High-end home sales on a roll in state

California's luxury housing market is booming.

In activity reminiscent of real estate's bubble years, the number of homes statewide selling at more than $5 million reached an all-time high last year, while those selling at $1 million or more rose to the highest level since 2007, a real estate information service has reported.

Sales are up because well-heeled U.S. and international buyers, confident that the housing recovery is solid, are looking for places to park their cash, real estate experts said. Also playing a role was a rush among the very wealthy to take advantage of lower capital gains taxes by selling before year end.

"Last year was gangbusters," said Dave Fratello, an agent with the Real Group in Manhattan Beach, the busiest Southern California community for $1-million-plus sales in 2012. "We flipped very quickly from a buyer's market to a seller's market."

Across California, 697 homes sold for more than $5 million, beating the previous high of 491 in 2011, according to San Diego-based DataQuick. The 2012 sales mark was the highest since DataQuick began tracking such sales in 1988.

The 26,993 homes sold at $1-million-plus represented a 26.9% jump from 2011, DataQuick said. In comparison, 42,502 home sales exceeded the million-dollar mark in 2007, before the mortgage meltdown dragged down prices across the housing market.

The record was set in 2005, when 54,773 homes sold for $1 million or more. The luxury market outpaced overall sales, which were up 8.2% statewide.

"The very top, it is a record level — well beyond what it was in the bubble period," said John Karevoll, analyst for DataQuick.

Hillsborough, in the San Francisco Bay Area, claimed the top spot with 422 sales at $1 million-plus. Like many neighborhoods in Silicon Valley and environs, Hillsborough's sales growth was driven by a wave of buyers from the technology sector.

Southern California communities with the most $1-million-plus sales included Manhattan Beach, Newport Beach, La Jolla, Brentwood, Beverly Hills and Laguna Beach.

"We're hitting that perfect storm of buyer demand, low inventory and attractive housing prices," said Paul Habibi, who teaches real estate at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

Gary Painter, director of research and an economist with the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate, said the high-end niche is more likely to be driven by the international economy rather than what is going on in the U.S. — which suffered an unexpected economic contraction during the last three months of the year, the Commerce Department said Wednesday.

As a result, the luxury market is benefiting from a continued influx of wealthy international buyers who are betting on the potential of prime housing to appreciate and view luxury home prices in the U.S. as bargains versus other parts of the world.

Foreign buyers spent 24% more on U.S. real estate last year than in 2011, according to an annual survey by the National Assn. of Realtors. These buyers represented 8.9% of all housing spending. Asian shoppers are particularly interested in California homes, the study said.

Sandra Miller of Engel & Volkers, a broker who specializes in international buyers and luxury properties, said that "the money is really coming from everywhere."

While her office is dealing with an onslaught of Italians, buyers are coming from London and Germany. Chinese buyers are snapping up homes in the $1-million to $5-million range for their children, she said, but not ultra-luxurious estates.

"The very, very large sales last year were done with Russian money," Miller said.

DataQuick's Karevoll cautioned that the boom at the luxury level doesn't automatically translate to continued sales and price improvement for all homes.

"As a bellwether for a market as a whole, however, it is really hard to read what it means," he said. "The broader market and what we call the 'prestige' market — homes from about $2 million to $3 million and up — seem to dance to two different tunes."

In Manhattan Beach, most homes are priced at more than $1 million, said Fratello, who is also a housing market blogger at MB Confidential. "The days of little cottages for under $1 million are mostly behind us."

A low supply of homes for sale kept a lid on sales in the sought-after beach community, Fratello added. Bidding wars returned.

"With another 10% in sales our volume would have matched all the bubble years," he said, referring to 2004 to 2006.

A tear-down in the so-called Tree Section of Manhattan Beach drew 20 offers in March, selling for $1.352 million — $250,000 above the asking price. A 2,600-square-foot Midcentury-style house in need of work in the same block attracted 15 bidders. Listed at $1.6 million, it sold for $1.88 million.

"Everybody is shaking their heads," Fratello said. "This is crazy."

