CBS dominates week in TV ratings

NEW YORK (AP) — CBS had little competition for dominance last week in the television ratings.

The network had 17 of the 25 most-watched programs on the air last week, according to the Nielsen company. It beat second-place NBC by an average of nearly four million viewers a night last week, and also took the 18-to-49-year-old demographic that advertisers seek.

“60 Minutes” and “NCIS” were the most popular shows on CBS last week. As is typical in the fall, NBC‘s Sunday night football matchup was the week’s most-watched show.

One end-of-year tradition, Barbara Walters‘ survey of the year’s most popular personalities, finished No. 27 in the week’s ratings with 7.6 million viewers.

On cable, Showtime’s “Dexter” and “Homeland” both hit series records for their season finale episodes on Sunday. “Dexter” had 2.8 million viewers and “Homeland” had 2.3 million. Showtime preceded each episode with a disclaimer, warning that audiences might find the shows too intense so soon after the Connecticut school killings.

CBS averaged 11.9 million viewers for the week in prime time (7.3 rating, 12 share). NBC had 7.3 million (4.5, 7), ABC had 5.1 million (3.3, 5), Fox had 4.4 million (2.7, 4), the CW had 1.7 million (1.1, 2) and ION Television had 1.3 million (0.9, 1).

Among the Spanish language networks, Univision led with an average of 3.2 million viewers (1.7, 3). Telemundo had 1.3 million (0.7, 1), TeleFutura had 850,000 (0.4, 1), Estrella had 340,000 (0.2, 0) and Azteca had 140,000 (0.1, 0).

NBC‘s “Nightly News” topped the evening newscasts with an average of 9.4 million viewers (6.3, 12). ABC’s “World News” was second with 8.3 million (5.5, 11) and the “CBS Evening News” had 7.2 million viewers (4.9, 9).

A ratings point represents 1,147,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation’s estimated 114.7 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

For the week of Dec. 10-16, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: NFL Football: San Francisco at New England, NBC, 23.23 million; “60 Minutes,” CBS, 19.63 million; “NCIS,” CBS, 17.65 million; “The Big Bang Theory,” CBS, 16.74 million; “NCIS: Los Angeles,” CBS, 15.12 million; “Sunday Night NFL Pre-Kick,” NBC, 14.62 million; “Person of Interest,” CBS, 14.08 million; “Two and a Half Men,” CBS, 13.34 million; “The Voice” (Monday), NBC, 12.33 million; “Criminal Minds,” CBS, 12.01 million.

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ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is owned by CBS Corp. CW is a joint venture of Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corp. Fox and My Network TV are units of News Corp. NBC and Telemundo are owned by Comcast Corp. ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks. TeleFutura is a division of Univision. Azteca America is a wholly owned subsidiary of TV Azteca S.A. de C.V.

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Samsung Drops Action to Block Apple in Europe

PARIS — Samsung said Tuesday that it had dropped its request for a ban on sales of certain Apple phones and tablet computers in Europe, a sharp tactical turn in a patent war that the companies have been fighting on multiple fronts around the world.

Samsung, the South Korean electronics giant, had been seeking injunctions in a number of countries, including Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, contending that Apple, Samsung’s biggest rival in the smartphone market, had infringed on Samsung patents.

The move came only a day after a ruling in a related case in San Francisco, where a U.S. District Court judge rejected a request by Apple, which is based in California, for an injunction to block sales of certain Samsung devices. The decision followed a previous jury ruling that Samsung had violated Apple patents.

After the latest twist in the European case, Samsung said it had acted “in the interest of protecting consumer choice.” Analysts said other factors might have been in play, including a possible nudge from the European Commission.

In January, the commission opened a formal antitrust investigation of Samsung’s terms for licensing patents covering wireless technologies. Under a previous agreement, Samsung had pledged to make the patents available to competitors on “fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory” terms.

“The scope of what was withdrawn precisely matches the area in which the European Commission has been investigating,” said Florian Müller, a patent consultant in Germering, Germany. “It’s not just that the plot is thickening; in my view, there can be no other plausible view than that there is pressure from Brussels.”

The commission had said previously that it was concerned about possible abuse of patents like the ones at issue in the Apple-Samsung injunction request, those covering technologies needed for a device to function. Without some of these “standard essential patents” from Samsung, for example, phones cannot connect to high-speed wireless networks.

“Regulators have been saying, if the patent holders try to abuse these patents, then they are going to get in trouble,” Mr. Müller said.

