“Twilight” sendoff starts with huge $341 million worldwide

(Reuters) – The “Twilight” vampire saga‘s final chapter debuted with a massive $ 341 million in global movie ticket sales as devoted fans bid farewell to blood-sucking spouses Bella and Edward and one of Hollywood‘s biggest franchises.

“The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2″ earned an estimated $ 141 million in the United States and Canada over the weekend, falling slightly short of a record for the supernatural romance series about a human-vampire-werewolf love triangle.

The total, which includes sales from late night Thursday through Sunday, ranked as the eight biggest domestic film debut of all time. Late-night Thursday screenings comprised $ 30.4 million of the $ 141 million total.

Fan fever for the fifth “Twilight” movie raged high around the world. “Breaking Dawn – Part 2″ rang up sales of $ 199.6 million from Thursday to Sunday at theaters in 61 countries for a worldwide total of $ 341 million, distributor Summit Entertainment said on Sunday.

The earlier “Twilight” films pulled in a combined $ 2.5 billion at global box offices over a four-year run. The success lifted tiny studio Summit Entertainment into Hollywood‘s big leagues and paved the way for its $ 412 million acquisition in January by Lions Gate Entertainment.

“New Moon” scored the biggest debut of the series, grossing $ 142.8 million over its first three days in 2009.

The movies based on a series of best-selling young adult books by Stephenie Meyer ignited a pop culture infatuation with blood-sucking vampires and werewolves. The films star Kristen Stewart as human-turned-vampire Bella Swan, Robert Pattinson as her vampire love Edward Cullen, and Taylor Lautner as werewolf Jacob Black, who competes for Bella’s affection.

Summit spent $ 120 million to produce “Breaking Dawn – Part 2,” which concludes the tale with newly turned vampire Bella and husband Edward in a high-stakes battle to protect their half-human, half-vampire daughter from an ancient vampire clan. The couple enlist the extended Cullen family in their fight.

Fans of the series, mostly teen girls nicknamed “Twi-hards,” embraced the final film, which includes a surprise twist that was not in the final book. Audiences polled by CinemaScore awarded the movie an “A” grade, with an “A+” from filmgoers under age 25, according to Summit. Critics were less supportive. Fifty-one percent of reviews collected on the Rotten Tomatoes website were positive.

Summit Entertainment‘s president of domestic distribution Richie Fay said though the vast majority of the audience was female, he expected more male viewers than for previous “Twilight” films.

“The male audience has increased a good bit, and the ratings among males are higher I think in part to the action in the film,” he said.

Author Meyer has not ruled out the possibility of more stories in the vampire-werewolf universe but said she has closed the chapter on the Cullens.

Hollywood is eager to fill the void after the success of “Twilight” highlighted the power of young adult stories on the big screen. Studios are bringing at least four new films based on popular young adult novels to theaters next year as well as the sequel to the newest teen movie sensation, “The Hunger Games.

The “Twilight” excitement eclipsed all other movies over the weekend. Last week’s winner, James Bond movie “Skyfall” finished in second place with $ 41.5 million at North American (U.S. and Canadian) theaters.

“Skyfall” is now the highest-grossing Bond movie to date with a global total of over $ 669 million, surpassing the $ 599 million taken in by “Casino Royale” in 2006.

“Skyfall” also propelled distributer Sony Pictures Entertainment to a record year, pushing its worldwide box office total over the $ 4 billion mark.

Historical drama “Lincoln” expanded from a limited opening a week ago and landed in third place with $ 21 million. The movie stars Daniel Day-Lewis as the 16th president near the end of his life as he battles to ban slavery and end the Civil War. The movie is directed by Steven Spielberg and has earned critical praise and awards-season buzz.

In fourth place, Walt Disney Co animated movie “Wreck-It Ralph,” about a videogame character who destroys everything in his path, pulled in $ 18.3 million. Denzel Washington drama “Flight” earned $ 8.6 million and the No. 5 spot.

Elsewhere, romantic comedy “Silver Linings Playbook” brought in $ 458,000 at 16 locations, or an average of $ 28,625 per theater. The film stars Bradley Cooper as a bipolar former teacher just released from a mental institution and Jennifer Lawrence as a young widow he encounters as he tries to put his life back together.