Cash buyers accounted for a record 7,791 of the million-dollar home sales, up from 5,802 in 2011. Many of those presumably are investors looking for better places to put their money than the stock market or other investments.

The most expensive transaction to appear in public records was the $117.5-million sale of an 8,930-square-foot mansion on nine acres in the Northern California community of Woodside.

Among top sales in the Los Angeles area was billionaire Larry Ellison's purchase of a three-structure compound in Malibu for $36.9 million. "American Idol" host Ryan Seacrest paid $36.5 million for talk show host Ellen DeGeneres' three-property spread in Beverly Hills, and the family of the late philanthropist Max Palevsky sold his Malibu mansion for $36.5 million just before the end of last year.

Almost all home sales were in $1-million-plus territory in the communities of Ross in Marin County; San Marino and Santa Monica in Los Angeles County; Los Altos in Santa Clara County; Atherton and Hillsborough in San Mateo County; and Rancho Santa Fe in San Diego County.

lauren.beale@latimes.com

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Boeing's Batteries Draw Criticism as Dreamliner Probe Continues

Boeing’s chief executive said the company is working around the clock investigating a battery problem that has grounded 787 Dreamliners worldwide, saying the company “will get to the bottom of it.” The comments come two weeks after the fleet was grounded, and concern is growing on the cost to airlines with earth-bound airplanes, and to the reputation of the airplane and Boeing itself.

Company president and CEO Jim McNerney was predictably optimistic, even upbeat, during a quarterly earnings call that focused heavily on the investigation by Boeing, the FAA and others. Hundreds of experts from around the world are working with Boeing to determine just what led to two battery fires aboard Dreamliners earlier this month. Although the problem prompted the grounding of all 50 Dreamliners in service, and many — including Tesla Motors and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk — have been critical of Boeing’s use of lithium-ion batteries, the company continues building Dreamliners even as investigators work around the clock to find the root cause of the problem.

“We will get to the bottom of it, and in so doing will restore confidence in the 787,” McNerney said Wednesday. He added that the company continues to believe in the use of lithium-ion batteries that are critical to the design of 787, the most electric airliner to ever fly. “We feel good about the battery technology and the fit for the airplane.”

McNerney remains confident the company will determine just what led to “thermal runaway” events aboard two Dreamliners. The first occurred in Boston on January 7 when a battery caught fire after passengers had deplaned. The second came one week later when smoke from a burning battery forced a pilots to make an emergency landing in Japan. The result has been the first grounding of a U.S. airplane commercial airline fleet since 1979. And despite the optimism from Boeing, there is no indication from investigators or the Federal Aviation Administration that the grounding will be lifted any time soon.

Outside of Boeing, some are less optimistic that Boeing used the right design for its lithium-ion batteries, which the aircraft manufacturer chose for their energy density. Musk, whose companies use lithium-ion batteries extensively, has been among the most vocal.

“Unfortunately, the pack architecture supplied to Boeing is inherently unsafe” Musk wrote in an email to Flightglobal. “Large cells without enough space between them to isolate against the cell-to-cell thermal domino effect means it is simply a matter of time before there are more incidents of this nature.”

Boeing uses a 63-pound Li-ion battery largely as a backup power source for several systems within the Dreamliner, which is among the most technologically advanced passenger aircraft ever built. The batteries, like those in the Tesla Roadster and Model S automobiles and aboard SpaceX rockets, use cobalt oxide chemistry for maximum power density. But Tesla and SpaceX use battery packs comprised of thousands of cylindrical 18650 cells, each roughly the size of a AA battery. The cells have been refined through more than 15 years of manufacturing and use in consumer products such as laptops and power tools. Tesla and SpaceX closely control the charging, output and temperature of the cells using a sophisticated power management system.

The lithium-ion battery used by Boeing is comprised of just eight cells housed in a single container. Musk says Tesla and SpaceX engineers isolate the cells to prevent a fire in one from spreading to others. He is critical of Boeing’s design, saying the size and packaging of the cells makes thermal runaway in one or more cells much more likely to result in the entire pack catching fire.

