully dodging the prodigious output of so many dogs.

The four-day competition, which ended Sunday, included competitions in several breeding categories, and judges were flown in from Nicaragua, Colombia and Mexico.

“This is a small, poor country, but Cubans love dogs,” said Miguel Calvo, the president of Cuba’s dog federation, which organized the show. “We make a great effort to breed purebred animals of quality.”

Winners don’t receive any trophy or prize money, but that doesn’t mean the competition is any less fierce.

Anabel Perez, owner of a cocker spaniel named Lisamineli after the U.S. actress, spent more than half an hour coifing the dog’s hair in preparation for the competition, while the owner of a shih tzu named Tiguer meticulously brushed his coat nearby.

“I’m a hairdresser for humans,” explained Tiguer’s owner, Miguel Lopez. “So it’s easy for me. I like shih tzus because they are a lot of work to keep well groomed.”

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Medications for Treating a Common Infection Are Losing Effectiveness

The misuse and overuse of antibiotics continues to be a vexing problem in the United States, particularly in the southeastern part of the country, according to a new report that tracks antibiotic resistance patterns.

The survey found a decline in the number of MRSA infections—methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus—a potentially dangerous skin infection. However, more antibiotics are becoming resistant to the bacteria that cause urinary tract infections, which is a common infection that had been fairly easy to treat until recently.

The data were released by Extending the Cure, a project of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy, a nonprofit think tank with offices in Washington, D.C. and New Dehli. The organization’s mission is to gather evidence on antibiotic overuse and resistance.

“People don’t realize we’ve only had antibiotics for about 70 years. That is a very, very short period of time,” Ramanan Laxminarayan, director of Extending the Cure, told Take Part. “We have these wonderful, helpful drugs that are able to do things that we’ve never done before—and now we’re about to lose them again. I don’t think people realize how much we depend on them.”

Unnecessary use makes antibiotics less effective in fighting off infections because, when repeatedly exposed to certain drugs, microbes change and become resistant. Widespread publicity about antibiotic overuse has led to some positive changes in prescribing patterns. Antibiotic prescriptions in the United States fell 17 percent from 1999 to 2012, according to the report. Far fewer pediatricians, for example, prescribe antibiotics for children’s mild respiratory symptoms and earaches.

“That is really good news,” Laxminarayan says. “There is progress at reducing antibiotic use at things where people think they should never have been prescribed in the first place. We’re not denying antibiotics when people really need it. We are denying antibiotics when we don’t need it.”

MORE: The Verdict Is in: Antibiotics in Animal Feed Create Superbugs

Moreover, the ability to treat skin infections has improved since the peak days of MRSA cases in the mid-2000s. MRSA infections have fallen by about half due to efforts to find new therapies and interventions.

However, antibiotic resistance is still a huge problem, Laxminarayan says. The report found that some of the drugs used to treat urinary tract infections are failing because bacterial resistance to those medications has increased by more than 30 percent since 1999.

Urinary tract infections, which are caused by the E. coli bacteria, account for more than 8.6 million visits to healthcare professionals each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If untreated, these infections can turn into life-threatening bloodstream infections.

“Things that were commonly treatable are not as treatable anymore,” Laxminarayan says.

MORE: Study Uncovers Alarming Worldwide Rates of Drug-Resistant TB

Hospitals remain at the center of the antibiotic-resistance problem, he says. Hospital patients are typically older and sicker, and heavy antibiotic use is often necessary. But hospitals can help address antibiotic resistance by taking steps to curb the spread of infections within the hospital, he says. Five to eight percent of people develop an infection while in the hospital.

“We have sharply increased resistance around the country because it is not going down in hospitals, and hospitals are where the worse kinds of resistance are found,” he says. “We’ve advocated for having stronger hospital infection control. If you stop the infection from spreading, you don’t have to worry about resistance. We need pretty much a revolution regarding infection control in hospitals.”

The survey also found eye-opening regional differences regarding antibiotic resistance, such as higher levels of antibiotic overuse in the southeastern United States. It’s not clear why that area of the country has lagged behind, he says.

MORE: Judge to FDA on Antibiotics: Prove They’re Safe

The survey found that residents of Appalachian and Gulf Coast states, where antibiotic use rates are highest, take about twice as many antibiotics per capita as people living in Western states. In 2010, the five states with the highest rates of antibiotic use in the nation were Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The five states with the lowest antibiotic use in the nation were Alaska, Hawaii, California, Oregon, and Washington.

