Psy’s “Gangnam Style” video becomes YouTube’s most viewed

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – South Korean rap star Psy‘s music video “Gangnam Style” on Saturday became the most watched item ever posted to YouTube with more than 800 million views, edging past Canadian teen star Justin Bieber‘s 2-year-old video for his song “Baby.”

The milestone was the latest pop culture victory for Psy, 34, a portly rap singer known for his slicked-back hair and comic dance style who has become one of the most unlikely global stars of 2012.

Psy succeeded with a video that generated countless parodies and became a media sensation. He gained more fame outside his native country than the more polished singers in South Korea‘s so-called K-Pop style who have sought to win international audiences.

YouTube, in a post on its Trends blog, said “Gangnam Style” on Saturday surpassed the site’s previous record holder, Bieber’s 2010 music video “Baby,” and by mid-day “Gangnam Style” had reached 805 million views, compared to 803 million for “Baby.” Within a few hours, “Gangnam Style” had gone up to more than 809 million views.

“Gangnam Style” was first posted to YouTube in July, and by the following month it began to show huge popularity on YouTube with audiences outside of South Korea.

“It’s been a massive hit at a global level unlike anything we’ve ever seen before,” said the YouTube blog.

The blog also said the “velocity” of the video’s popularity has been unprecedented for YouTube.

In his “Gangnam Style” video the outlandishly dressed, sunglass-wearing Psy raps in Korean and dances in the style of an upper-crust person riding an invisible horse.

The song is named after the affluent Gangnam District of Seoul and it mocks the rampant consumerism of that suburb. Psy, whose real name is Park Jai-sang, is no stranger to wealth as his father is chairman of a South Korean semiconductor company.

His parents sent him to business school in the United States but he confesses that he bought musical instruments with his tuition money. He later graduated from Berklee College of Music in Boston and won fame in South Korea with his 2001 debut album.

The viral success of “Gangnam Style” on YouTube also has translated into strong record sales. In late September, the song jumped to the top of the British pop charts and it also has sold well in other countries.

Popular parodies of the “Gangnam Style” video included one featuring the University of Oregon’s duck mascot, and another done in the “Star Trek” language Klingon.

The official YouTube view count for Gangnam Style represents only the figure for the original video posted to the site, but copycat versions, parodies and videos by people commenting on the song have been posted to the site and elsewhere on the Web.

Counting all those different versions, “Gangnam Style” and its related videos have more than 2.2 billion views across the Internet, said Matt Fiorentino, spokesman for the online video tracking firm Visible Measures.

“Without the dance, I don’t think it would have been as big as it is,” Fiorentino said. “And the other thing is, Psy has a unique sense of humor which comes through in the video. He doesn’t take himself too seriously.”

(Editing by Barbara Goldberg and Bill Trott)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Indian Prostitutes’ New Autonomy Imperils AIDS Fight

Kuni Takahashi for The New York Times

Sex workers in Mumbai’s long-established red-light district, where brothels are dwindling.

MUMBAI, India — Millions once bought sex in the narrow alleys of Kamathipura, a vast red-light district here. But prostitutes with inexpensive mobile phones are luring customers elsewhere, and that is endangering the astonishing progress India has made against AIDS.

Indeed, the recent closings of hundreds of ancient brothels, while something of an economic victory for prostitutes, may one day cost them, and many others, their lives.

“The place where sex happens turns out to be an important H.I.V. prevention point,” said Saggurti Niranjan, program associate of the Population Council. “And when we don’t know where that is, we can’t help stop the transmission.”

Cellphones, those tiny gateways to modernity, have recently allowed prostitutes to shed the shackles of brothel madams and strike out on their own. But that independence has made prostitutes far harder for government and safe-sex counselors to trace. And without the advice and free condoms those counselors provide, prostitutes and their customers are returning to dangerous ways.

Studies show that prostitutes who rely on cellphones are more susceptible to H.I.V. because they are far less likely than their brothel-based peers to require their clients to wear condoms.