“Silver Linings” won over critics who say it may earn a spot in the Oscar race. The Weinstein Co, the private company that released the movie, will expand the film nationwide beginning on Wednesday, November 21.

Sony Corp’s movie studio distributed “Skyfall.” “Lincoln” was produced by Dreamworks and released by Walt Disney Co. “Flight” was distributed by Paramount Pictures, a unit of Viacom Inc.

(Reporting by Lisa Richwine; Editing by Jackie Frank)

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Turbulence on Cuba-Italy flight leaves 30 bruised

ROME (AP) — An airliner flying from Havana to Milan abruptly plunged some 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) when it hit unusually strong turbulence over the Atlantic on Monday, terrifying passengers and leaving some 30 people aboard with bruises and scrapes, airline officials said.

The flight continued to Milan’s Malpensa airport after the plane’s captain determined that it suffered no structural damage and two passengers who are physicians found no serious injuries, Giulio Buzzi, head of the pilots division at Neos Air, told Sky TG24 TV.

The ANSA news agency quoted bruised passenger Edoardo De Lucchi as saying meals were being served when suddenly there was “10 seconds of terror.” He recounted how plates went flying and some passengers not wearing seatbelts bounced about.

Buzzi had said that the drop measured some 3,000 meters (10,000 feet) in a cloudless sky. But Milan daily’s Corriere della Sera’s web site, quoting Neos official Davide Martini, later reported that the plane first bounced up some 500 meters (1,650 feet), then dropped some 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) to some 500 meters (1,650 feet) below the original altitude.

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Decreased Sexual Interest Most Common Complaint Among Women With Breast Cancer

FIRST PERSON | Research presented at the Oncology Nursing Society (ONS) Connections: Advancing Care Through Science conference discloses that decreased sexual interest is the most common complaint among women with breast cancer. 13.8 million women are breast cancer survivors in the United States. The research reported on results from 896 women.

The Oncology Nurse Advisor reports the research presented at the conference included information taken from the American Cancer Society Study of Cancer Survivors II. The study showed that among the 896 women included in the ONS research, 21.1 percent of them reported a decrease in sexual interest. This does not surprise me. As a one-year cancer survivor and someone still undergoing treatment, I can relate to the study.

Breast cancer is not sexy

Despite the media and marketing industry’s attempt to objectify breast cancer as something sexy, with stupid terms like “save second base” or “I love boobies,” those of us who are fighting cancer don’t see it as sexy.

I lost my left breast to breast cancer. Chemo put me into early menopause and made my hair fall out. My body image has changed forever — I will never look the same as I did before cancer. Scars tell the tale of my battle and most days I still feel like crap. Do I think about sex? Yes, but I miss the way it used to be. What I am dealing with now is something drug-induced and artificial.

Doctors don’t tell

My oncologist did not discuss all of the issues I would face with chemotherapy-induced menopause. I expected hot flashes and the end of my cycle. That was just the tip of the iceberg. There are many more symptoms that coincide with chemo-induced menopause — too many to discuss in this article and many are too personal for me to talk about in print.

Dealing with a radically different body image, scarring, feeling awful — both emotionally and physically — takes its toll on sex drive. Women like me do think about sex. We want to get back what chemo and surgery has taken away. I do believe that the research is correct on this. What surprises me is that only 21.1 percent of the women in the study said that they had a decrease in sexual interest. I thought the number would be much higher.

Lynda Altman was diagnosed with breast cancer in November 2011. She writes a series for Yahoo! Shine called “My Battle With Breast Cancer.”

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“Last Resort,” “666 Park Avenue” Dropped by ABC

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – ABC’s freshman submarine drama “Last Resort” has been sunk, and the network has shuttered “666 Park Avenue” while it’s at it.

The network has declined to pick up its freshman drama “Last Resort,” which starred Ande Braugher as a submarine commander whose crew is declared rogue enemies after he ignores a suspicious order.

Likewise, freshman drama “666 Park Avenue,” which starred Terry O’Quinn and Vanessa Williams, will also not go forward. That drama centered around a young couple who manage a New York City apartment building that’s plagued by supernatural occurrences.

Though the network says it will air the remaining episodes of both series, they have not been picked up for additional episodes.