Musk is not alone in raising these issues. The relatively simple looking design of the Boeing battery, manufactured by the Japanese firm GS Yuasa, immediately caught the attention of lithium-ion battery expert Dr. K.M. Abraham. Abraham has been researching and producing lithium-ion batteries since 1976 and says proper design is critical for both power output and safety.

“It did not look like a sophisticated battery pack to me” Abraham said of his first impression after seeing a photo of a Dreamliner battery. The 32-volt Boeing battery uses eight 3.7 volt cells housed in a single metal container.

The manufacturing process is also a major concern, according to Abraham. The 18650 cells used by Tesla and others experienced quality control problems early on, and it was more than a decade before the design and manufacturing was refined. These days, failure rates are extremely low — less than one in a million, said Abraham. He agrees the design used by Tesla reduces the chance of a thermal runaway resulting in a larger event.

“They use a smaller cell approach, but I think it is a much safer way of doing that,” he said of Tesla. “They use a modular construction. Once a cell goes, it is isolated, there is no large runaway.”

The National Transportation Safety Board released more information about its investigation and examination of the batteries aboard the plane that caught fire in Boston. Last week the agency said it found evidence of a short in the charred remains of the battery that caught fire. This week, the NTSB is continuing its examination with a microscopic look at the region affected by the internal short circuit and thermal damage. The agency is also looking at a second undamaged battery in the plane. It is looking for any evidence of “in-service damage and manufacturing defects.”

The NTSB did say it found no problems with charger unit used with the batteries on the Boston 787 or the auxiliary power unit.

All Nippon Airways, which was the first to buy Dreamliners, says it replaced 10 of the batteries on its fleet of 17 Dreamliners in the months leading up to the Dreamliner’s grounding. The airline says it notified Boeing of the battery replacements, but did not tell safety regulators because the bad batteries showed low charge and other performance issues and were not considered a safety issue according to The New York Times.

McNerney acknowledged today that the replacement rate of Dreamliner batteries was “slightly higher” than anticipated, but emphasized the batteries were replaced for maintenance reasons, not safety concerns. The comment was largely a response to a story in the Seattle Times that said Boeing had to return more than 100 of the lithium-ion batteries to GS Yusasa. The $16,000 batteries were returned because they had been run down and could not be recharged. Some of the batteries had exceeded their expiration date, but many were losing capability much earlier than expected according to the Times. It is unclear how many batteries needed to be replaced because of quality problems, or how many were replaced due to the design which shuts down the battery in the event it is drained too far.

The 32-volt batteries have a cutoff system that effectively shuts down the battery if the charge falls below 15 percent. Normally the system is designed to prevent this from happening, but as is the case with a flashlight or car door, if something is accidentally left on in a 787 and is drawing battery power, the 63 pound batteries can reach that critical 15 percent cutoff.

Boeing continues to assuring customers and shareholders that the problem will be resolved soon. It said production on both 787 assembly lines continues, and the company believes it will increase production to its scheduled rate of 10 airplanes monthly by year’s end.

The eight airlines with grounded Dreamliners continue to shuffle other aircraft to try and make up for the missing seats in their fleet. ANA is using 777s for some of its 787 routes, while United has brought in 737s for domestic flights that were using the Dreamliner and is also using 777s on longer international flights.

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Despite previous beating, Rihanna back with Chris Brown

NEW YORK (Reuters) – It’s official: R&B diva Rihanna says she is back together with Chris Brown, who is still on probation for assaulting her in 2009, saying “It’s different now.”

“I decided it was more important for me to be happy,” Rihanna told Rolling Stone magazine in an interview published on Wednesday on its website.

“I wasn’t going to let anybody’s opinion get in the way of that. Even if it’s a mistake, it’s my mistake,” she said of her renewed romance with singer Brown, 23, that has prompted consternation from fans and celebrity media because of their history.

“After being tormented for so many years, being angry and dark, I’d rather just live my truth and take the backlash,” said Rihanna, 24, adding, “I can handle it.”