Extending the Cure displays its data online via the ResistanceMap, a tool created to track changes in antibiotic drug use and resistance. People can see how the area they live in compares to other regions.

“We want people to be knowledgeable and therefore empowered about what they can do about the problem,” Laxminarayan says.

Earlier this month, the CDC, Extending the Cure and 25 other national health organizations issued a joint consensus statement on the need to preserve antibiotic effectiveness and fight over-use.

“When so many government agencies and public organizations have signed on it indicates we’re all pointing in the same direction,” Laxminarayan says.

Question: What should be done to reduce the overuse of antibiotics? Tell us what you think in the Comments.

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Shari Roan is an award-winning health writer based in Southern California. She is the author of three books on health and science subjects.

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Privacy groups ask Facebook to withdraw proposed policy changes

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Two privacy advocacy groups urged Facebook Inc on Monday to withdraw proposed changes to its terms of service that would allow the company to share user data with recently acquired photo-application Instagram, eliminate a user voting system and loosen email restrictions within the social network.

The changes, which Facebook unveiled on Wednesday, raise privacy risks for users and violate the company’s previous commitments to its roughly 1 billion members, according to the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Center for Digital Democracy.

“Facebook’s proposed changes implicate the user privacy and terms of a recent settlement with the Federal Trade Commission,” the groups said in a letter to Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg that was published on their websites on Monday.

By sharing information with Instagram, the letter said, Facebook could combine user profiles, ending its practice of keeping user information on the two services separate.

Facebook declined to comment on the letter.

In April, Facebook settled privacy charges with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission that it had deceived consumers and forced them to share more personal information than they intended. Under the settlement, Facebook is required to get user consent for certain changes to its privacy settings and is subject to 20 years of independent audits.

Facebook, Google and other online companies have faced increasing scrutiny and enforcement from privacy regulators as consumers entrust ever-increasing amounts of information about their personal lives to Web services.

Facebook unveiled a variety of proposed changes to its terms of service and data use polices on Wednesday, including a move to scrap a 4-year old process that can allow the social network’s roughly 1 billion users to vote on changes to its policies.

If proposed changes generate more than 7,000 public comments during a seven-day period, Facebook’s current terms of service automatically trigger a vote by users to approve the changes. But the vote is only binding if at least 30 percent of users take part, and two prior votes never reached that threshold.

The latest proposed changes had garnered more than 17,000 comments by late Monday.

Facebook also said last week that it wanted to eliminate a setting for users to control who can contact them on the social network’s email system. The company said it planned to replace the “Who can send you Facebook messages” setting with new filters for managing incoming messages.

That change is likely to increase the amount of unwanted “spam” messages that users receive, the privacy groups warned on Monday.

Facebook’s potential information sharing with Instagram, a photo-sharing service for smartphone users that it bought in October, flows from proposed changes that would allow the company to share information between its own service and other businesses or affiliates it owns.

The change could open the door for Facebook to build unified profiles of its users that include people’s personal data from its social network and from Instagram, similar to recent moves by Google Inc.

In January, Google said it would combine users’ personal information from its various Web services – such as search, email and the Google+ social network – to provide a more customized experience. The unified data policy raised concerns among some privacy advocates and regulators, who said it was an invasion of people’s privacy.

“As our company grows, we acquire businesses that become a legal part of our organization,” Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes said in an emailed statement on Monday.

“Those companies sometimes operate as affiliates. We wanted to clarify that we will share information with our affiliates and vice versa, both to help improve our services and theirs, and to take advantage of storage efficiencies,” Noyes said.

(Reporting By Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Richard Pullin)

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“Rise of the Guardians” Barrier-Breaker: The First African-American to Direct a CG Animation Film

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Peter Ramsey didn’t just have the pressure of making his feature directing debut on an $ 145 million tentpole film, he also had to deal with the expectations that came with being a barrier-breaker.

By sliding behind the camera on DreamWorks Animation‘s “Rise of the Guardians” Ramsey made history as the first African-American to helm a major CG animated film.

“Rise of the Guardians,” a sort of “Avengers” for the fairy-tale set, opened Wednesday. It tells the story of a group of mythological heroes like Santa Claus (voiced by Alec Baldwin), Jack Frost (Chris Pine) and the Easter Bunny (Hugh Jackman) who team up to prevent the Nightmare King (Jude Law) from plunging children around the world into a state of despair and hopelessness. The film is an adaptation of a popular series of children’s books by William Joyce.

Ramsey talked with TheWrap about the responsibility of being a role model, the need to inject a little darkness into children’s entertainment and the possibility of a “Guardians” sequel.

