Lawyer says Lohan committed to turning life around

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Lindsay Lohan is committed to turning her life around and wants to record public service announcements on the dangers of domestic violence, alcohol abuse and drunken driving, her attorney said Wednesday.

Mark Heller told The Associated Press that the actress' plans are independent of a criminal case that could return her to jail on charges that she lied to police about being a passenger in her car when it slammed into a dump truck in June.

The "Liz & Dick" star has been repeatedly sentenced to jail, rehab, and community service since her first pair of arrests for driving under the influence in 2007. She spent several months in court-ordered psychotherapy until a judge released her from supervised probation in March 2012.

As part of the intense psychotherapy sessions, Lohan is in the beginning stages of trying to become an inspirational speaker to young people, he said.

"I think she suddenly woke up one morning and had an epiphany and she suddenly realized and appreciated the seriousness of the events that led to her being in court," Heller said.

"She's going to try to inspire hope in people," he said. "I think it will be good for her. It certainly won't hurt others."

Heller mentioned Lohan's intent to become an inspirational speaker in a letter to prosecutors and a judge that was obtained Tuesday. He said he will meet with prosecutors on Friday to try to reach a resolution in Lohan's newest case, which includes misdemeanor charges of reckless driving and obstructing officers from performing their duties.

She has pleaded not guilty. Lohan, 26, was on probation at the time of the crash and faces up to 245 days in jail if a judge determines her conduct violated her probation in a 2011 necklace theft case.

Officers suspected alcohol might have been involved in the June accident on Pacific Coast Highway, but the actress passed sobriety tests at a hospital and she was never charged with driving under the influence.

Santa Monica police Sgt. Richard Lewis said officers did not give Lohan a field sobriety test at the accident scene because she and her assistant were injured in the crash and were taken to a nearby hospital. While officers could not rule out that Lohan might have been drinking, he noted that she did not show signs of impairment.

Celebrity web site TMZ, citing anonymous sources, reported Wednesday that a bottle of alcohol was found next to Lohan's sports car after the crash. Lewis said he could not discuss evidence in the case, but noted that the actress was not charged with drunken driving.

Heller wrote in a motion filed last week that officers found a bottle that they initially thought was urine, but might have contained wine. His filing, which seeks a delay or dismissal of charges against the actress, states that "upon information and belief" the bottle's contents were never tested.

Lohan's case returns to court on Friday, although the actress is not required to attend.

Heller is asking a judge to dismiss the case against Lohan because officers ignored the actress' request to talk to her attorney before being interviewed, court records show. He said he is prepared to defend Lohan at trial if necessary, but is hoping a deal can be worked out. He is seeking a delay in the case to have time to prepare and allow Lohan to demonstrate she is improving her life.

Threats from judges and jail sentences that are invariably cut short because of overcrowding haven't helped Lohan, Heller said. "None of it really brought closure to this predicament that led to this most recent event."

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Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP

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Global Health: After Measles Success, Rwanda to Get Rubella Vaccine

Rwanda has been so successful at fighting measles that next month it will be the first country to get donor support to move to the next stage — fighting rubella too.

On March 11, it will hold a nationwide three-day vaccination campaign with a combined measles-rubella vaccine, hoping to reach nearly five million children up to age 14. It will then integrate the dual vaccine into its national health service.

Rwanda can do so “because they’ve done such a good job on measles,” said Christine McNab, a spokeswoman for the Measles and Rubella Initiative. M.R.I. helped pay for previous vaccination campaigns in the country and the GAVI Alliance is helping to finance the upcoming one.

Rubella, also called German measles, causes a rash that is very similar to the measles rash, making it hard for health workers to tell the difference.

Rubella is generally mild, even in children, but in pregnant women, it can kill the fetus or cause serious birth defects, including blindness, deafness, mental retardation and chronic heart damage.

Ms. McNab said that Rwanda had proved that it can suppress measles and identify rubella, and it would benefit from the newer, more expensive vaccine.

The dual vaccine costs twice as much — 52 cents a dose at Unicef prices, compared with 24 cents for measles alone. (The MMR vaccine that American children get, which also contains a vaccine against mumps, costs Unicef $1.)