The couple’s reconciliation had been rumored for months, even before the pair unveiled a duet, “Nobody’s Business,” in November. That track was included on Rihanna’s latest album “Unapologetic.”

Brown pleaded guilty in 2009 to beating and punching Rihanna. He was sentenced to community service, anger management classes, given a restraining order and is still on probation.

The Barbadian singer told Oprah Winfrey in an emotional interview in August that she and Brown now had a “very close friendship,” and that she still loved him.

“When you add up the pieces from the outside, it’s not the cutest puzzle in the world,” Rihanna admitted to Rolling Stone, which hits newsstands this week with her gracing the cover above the headline, “Rihanna Crazy In Love.”

“You see us walking somewhere … and you think you know. But it’s different now. We don’t have those types of arguments anymore. We talk,” she said. “We value each other.”

But she noted that Brown is on probation with her as well, saying, “He doesn’t have the luxury of (messing) up again.”

“That’s just not an option … And I wouldn’t have gone this far if I ever thought that was a possibility.”

The interview was published three days after Brown’s latest dustup, which involved fellow musician Frank Ocean, over a parking space at a West Hollywood recording studio. Ocean has said he wants Brown prosecuted following the Sunday brawl.

In 2012 Rihanna was rated by Time and Forbes magazines as among the world’s and celebrity arena’s most powerful people.

(Reporting by Chris Michaud; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Philip Barbara)

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Illness Walks the Runway

A top fashion designer quarantines a sneezing underling, forcing her to work in a closet. An industry P.R. executive makes colleagues douse their hands with Purell. Germ-phobic magazine editors are powerblasting offices with antiseptic wipes and Lysol.

Such is the dread gripping the fashion world as it prepares for New York Fashion Week, beginning Feb. 7, with a killer flu and a stomach-bug norovirus on the loose.

The eight-day event, when fashionistas from around the world pack into small spaces to attend runway shows and parties — only to cram onto the same flights and repeat the process in London, Milan and Paris — is always an occasion for sickness paranoia. In past years, sniffles in the front row could prompt icy stares and social ostracism.

But with this season’s flu panic, the fear is approaching hysteria. Stressed-out designers recoil in horror if someone coughs within earshot. Frail models shiver their way between fittings, terrified someone will spy their runny noses. And frenemies everywhere are reconsidering the wisdom of the double-cheek kiss, the standard greeting of the global fashion tribe. Air kissing seems safe for now.

“This will be the season where everyone in fashion becomes mysteriously nonaffectionate,” said Laura Brown, executive editor of Harper’s Bazaar. Staff members in her West 57th Street offices, she added, have been scouring doorknobs with sanitizing wipes. “We can give a nudge and a wink instead.”

To be fair, much of the paranoia is founded. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, deaths from the current flu season reached “epidemic” levels, in part because of an unusually severe flu strain. Adding to the flulike epidemic is a surging new strain of norovirus, which can cause sudden diarrhea and projectile vomiting, and the worst whooping cough outbreak in 60 years.

And while there is some evidence that the flu season has peaked almost everywhere in the country, except for the West Coast, flu activity continued to be high in New York through the week ending Jan. 19, as tracked by the C.D.C., and on the rise in parts of Europe including Italy. (Milan hosts a fashion week starting Feb. 20.)

Norovirus also seems to be surging abroad; it has reached epidemic levels in France, according to the latest report from the country’s doctor network Réseau Sentinelles, with more than one million French people visiting doctors for it in the past five weeks.

Yet even as flu season appears to be ebbing in New York, it remains a worry inside the fashion bubble. With sleep-deprived colleagues huddled in close quarters day and night, things can go viral quickly, especially in the petri dish that is Fashion Week.

“Fashion people are at risk for a variety of viral syndromes because they work long hours and they move in a pack,” said Dr. Robert Glatter, known in fashion circles for making house (or studio) calls.

Dr. Barry Cohen, whose primary-care office on Spring Street faces Marc Jacobs’s studios, says he has been bombarded with rheumy-eyed industry divas begging for quick fixes. “Fashion people touch each other all day, so they get exposed over and over,” he said.