What does it mean to be the first African American to direct a CG movie on this scale?

I really wasn’t thinking, “Oh, I’m a pioneer” when I first got the project. It wasn’t until my mom and dad saw an article that mentioned that fact – and I saw that my dad had tears in his eyes – that it really snapped back to me and I realized this is kind of a big deal. That’s the way it is any time some hurdle falls away.

I grew up in South-Central L.A. at a time before there was Spike Lee or John Singleton, so there was really no conception that I could make films. It’s super fulfilling that kids growing up like I did can now have it permanently in mind that it’s a possibility for them.

What films inspired your approach to the film?

I always knew that I wanted to make a fun, action-packed, big, epic fantasy movie rather than a quaint little fairy tale. So I thought of “Star Wars” and “Harry Potter,” where there were big ensemble casts. But stylistically I also thought of Michael Powell’s “Black Narcissus.” I really wanted Santa’s world to have the same dreamlike feel with bold, striking visuals.

There are some really dark elements in the film. Were you worried about it becoming too scary?

It’s important that we acknowledge the existence of some darkness in the world. Part of the point of the film is to say that these characters are real because kids believe in them, that kids know fear, too. We didn’t want to present a world that was free of the shadow that the Guardians fight, because they are using imagination to combat fear and hopelessness.

What drew you to the material?

For me, it was just hearing about Bill Joyce’s notion that all these characters are real and knew each other and had a common purpose.

It seemed like it had this epic fantasy, “Lord of the Rings” potential.

And when I started looking at what Bill had done, I was blown away. The mythologies are so wild and ornate. It’s an entirely new universe, and our movie just scratches the surface. We just started to go down the rabbit hole.

I’m beginning to smell “franchise.” Would you want to direct the sequels?

Yeah, I would love to. I’ve fallen in love with the characters. I feel like there’s plenty of fertile ground for more good stories. There’s more opportunities to push it further. I almost wish I could do the first feature again, to do it more justice.

You are self-taught, no? You came into this industry not as a director, but as a storyboard artist, is that correct?

Yeah, I am. It’s the old thing about how do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice. I’ve been drawing ever since I was 3. But I wanted to be a comic-book artist, and it was not until quite a bit later that I realized I could work in the movie business.

I stumbled into story boarding through a lucky confluence of things. I realized the work I was doing for comics was similar to helping directors visualize a story. I took maybe a couple of film history classes in college, but I couldn’t afford to make films in film school. I needed to get in on the fringes of the industry to get the on the job training I needed to become a director.

Did you have a favorite Guardian?

If I had to say one, it would be North. It was great to give him a real presence, and casting Alec did a lot to help that. It was slightly unexpected, but it feels so right. I would just love to hang out with that guy and it helps that he reminds me of Guillermo del Toro.

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Holiday shopping season off to record start

NEW YORK (AP) — If you make holiday shopping convenient, Americans will come in droves.

It's estimated that U.S. shoppers hit stores and websites at record numbers over the Thanksgiving weekend, according to a survey released by the National Retail Federation on Sunday. They were attracted by retailers' efforts to make shopping easier, including opening stores on Thanksgiving evening, updating mobile shopping applications for smartphones and tablets, and expanding shipping and layaway options.

All told, a record 247 million shoppers visited stores and websites over the four-day weekend starting on Thanksgiving, up 9.2 percent of last year, according to a survey of 4,000 shoppers that was conducted by research firm BIGinsight for the trade group. Americans spent more too: The average holiday shopper spent $423 over the entire weekend, up from $398 last year. Total spending over the four-day weekend totaled $59.1 billion, up 12.8 percent from 2011.

Caitlyn Maguire, 21, was one of the shoppers that took advantage of all the new conveniences of shopping this year. Maguire, who lives in New York, began buying on Thanksgiving night at Target's East Harlem store. During the two-hour wait in line, she also bought items on her iPhone on Amazon.com. On Friday, she picked up a few toys at Toys R Us. And on Saturday she was out at the stores again.

"I'm basically done," said Maguire, who spent about $400 over the weekend.

The results for the weekend appear to show that retailers' efforts to make shopping effortless for U.S. consumers during the holiday shopping season worked. Retailers upped the ante in order to give Americans more reasons to shop. Stores feared that consumers might not spend because of the weak job market and worries that tax increases and budget cuts will take effect if Congress fails to reach a budget deal by January.

