Ritesh Batra dives into the dabbawalla tradition in 'The Lunchbox'

When Ritesh Batra first began exploring the idea of constructing a film around Mumbai's "dabbawallas" — the white-clad men who traverse the Indian city's teeming streets delivering hot, home-cooked meals to thousands of office workers — his original intent was to do it as a documentary.

But after embedding himself with a coterie of the delivery men, also called "tiffin wallas" ("tiffin" is an Indo-British colloquialism for lunch), Batra changed tack and decided to make a feature instead.

"I went in with [the dabbawallas], without a camera," said Mumbai-based Batra, during a recent visit to Los Angeles. "I became one of them and heard little gems of stories."

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The result is "The Lunchbox," a quietly affecting film about a neglected housewife, Ila (Nimrat Kaur), who is hoping to spice up her marriage by reinventing the lunches she sends to her preoccupied husband. But the stainless-steel encased hot meals are mistakenly delivered to Saajan (well-known Indian actor Irrfan Khan), a widower poised to retire from his paper-pushing job at an insurance company.

An intimate correspondence develops between the two, their relationship unfolding over sub-plots that involve an unseen female confidant who lives above Ila, directing her toward potent recipes, and the sycophantic worker at Saajan's place of work who will be replacing him.

Batra's instincts to make a feature film seem to have been spot-on: "The Lunchbox" won the Critics Week Viewers Choice Award at Cannes last year, where it received a standing ovation, and has been among the highest-grossing art films in history in India, where it has made off with a cache of awards. It opens in L.A. and New York on Friday.

Batra's success with his first feature film came in a circuitous way. In 2009 he was one of 12 filmmakers selected by the Sundance Institute for its Directors and Screenwriters Labs, where he was working on a film called "The Story of Ram."

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"But I just couldn't get it to work," said Batra of the project. "It was hard to leave it behind, but I had to. And I thought a documentary would be a good way to get over what wasn't working. It's more of an organic process."

Having grown up in Mumbai the son of a merchant marine officer (who received daily hot lunches fresh from Batra's mother), setting a story in the world of the dabbawallas seemed an intriguing one. The system, which is 125 years old, is one so fascinating that it has even been studied by Harvard (something that is elliptically referred to in the film). After all, here is a system that delivers some 130,000 lunches every day in a city of close to 11 million people, with a near-negligible error rate. It doesn't use bar codes or fancy tracking devices; because dabbawallas have traditionally been illiterate, the tiffins are placed in color groups depending on what part of the populous city they are headed, journeying there via bicycle, train and on foot, and returned to the home the same way in the afternoon.

The nearly flawless system gave Batra a promising premise: What would happen if something was delivered to the wrong place?

"In the movie, there is a line between making a mistake and seeing a miracle happen," said Batra. "I wanted to show that this was a miracle."

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It took less than a month to shoot the film, with a six-month pre-production time — a necessity, said Batra, given the inherent complications of filming in Mumbai.

"When things fall through, as they do in Mumbai, you have to recalculate very quickly," Batra said. "You have to learn how to embrace the chaos of the place."

That involved being ready to rent out a compartment in a train to shoot certain scenes when the budget wouldn't stretch to the entire train, and then filling the carriage with extras gathered on the spot, who did it just for a chance to be close to Khan.

Even though Batra has spent most of his life in Mumbai, he said that working on "The Lunchbox" still opened his eyes.

"There are things you know but don't realize you know," he said. "With this, I got to know the place in a deep way. I was reminded that these tiffin workers have so much pride in their work, and it was very important to me to preserve that."

calendar@latimes.com

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'Stalingrad' director Fedor Bondarchuk has epic bloodlines

Though he's an award-winning director in his own right in Russia, Fedor Bondarchuk had a challenge emerging from the shadow of his famous father, the late Soviet filmmaker and actor Sergei Bondarchuk, who starred in and directed the seven-hour version of "War and Peace," which won the 1969 foreign-language Oscar.

Bondarchuk, an actor and TV host, said that the Russian media are always looking for similarities between him and his father, who directed him in the 1986 film "Boris Godunov."

"So many journalists [in Russia] are trying to find a similar type of shooting and editing with my father," said Bondarchuk, who added, "it was not my idea to do the same thing."

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But comparisons are inevitable. Like his father, Bondarchuk thinks big. His first feature, "9th Company," a 2005 action-drama about the Soviet war in Afghanistan, was the biggest box-office hit of the year in Russia and won several film awards.

Now he's going the epic route with his latest film, "Stalingrad," an action-melodrama set during the brutal 1942-43 battle between the Soviet Union and Germany during World War II.  Not only is "Stalingrad" the first Russian movie made completely in 3-D and the first to be released in the IMAX format, but it is also the country's highest-grossing film ever, making more than $67 million in Russia and China.

Despite mixed reviews, the film was Russia's submission to the foreign-language film Oscar race. On Friday, Columbia is releasing the subtitled film on more than 300 IMAX 3-D screens in the U.S. for one week, with the hope of a second week on traditional screens.

"I am absolutely shocked about the results of 'Stalingrad,'" Bondarchuk said by phone from New York, where he was promoting the movie. "It is very emotional for me."