And when the pack is moving fast and furious, it can’t slow down for the weak. “Fashion Week season is a nonstop assault on the immune system,” said Derek Blasberg, an editor at large for Harper’s Bazaar. “Early shows, late dinners, crammed into tents and airplanes: you don’t want to sit next to anyone coughing, because if you get sick, you’re screwed.”

The viral assault does not end with New York. “By the time we finish the New York shows, we’re already a wreck, because New York simply has too many shows,” said Mickey Boardman, editorial director of Paper magazine. “Then you get on a plane and hit the ground running in London, where there’s always fun parties. You’re eating French fries for dinner and drinking Cokes from your minibar, and your sleep patterns are messed up.”

“You’re putting your life at risk,” he added.

WHILE KEEPING THE WORLD trendy has its hazards, fashionistas have developed stylish tactics to avoid getting the bug. Many have dutifully gotten their flu shots. (It’s not too late, though it takes about two weeks to build up immunity — just in time for London Fashion Week.)

Others follow variations of what could be called the standard fashion-world starvation diet, whether it’s drinking large quantities of SmartWater fortified with packets of the vitamin supplement Emergen-C, or force-feeding themselves nothing but raw greens, like koalas munching eucalyptus leaves. Dr. Glatter says he has even treated some fashion people for diarrhea from eating too much kale.

Then there are the juicers. The designer Cynthia Rowley swears by Juice Press, the three-year-old Manhattan chain popular with fashion insiders for its 17-ounce $10 bottles of cold-pressed fruits and vegetables. “I’m addicted,” said Ms. Rowley, who added that she chugged the stuff with staff members when they were not taking spin classes en masse at SoulCycle.

“Nobody’s sick at my office,” she bragged dangerously. “We work in one room, so if one person drops, they take down the whole team.”

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BlackBerry Maker Unveils Its New Line

Marcus Yam for The New York Times

Thorsten Heins, the chief executive of BlackBerry, which was known as Research in Motion, introduces the company's new phones.

BlackBerry’s maker unveiled a new operating system and a new line of phones on Wednesday, along with a new corporate name, with the hope of restoring its products’ status as a symbol of executive cool.

Analysts, technology reviewers and app developers with advance access to the BlackBerry Z10 and the BlackBerry 10 operating system have said it is the company’s first competitive touch-screen phone. But BlackBerry 10 arrives long after Apple’s iPhone and phones using Google’s Android operating system have come to dominate the smartphone market that the BlackBerry effectively created. According to IDC, BlackBerry now holds just 4.6 percent of that market, about one-tenth of its historic peak.

To emphasize the changes brought by the new operating system, Thorsten Heins, who took over as chief executive a year ago, said the company, known until now as Research In Motion, had adopted BlackBerry as its corporate name. Its Nasdaq trading symbol will become BBRY, and it will trade as BB in Toronto.

In addition to the BlackBerry Z10 phone, there will be a second model, the Q10, that includes one of the line’s signature physical keyboards. Verizon Wireless announced that it would price the Z10 at $200 with a two-year contract. BlackBerry 10 phones will also be carried by AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile.

“Today represents a new day in the history of BlackBerry,” Mr. Heins said. “These BlackBerry 10 devices are absolutely the best typing experiences in the industry.”

BlackBerry said the Z10 would be available in the United States in March and in Canada on Feb. 5.

There were few surprises in the initial portion of Mr. Heins’s presentation at an event in New York. The company began demonstrating the touch-screen phone and operating system in May and also made prototypes available to app developers at the time. In recent weeks, photographs of the final version of the phones have made their way to various American and European technology Web sites.

Physically, the Z10 resembles an iPhone 5 with its corners snipped off.

But unlike its competitors, the Z10 lacks a button to take users back to a home page and relies entirely on users swiping their fingers across the 4.2-inch screen from different directions to summon features or menus.