In interviews, prostitutes said they had surrendered some control in the bedroom in exchange for far more control over their incomes.

“Now, I get the full cash in my hand before we start,” said Neelan, a prostitute with four children whose side business in sex work is unknown to her husband and neighbors. (Neelan is a professional name, not her real one.)

“Earlier, if the customer got scared and didn’t go all the way, the madam might not charge the full amount,” she explained. “But if they back out now, I say that I have removed all my clothes and am going to keep the money.”

India has been the world’s most surprising AIDS success story. Though infections did not appear in India until 1986, many predicted the nation would soon become the epidemic’s focal point. In 2002, the C.I.A.’s National Intelligence Council predicted that India would have as many as 25 million AIDS cases by 2010. Instead, India now has about 1.5 million.

An important reason the disease never took extensive hold in India is that most women here have fewer sexual partners than in many other developing countries. Just as important was an intensive effort underwritten by the World Bank and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to target high-risk groups like prostitutes, gay men and intravenous drug users.

But the Gates Foundation is now largely ending its oversight and support for AIDS prevention in India, just as efforts directed at prostitutes are becoming much more difficult. Experts say it is too early to identify how much H.I.V. infections might rise.

“Nowadays, the mobility of sex workers is huge, and contacting them is very difficult,” said Ashok Alexander, the former director in India of the Gates Foundation. “It’s a totally different challenge, and the strategies will also have to change.”

An example of the strategies that had been working can be found in Delhi’s red-light district on Garstin Bastion Road near the old Delhi railway station, where brothels have thrived since the 16th century. A walk through dark alleys, past blind beggars and up narrow, steep and deeply worn stone staircases brings customers into brightly lighted rooms teeming with scores of women brushing each other’s hair, trying on new dresses, eating snacks, performing the latest Bollywood dances, tending small children and disappearing into tiny bedrooms with nervous men who come out moments later buttoning their trousers.

A 2009 government survey found 2,000 prostitutes at Garstin Bastion (also known as G. B.) Road who served about 8,000 men a day. The government estimated that if it could deliver as many as 320,000 free condoms each month and train dozens of prostitutes to counsel safe-sex practices to their peers, AIDS infections could be significantly reduced. Instead of broadcasting safe-sex messages across the country — an expensive and inefficient strategy commonly employed in much of the world — it encircled Garstin Bastion with a firebreak of posters with messages like “Don’t take a risk, use a condom” and “When a condom is in, risk is out.”

Surprising many international AIDS experts, these and related tactics worked. Studies showed that condom use among clients of prostitutes soared.

“To the credit of the Indian strategists, their focus on these high-risk groups paid off,” said Dr. Peter Piot, the former executive director of U.N.AIDS and now director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. A number of other countries, following India’s example, have achieved impressive results over the past decade as well, according to the latest United Nations report, which was released last week.

Sruthi Gottipati contributed reporting in Mumbai and New Delhi.

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Lobbying, a Windfall and a Leader’s Family

The New York Times

Ping An, one of China’s largest financial services companies, is building a 115-story office tower in Shenzhen. The company is a $50 billion powerhouse now worth more than A.I.G., MetLife or Prudential.

SHENZHEN, China — The head of a financially troubled insurer was pushing Chinese officials to relax rules that required breaking up the company in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis.

The survival of Ping An Insurance was at stake, officials were told in the fall of 1999. Direct appeals were made to the vice premier at the time, Wen Jiabao, as well as the then-head of China’s central bank — two powerful officials with oversight of the industry.

“I humbly request that the vice premier lead and coordinate the matter from a higher level,” Ma Mingzhe, chairman of Ping An, implored in a letter to Mr. Wen that was reviewed by The New York Times.

Ping An was not broken up.

The successful outcome of the lobbying effort would prove monumental.