“Last Resort,” which aired Thursdays at 8 p.m., dipped to a 1.3 rating/4 share in the advertiser-cherished 18-49 demographic, tying the lowest performance in the series’ short existence.

“666 Park Avenue,” which aired Sundays at 10 p.m., drew a 1.3/3 for its final airing, which also tied a series low.

Earlier Friday, CBS canceled its freshman comedy “Partners.”

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Rebels in Congo reach door of Goma

GOMA, Congo (AP) — A Rwandan-backed rebel group advanced to within 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) of Goma, a crucial provincial capital in eastern Congo, marking the first time that rebels have come this close since 2008.

Congolese army spokesman Col. Olivier Hamuli said the fighting has been going on since 6 a.m. Sunday and the front line has moved to just a few kilometers (miles) outside the city. After more than nine hours of violent clashes the two sides took a break, with M23 rebels establishing a checkpoint just 100 meters (yards) away from one held by the military in the village of Munigi, exactly 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) outside the Goma city line.

Contacted by telephone on the front line, M23 rebel spokesman Col. Vianney Kazarama said the group will spend the night in Goma.

“We are about to take the town. We will spend the night in Goma tonight,” said Kazarama. “We are confident that we can take Goma and then our next step will be to take Bukavu,” he said mentioning the capital of the next province to the south.

The M23 rebel group is made up of soldiers from a now-defunct rebel army, the National Congress for the Defense of the People, or CNDP, a group made-up primarily of fighters from the Tutsi ethnic group, the ethnicity that was targeted in Rwanda‘s 1994 genocide. In 2008, the CNDP led by Rwandan commando Gen. Laurent Nkunda marched his soldiers to the doorstep of Goma, abruptly stopping just before taking the city.

In the negotiations that followed and which culminated in a March 23, 2009 peace deal, the CNDP agreed to disband and their fighters joined the national army of Congo. They did not pick up their arms again until this spring, when hundreds of ex-CNDP fighters defected from the army in April, claiming that the Congolese government had failed to uphold their end of the 2009 agreement.

Reports, including one by the United Nations Group of Experts, have shown that M23 is actively being backed by Rwanda and the new rebellion is likely linked to the fight to control Congo’s rich mineral wealth.

The latest fighting broke out Thursday and led to the deaths of 151 rebels and two soldiers. On Saturday U.N. attack helicopters targeted M23 positions in eastern Congo.

Also on Saturday, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon had called Rwandan President Paul Kagame “to request that he use his influence on the M23 to help calm the situation and restrain M23 from continuing their attack,” according to peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous who spoke at the U.N. headquarters in New York on Saturday.

North Kivu governor Julien Paluku said Saturday that the Congolese army had earlier retreated from Kibumba, which is 30 kilometers (19 miles) north of Goma, after thousands of Rwandans, who he says were backing the rebels, attacked early Saturday.

“Rwandan forces bombarded our positions in Kibumba since early this morning and an estimated 3,500 crossed the border to attack us,” he said Saturday.

In downtown Goma, panicked residents had come out to try to get more information on what was happening. A 45-year-old mother of five said that she has nowhere to go.

“I don’t really know what is happening, I’ve seen soldiers and tanks in the streets and that scares me,” said Imaculee Kahindo. Asked if she planned to leave the city, she said: “What can we do? I will probably hide in my house with my children.”

Hamuli, the spokesman for the Congolese army, denied reports that soldiers were fleeing.

In 2008 as Nkunda’s CNDP rebels amassed at the gates of Goma, reporters inside the city were able to see Congolese soldiers running in the opposite direction, after having abandoned their posts. The Congolese army is notoriously dysfunctional with soldiers paid only small amounts, making it difficult to secure their loyalties during heavy fighting.

“We are fighting 3 kilometers from Goma, just past the airport. And our troops are strong enough to resist the rebels,” said Hamuli. “We won’t let the M23 march into our town,” he said. Asked if his troops were fleeing, he added: “These are false rumors. We are not going anywhere.”

U.N. peacekeeping chief Ladsous said that the rebels were very well-equipped, including with night vision equipment allowing them to fight at night.