While the Z10 lacks a physical keyboard, the main attraction of BlackBerrys for many current users, the company said that it had developed software which should alleviate some of the inadequacies of on-screen typing. According to BlackBerry, its software studies users’ common typing mistakes over time and then starts automatically correcting them. It will also build up a list of commonly used words and offer them as suggestions that can be selected with a flick of a finger.

While developing the new operating system, the company took great pains to improve its strained relationship with app developers. The operating system was also designed in a way that allows them to adapt Android apps for BlackBerry 10 by making some relatively minor modifications.

BlackBerry said Wednesday that more than 70,000 BlackBerry 10 apps were now available.

For corporate and government users, BlackBerry 10 server software will allow them to divide employees’ BlackBerry 10 phones into separate work and personal spheres and give I.T. managers complete control over the former.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 30, 2013

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article referred imprecisely to the plans of major American carriers to offer the two new BlackBerry models. While Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile will all carry new BlackBerrys, not all will offer the Z10; Sprint has so far announced plans only to offer the other model, the Q10.

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Senate overwhelmingly approves John Kerry for secretary of State

WASHINGTON — The Senate voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to confirm Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) as the next secretary of State, filling a crucial national security spot in President Obama’s second-term Cabinet.

The 94-3 vote clears the way for Kerry to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton after she steps down Friday.

Kerry, who will become America’s 68th top diplomat, failed to win only three Republican votes — those of Sens. John Cornyn and Rafael “Ted” Cruz, both of Texas, and Sen. James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma. 

A spokesman for Cornyn said Kerry supported liberal positions that most Texans oppose. Cruz has criticized Kerry, who fought in the Vietnam War, as anti-military.

Earlier Tuesday, Kerry received the unanimous endorsement of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in a voice vote. He served on the committee for 28 years and chaired it for the last four.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), the ranking Republican on the committee, praised Kerry as a “realist” on foreign affairs issues, and said he was always “open to discussion” with colleagues of the opposite party.

Corker, noting that Kerry’s father was a foreign service officer, said he knew of no one “who’s lived a life that’s been ultimately more oriented toward being secretary of State.”

Leading Republican senators had promoted Kerry as an alternative to Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, for the job. Rice withdrew her name from consideration after Republicans criticized her for statements she made on TV talk shows after the deadly Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya.

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mike.memoli@latimes.com

Twitter: @mikememoli

paul.richter@latimes.com

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<em>The Hobbit</em> Earns More in Worldwide Box Office Than <em>Fellowship</em> or <em>Two Towers</em>

Movie critics of America, foreign audiences would just like to remind you that you’re not the boss of them, thank you very much. After all, not only did the critics complain when Peter Jackson expanded J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit into three movies (Although, please remember: it could be worse), but the first of those movies failed to make the grade for many professional moviegoers, with this particular parish describing it as “attempting to recreate the Lord of the Rings trilogy with the nostalgic desperation of a college freshman trying to get back together with his high school girlfriend.”

So, you’d think that such a disappointing movie would be a flop at the box office, right? Guess again: As of this last weekend, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey has made more money worldwide than either Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring or Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers managed in their entire time in movie theaters.

The international box office total for The Hobbit is currently $939,862,965, with almost 69 percent of that amount coming from non-U.S. audiences ($646,300,000, to be specific), continuing the upwards trend of Jackson’s Middle Earth movies. In comparison, The Fellowship of the Ring made $869,349,688 in terms of worldwide box office ($555,985,574 of which came from moviegoers outside of the U.S.; that’s 64 percent of the total for the less math-inclined amongst you), and The Two Towers collected a total of $923,285,627 from the world’s box office, with 63.2 percent of that amount ($583,495,746) coming from non-domestic release.

The only Tolkien movie to have made more money worldwide than The Hobbit is 2005′s Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, which grossed a total of $1,119,110,941 internationally during its time in theaters, with 66.3 percent of that – or $742,083,616 in practical terms – coming from non-American theaters.

In the U.S. alone, things are a little different. Currently, The Hobbit is lagging behind all three of Jackson’s earlier Tolkien movies, with “just” $293,562,965 in domestic box office, although there are all manner of reasons for that, not least of which is the fact that it is still in the middle of its theater run, only in release for 46 days versus the 243 days, 250 days and 170 days that Fellowship, Towers and Return enjoyed, respectively.