The commission declined to comment directly on whether there might be a link between Samsung’s announcement Tuesday and the antitrust case in Brussels. “We take note of this development,” said Antoine Colombani, the spokesman for the E.U. competition commissioner, Joaquín Almunia. “Our investigation is ongoing.”

Samsung, meanwhile, said it could not comment on the proceedings. It said it was “fully co-operating with the European Commission.”

“Samsung remains committed to licensing our technologies on fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms, and we strongly believe it is better when companies compete fairly in the marketplace, rather than in court,” it said in a statement.

There has been speculation that Samsung and Apple have been in talks to try to reach a settlement, though the broad scale of the litigation between the two companies, with lawsuits seeking sales bans or damages continuing on several continents, could make that challenging.

“We cannot comment on details of ongoing legal proceedings, but we believe a commercial resolution is achievable,” Samsung said in a statement.

Alan Hely, a spokesman for Apple, declined to comment.

The announcement by Samsung does not end litigation between the two companies in Europe. Samsung said it planned to pursue lawsuits seeking damages from Apple for what it contends is patent infringement.

Apple and Samsung have also been battling over other patents, covering nonessential features of their devices, like design.

Apple, too, has previously secured bans on the sale of certain Samsung products. Last year, for example, a court in Düsseldorf ruled that Samsung could not sell one of its Galaxy tablet devices in Germany because it bore too close a resemblance to the iPad 2 from Apple.

While some analysts cited regulatory pressure as a possible reason for Samsung’s decision Tuesday, others said the company might have decided that the lawsuits were simply a distraction. Samsung’s phones, especially its Galaxy S3, have been selling well.

In the third quarter, the S3 surpassed the iPhone 4S to become the world’s best-selling smartphone, according to Strategy Analytics, a research firm.

“Maybe the market was telling them that they were succeeding and their time was better spent promoting sales of their product,” said Charles Golvin, an analyst at Forrester Research.

James Kanter contributed reporting from Brussels.

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NASA to crash GRAIL spacecraft into moon

Space fanatics and NASA obsessives: Clear your afternoon calendar.

At approximately 2:28 p.m. Monday, NASA will send its twin spacecrafts Ebb and Flow hurtling into the moon at 3,760 mph -- and the space agency will have a live play-by-play of the event, hosted by scientists in the control room at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge.

The live feed begins at 2 and ends around 2:30. Unfortunately, you will not be able to see the two crashes because the lunar crater that will be their final resting places will be in shadow at the time.

NASA scientists admit to feeling sad about the deliberate destruction of these two spacecraft. They were launched from Earth in September of 2011 to help scientists learn more about the lunar gravity field. Ebb and Flow completed their primary three-month mission, then went on to complete an extended mission as well.

But now they are in low orbit and running out of fuel. Since they can no longer make scientific measurements, it is time to say goodbye.

A bit more about Ebb and Flow:

They are part of the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory mission, better known as GRAIL.

Each is about the size of a washer-dryer you might find in an apartment. They worked in tandem to measure the lunar gravity field.

Thanks to their efforts, scientists have learned that the moon's crust is far thinner than they had originally thought. Additional findings should be released in the spring.

Ebb will go down first. Flow will follow about 20 seconds later, and land roughly 25 miles away.

NASA's live commentary will include interviews with GRAIL team members. You can tune in below.

Free live streaming by Ustream

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Anti-Google Crusader Slams Possible Deal in Antitrust Probe

A federal probe into Google’s search results could soon end with a settlement that largely keeps the U.S. government out of its business. But one of the search giant’s most vocal critics says that however toothless the potential deal, Google will not have escaped untouched just yet.

Silicon Valley attorney Gary Reback spent years dogging Microsoft, and U.S. authorities, as the Department of Justice pursued its antitrust case against Bill Gates’ company. He now represents clients he describes as specialty search engines that he says Google illegally stifles in its search results.

Reback tells Wired he hasn’t been able to confirm reports in Politico and elsewhere that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission would end its antitrust investigation in exchange for voluntary changes from Google. But he said any such agreement would mean a “complete institutional failure” on the part of the FTC to rectify what he describes as Google’s ravaging of the internet’s competitive landscape in recent years.

“There are some places where Google has been doing bad things for a very long time,” Reback says. “They have so badly damaged competition that if they just stopped right now, the damage has still been done.”

Google has long denied accusations that it games search results to quash competition and favor its own products and services. “We never take actions to hurt specific websites for competitive reasons,” the company says in a FAQ on its website. “Our search quality and ad quality systems assess the quality of web pages and ads without regard to whether a site competes with Google, only on the basis of what is useful for consumers.”