More than 90 percent of Rwandan children now are vaccinated twice against measles, and cases have been near zero since 2007.

The tiny country, which was convulsed by Hutu-Tutsi genocide in 1994, is now leading the way in Africa in delivering medical care to its citizens, Ms. McNab said. Three years ago, it was the first African country to introduce shots against human papilloma virus, or HPV, which causes cervical cancer.

In wealthy countries, measles kills a small number of children — usually those whose parents decline vaccination. But in poor countries, measles is a major killer of malnourished infants. Around the world, the initiative estimates, about 158,000 children die of it each year, or about 430 a day.

Every year, an estimated 112,000 children, mostly in Africa, South Asia and the Pacific islands, are born with handicaps caused by their mothers’ rubella infection.

Thanks in part to the initiative — which until last year was known just as the Measles Initiative — measles deaths among children have declined 71 percent since 2000. The initiative is a partnership of many health agencies, vaccine companies, donors and others, but is led by the American Red Cross, the United Nations Foundation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Unicef and the World Health Organization.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 27, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the source of the vaccine and some financing for the campaign. The vaccine and financing is being provided by the GAVI Alliance, not the Measles and Rubella Initiative.

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Groupon Shares Crumple After Dismal Outlook, Take-Rate Cut

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Groupon Inc lost a quarter of its market value on Wednesday after the company revealed it began to take a smaller cut of revenue on daily deals during the holidays, sacrificing revenue and profits to attract and keep merchants.

The cut in its "take rate", which some analysts had said was needed to revive flagging interest among merchants in its Internet offers, was a blow to fourth-quarter results. And a sharper-than-expected post-holiday slowdown in its new e-commerce business contributed to a disappointing first-quarter sales forecast.

The stream of bad numbers, which included a surprise loss in the fourth quarter, drove Groupon's stock down 26 percent to $4.43 in after hours trade. Overall, the company has shed more than three-quarters of its value since debuting at $20 in November of 2011.

"This raises questions about how these guys are going to be able to scale the business," said Tom White, an analyst at Macquarie. "The forecast is underwhelming."

Groupon is among a group of consumer-focused Internet startups that went public to much fanfare in 2011 - before losing massive chunks of market value as investors realized they had over-rated their prospects.

Within a year, Groupon had run into problems dealing with European merchants and sustaining interest among users as deals fever receded. In 2012, analysts speculated that Chief Executive Andrew Mason, known for a quirky sense of humor, may have fallen out of favor with the board.

A company spokesman said Mason remained in charge and the CEO addressed analysts on Wednesday's post-results call.

Groupon reported fourth-quarter revenue rose 30 percent to $638.3 million from $492.2 million in the year-ago period. But it slid into the red with a 1 cent per share loss excluding items, versus expectations for a slim profit of 3 cents a share.

It forecast first-quarter revenue of $560 million to $610 million, sharply below the $650 million average estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Chief Financial Officer Jason Child told Reuters that Groupon began sharing more money from its deals with merchants early in the fourth quarter, to persuade them to come onboard and run an offer for the first time, or work on another.

This was done selectively in the United States and in Europe, he added.

Historically, Groupon has kept about 40 percent of the money generated by daily deals. That declined to about 35 percent in the fourth quarter. Groupon then "fine tuned" take rates later in the quarter and Child said the company expects profitability to improve as a result.

"We are focused on driving growth," he said in an interview. "We will make the investments we feel we need to optimize for growth and merchant profitability."

THE GOODS ON EUROPE

Merchants have complained that Groupon takes too large a cut of online offers.

Groupon executives forecast long-term take rates of 30 percent to 40 percent for the daily deals business, during a conference call with analysts. One of the reasons Groupon reduced take rates was to create more daily deals for a new business called Local Marketplace, which launched in November.

Groupon has mostly focused on sending daily emails to customers offering vouchers for activities in their area. Local Marketplace relies instead on people searching for something to do or buy nearby, such as an oil change or a massage. By the end of the third quarter, before the launch, Groupon had amassed an online store of more than 27,000 deals for the new marketplace.

Analysts have said the move has potential because Groupon's deals may be more likely to show up in Google searches. By the end of 2012, Groupon claimed almost 37,000 active deals running in North America, and many were longer-term offers for Local Marketplace.