Retailers, which can make up to 40 percent of their annual revenue in November and December, were hoping Thanksgiving openings and other incentives would help boost what's expected to be a difficult holiday shopping season. The National Retail Federation estimates that overall sales in November and December will rise 4.1 percent this year to $586.1 billion. That's more than a percentage point lower than the growth in each of the past two years, and the smallest increase since 2009, when sales were nearly flat.

Matthew Shay, president and CEO of the National Retail Federation, said retailers can be encouraged by the first weekend of the holiday shopping season.

"Retailers and consumers both won this weekend, especially on Thanksgiving," he said.

Here were the trends that emerged over the weekend:

— Online wave: According to comScore, which tracks online spending, online sales rose 26 percent to $1.04 billion on Black Friday compared with a year ago. On Thanksgiving, online sales rose 32 percent from last year to $633 million. And online sales on Black Friday were up 26 percent from the same day last year to $1.042 billion. It was the first time online sales on Black Friday surpassed $1 billion.

— Thanksgiving shopping: Many stores, including Toys R Us and Target, opened on Thanksgiving evening this year. No data is out yet about how much shoppers spent on that day, but it appears that consumers took advantage of the earlier start: According to the National Retail Federation's survey, the number of people who shopped on Thanksgiving rose 23.1 percent. That compares with a 3.1 percent increase for Black Friday.

Linda and James Michaels of Portland, Ore., were among those shopping on Thanksgiving. They hit up the big sales on the day and got everything they were hoping for that night.

They picked up remote control cars and some Mickey Mouse items on sale at Toys R Us. Then they went a few doors down to Target and scored the last Operation game on sale for $7. They were even able to pick up some pajamas and shoes along the way for the kids. In total they spent about $300.

"I felt lucky that I caught the deals and there was no craziness, no fighting," said Linda Michaels. "I was nervous."

ShopperTrak, which analyzes customer traffic at 40,000 U.S. stores, plans to release sales data for Thanksgiving later this week, but the firm is estimating that retailers generated $700 million in sales on the holiday.

— Black Friday flop: It appears that the Thanksgiving openings may have hurt sales on the day after.

Black Friday is still expected to be the biggest shopping day of the year, but sales on that day slipped to $11.2 billion, down 1.8 percent from last year, according to ShopperTrak. That's below ShopperTrak's estimate that Black Friday sales would rise 3.8 percent to $11.4 billion.

Karen MacDonald, a spokeswoman at Taubman Centers, which operates 28 malls across the country, said that Thanksgiving openings hurt business. Based on a sampling of 10 malls, sales growth was unchanged up to mid-single digits on Friday, and unchanged up to low single digit on Saturday.

"It was a different feeling," she said. "It was a good Black Friday, but I don't think it was great."

The disappointing sales on Black Friday may have been the result of shoppers like Miguel Garcia, a 40-year-old office coordinator.

"I can't deal with all that craziness," said Garcia, who was at a Target in the Bronx borough of New York City on Saturday. "Compared to what I saw on TV yesterday, this is so much more comfortable and relaxed. I can actually think straight and compare prices."

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AP writers Rodrigue Ngowi in Watertown, Mass., Juan Carolos Llorca in El Paso, Texas, and Candice Choi in New York contributed to this report

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Israel successfully tests missile defense system

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel successfully tested its newest missile defense system Sunday, the military said, a step toward making the third leg of what Israel calls its “multilayer missile defense” operational.

The “David’s Sling” system is designed to stop mid-range missiles. It successfully passed its test, shooting down its first missile in a drill Sunday in southern Israel, the military said.

The system is designed to intercept projectiles with ranges of up to 300 kilometers (180 miles).

Israel has also deployed Arrow systems for longer-range threats from Iran. The Iron Dome protects against short-range rockets fired by militants in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. Iron Dome shot down hundreds of rockets from Gaza in this month’s round of fighting.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the success of Iron Dome highlighted the “immense importance” of such systems.

“David’s Sling,” also known “Magic Wand,” is developed by Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and U.S.-based Raytheon Co. and is primarily designed to counter the large arsenal of Hezbollah rockets in Lebanon.

The military said the program, which is on schedule for deployment in 2014, would “provide an additional layer of defense against ballistic missiles.”

The next generation of the Arrow, now in the development stage, is set to be deployed in 2016. Called the Arrow 3, it is designed to strike its target outside the atmosphere, intercepting missiles closer to their launch sites. Together, the two Arrow systems would provide two chances to strike down incoming missiles.