Ping An went on to become one of China’s largest financial services companies, a $50 billion powerhouse now worth more than A.I.G., MetLife or Prudential. And behind the scenes, shares in Ping An that would be worth billions of dollars once the company rebounded were acquired by relatives of Mr. Wen.

The Times reported last month that the relatives of Mr. Wen, who became prime minister in 2003, had grown extraordinarily wealthy during his leadership, acquiring stakes in tourist resorts, banks, jewelers, telecommunications companies and other business ventures.

The greatest source of wealth, by far, The Times investigation has found, came from the shares in Ping An bought about eight months after the insurer was granted a waiver to the requirement that big financial companies be broken up.

Long before most investors could buy Ping An stock, Taihong, a company that would soon be controlled by Mr. Wen’s relatives, acquired a large stake in Ping An from state-owned entities that held shares in the insurer, regulatory and corporate records show. And by all appearances, Taihong got a sweet deal. The shares were bought in December 2002 for one-quarter of the price that another big investor — the British bank HSBC Holdings — paid for its shares just two months earlier, according to interviews and public filings.

By June 2004, the shares held by the Wen relatives had already quadrupled in value, even before the company was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. And by 2007, the initial $65 million investment made by Taihong would be worth $3.7 billion.

Corporate records show that the relatives’ stake of that investment most likely peaked at $2.2 billion in late 2007, the last year in which Taihong’s shareholder records were publicly available. Because the company is no longer listed in Ping An’s public filings, it is unclear if the relatives continue to hold shares.

It is also not known whether Mr. Wen or the central bank chief at the time, Dai Xianglong, personally intervened on behalf of Ping An’s request for a waiver, or if Mr. Wen was even aware of the stakes held by his relatives.

But internal Ping An documents, government filings and interviews with bankers and former senior executives at Ping An indicate that both the vice premier’s office and the central bank were among the regulators involved in the Ping An waiver meetings and who had the authority to sign off on the waiver.

Only two large state-run financial institutions were granted similar waivers, filings show, while three of China’s big state-run insurance companies were forced to break up. Many of the country’s big banks complied with the breakup requirement — enforced after the financial crisis because of concerns about the stability of the financial system — by selling their assets in other institutions.

Ping An issued a statement to The Times saying the company strictly complies with rules and regulations, but does not know the backgrounds of all entities behind shareholders. The company also said “it is the legitimate right of shareholders to buy and sell shares between themselves.”

In Beijing, China’s foreign ministry did not return calls seeking comment for this article. Earlier, a Foreign Ministry spokesman sharply criticized the investigation by The Times into the finances of Mr. Wen’s relatives, saying it “smears China and has ulterior motives.”

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Boxer Hector 'Macho' Camacho dies days after being shot in head

Hector “Macho” Camacho, a former three-division boxing champion who had 88 professional fights against a who’s who of legendary opponents stretching from Ray Mancini (whom he defeated in 1989) to Oscar De La Hoya (who beat him by decision in 1997), has died. He was 50.

Camacho was pronounced dead Saturday after being shot in the head four days earlier while seated in a car outside a bar in Bayamon, Puerto Rico. Camacho’s condition deteriorated before his family opted to take him off life support.

Another man in the car, who had nine bags of cocaine in his possession, was also shot and immediately declared dead, according to the Associated Press.

PHOTOS: Hector “Macho” Camacho

Camacho, known for wearing outlandish trunks ranging from a leopard loin cloth to others adorned with lights or tassels, well understood the importance of selling a fight and employing some mental warfare.

Before fighting Mancini, he said, “I never did nothing to the character. How can he dislike a good-looking guy like me? It's jealousy. He can't even be in the same room with me because he knows he can't beat me mouth-to-mouth.”

The late Times columnist Jim Murray assessed the crowd-pleasing disparity between De La Hoya and Camacho like this:

“Oscar was winning a gold medal for his country, Macho was stealing one for himself. Oscar plays golf, Macho plays craps. He was a hyperactive child, and he's a hyperactive adult.