For now, Groupon Goods, the company's discounted product sales business, generated a lot of the fourth-quarter revenue growth, though it's seasonally volatile and generates lower margins than daily deals.

Groupon's limp outlook revived fears its business model may be in jeopardy. Chief among their concerns have been intensifying competition in e-commerce, and a struggling European division walloped by the recession there.

Executives warned a turnaround effort there would take time, and signaled that cost cuts are coming for the company's International business.

Groupon is trying to fix it by reducing the size of discounts on deals there and testing faster payments to higher-quality merchants. Technology used to automate its U.S. operations and sales efforts is being rolled out in Europe now.

Kal Raman, chief operating officer, said more than the twice the number of people are needed to handle and process an International division deal, than in the United States.

A Groupon spokesman said there are no "definite" plans for International job cuts, but there were staff reductions in the United States when the company automated.

"That is an enormous opportunity to organize Groupon's operations to be both more efficient," Raman told analysts during the conference call.

(Reporting by Alistair Barr; Editing by David Gregorio, Richard Chang and Tim Dobbyn)

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DealBook: Wall Street Pay Rises, for Those Who Still Have a Job

7:39 p.m. | Updated

Wall Street may be shrinking — cutting thousands of jobs over the last year — but for those who remain, the pay is still very lucrative.

The average cash bonus for those employed in the financial industry in New York last year rose roughly 9 percent, to $121,900, Thomas P. DiNapoli, New York State’s comptroller, said on Tuesday.

Cash bonuses in total are forecast to increase by roughly 8 percent, to $20 billion this year.

The total, however, is down from 2010, when it was $22.8 billion. Wall Street’s peak came in 2006, before the financial crisis, with a total $34.3 billion in bonuses. The year-end bonus can account for the bulk of a finance professional’s annual compensation.

The report from the state comptroller’s office gives estimates on the bonuses, based on tax withholding data, data from banks and conversations with industry experts. It came the same day that JPMorgan Chase, one of the country’s biggest banks, announced it was eliminating 17,000 jobs over the next two years through layoffs and attrition, adding its name to a string of large banks that continue to cut jobs to reduce expenses.

Wall Street has regained 30 percent of the 28,300 jobs lost during the financial crisis, Mr. DiNapoli said. And firms are continuing to streamline as they cope with a sluggish economic recovery, difficult markets and a heavier regulatory burden. While financial industry employment in New York City was steady in the first half of 2012, it was down slightly in the second half of the year, the comptroller’s office said.

“Wall Street is still in transition, but it is very slowly adjusting to changes in its economic and regulatory environment,” he said.

In an effort to hold down — albeit temporarily — compensation costs, a number of financial firms have deferred cash payments to employees in recent years. Mr. DiNapoli said on Tuesday that part of the increase in 2012 was cash promised in recent years but actually paid out last year. He said that it was difficult to break out what percentage of the total was deferrals, but he believed that it was still a small part of the total.

The ebbs and flows of Wall Street pay have a major impact on the economy of New York City, where 169,700 are employed in finance. Local businesses like restaurants, luxury goods retailers and the upper end of the real estate market pin their fortunes to the flood of cash from year-end bonuses.

Before the start of the financial crisis, business and personal income tax collections from finance-related activities accounted for up to 20 percent of New York State tax revenue. In 2012, that contribution fell to 14 percent.

Yet finance remains the best paying sector in New York City, Mr. DiNapoli told reporters during a conference call.

All told, the average pay package for securities industry employees in New York was $362,900 in 2011, the last year for which data is available, almost unchanged from 2010.

“Profits and bonuses rebounded in 2012, but the industry is still restructuring,” Mr. DiNapoli said. Despite its smaller size, the securities industry is still a very important part of the New York City and New York State economies.”

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Bobby Brown sentenced to 55 days in jail for DUI

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Bobby Brown has been sentenced to 55 days in a Los Angeles jail and four years of probation for a drunken driving case.

City attorney's spokesman Frank Mateljan (mah-tell-JIN') says Brown was sentenced Tuesday after pleading no contest to charges he was under the influence and driving on a suspended license when he was arrested in October.

Brown was on probation for another DUI case at the time.