In response to questions about a possible deal with the FTC, a Google spokesperson would only say, “We continue to work cooperatively with the Federal Trade Commission and are happy to answer any questions they may have.”

An FTC spokesman declined to comment.

Even if a voluntary settlement does become official, Reback says that investigations by several state attorneys general and the European Union could still lead to a legal crackdown on Google. The Department of Justice could also intervene, as it did against Microsoft, he says.

Reback’s crusade against Google serves the business interests of his clients. But he also claims Google’s practices are having a chilling effect on nearly all startups that aspire to challenge its dominance, which hurts the economy as a whole by pushing the tech industry closer to the bad old days of telecom.

“We’ll end up like the phone company,” he says. “There will be a couple big companies, but that will be it.”

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Channing Tatum, Jenna Dewan-Tatum expecting baby

NEW YORK (AP) — The Sexiest Man Alive will soon be a sexy dad.

Actor Channing Tatum and his wife Jenna Dewan-Tatum are expecting their first child in 2013, their reps confirm.

The news was first reported by People.com, which named Tatum the Sexiest Man Alive in November.

The couple, who recently co-starred in the film “10 Years,” met on the 2006 dance film “Step Up,” and wed in 2009.

Besides a baby, the new year will be a busy year for the parents-to-be. Tatum has at least four movies in the works while Dewan-Tatum appears on this season of “American Horror Story: Asylum” and has a TV movie called “She Made Them Do It” premiering Dec. 29 on Lifetime.

___

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Aid: African Children Still at Risk of Pneumonia Despite Ceramic Stoves

Small ceramic indoor stoves, such as those sold by women in AIDS self-help groups in Africa, do save fuel and cut down on eye-irritating smoke, a new study has found — but they do not save children from pneumonia.

The study, published in The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, compared 168 households in rural Kenya that used either “upesi jiko” stoves or traditional three-stone indoor fires. The former — the name means “quick stove” in Swahili — has a locally made ceramic firebox that sells for $3. Clay and mud must be built up around it to insulate it and support the pot.

Since it uses less wood, it saves local forests. But it has no chimney, so the smoke stays indoors.

Biweekly visits by researchers found that children in both the stove and open-fire homes got pneumonia equally often. Pneumonia is a leading cause of death for infants in poor countries, and a 2008 study showed that the fine particles and toxic gases in cooking smoke inflame their lungs, doubling the pneumonia risk.

Two years ago, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton committed $50 million in American aid to help the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves get 100 million efficient stoves into households by 2020. But experts are still divided over which stove to pursue; chimneys do not solve all the problems, and stoves with fans burn more cleanly but are expensive and fragile.

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Frequent Flier: Intrepid on the Set, but Rattled by Frail Planes

WHEN I was a teenager, I was a competitive martial artist. I participated in a lot of tournaments, so flying isn’t new to me. After serving in the Marines from 1989 to 1994, I moved to Vancouver and joined a martial arts school.

Leslie McMichael

Steve McMichael

Q. How often do you fly for business?

A. Maybe once or twice a week, it depends. Sometimes it’s just once or twice a month. I log about 75,000 miles a year.

Q. What’s your least favorite airport?

A. Wellington International in New Zealand.  Landings can be really rough sometimes due to very strong crosswinds.

Q. Of all the places you’ve been, what’s the best?

A. Kona, Hawaii. It’s just gorgeous.

Q. What’s your secret airport vice? 

A. I have a Starbucks in one hand, my iPhone in the other, and probably annoying the travelers around me by Skype-ing with my kids.

One afternoon, I was looking out the window of my apartment and I saw David Duchovny walking down the street. I called a friend and told him about seeing the “X-Files” guy. My friend then told me how huge the television and film industry was in Vancouver.

I heard about an audition for the “Ninja Turtles” TV series here. I went and did a front flip over a stuntman who was about six feet tall. I got the job and have been working in the stunt industry ever since.

I really enjoyed flying when I was younger. I’m 42 years old now and I’m not crazy about it. Maybe it has to do with being older and having a family. The one thing I really do like about flying is that it shows you just how connected we are.

I was traveling to New Zealand quite a bit since I was working on “The Hobbit” as the film’s sword master. On one of the connecting flights I was taking on my way back home, I noticed one of the flight attendants trying to get my attention. He spotted my stunt crew jacket and wanted to ask me if I was a stuntman. It turned out that the flight attendant knew the stunt coordinator who gave me my first full-time job as a double for the lead actor in a TV series.