“He has a positive flair for rubbing people the wrong way, doing exactly what nobody wants. For instance, in his last fight, he committed the unpardonable sin of beating up Sugar Ray Leonard, no less. That's about as endearing to the public as burning the flag.”

PHOTOS: Notable deaths of 2012

Camacho’s theatrics were combined with an admirable desire to take on the best opponents possible. He faced the likes of Freddie Roach, Cornelius Boza Edwards, Rafael “Bazooka” Limon, Felix Trinidad, Roberto Duran and Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. His overall record was 79-6-3.

Camacho was born in Bayamon on May 24, 1962, and moved to New York City with his family. His career launched after he admitted to stealing cars in Spanish Harlem as a youth, with one transgression forcing him to jail in Rikers Island, N.Y. There, he boxed other inmates and was so good, one asked a question that stuck with him: “What are you doing here?”

“When he was young, you couldn’t hit him, that’s why he won his first 50 fights,” veteran boxing publicist Bill Caplan said.

The success emboldened his flair for flamboyance, as former Times boxing writer Richard Hoffer captured in a 1985 story:

“His style of dress … is outlandish enough to make Liberace look reserved. He wears enough jewelry to make Mr. T look like a man who only dabbles in accessories. It must be great fun to watch Camacho walk through a metal detector.”

When Camacho suffered his first loss in a 1991 World Boxing Organization lightweight title bout against Greg Haugen at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, his personable nature shined.

“You’d think the guy would be devastated, but 15 minutes after the loss, he was back in press row for the second fight of the HBO doubleheader, shaking everyone’s hands,” Caplan said. “Just a happy-go-lucky guy who loved people.”

The flash wasn’t a mask to toughness. He was never knocked out.

Camacho’s grit was unmistakable to anyone who observed his 1992 beating in front of a sold-out Las Vegas fight crowd at the hands of Chavez Sr., Mexico’s greatest fighter who was at his peak when he pummeled Camacho with body shots en route to a unanimous decision.

De La Hoya knew the importance of beating up and knocking down Camacho in their 1997 bout:

“Listen, Chavez … and Felix Trinidad couldn't knock him out or drop him,” De La Hoya said afterward. “At least I dropped him.”

Camacho’s love of the sport was evident both in his desire to entertain beyond fisticuffs and instances such as his 1995 fight in the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles.

There, recalled promoter Don Chargin, main-event fighter Camacho showing up with his hands wrapped, in a robe and colorful trunks to sit alongside off-night fighters and managers in complimentary seats to watch preliminary matches 90 minutes before his own bout against Tony Rodriguez.

“He just wanted to be with people,” Caplan said.

Camacho’s son, Hector Camacho Jr., is a middleweight boxer with a 54-5-1 record who most recently fought in July.

lance.pugmire@latimes.com

twitter.com/latimespugmire

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How One <em>Myst</em> Fan Made Himself a Real-Life Linking Book

The classic PC game Myst was known for drawing people in to its massive, surreal world. But maker Mike Ando took a little piece of that world and drew it into ours. He made a lovingly authentic replica of the Linking Book that helps the main character — you — navigate the world.

Myst was a ground-breaking point-and-click adventure game created by Cyan Worlds, made of hundreds of beautifully rendered scenes whose combined size made the game so big that it needed a CD-ROM to play, back when many computers didn’t have them. It was the first breakout hit in PC gaming and from its release in 1993 it held the title of best-selling PC game until 2002 when The Sims surpassed it.

The game spawned four sequels, along with novels, music, and an MMO that is still online and being powered by donations from the fan base. The games have been widely ported and the game — once so huge that you needed special hardware to run it — is now available for download on iOS (among other places). In other words, it’s a pretty big deal.

At the core of Myst’s story was a mystical technology called Linking Books that pulled players into other realms, called Ages. They were these beautiful old tomes that, when opened, showed an animated preview of the Age to which you’d be linked.