Israel also uses U.S.-made Patriot missile defense batteries against mid-range missiles, though these failed to hit any of the 39 Scud missiles fired at Israel from Iraq In the first Gulf War 20 years ago. Manufacturers say the Patriot system has been improved since then.

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Prescribe morning-after pills in advance, say pediatricians

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Wading into the incendiary subject of birth control for young teenagers, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) on Monday called on the nation’s pediatricians to counsel all of their adolescent patients about emergency contraception and make advance prescriptions for it available to girls under 17.

Because current federal policy bans over-the-counter sales of the pills to girls under 17, having a prescription on hand could help younger teens obtain emergency contraception more quickly than if they have to contact a physician only after they need it.

Calling the AAP decision “significant,” Susan Wood, former assistant commissioner for women’s health at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), said, “it’s not often you see physician organizations saying that their patients are better off without the physician involvement.”

It is anyone’s guess whether pediatricians will heed their organization’s recommendation, but AAP leaders are optimistic.

“We do hope that pediatricians read the policy statement and follow the recommendations,” said Dr. Cora Breuner, a pediatrician at Seattle Children’s Hospital who led the AAP panel that produced the recommendations. “The Academy prides itself on a devoted membership.”

Emergency contraception for adolescents has been one of the most politically fraught areas in healthcare for almost a decade.

In 2005 the FDA declined to approve any over-the-counter sales of Plan B, a “morning-after pill,” overruling its panel of outside experts as well as its own scientists. Last December the FDA reversed that stance and moved to approve over-the-counter sales with no age limits. But Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius overruled it, ordering that for girls under 17 the pills remain available only by prescription.

The policy means that women in their 20s, 30s, or beyond must also present proof of age, and that teenagers “face a significant barrier if they suddenly need emergency contraception at midnight on a Saturday,” said Wood, who resigned from the FDA in 2005 over its Plan B decision and is now director of the Jacobs Institute of Women’s Health at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

The most common form of emergency contraception is a high dose of a regular birth-control pill such as Plan B and Plan B One-Step from Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd or Next Choice from Watson Pharmaceuticals Inc. They generally sell for $ 10 to $ 80 and, although they can work as long as 120 hours after unprotected sex, are most effective in the first 24 hours.

All work by preventing ovulation, not by stopping the implantation of a fertilized egg. “These are not abortifacients,” said Breuner.

GREATER USE OF EMERGENCY CONTRACEPTION

A 2006-08 survey found that 14 percent of sexually experienced girls had used emergency contraception, up from 8 percent in a 2002 survey. The most common reason was condom failure, but 13 percent of the girls said it was because of rape.

A 2010 analysis of seven randomized studies of emergency contraception found that having a morning-after prescription in hand did not increase teens’ sexual activity or decrease use of standard contraceptives but did increase use of the pill and shorten the time before a teenager used it after sex.

“It’s just common sense that requiring a prescription is a barrier,” said Bill Alpert, chief program officer of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. “If an august and respected medical group like AAP is suggesting providing emergency contraception to minors is OK, that is a big deal.”

That is especially so when teens face other obstacles to getting emergency contraception. For instance, in a 2012 study that had 17-year-olds telephone pharmacies asking about morning-after pills, only 57 percent of them correctly told the caller that she could get the drugs without a prescription.

Another barrier is that some physicians refuse to provide the prescriptions to teenagers, while others do so only in cases of rape, AAP’s research shows, suggesting that the refusal “may be related to the physician’s beliefs about whether it is OK for teenagers to have sex.”

But pediatricians, said AAP in its policy statement, “have a duty to inform their patients about relevant, legally available treatment options,” even those “to which they object.”

There are no good data on how many physicians write prescriptions ahead of time for emergency contraception. “But we do know that pediatricians don’t even talk about it, let alone offer advance prescriptions,” said Breuner. “We tend not to like bringing up stuff that’s controversial.”

One factor in the AAP’s recommendation, which is being published in the journal “Pediatrics,” is that although teen pregnancies in the United States have declined since 1991, the rate is higher than in most other developed countries. The percent of 15- to 18-year-olds who report ever having intercourse – just over 40 percent, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – is, however, lower than in many developed countries. In other words, fewer of America’s teens are having sex but more are getting pregnant.

“We think this is a big deal,” Breuner said of the new recommendation. “The mothership of pediatricians has come out in favor of encouraging routine counseling and advance emergency-contraception prescriptions as one part of a public health strategy to reduce teen pregnancy.”

(Reporting by Sharon Begley; editing by Prudence Crowther)

Sexual Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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