Reports by United Nations experts have accused Rwanda, as well as Uganda, of supporting the rebels. Both countries strongly deny any involvement and Uganda said if the charges continue it will pull its peacekeeping troops out of Somalia, where they are playing an important role in pushing out the Islamist extremist rebels.

The U.N. Security Council called for an immediate stop to the violence following a two-hour, closed-door emergency meeting. The council said it would add sanctions against M23 rebels and demanded that rebels immediately stop their advance toward the provincial capital of Goma.

“We must stop the M23″ because Goma’s fall “would, inevitably, turn into a humanitarian crisis,” said France‘s U.N. Ambassador, Gerard Araud. He added that U.N. officials would decide in the coming days which M23 leaders to target for additional sanctions.

___

Associated Press writer Maria Sanminiatelli at the United Nations and Rukmini Callimachi in Dakar, Senegal, contributed to this report.

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Wii U: New console launches in a sea of gadgets

NEW YORK (AP) — In the six years since the last major video game system launched, Apple unveiled the iPhone and the iPad, “Angry Birds” invaded smartphones and Facebook reached a billion users. In the process, scores of video game consoles were left to languish in living rooms alongside dusty VCRs and disc players.

On Sunday, Nintendo Co. is launching the Wii U, a game machine designed to appeal both to the original Wii’s casual audience and the hardcore gamers who skip work to be among the first to play the latest “Call of Duty” release. Just like the Wii U’s predecessor, the Wii, which has sold nearly 100 million units worldwide since 2006, the new console’s intended audience “truly is 5 to 95,” says Reggie Fils-Aime, the president of Nintendo of America, the Japanese company’s U.S. arm.

But the Wii U arrives in a new world. Video game console sales have been falling, largely because it’s been so long since a new system has launched. Most people who wanted an Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 or a Wii already have one. Another reason: People in the broad 5-to-95 age range have shifted their attention to games on Facebook, tablet computers and mobile phones.

U.S. video game sales last month, including hardware, software and accessories, totaled $ 755.5 million, according to the research firm NPD Group. In October 2007, the figure stood at $ 1.1 billion.

The Wii U is likely to do well during the holiday shopping season, analysts believe —so well that shoppers may see shortages. But the surge could peter out in 2013. The Wii U is not expected to be the juggernaut that the Wii was in its heyday, according to research firm IHS iSuppli. The Wii outsold its competitors, the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, in its first four years on sale, logging some 79 million units by the end of 2010. By comparison, IHS expects the Wii U to sell 56.7 million in its first four years.

In the age of a million gadgets and lean wallets, the storied game company faces a new challenge: convincing people that they need a new video game system rather than, say, a new iPad.

The Wii U, which starts at $ 300, isn’t lacking in appeal. It allows for “asymmetrical game play,” meaning two people playing the same game can have entirely different experiences depending on whether they use a new tablet-like controller called the GamePad or the traditional Wii remote. The GamePad can also be used to play games without using a TV set, as you would on a regular tablet. And it serves as a fancy remote controller to navigate a TV-watching feature called TVii, which will be available in December.

Nintendo, known for iconic game characters such as Mario, Donkey Kong and Zelda, is expected to sell the consoles quickly in the weeks leading up to the holidays. After all, it’s been six long years and sons, daughters, brothers and sisters are demanding presents. GameStop Corp., the world’s No. 1 video game retailer, said last week that advance orders sold out and it has nearly 500,000 people on its Wii U waitlist.

Even so, it’s a “very, very crowded space in consumer electronics” this holiday season, notes Ben Bajarin, a principal analyst at Creative Strategies who covers gaming.

Apple‘s duo of iPads, the full-size model and a smaller version called the Mini, will be competing for shoppers’ attention. Not to be outdone, Amazon.com Inc. has launched a trove of Kindle tablets and e-readers in time for the holidays. These range from the Paperwhite, a touch-screen e-reader, to the Kindle Fire HD, which features a color screen and can work with a cellular data plan. Then there are the new laptops and cheaper, thinner “ultrabooks” featuring Microsoft’s new Windows 8 operating system —not to mention smartphones from Apple Inc., Samsung and other manufacturers.

“Nintendo has to be a cut above the noise here,” Bajarin says.