At current rate — it made $8,948,729 last week alone, and remains in the box office top 10 more than a month after release — it’s likely that The Hobbit will end up eclipsing The Fellowship of the Ring (Total domestic gross: $313,364,114) at least before leaving theaters, if not also The Two Towers (Total domestic gross: $339,789,881). Return of the King, however, can likely relax on its throne made of the $377,027,325 it brought in from American audiences during its time in theaters.

So, what can be learned from this? Perhaps we should chalk it up to the power of a recognizable brand; note that each successive Lord of the Rings movie was more financially successful than the one before, and that The Hobbit was seemingly unaffected by poor reviews ahead of release. In fact, it had the most impressive U.S. opening weekend, with $84,617,303 — significantly higher than even Return of the King‘s $72,629,713 and almost twice that of Fellowship of the Ring‘s $47,211,490.

Some things may simply be critic-proof, which likely comes as a relief to Warner Bros. with two more Hobbits waiting in the wings for 2013 and 2014 respectively. If the box office returns hold up, maybe talk of a final trilogy based upon material in The Silmarillion won’t seem as outlandish after all.

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Singer Frank Ocean wants Chris Brown charged over brawl

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Rising R&B artist Frank Ocean wants fellow singer Chris Brown prosecuted following a brawl over a parking space at a Los Angeles-area recording studio, authorities said on Monday.

Brown is serving five years probation for assaulting his on-and-off girlfriend Rihanna in 2009 and risks having his probation revoked should charges be filed.

In the incident on Sunday, sheriff’s deputies responded to a call about a fight involving six men in West Hollywood. The deputies cited witnesses as saying that the Grammy-winning Brown, 23, punched Ocean during the brief altercation.

No charges have yet been filed, but Ocean “is desirous of prosecution in this incident,” said Los Angeles County Sheriff‘s spokesman Steve Whitmore.

Ocean, 25, who is nominated for best new artist and best record for “Thinkin Bout You” at the Grammys in February, said on Twitter on Sunday night that he “got jumped by Chris and a couple guys.” He said this resulted in a cut finger.

A representative for Brown has yet to comment.

The “Look at me Now” singer has attempted to rebuild his career and public image since 2009, but his entourage and that of Canadian rapper Drake were involved in a June 2012 brawl in a New York nightclub. No arrests or charges were brought in that case.

Brown and Ocean are both nominated in the best urban contemporary album category at the Grammys, which take place on February 10 in Los Angeles.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey and Colleen Jenkins; Editing by David Brunnstrom)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Well: Ask Well: Squats for Aging Knees

You are already doing many things right, in terms of taking care of your aging knees. In particular, it sounds as if you are keeping your weight under control. Carrying extra pounds undoubtedly strains knees and contributes to pain and eventually arthritis.

You mention weight training, too, which is also valuable. Sturdy leg muscles, particularly those at the front and back of the thighs, stabilize the knee, says Joseph Hart, an assistant professor of kinesiology and certified athletic trainer at the University of Virginia, who often works with patients with knee pain.

An easy exercise to target those muscles is the squat. Although many of us have heard that squats harm knees, the exercise is actually “quite good for the knees, if you do the squats correctly,” Dr. Hart says. Simply stand with your legs shoulder-width apart and bend your legs until your thighs are almost, but not completely, parallel to the ground. Keep your upper body straight. Don’t bend forward, he says, since that movement can strain the knees. Try to complete 20 squats, using no weight at first. When that becomes easy, Dr. Hart suggests, hold a barbell with weights attached. Or simply clutch a full milk carton, which is my cheapskate’s squats routine.

Straight leg lifts are also useful for knee health. Sit on the floor with your back straight and one leg extended and the other bent toward your chest. In this position, lift the straight leg slightly off the ground and hold for 10 seconds. Repeat 10 to 20 times and then switch legs.