The 44-year-old "New Edition" singer was ordered to report to jail March 20. He also was placed on four years of informal probation and will be required to complete an 18-month alcohol treatment program.

Brown's attorney Tiffany Feder had no immediate comment on the sentence.

The sentence was first reported by celebrity website TMZ.

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Advanced Breast Cancer May Be Rising Among Young Women, Study Finds

The incidence of advanced breast cancer among younger women, ages 25 to 39, may have increased slightly over the last three decades, according to a study released Tuesday.

But more research is needed to verify the finding, which was based on an analysis of statistics, the study’s authors said. They do not know what may have caused the apparent increase.

Some outside experts questioned whether the increase was real, and expressed concerns that the report would frighten women needlessly.

The study, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, found that advanced cases climbed to 2.9 per 100,000 younger women in 2009, from 1.53 per 100,000 women in 1976 — an increase of 1.37 cases per 100,000 women in 34 years. The totals were about 250 such cases per year in the mid-1970s, and more than 800 per year in 2009.

Though small, the increase was statistically significant, and the researchers said it was worrisome because it involved cancer that had already spread to organs like the liver or lungs by the time it was diagnosed, which greatly diminishes the odds of survival.

For now, the only advice the researchers can offer to young women is to see a doctor quickly if they notice lumps, pain or other changes in the breast, and not to assume that they cannot have breast cancer because they are young and healthy, or have no family history of the disease.

“Breast cancer can and does occur in younger women,” said Dr. Rebecca H. Johnson, the first author of the study and medical director of the adolescent and young adult oncology program at Seattle Children’s Hospital.

But Dr. Johnson noted that there is no evidence that screening helps younger women who have an average risk for the disease and no symptoms. “We’re certainly not advocating that young women get mammography at an earlier age than is generally specified,” she said.

Expert groups differ about when screening should begin; some say at age 40, others 50.

Breast cancer is not common in younger women; only 1.8 percent of all cases are diagnosed in women from 20 to 34, and 10 percent in women from 35 to 44. However, when it does occur, the disease tends to be more deadly in younger women than in older ones. Researchers are not sure why.

The researchers analyzed data from SEER, a program run by the National Cancer Institute to collect cancer statistics on 28 percent of the population of the United States. The study also used data from the past when SEER was smaller.

The study is based on information from 936,497 women who had breast cancer from 1976 to 2009. Of those, 53,502 were 25 to 39 years old, including 3,438 who had advanced breast cancer, also called metastatic or distant disease.

Younger women were the only ones in whom metastatic disease seemed to have increased, the researchers found.

Dr. Archie Bleyer, a clinical research professor in radiation medicine at the Knight Cancer Institute at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland who helped write the study, said scientists needed to verify the increase in advanced breast cancer in young women in the United States and find out whether it is occurring in other developed Western countries. “This is the first report of this kind,” he said, adding that researchers had already asked colleagues in Canada to analyze data there.

“We need this to be sure ourselves about this potentially concerning, almost alarming trend,” Dr. Bleyer said. “Then and only then are we really worried about what is the cause, because we’ve got to be sure it’s real.”

Dr. Johnson said her own experience led her to look into the statistics on the disease in young women. She had breast cancer when she was 27; she is now 44. Over the years, friends and colleagues often referred young women with the disease to her for advice.

“It just struck me how many of those people there were,” she said.

Dr. Donald A. Berry, an expert on breast cancer data and a professor of biostatistics at the University of Texas’ M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, said he was dubious about the finding, even though it was statistically significant, because the size of the apparent increase was so small — 1.37 cases per 100,000 women, over the course of 30 years.

More screening and more precise tests to identify the stage of cancer at the time of diagnosis might account for the increase, he said.

“Not many women aged 25 to 39 get screened, but some do, but it only takes a few to account for a notable increase from one in 100,000,” Dr. Berry said.

Dr. Silvia C. Formenti, a breast cancer expert and the chairwoman of radiation oncology at New York University Langone Medical Center, questioned the study in part because although it found an increased incidence of advanced disease, it did not find the accompanying increase in deaths that would be expected.

A spokeswoman for an advocacy group for young women with breast cancer, Young Survival Coalition, said the organization also wondered whether improved diagnostic and staging tests might explain all or part of the increase.