The Wii U is the first major game console to launch in years, but in some ways Nintendo is merely catching up with the HD trend. Sony Corp. and Microsoft Corp. began selling their own powerful, high-definition consoles six and seven years ago, respectively. Both Sony and Microsoft are expected to unveil new game consoles in 2013.

Baird analyst Colin Sebastian thinks the question is not how well the Wii U will do during the holidays, but how it will fare three and six months later.

Gaming has changed significantly in the past six years, especially when it comes to the type of mass-audience experiences that serve as Nintendo‘s bread and butter. Zynga Inc., the online game company behind Facebook games such as “FarmVille” and “Texas HoldEm Poker,” was founded in 2007. The first “Angry Birds” game, that addictive, quirky distraction that has players flinging cartoon birds at structures hiding smug green pigs launched in late 2009. The first iPad, of course, came out in 2010 —three years after the first iPhone.

Fils-Aime acknowledges that Nintendo competes in the broad entertainment landscape, “minute-by-minute,” for consumers’ time.

“That’s true today and that was true 20 years ago,” he says, adding that Nintendo‘s challenge is communicating to people “what is so fun and appealing about the new system.”

Analysts expect Wii U sales to be brisk over the holidays. Nintendo‘s loyal —some would say, fanatical— fan base has been placing advance orders and will likely keep the systems flying off store shelves well into next year. The classic Mario and Zelda games are a huge part of the appeal, since they can’t be played on any gaming system but Nintendo‘s.

Research firm IHS iSuppli estimates that by the end of the year, people will have snapped up 3.5 million Wii U consoles worldwide, compared with 3.1 million Wii units in the same period through the end of 2006.

After the Wii went on sale, shortages persisted for months. Stores were met with long lines of shoppers trying to get their hands on a Wii as late as July 2007, more than seven months after the system’s launch.

Though supply constraints are expected this time around, Fils-Aime says Nintendo will have more hardware available in the Americas than it had for the Wii’s initial months on the market. The company says it will also replenish retailers more frequently than it did six years ago.

An initial sell-out doesn’t mean the Wii U will be successful over the long term, IHS notes, citing its estimate that the Wii U won’t match the Wii’s sales over time.

Bajarin believes it’s going to take “a little bit of time” for the Wii U’s dual-screen gaming concept to sink in with people. If it proves popular, Nintendo could see even more competition at its hands.

“Technologically, it’s not a leap of the imagination to see Apple, Google, Microsoft do something like this,” he says.

____

Follow Barbara Ortutay on Twitter at https://twitter.com/BarbaraOrtutay

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Questions of Blame Linger 34 Years After Jonestown

From the age of 13, Leslie Wagner Wilson had been indoctrinated in the California-based Peoples Temple, led by the charismatic Jim Jones, whose mission was to foster racial harmony and help the poor.

But on Nov. 18, 1978, she and a handful of church members fought their way through thick jungle in the South American country of Guyana, escaping a utopian society gone wrong where followers were starved, beaten and held prisoner in the Jonestown compound.

She walked 30 miles to safety with her 3-year-old son, Jakari, strapped to her back and a smaller group of defectors. But just hours later, the mother, sister and brother and husband she left behind were dead.

“I was so scared,” said Wagner, now 55. “We exchanged phone numbers in case we died. I was prepared to die. I never thought I would see my 21st birthday.”

Today, on the 34th anniversary, Wilson said it’s important to remember the California-based Peoples Temple Jonestown massacre, especially the survivors who have wrestled with their consciences for decades.

PHOTOS: Jonestown Massacre Anniversary

Nine members of her family were among the 918 Americans who died that day, 909 of them ordered by Jones to drink cyanide-laced Kool-Aid in the largest ritual suicide in history.

Her husband, Joe Wilson, was one of Jones’ top lieutenants who helped assassinate congressman Leo Ryan and his press crew when they tried to free church members who were being held against their will.

After arriving back in the United States, Wilson said she “went through hell” — three failed marriages, drug use and suicidal thoughts she describes in her 2009 book, “Slavery of Faith.”

“I was like Humpty Dumpty, but you couldn’t put me back together again,” she said.

Survivors, many of them African-American like Wilson, say they felt guilt and shame and faced the most agonizing question surrounding the nation’s single largest loss of life until 9/11: Was it suicide or murder?