“Ever since I first played the game, I always wanted my own linking book,” says Ando, “Of course, there was no way my old bulky 486 would fit within a book, but as time marched on technology advanced and computers became smaller. Eventually technology caught up and it was possible to shrink everything down to fit inside the book.”

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Ang Lee talks about risks, spirituality of “Life of Pi”

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Gay cowboy drama “Brokeback Mountain” may have been considered a risky film to make, but director Ang Lee said his new movie, “Life of Pi,” a 3D exploration of faith about a boy stranded on a boat with a Bengal tiger, is his riskiest yet.

The film, which was released in U.S. theaters this week, is adapted from Yann Martel‘s best-selling novel of the same name and was once considered impossible to make.

Oscar-winning Taiwanese director Lee, 58, took on the laborious task of using computer-generated imagery to bring the sensational plot to the big screen, taking a year and a half just to edit the film together.

The director talked to Reuters about the film’s themes, technical barriers and casting an unknown actor in the lead.

Q. Why was “Life of Pi” considered unfilmable?

A. “Because you cannot make the tiger do everything you want to do, you have to use digital. A digital animal, up until two years ago, was not totally realistic yet, let alone in 3D, and then water is pretty difficult.”

Q. Was this your most difficult filming experience yet?

A. “Oh yes. And it was also the longest…there was the technical difficulty and then it is a big movie. And it was across continents, I finally decided to shoot most of it in Taiwan, but we also had to go to India to shoot for two to three weeks. Because you can’t fake Pondicherry, and Munnar. And then we have scenes in Canada.”

Q. But Brokeback Mountain was a risky film too?

A. “No, that wasn’t for me. At least when I made it, I thought it was strictly arthouse and few people would see it. And it’s a lot cheaper (to make). So I didn’t care…And then I got nervous, ‘Oh they are going to lynch me, making a gay cowboy movie, that will go into a shopping mall.’”

Q. It was only after you made it you realized that?

A. “Yes, I was afraid. I was looking around when I walked, when I would go home, to see if anybody was following me. Once it hit the shopping mall I was nervous, actually. My brother is a distributor in Taiwan and I told him not to buy it. He hates me to this day, he is still babbling about it.”

Q. Why choose unknown Suraj Sharma to play Pi?

A. “I wanted someone authentic, and no bad habits, that means you have to train them from the start. “

Q. Why did you replace Tobey Maguire and reshoot his scenes with the little-known Rafe Spall?

A. “It was a small part, and he is a big movie star. He is a good old friend of mine and he would do this for nothing, for me. But he is not doing anything (in the role), he is just sitting there listening most of the time. It becomes a little distracting I think.”

Q. How does the film explore spirituality?

A. “To me, faith can be elusive, but .. As a Taoist would say, ‘That’s the apple’s truth.’ The source of all the material comes from nothingness, illusion is working more on things you can prove. That’s the principle, the essence of life, it is actually an illusion, not immaterial. That’s worth pursuing. So illusion is not nothing. In a way, that is the truth.”

“Sometimes I feel (illusions) are more of life’s essence, I can trust them more than real life that is full of deceit and covering up.”

Q. Did exploring faith encourage you to make this?

“The book is fascinating, it talks about faith. But it didn’t make me believe in God or anything…I didn’t go to church or a temple after that. When I started making the movie, you do feel faith embody you and carry you through. But when I picked the subject, and chose to do the book, it was actually more storytelling in my mind. The value of storytelling. How people share a story. Because a story has structure, it has a beginning, middle and end. It seems to have meaning, where life has not.”

Q. Do you practice any religion?

A. “No, my mother is a baptized Christian, so she made me go to church every Sunday, and I prayed four times a day until I was 14. And at lunchtime kids at school would giggle at my praying…I stopped praying. And two weeks later, nothing happened to me, so I didn’t pick it up again.”