“We’re looking at this data with caution,” said the spokeswoman, Michelle Esser. “We don’t want to invite panic or alarm.”

She said it was important to note that the findings applied only to women who had metastatic disease at the time of diagnosis, and did not imply that women who already had early-stage cancer faced an increased risk of advanced disease.

Dr. J. Leonard Lichtenfeld
, deputy chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, said he and an epidemiologist for the society thought the increase was real.

“We want to make sure this is not oversold or that people suddenly get very frightened that we have a huge problem,” Dr. Lichtenfeld said. “We don’t. But we are concerned that over time, we might have a more serious problem than we have today.”

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DealBook: Wall Street Pay Rises, for Those Who Still Have a Job

7:39 p.m. | Updated

Wall Street may be shrinking — cutting thousands of jobs over the last year — but for those who remain, the pay is still very lucrative.

The average cash bonus for those employed in the financial industry in New York last year rose roughly 9 percent, to $121,900, Thomas P. DiNapoli, New York State’s comptroller, said on Tuesday.

Cash bonuses in total are forecast to increase by roughly 8 percent, to $20 billion this year.

The total, however, is down from 2010, when it was $22.8 billion. Wall Street’s peak came in 2006, before the financial crisis, with a total $34.3 billion in bonuses. The year-end bonus can account for the bulk of a finance professional’s annual compensation.

The report from the state comptroller’s office gives estimates on the bonuses, based on tax withholding data, data from banks and conversations with industry experts. It came the same day that JPMorgan Chase, one of the country’s biggest banks, announced it was eliminating 17,000 jobs over the next two years through layoffs and attrition, adding its name to a string of large banks that continue to cut jobs to reduce expenses.

Wall Street has regained 30 percent of the 28,300 jobs lost during the financial crisis, Mr. DiNapoli said. And firms are continuing to streamline as they cope with a sluggish economic recovery, difficult markets and a heavier regulatory burden. While financial industry employment in New York City was steady in the first half of 2012, it was down slightly in the second half of the year, the comptroller’s office said.

“Wall Street is still in transition, but it is very slowly adjusting to changes in its economic and regulatory environment,” he said.

In an effort to hold down — albeit temporarily — compensation costs, a number of financial firms have deferred cash payments to employees in recent years. Mr. DiNapoli said on Tuesday that part of the increase in 2012 was cash promised in recent years but actually paid out last year. He said that it was difficult to break out what percentage of the total was deferrals, but he believed that it was still a small part of the total.

The ebbs and flows of Wall Street pay have a major impact on the economy of New York City, where 169,700 are employed in finance. Local businesses like restaurants, luxury goods retailers and the upper end of the real estate market pin their fortunes to the flood of cash from year-end bonuses.

Before the start of the financial crisis, business and personal income tax collections from finance-related activities accounted for up to 20 percent of New York State tax revenue. In 2012, that contribution fell to 14 percent.

Yet finance remains the best paying sector in New York City, Mr. DiNapoli told reporters during a conference call.

All told, the average pay package for securities industry employees in New York was $362,900 in 2011, the last year for which data is available, almost unchanged from 2010.

“Profits and bonuses rebounded in 2012, but the industry is still restructuring,” Mr. DiNapoli said. Despite its smaller size, the securities industry is still a very important part of the New York City and New York State economies.”

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The Caucus: Michelle Obama Makes a Star Turn at the Oscars (via Satellite)

6:21 p.m. | Updated
She may not have walked the red carpet, but Michelle Obama — all bangs and biceps and bling — had her own star turn during Sunday night’s Academy Awards ceremony, when she announced the winner for best picture via satellite from the White House.

Barely moments after Mrs. Obama’s late night revelation  of the fate of the nominated best films, the question of whether it was proper or dignified or awesome for the first lady of the United States to dirty her hands with a motion picture envelope disintegrated into a predictably-partisan rhubarb.

But this seemed to matter little to the White House, where both President Obama and the first lady seem untethered from the safety net of a political campaign, and free to pursue their respective agendas.

“The Academy Awards approached the first lady about being a part of the ceremony,” said Kristina Schake, a spokeswoman for Mrs. Obama. “As a movie lover, she was honored to present the award and celebrate the artists who inspire us all, especially our young people, with their passion, skill and imagination.”