Full Coverage: Jonestown Massacre

In the now-famous “death tape,” supporters clapped and babies cried as Jones instructed families to kill the elderly first, then the youngest in protest against capitalism and racism. Mothers poisoned 246 children before taking their own lives.

“We really can’t understand the Peoples Temple without looking at the historical time period when it arose,” said Rebecca Moore, a professor of religious studies at San Diego State University.

“With the liberation movements of the ’60s and ’70s, the collapse of the black-power movement, the Peoples Temple was the main institution in the San Francisco Bay area that promoted a message of integration and racial equality.”

Moore lost her two sisters and her nephew, the son of Jim Jones. “They were hardcore believers,” she said of her siblings.

Jim Jones, who was white, came from a “wrong side of the tracks,” poor background in Indiana where in the 1950s he became known as a charismatic preacher with an affinity for African-Americans.

“A number of survivors, including those who defected, believe to this day he had paranormal abilities,” said Moore, who met him years later. “He could heal them and read their minds.”

In the 1960s, Jones moved to San Francisco, where at the height of the Peoples Temple there were about 5,000 members.

WATCH: A Look Back at Jonestown Massacre

“They wanted my parents to join,” she said. “Like most outsiders, we didn’t have any idea what was happening outside closed doors.”

Jones ingratiated himself with celebrities and politicians, mobilizing voters to help elect Mayor George Moscone in 1975 and becoming chairman of the city’s housing authority.

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DirecTV strikes deal to carry Time Warner Cable’s sports channels

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Los Angeles Lakers fans who subscribe to DirecTV will finally be able to watch their team again.

DirecTV, has struck a deal to carry Time Warner SportsNet, which now almost exclusively airs the Lakers games, along with Time Warner‘s Spanish-language Deportes.

The agreement ends a carriage dispute that left DirecTV viewers in Southern California out in the cold as the NBA season began last month. DirecTV, along with other carriers, had protested the price of the recently formed regional-sports networks, which would have cost an additional $ 3.95 per subscriber. Other carriers, such as Dish and Cox Communications, eventually reached agreements with Time Warner Cable, with DirecTV holding out the longest.

Under the agreement, DirecTV subscribers in Southern California will also have access to games from the LA Galaxy and Los Angeles Sparks.

“DirecTV is pleased that Los Angeles Lakers, LA Galaxy and Los Angeles Sparks games and programming will now be seen by so many people whose loyalty remains the life’s blood to each team,” DirecTV chief content officer Dan York said. “We appreciate our customers’ patience and are happy to have arrived at an outcome that benefits everyone involved. We know that our customers will enjoy the great programming of these three franchises for many years to come.”

“Our partners at DirecTV value Southern California sports as much as we do and we’re thrilled to work with them to bring Lakers, Galaxy and Sparks games and programming to our viewers,” Time Warner Cable Sports’ senior vice president Dan Finnerty added. “Time Warner Cable SportsNet and Time Warner Cable Deportes will help bring DirecTV customers closer to these teams than they have ever been before.”

SportsNet will air on channel 691, while Deportes will run on channel 458.

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Medics: Israel strike intended for militants kills 11 Gaza civilians

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — An Israeli missile flattened a two-story house in a residential neighborhood of Gaza City on Sunday, killing at least 11 civilians, mostly women and children, Palestinian medical officials said, as Israel expanded a military offensive to target homes of wanted militants.

The attack, which Israel said targeted a militant, was the single deadliest incident of the five-day-old Israeli operation and hiked a toll Sunday that was already the highest number of civilians killed in one day, according to Gaza medics. The bloodshed is likely to raise international pressure for a cease-fire, with Egypt taking the leading role in mediating between Israel and Hamas.

President Barack Obama said he had been in touch with the leaders of Israel, Egypt, and Turkey in an effort to halt the fighting. "We're going to have to see what kind of progress we can make in the next 24, 36, 48 hours," he said.

Obama cautioned against a potential Israeli ground invasion into Gaza, warning it could only deepen its death toll. At the same time, he blamed Palestinian militants for starting the round of fighting by raining rockets onto Israel, and he defended Israel's right to defend itself.