“I am not particularly religious. But I think we do face the question of where God is, why we are created and where does life go, why we exist. That sort of thing. And it is very hard to talk about it these days, because it cannot be proven. It is hard to discuss it rationally.”

Q. Do you consider yourself spiritual?

A. “I hate to think life is just facts and laws. And I am a filmmaker, I am a sensitive person, I like to think it is spiritual, so I like people to be more in that way. I think life without spirit is in the dark, it is absurd. Call it illusion or call it faith, whatever you call it, we have emotional attachment to the unknown. We yearn to find out. That is human nature. It can be, in a way, unrequited love, we don’t know. I don’t have a particular God I pray to, except sometimes a movie god.” (laughs)

(Reporting by Christine Kearney, editing by Piya Sinha-Roy and Andrew Hay)

Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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New Zealand Wants a Hollywood Put on Its Map

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Standing by his desk in New Zealand’s distinctive round Parliament building, known locally as the Beehive, Prime Minister John Key proudly brandished an ornately engraved sword. It was used, he said, by Frodo Baggins, the protagonist of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, and in the films it possesses magical powers that cause it to glow blue in the presence of goblins.

“This was given to me by the president of the United States,” said Mr. Key, marveling that President Obama’s official gift to New Zealand was, after all, a New Zealand product.

In Mr. Key’s spare blond-wood office — with no goblins in sight — the sword looked decidedly unmagical. But it served as a reminder that in New Zealand, the business of running a country goes hand in hand with the business of making movies.

For better or worse, Mr. Key’s government has taken extreme measures that have linked its fortunes to some of Hollywood’s biggest pictures, making this country of 4.4 million people, slightly more than the city of Los Angeles, a grand experiment in the fusion of film and government.

That union has been on enthusiastic display here in recent weeks as “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” the first of three related movies by the director Peter Jackson, approached its world premiere on Wednesday in Wellington (and on Dec. 14 in the United States). Anticipation in New Zealand has been building, and there are signs everywhere of the film’s integration into Kiwi life — from the giant replica of the movie’s Gollum creature suspended over the waiting area at Wellington Airport to the gift shops that are expanding to meet anticipated demand for Hobbit merchandise (elf ears, $14).

But the path to this moment has been filled with controversy. Two years ago, when a dispute with unions threatened to derail the “Hobbit” movies — endangering several thousand jobs and a commitment of some $500 million by Warner Brothers — Mr. Key persuaded the Parliament to rewrite its national labor laws.

It was a breathtaking solution, even in a world accustomed to generous public support of movie projects, and a substantial incentive package was included: the government agreed to contribute $99 million in production costs and add $10 million to the studio’s marketing budget. And its tourism office will spend about $8 million in its current fiscal year, and probably more in the future, as part of a promotional campaign with Time Warner that is marketing the country as a film-friendly fantasyland.

For a tiny nation like New Zealand, where plans to cut $35 million from the education budget set off national outrage earlier this year (and a backtrack from the government), the “Hobbit” concessions were difficult for many to swallow, especially since the country had already provided some $150 million in support for the three “Lord of the Rings” movies.

Now, even amid the excitement of the “Hobbit” opening, skepticism about the government’s film-centric strategy remains. And recently it has become entangled with new suspicions: that Mr. Key’s government is taking cues from America’s powerful film industry in handling a request by United States officials for the extradition of Kim Dotcom, the mogul whose given name was Kim Schmitz, so he can face charges of pirating copyrighted material.

New Zealand’s political scene erupted in September, as Mr. Key publicly apologized to Mr. Dotcom for what turned out to be illegal spying on him by the country’s Government Communications Security Bureau. The Waikato Times, a provincial paper, taunted Mr. Key, accusing him of making New Zealand the “51st state,” while others suggested that a whirlwind trip by Mr. Key to Los Angeles in early October was somehow tied to the Dotcom case.