The idea to have Mrs. Obama participate in the ceremony was hatched by the producers of the show, with a big hand from the film executive Harvey Weinstein. Mrs. Obama agreed right away, but secret negotiations, including a final one involving a stealth flight from Los Angeles to Washington a few weeks ago to finalize details, ensued.

“Literally from the first day we were hired we thought, ‘How can we make this special?’” said Neil Meron, who was hired last fall to produce the Oscar event with Craig Zadan. “We were hoping Obama would win so we could have our plan executed.”

After the election, they decided the plan would need a fast track, lest it get stuck in the bureaucratic maw maw of the East Wing, so the two approached Mr. Weinstein. “We were very aware that Harvey was close to the Obama family,” Mr. Zadan said, “and if we went through normal channels the odds were small it would happen.”

Mr. Weinstein reached out to the White House, originally with the idea of having Mrs. Obama be a guest at the awards show. The plan was for her to sneak backstage to morph into a secret Oscar presenter. But because the first lady had a conflict that night – the governors would be in town for a White House gala – the idea of a remote play was born.

(Others involved with the process insist that the idea was actually that of Mr. Weinstein’s daughter, Lily, but like most Hollywood stories, one picks their own ending.)

Only two top executives at ABC knew of the plan, along with the actor Jack Nicholson, who was charged with presenting Mrs. Obama from the stage in Hollywood. Mr. Meron and Mr. Zadan were given a private jet for the flight to Washington, although they told people they were going to New York to avoid suspicion.

Mrs. Obama, wearing a shimmering gown designed by Naeem Khan, was hand-delivered the shiny classified envelope opening containing the winner, “Argo,” the Ben Affleck-directed film about a C.I.A. plan to rescue Americans from Iran during the hostage crisis, by Bob Moritz, the chief executive for PricewaterhouseCoopers from New York, which certifies the awards. White-gloved White House military social aides stood in the background.

But Washington was as absorbed  about the propriety of a first lady having such a central role in the  Oscars, suggesting it was less proper than, say, a president throwing out a baseball pitch or flipping pancakes in Iowa in the courting of voters. “Now the first lady feels entitled,” said Jennifer Rubin, a conservative blogger for the Washington Post, “with military personnel as props, to intrude on other forms of entertaining, this time for the benefit of the Hollywood glitterati who so lavishly paid for her husband’s election.”

Others were more charitable. The Web site Slate pointed out that Laura Bush taped a “What Do the Movies Mean to You?” segment for the Academy Awards while she was first lady in 2002 and that President Franklin D. Roosevelt opened the 13th Academy Awards ceremony by  addressing the nation and the crowd at the Biltmore Hotel.

The first lady’s Oscar turn followed her appearance last week on NBC’s “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon,” where, to kick off the third year of her “Let’s Move” exercise campaign, she presented a comedy sketch, the “Evolution of Mom Dancing.”

The sketch was an instant hit. Though only posted last Friday, it had racked up almost five million views on YouTube as of Monday.

Bill Carter contributed reporting.

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'Identity Thief' tops box office with $14 million

NEW YORK (AP) — A week after losing the box office title to Bruce Willis, Melissa McCarthy took it back again.

McCarthy's road trip comedy "Identity Thief" topped the box office in its third week of release on Oscar weekend with $14 million for Universal. 20th Century Fox's "A Good Day to Die Hard," starring Willis, slid to fifth with $10.1 million.

The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by Hollywood.com are:

1. "Identity Thief," Universal, $14,017,085, 3,222 locations, $4,350 average, $93,619,615, three weeks.

2. "Snitch," Lionsgate, $13,167,607, 2,511 locations, $5,244 average, $13,167,607, one week.

3. "Escape From Planet Earth," Weinstein Co., $10,682,037, 3,353 locations, $3,186 average, $34,812,699, two weeks.

4. "Safe Haven," Relativity Media, $10,454,713, 3,223 locations, $3,244 average, $47,916,356, two weeks.

5. "A Good Day to Die Hard," Fox, $10,165,633, 3,555 locations, $2,860 average, $51,967,897, two weeks.