"Israel has every right to expect that it does not have missiles fired into its territory," Obama said in Thailand at the start of a three-nation tour in Asia.

An Israeli envoy arrived in Cairo on Sunday and held talks with Egyptian officials on a ceasefire, according to Egyptian security officials and Nabil Shaath, a top aide of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas who was in the Egyptian capital.

But Israel and Gaza's militant Hamas rulers remain far apart on any terms for a halt in the bloodshed, which has killed 70 Palestinians — including 36 civilians, according to Gaza health officials — and three Israeli civilians.

Hamas is linking a truce deal to a complete lifting of the border blockade on Gaza imposed since Islamists seized the territory by force. Hamas also seeks Israeli guarantees to halt targeted killings of its leaders and military commanders. Israeli officials reject such demands. They say they are not interested in a "timeout," and want firm guarantees that militant rocket fire into Israel will finally end. Past ceasefires have been short lived.

As the offensive moved forward, Israel found itself at a crossroads — on the cusp of launching a ground offensive into Gaza to strike an even tougher blow against Hamas, or pursuing Egyptian-led truce efforts.

"The Israeli military is prepared to significantly expand the operation," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting.

At the same time, Gaza militants continued their barrage of rocket fire at Israel, firing more than 100, including two at Tel Aviv. More than 10 Israelis were injured by shrapnel, two moderately, according to police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld. Israel's "Iron Dome" rocket-defense system shot down at least 30 rockets, including the ones aimed at Tel Aviv.

Israel's announcement Sunday that it was widening its campaign to target homes of militants appeared to mark a new and risky phase of the operation, given the likelihood of civilian casualties in the densely populated territory of 1.5 million Palestinians. Israel launched the offensive Wednesday in a bid to end months of intensifying rocket fire from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

The day's deadliest strike hit the home of the Daloo family in Gaza City, reducing the structure to rubble.

Frantic rescuers pulled the bodies of several children from the ruins of the house, including a toddler and a 5-year-old, as survivors and bystanders screamed in grief. Later, the bodies of the children were laid out in the morgue of Gaza City's Shifa Hospital.

Among the 11 dead were four small children and five women, including an 80-year-old, Gaza health official Ashraf al-Kidra said.

Israeli military spokesman Brig Gen. Yoav Mordechai told Channel 2 TV that the Israeli navy had targeted the building and killed a "global jihad" militant.

"The targets are exact," Mordechai said. "Every (Israeli) missile has an address."

He said the army would continue its operation "as if there were no (cease-fire) talks in Egypt."

The presence of a militant in the house could not be verified. Al-Kidra said the two adult men killed in the strike were civilians.

Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, said that "the Israeli people will pay the price" for the killing of civilians. One of the rocket attacks targeting Tel Aviv came soon after the strike on the Daloo home.

More than a dozen homes of Hamas commanders or families linked to Hamas were struck on Sunday. Though most were empty — their inhabitants having fled to shelter — at least three still had families in them. Al-Kidra said 19 of the 24 people killed Sunday were civilians, mostly women and children.

Israeli Vice Premier Moshe Yaalon said civilian casualties are inevitable.

"You can't avoid collateral damage if they position the rockets in densely populated areas, in mosques, school yards. We shouldn't be blamed for the outcome," he said.

Israel also struck two high-rise buildings housing media outlets, damaging the top floor offices of the Hamas TV station, Al Aqsa, and a Lebanese-based broadcaster, Al Quds TV, seen as sympathetic to the Islamists. Six Palestinian journalists were wounded, including one who lost a leg, a Gaza press association said.

Foreign broadcasters, including British, German and Italian TV outlets, also had offices in the high-rises.

Two missiles made a direct hit on Al Aqsa TV's 15th floor offices, said Bassem Madhoun, an employee of Dubai TV, which has offices in the same building.

Building windows were blown out and glass shards and debris were scattered on the street below. Some of the journalists who had been inside the building at the time took cover in the entrance hallway.

Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, an Israeli military spokeswoman, said the strikes targeted Hamas communications equipment on the buildings' rooftops. She accused the group of using journalists as "human shields," and urged journalists to stay clear of Hamas bases and facilities.