“No studio executive raised it with me,” Mr. Key said in an interview last month. He spoke the day after a private dinner where he lobbied executives from Disney, Warner Brothers, Fox and other companies for still more New Zealand film work, with Mr. Jackson, a New Zealander, joining by video link.

Mr. Key has been sharply criticized for cozying up to Mr. Jackson in what some consider unseemly ways. Last year, a month before elections in which he and his National Party were fighting to keep control of the government, Mr. Key skipped an appointment with Queen Elizabeth II in Australia to visit the Hobbiton set. He also interviewed Mr. Jackson on a radio show, prompting an outcry from the opposition.

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Lining up even earlier for Black Friday becomes a shop priority

In a tradition that seems to take a bigger slice of Thanksgiving every year, hordes of deal-sniffing shoppers descended on Southland stores Thursday, elbowing their way in search of toys, video games and that time-honored Black Friday symbol: cut-rate television sets. As nightfall came, they huddled in long lines, clutching coupons and hatching shopping strategies.

Rebecca Abbott, 42, of Torrance had it down to a science Thursday night. The accountant said she was out the door of the local Toys R Us store in 20 minutes with a shopping cart full of Christmas gifts for her two daughters. 

Her fourth time shopping on Black Friday, Abbott had spent a few hours in Toys R Us the day before scoping out her plan of attack. The first item on her list: a Rockstar Mickey Mouse doll, normally priced at $59.99 but selling for just $19.99.

"You have to have a strategy for this Black Friday madness," she said as she headed for the door. "First-timers will walk around all day looking at deals," Abbott said. "I got in, grabbed my stuff and got out." Her cart was overflowing with large toys — primarily Barbie and Mickey Mouse items. 

PHOTOS: Black Friday shoppers hunt for deals

At a Wal-Mart in Panorama City, just after 8 p.m., "it was really crazy, but you could still walk," said Marya Huaman, 23, as she left the store with her dad, her two infant sons and three bags full of Fisher-Price toys.

"No, you couldn't," scoffed her father, Edward Huaman. "I didn't see anyone fighting, but they will be soon. This is madness."

Last year, Thanksgiving night was marred by a pepper spray "shopping rage" incident at a Wal-Mart in Porter Ranch that injured at least seven people and forced employees to evacuate part of the store. One person was hospitalized.

Los Angeles Police Cmdr. Andy Smith said Thursday that the night appeared to be running smoothly across Los Angeles. "In general, I think things have gone really well," he said. "It sounds like the stores have taken proper precautions and everyone is aware of the hazards of Black Friday."

After retailers last year moved the opening bell for Black Friday sales to midnight, this year there were even more customers eager to get a jump on the traditional kickoff to the holiday shopping season. Wal-Mart, Sears and Toys R Us began rolling out their door busters at 8 p.m. on Turkey Day, followed by Target at 9 p.m. Macy's, Kohl's and Best Buy were set to open at midnight.

A handful of chains such as Kmart and Old Navy also had daytime hours on Thursday. And online merchants were touting bargains all day and night.

About 147 million shoppers are expected this all-important holiday weekend, with more logging in for online specials by Cyber Monday, according to the National Retail Federation. In all, the trade group estimated that holidays sales will rise 4.1% this year, to $586 billion.

"Though the Black Friday tradition is here to stay, there's no question that it has changed in recent years," NRF Chief Executive Matthew Shay said in a statement.

Many shoppers were perfectly content to queue up. At Best Buy electronic stores across the Southland, people waited for hours — and sometimes days — in tents before the midnight opening.

But many workers were angry about spending Turkey Day away from loved ones.

Frustrated retail employees and families have taken to creating online petitions at Change.org to beg companies not to cut into Thanksgiving dinners. More than 20 online petitions have popped up in recent weeks. Lines grew throughout the afternoon and into the evening as anxious shoppers surveyed the competition in line.

Throughout Southern California there were reports of lines wrapped around stores. In Glendale, more than 750 shoppers were lined up outside the Target at the Galleria.