Meeting people isn’t always that great. I was chatting with a seatmate, who turned out to be the former wife of a producer of a show I was working on. She wouldn’t stop complaining about the guy. I wanted to change seats. She just wouldn’t stop talking and telling me details about the marriage I did not want to know. There were no empty seats, and it turned into what seemed like the longest flight from Los Angeles to Vancouver ever.

Stunt work does push the boundaries, but safety is obviously very important. I realize flying is safe, but I don’t like not being in control.

I remember flying to Bucharest to work on a Jean-Claude Van Damme film. I was catching my connecting flight in Amsterdam and I was surprised by the age of the small, crowded airplane I was supposed to board. It was ancient and the fabric was ripped off the seats.

I was making my way down the aisle and I passed an older woman who was holding a chicken. I thought for a second maybe it was a fake chicken, but the thing clucked and ruffled its feathers, so I knew it was a live chicken. I turned to my co-worker and said, “We’re going to die.” Actually the flight was O.K. and the chicken was a good passenger, much more relaxed than me.

I was flying from Calgary to Vancouver recently. When we reached cruising altitude, the plane turned around and started rapidly descending. The pilot announced there was a crack in the cockpit window and we were heading back to Calgary. I was with my family, so my wife and I tried to stay strong for the kids, but we were both worried.

Actually, I was the one who was most worried. My kids and wife were doing pretty well. When we landed, I told them I was driving to Vancouver. I’m sure my kids thought I was just being funny. I wasn’t.

By Steve McMichael, as told to Joan Raymond. E-mail: joan.raymond@nytimes.com.

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Connecticut school gunman shot mother multiple times, autopsy finds

NEWTOWN, Conn. -- School shooter Adam Lanza killed his mother with "multiple" shots to her head and killed himself with a single shot to his head, according to a coroner’s report released Sunday.

After killing his mother in the home they shared, Lanza, 20, drove her car to Sandy Hook Elementary School, where he opened fire in two classrooms Friday morning, killing 20 children and six adults. He then turned the gun on himself.

The autopsy reports were released by Connecticut Chief Medical Examiner Dr. H. Wayne Carver II, who said earlier that all the children had been shot multiple times.

Officials have not identified the make of Lanza's weapon, which Carver has described only as a “long gun.”

As the autopsy reports were being released Sunday, a threatening phone call to a local church prompted a mid-service evacuation that jarred a day of mourning as residents throughout this community grappled with the aftermath of the elementary school massacre.

FULL COVERAGE: Connecticut school shooting

A church spokesman said police gave an all-clear soon after the evacuation at St. Rose of Lima Church. A SWAT team had surrounded the rectory across the parking lot from the main church building and hundreds of parishioners were forced to leave services that had been packed all morning.

"This is a very difficult time for all the families. We have seen incredible dignity in the faces of these people," church spokesman Brian Wallace said. The church was locked following the all-clear to "restore calm," Wallace said.

"I don't think anyone can be surprised about anything after what has happened," he said.

Earlier police said in a morning briefing that they may have to interview the youngest survivors of the school shooting as they try to determine the motive of the gunman.

State Police Lt. Paul Vance and Newtown Police Lt. George Sinko offered few new details of the crime or the investigation into the so-far inexplicable rampage at the elementary school.

Any motive -- speculation about Lanza's video game habits, and his relationship with the school and with his mother -- remained unconfirmed. Two days later, police still aren't saying why he did what he did.

PHOTOS: Connecticut school shooting

“For us to be able to give you the summary of the motive, we have to complete the investigation; we have to have the whole picture to say how and why this occurred," said Vance of the Connecticut State Police, the lead agency on the investigation. "There are weeks’ worth of work left for us to complete this."

Lanza's mother legally purchased the guns later recovered at the scene of the massacre, law enforcement officials have said. Officials have previously said those weapons included a military-style Bushmaster .223 rifle, a Glock 9-millimeter pistol and a Sig Sauer semiautomatic pistol, officials said.

Vance said police would be tracing the weapons' origins "back to their origin" at their manufacturers.

Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy told CNN on Sunday morning: "What we know is he shot his way into the building, so he penetrated the building -- he wasn't buzzed in. He penetrated the building by literally shooting an entrance into the building."

Sinko, meanwhile, said it was "too early" to say if children ever would return to the two classrooms where the killings occurred. "It's too early to say, but I would find it very difficult for them to do that," he said.