The repeated militant rocket fire on Tel Aviv and a volley fired Friday toward Jerusalem have significantly escalated the hostilities by widening the militants' rocket range and putting 3.5 million Israelis, or half the country's population, within reach. The attempt to strike Jerusalem also has symbolic resonance because both Israel and the Palestinians claim the holy city for a capital.

Israeli radio stations repeatedly interrupted their broadcasts to air "Code Red" alerts warning of impending rocket strikes. In the southern city of Ashkelon, rocket fire damaged a residential building, punching a hole in the ceiling and riddling the facade with shrapnel.

With fighting showing no signs of slowing, international attempts to broker a ceasefire continued.

Nabil Shaath, an aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas who was in Cairo, confirmed that the Israeli envoy had arrived in Egypt for talks, saying there are "serious attempts to reach a ceasefire." There was no immediate Israeli confirmation.

Hamas' prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, spoke to Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi. He told the Egyptian leader he supports such efforts, provided Hamas receives "guarantees that will prevent any future aggression" by Israel, his office said in a statement.

Morsi over the weekend hosted talks with Hamas' supreme leader, as well as leaders from Hamas allies Turkey and Qatar. He also held contacts with Western leaders.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius visited Israel on Sunday to offer his country's help toward forging an "immediate ceasefire," the French government said.

Meeting with Fabius, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman thanked him for "France's efforts to prevent casualties" but said "the moment that all the terror organizations announce a ceasefire, we can consider all the ideas that French foreign minister and other friends are raising."

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Aron Heller contributed reporting from Beersheba.

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Canadian October home sales dip, latest sign of cooling

TORONTO (Reuters) – Sales of existing homes in Canada fell in October from September and year-over-year sales were down as well, the Canadian Real Estate Association said on Thursday in the latest signal that the housing market is slowing.

The industry group for Canadian real estate agents said sales were down 0.1 percent in October from September. Actual sales for October, not seasonally adjusted, were down 0.8 percent from a year earlier.

The housing market, which roared higher in 2011 and the first half of 2012, started to slow after the government tightened rules on mortgage lending in July in a bid to cool the market and prevent home buyers from taking on too much debt.

“Housing market trends in Canada for 2012 can be characterized as before and after regulatory changes,” TD Economics senior economist Sonya Gulati said in a research note.

“In the first half of the year, sales and price gains were modest, but positive. More stringent mortgage rules and tighter mortgage underwriting rules have ‘purposely’ knocked the wind out of the housing market sails,” she said.

The home sales data showed diverging paths in Canadian housing depending on location. In Toronto and Vancouver, where sales and price gains were red hot in 2011 and early in 2012, the market has been cooling. But markets in the resource-rich western provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta have been gaining strength.

“Opinions differ about how sharply sales have slowed depending on the local housing market,” Gregory Klump, CREA’s chief economist, said in a statement.

Led by Calgary, sales in October were up from a year earlier in almost two-thirds of local markets. Sales remained blow year-earlier levels in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, CREA said.

“These results suggest that the Canadian housing market overall has returned to a more sustainable pace,” Klump said.

CREA’s Home Price Index rose 3.6 percent in October from a year earlier, the sixth consecutive month in which gains in prices slowed, and the slowest rate of increase since May 2011.

While tighter mortgage rules have worked to slow the market, TD’s Gulati said the big question is what will happen when that temporary cooling effect wears off in early 2013.

“What happens thereafter is less certain. The low interest rate environment could pull homeowners back onto the market, causing home prices to once again trek upwards. Alternatively, an absence of pent-up demand may leave the market in a bit of a lull until interest rate hikes resume in late 2013,” she wrote.

“Under either scenario, it is safe to say that there is a low probability of out-sized home price gains over the near-term.”

A total of 402,322 homes traded hands via Canadian MLS systems over the first 10 months of 2012, up 0.8 percent from the same period last year and 0.4 percent below the 10-year average for the period, the data showed.

The number of newly listed homes fell 3.8 percent in October following a jump in September. Monthly declines were reported in almost two-thirds of local markets, with Toronto and Vancouver exerting a large influence on the national trend.

Nationally, there were 6.5 months of inventory at the end of October, little changed from the reading of 6.4 months at the end of September.

(Editing by Peter Galloway)

Canada News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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