You can also find other exercises that target the knees in this video, “Increasing Knee Stability.”

Of course, before starting any exercise program, consult a physician, especially, Dr. Hart says, if your knees often ache, feel stiff or emit a strange, clicking noise, which could be symptoms of arthritis.

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DealBook: Chesapeake Energy Chief Steps Down

Chesapeake Energy’s co-founder and chief executive, Aubrey McClendon, will retire on April 1, the producer of oil and natural gas announced on Tuesday, almost eight months after investors complained about a contentious compensation plan.

Mr. McClendon, who gave up his chairman role last May, will also leave Chesapeake’s board on that date. Until then, he will transfer daily management responsibilities to other executives. A successor wasn’t named, though the company said that it had hired an executive search firm to find his replacement.

In an internal e-mail, Archie Dunham assured employees that “the company is not for sale.”

The surprise announcement of Mr. McClendon’s departure followed months of investor dissatisfaction with Chesapeake, which has struggled with prolonged low natural gas prices and efforts to move into more lucrative oil production. But shareholder ire spiked last spring, after Reuters reported on an unusual executive perquisite in which he was allowed to buy stakes in each well the company drilled.

To help finance those investments, Mr. McClendon often borrowed from companies that had conducted business with Chesapeake, raising concerns that he faced a conflict of interest.

In an attempt to quell the turmoil, Mr. McClendon agreed last May to give up his chairman role and to end the compensation plan ahead of schedule.

Chesapeake said on Tuesday that it expected to announce the results of a monthslong review into the compensation plan when it discloses its earnings next month. In the interim, the company said that the inquiry has not unveiled any improper conduct.

“Over the past 24 years, I have had the privilege of developing Chesapeake into one of the world’s premier energy companies,” Mr. McClendon said in a statement. “While I have certain philosophical differences with the new board, I look forward to working collaboratively with the company and the Board to provide a smooth transition to new leadership for the company.”

Below is a copy of Mr. Dunham’s e-mail to employees:

As you may have just read in an e-mail from Aubrey and will see in the press release this evening, the board of directors of Chesapeake has mutually agreed and accepted Aubrey McClendon’s resignation as C.E.O. effective upon appointment of his successor, and retirement from the company, effective April 1, 2013. The decision was made in full recognition and appreciation for the enormous achievements Aubrey has made in founding and building Chesapeake into the extraordinary enterprise it is today.

Over the past 24 years, Aubrey has created one of the most valuable companies in the energy industry. Under his strong leadership, Chesapeake has built an unmatched portfolio of natural gas and oil assets in creating one of the world’s leading energy companies. Aubrey has been a pioneer in the development of unconventional resources, and he has also been a leader in the effort to make the United States energy independent. Aubrey has done all of this with the support and expertise of the world-class senior management team he recruited to Chesapeake and the dedication of our employees.

For the transition, Aubrey remains our C.E.O. During this interim period, he will work closely with Steve Dixon, chief operating officer, and Nick Dell’Osso, chief financial officer, to transition certain day-to-day management responsibilities and assure that the company maintains the highest degree of operational excellence and strategic execution of our business plan. The board of directors and the senior management team are counting on your continued dedication and focus as we execute our strategy of developing our world-class assets and maintain our performance as a low-cost producer of oil and gas while further strengthening the balance sheet.

I would also like to address certain likely points of concern among you. First, the company is not for sale. Second, the board has confirmed the current drilling and completion budget of six billion dollars and is eager to see the exciting recent results of the company’s core of the core development strategy continue. Lastly, the board and management believe strongly in the culture of excellence at Chesapeake and are committed to seeing this culture thrive in the future. The board has no intention of eliminating childcare, shutting down the fitness center, or selling the company cafeterias. I’m sure that other false rumors will appear, so when they surface, ask Steve or Nick if they are true. Our truly top notch 12,000 employees remain the company’s best asset, and we will continue to retain and attract the best talent in the industry.

We are at an important transition point for our company, but it is also a point of great opportunity. Thank you for all you do to make Chesapeake a great company.

Warm regards,

Archie Dunham

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