For shoppers who just couldn't wait until Thursday night — much less Black Friday — some retailers opened their doors all day on Thanksgiving.

The sales weren't quite as glorious as the Black Friday specials that stores promise to roll out later. But they were pretty good nonetheless, shoppers said.

JoAnne Garcia walked into Kmart in Burbank in search of a roasting pan in which to cook her turkey. She walked out 90 minutes later, having shelled out $491, including $329 for an RCA 39-inch LCD flat-panel TV.

"The roasting pan was $14.99," Garcia said, laughing at how much she spent as she rolled her cart to the parking lot.

To the 53-year-old aerospace machinist, shopping on Thanksgiving made perfect sense.

Standing near a store display touting "Freak Out Pricing," Garcia explained her theory about shopping while cooking. "You get up, throw your turkey in the oven, and you come back and it's all done."

walter.hamilton@latimes.com

joseph.serna@latimes.com

Contributing to this report were staff writers Wesley Lowery, Marisa Gerber, Nicole Santa Cruz and Andrew Khouri.

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Wired Science Space Photo of the Day: Celestial Finger Painting

This colour-composite image was obtained by FORS1 on ANTU. It displays a sky area near the Chamaeleon I complex of bright nebulae and hot stars in the constellation of the same name, close to the southern celestial pole.This picture was taken a few days before the Paranal Inauguration and the "hand-over" to the astronomers on April 1, 1999.This colour composite photo of the Chamaeleon I area is based on six 1-min exposures obtained with VLT UT1 + FORS1 in the V, R and I bands. The sky field measures 6.8 x 11.2 arcmin2; North is up and East is left.

Image: ESO [high-resolution]

Caption: ESO

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Pussy Riot protester alone in cell after inmate tension

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Jailed Pussy Riot punk protester Maria Alyokhina has been moved to a single-person cell for her own protection because of tension with other prisoners, her lawyer and Russia‘s federal penitentiary service said on Friday.

Alyokhina, 24, is serving a two-year sentence for a raucous protest against President Vladimir Putin in Moscow‘s main Russian Orthodox cathedral. Activists said her trial, and that of two band mates, was part of a crackdown on dissent.

“There was a conflict” between Alyokhina and other inmates and “she was transferred to a individual cell,” her lawyer Irina Khrunova said by telephone. She said it was not yet clear what caused the conflict.

Prison authorities said Alyokhina was moved at her own request.

“Some tensions arose in relationships and, apparently to prevent this situation from escalating, she decided to submit a request to the prison leadership and they moved her to a one-person cell,” a federal prison service spokeswoman said.

The spokeswoman dismissed Russian media reports Alyokhina argued with inmates over religion at the Ural Mountains prison about 1,150 km (715 miles) northeast of Moscow. Pussy Riot’s protest offended many members of Russia’s Orthodox Church.

The spokeswoman also said she had no information regarding a report on the tabloid-style Life News website that Alyokhina had received violent threats from cell mates.

Alyokhina’s main meal is taken to her cell and she is accompanied by a guard when she leaves it, the spokeswoman said.

Alyokhina and two band mates were convicted in August of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred for their “punk prayer”, which the dominant Russian Orthodox Church has cast as part of a concerted attack on the church and the faithful.

The women said the protest, in which they burst into Christ the Saviour Cathedral and called on the Virgin Mary to rid Russia of Putin, was not motivated by hatred and was meant to mock the church leadership’s support for the longtime leader.

Putin, a former KGB officer who has cultivated close ties with the church over 13 years in power, has rejected criticism from the United States and European leaders who called the two-year sentences disproportionate.

Alyokhina, who has a young son, argued with the judge and cross-examined witnesses during her trial.

Her band mate Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 23, is serving her sentence in a different prison. Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30, was freed last month when a court suspended her sentence on appeal.

(Additional reporting by Ludmila Danilova and Steve Gutterman; Writing by Nastassia Astrasheuskaya; editing by Jason Webb)

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