Arrangements were under way for some children to report to another elementary school in Newtown when classes resume.

"We want to keep these kids together," said Sinko, explaining that they hoped children who were moved to new schools could stay with their classmates. "We want to move forward very slowly and respectfully," he added, by way of explaining why it was expected to take so long to interview surviving children.

At the news conference, Vance also said the FBI had been asked to help investigate false postings on social media sites that included "some things in somewhat of a threatening manner," and some that purported to be messages from the shooter himself or others involved in the incident.

"There are quotes by people who are posing as the shooter.... Suffice it to say, the information has been deemed as threatening," he said when asked to elaborate.

ALSO:

Suspect in massacre tried to buy rifle days before, sources say

In Newtown, death's chill haunts the morning after school shooting

Connecticut shooting: Gunman forced his way into school, police say

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Wired Science Space Photo of the Day: Painted Swan Nebula

Astronomers using data from ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT), at the Paranal Observatory in Chile, have made an impressive composite of the nebula Messier 17, also known as the Omega Nebula or the Swan Nebula. The painting-like image shows vast clouds of gas and dust illuminated by the intense radiation from young stars.

The image shows a central region about 15 light-years across, although the entire nebula is even larger, about 40 light-years in total. Messier 17 is in the constellation of Sagittarius (the Archer), about 6000 light-years from Earth. It is a popular target for amateur astronomers, who can obtain good quality images using small telescopes.

These deep VLT observations were made at near-infrared wavelengths with the ISAAC instrument. The filters used were J (1.25 µm, shown in blue), H (1.6 µm, shown in green), and K (2.2 µm, shown in red). In the centre of the image is a cluster of massive young stars whose intense radiation makes the surrounding hydrogen gas glow. To the lower right of the cluster is a huge cloud of molecular gas. At visible wavelengths, dust grains in the cloud obscure our view, but by observing in infrared light, the glow of the hydrogen gas behind the cloud can be seen shining faintly through. Hidden in this region, which has a dark reddish appearance, the astronomers found the opaque silhouette of a disc of gas and dust. Although it is small in this image, the disc has a diameter of about 20 000 AU, dwarfing our Solar System (1 AU is the distance between the Earth and the Sun). It is thought that this disc is rotating and feeding material onto a central protostar — an early stage in the formation of a new star.

Image: ESO/R. Chini [high-resolution]

Caption: ESO

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Actor Depardieu puts Paris house up for sale

PARIS (Reuters) – French actor Gerard Depardieu, accused of trying to escape the taxman by buying a house just over the border in Belgium, has put his sumptuous Parisian home up for sale.

Depardieu, the latest wealthy Frenchman to seek shelter from government tax hikes, is selling a vast early 19th-century manor house in the Saint Germain district of the capital, playground of writers, jazz musicians and art dealers over the decades.

His real estate agent declined to say how much he was asking for a property that is on a list of protected national monuments and, as well as the main house, has a swimming pool, landscaped gardens and an ultramodern annex that once served as a theatre.

News of the Parisian sale plan came a day after French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault described Depardieu’s behavior as “pathetic” and unpatriotic at a time when the French are being asked to pay higher taxes to reduce a bloated national debt.

An angry member of parliament has proposed that France adopt a U.S.-inspired law that would force Depardieu or anyone trying to escape full tax dues to forego their nationality.

The 63-year-old “Cyrano de Bergerac” star recently bought a house in Nechin, a Belgian village a short walk from the border with France, where 27 percent of residents are French nationals, local mayor Daniel Senesael told French media on Sunday.

Depardieu also enquired about procedures for acquiring Belgian residency, he said.

The move comes three months after Bernard Arnault, chief executive of luxury giant LVMH and France’s richest man, caused an uproar by seeking to establish residency in Belgium – a move he said was not for tax reasons.

Belgian residents do not pay wealth tax, which in France is now levied on those with assets over 1.3 million euros ($ 1.7 million). Nor do they pay capital gains tax on share sales.

Socialist President Francois Hollande is pressing ahead too with plans to impose a 75-percent supertax on income over 1 million euros.

While Depardieu’s real estate agents did not comment on the price being sought for the Paris property, a local newspaper suggested it could be in the region of 50 million euros.

At average prices quoted on the Internet, a property of that size would command upwards of 20 million, without the additional status of a national monument, celebrity appeal or the artwork renovation commissioned by Depardieu when he bought it in 2003.

Depardieu’s agents declined to comment.

(Reporting by Brian Love and Gerard Bon; editing by Andrew Roche)

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