6. "Dark Skies," Weinstein Co., $8,189,166, 2,313 locations, $3,540 average, $8,189,166, one week.

7. "Silver Linings Playbook," Weinstein Co., $5,750,866, 2,012 locations, $2,858 average, $107,176,012, 15 weeks.

8. "Warm Bodies," Lionsgate, $4,825,388, 2,644 locations, $1,825 average, $58,243,441, four weeks.

9. "Beautiful Creatures," Warner Bros., $3,608,333, 2,950 locations, $1,223 average, $16,570,598, two weeks.

10. "Side Effects," Open Road Films, $3,357,039, 2,070 locations, $1,622 average, $25,099,555, three weeks.

11. "Zero Dark Thirty," Sony, $2,230,084, 1,197 locations, $1,863 average, $91,539,075, 10 weeks.

12. "Argo," Warner Bros., $1,827,165, 802 locations, $2,278 average, $129,653,502, 20 weeks.

13. "Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters," Paramount, $1,684,532, 1,425 locations, $1,182 average, $52,945,086, five weeks.

14. "Life of Pi," Fox, $1,605,366, 572 locations, $2,807 average, $113,525,126, 14 weeks.

15. "Lincoln," Disney, $1,481,081, 875 locations, $1,693 average, $178,603,571, 16 weeks.

16. "Mama," Universal, $1,173,900, 1,163 locations, $1,009 average, $70,230,570, six weeks.

17. "Quartet," Weinstein Co., $1,125,886, 356 locations, $3,163 average, $8,844,950, seven weeks.

18. "Django Unchained," Weinstein Co., $971,655, 659 locations, $1,474 average, $158,783,430, nine weeks.

19. "Amour," Sony Pictures Classics, $716,186, 328 locations, $2,183 average, $5,147,242, 10 weeks.

20. "Wreck-It Ralph," Disney, $645,870, 402 locations, $1,607 average, $186,676,411, 17 weeks.

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Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.

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Online:

http://www.hollywood.com

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Global Health: After Measles Success, Rwanda to Get Rubella Vaccine

Rwanda has been so successful at fighting measles that next month it will be the first country to get donor support to move to the next stage — fighting rubella too.

On March 11, it will hold a nationwide three-day vaccination campaign with a combined measles-rubella vaccine, hoping to reach nearly five million children up to age 14. It will then integrate the dual vaccine into its national health service.

Rwanda can do so “because they’ve done such a good job on measles,” said Christine McNab, a spokeswoman for the Measles and Rubella Initiative, which will provide the vaccine and help pay for the campaign.

Rubella, also called German measles, causes a rash that is very similar to the measles rash, making it hard for health workers to tell the difference.

Rubella is generally mild, even in children, but in pregnant women, it can kill the fetus or cause serious birth defects, including blindness, deafness, mental retardation and chronic heart damage.

Ms. McNab said that Rwanda had proved that it can suppress measles and identify rubella, and it would benefit from the newer, more expensive vaccine.

The dual vaccine costs twice as much — 52 cents a dose at Unicef prices, compared with 24 cents for measles alone. (The MMR vaccine that American children get, which also contains a vaccine against mumps, costs Unicef $1.)

More than 90 percent of Rwandan children now are vaccinated twice against measles, and cases have been near zero since 2007.

The tiny country, which was convulsed by Hutu-Tutsi genocide in 1994, is now leading the way in Africa in delivering medical care to its citizens, Ms. McNab said. Three years ago, it was the first African country to introduce shots against human papilloma virus, or HPV, which causes cervical cancer.

In wealthy countries, measles kills a small number of children — usually those whose parents decline vaccination. But in poor countries, measles is a major killer of malnourished infants. Around the world, the initiative estimates, about 158,000 children die of it each year, or about 430 a day.

Every year, an estimated 112,000 children, mostly in Africa, South Asia and the Pacific islands, are born with handicaps caused by their mothers’ rubella infection.

Thanks in part to the initiative — which until last year was known just as the Measles Initiative — measles deaths among children have declined 71 percent since 2000. The initiative is a partnership of many health agencies, vaccine companies, donors and others, but is led by the American Red Cross, the United Nations Foundation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Unicef and the World Health Organization.

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