The bloody battle of Stalingrad has always interested Bondarchuk because of its importance in the Soviet Union's heroic fight against Nazi Germany and because his father fought in the Red Army during World War II.

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But he's not the first filmmaker to explore this seminal battle, which helped turn the tide of war against the Germans. In fact, Bondarchuk and one of the film's stars, German Thomas Kretschmann ("King Kong"), acted in separate "Stalingrad" features early in their careers.

"Stalingrad" revolves around brave Russian soldiers — including the director's son Sergey — who struggle to hold a building in the bombed-out city against the Germans. But the men soon discover that they are not alone in the building. The brave young woman who lives there becomes a beacon of hope for the squad as well as a love interest to one of the men.

Kretschmann plays a ruthless German officer, who loses sight of his mission when he becomes infatuated with another Russian woman struggling to survive.

The immense sets, which include war-torn buildings, shops and even a railway station, were erected near St. Petersburg. Several Americans were involved in the production. The team of 3-D supervisors and stereographers has worked on such films as "The Amazing Spider-Man" and the upcoming "Transformers: Age of Extinction." And the highly dramatic score was penned by Angelo Badalamenti of "Twin Peaks" fame.

Bondarchuk said he was creating a "new genre" of filmmaking in Russia by shooting "Stalingrad" in 3-D.

"It was my idea to create the world of World War II and clean up the border between the audience and the screen," he said. "It is about emotion and for the audience to be here in Stalingrad in November 1942."

susan.king@latimes.com

    

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'American Idol' recap: Kristen O'Connor goes home ... smiling

And the first of the Top 13 singers going home on "American Idol" is … Kristen O'Connor.

The speedy departure of the pretty, polished, pop-singing, 24-year-old nurse tech from Sebastian, Fla., likely surprised few. Even O'Connor probably saw it coming. After all, as she herself observed before taking the stage on Wednesday night to sing Kelly Clarkson's "Beautiful Disaster" as a wild-card contestant, heading into the performance with the judges' but not the voters' support, she had a lot to prove.

But whatever it was O'Connor wanted to demonstrate -- that she was more than just a pretty face, that she had serious vocal chops and crowd appeal, that she deserved to be there -- she did not, ultimately, manage to do so. It's not that her performances were so bad (though they certainly weren't so good), but more that they were "so what?" Her whole vibe had a cipherish Stepford Wife blandness. She didn't crash and burn so much as fail to take off -- and so she'll just taxi right off the runway and back on home.

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Perhaps more surprising was one of the singers keeping O'Connor company in the bottom three this week. Not Malaya Watson. She surely belonged there after a breathless, unkempt performance that even she admitted was … um … not her best.

"Now watching it back, I didn't like it myself," Watson confessed of the "Runaway Baby" that got away from her, after learning she'd landed in the bottom three (but before falling further, into the bottom two). "I could have done better. I think I was a little too excited trying something new."

No, Watson had been duly warned, and she pledged to "calm down for once in my life" if she managed to make it through.

Fellow bottom-three member M.K. Nobilette, however, had performed well enough on Wednesday that her chances of going home seemed slim. Randy Jackson, who returned to parse the previous evening's performances, said he thought Nobilette had done "really well" with Allen Stone's "Satisfaction" and was "starting to blossom."

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Perhaps Nobilette's near-fatal misstep was the decision to ditch the heartfelt ballads that had gotten her into the Top 13 in the first place. Asked what Nobilette should work on should she remain in the competition, Keith Urban said forging "an emotional connection" with the audience. It's "not going to be about all the skills," he warned. "It's going to be about emotion."

Nobilette will get the chance to heed that advice, as will the rest of the Top 12. But, alas, not O'Connor. The judges declined to use their sole save of the season on her behalf.

The decision to use the save "has to be a unanimous vote," Harry Connick Jr. explained. But after careful consideration, "the decision was not unanimous, which means we're going to have to say goodbye to you, Kristen."

Did Connick mean at least one of the judges, perhaps two, had been tempted to use the save on a wild-card contestant the very first week? That's hard to credit, even if Jennifer Lopez did seem sad to see O'Connor go. He must have simply meant the judges weren't unanimously in favor of using the save, though perhaps they were unanimous in their decision not to. But who knows?

What do you think of O'Connor's elimination? And what did you think of the performances by last year's winner Candice Glover and Jake Bugg, of whom Urban is a fan?

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Yanukovich says he's still Ukraine leader, calls on Russia to 'act'

MOSCOW -- Ukraine's deposed President Viktor Yanukovich declared himself still the legitimate leader of his divided country and said his Russian allies in the Kremlin "should and must act" to put an end to the political chaos.

"Knowing the character of [Russian President] Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, I am surprised that he is until now so restrained and silent" on the subject of intervening to bring calm to Ukraine, Yanukovich said at a news conference in southern Russia carried live nationwide on Russia-24 television.

At the packed gathering in Rostov-on-Don, Yanukovich said he had not met with Putin since being granted refuge in Russia this week after appealing to Moscow to protect him from what he termed the "nationalist and fascist thugs" who have taken power in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital.

Yanukovich blamed the disorder and communal clashes in eastern Ukraine, in particular in the predominantly Russian-speaking region of Crimea, on Western diplomats who brokered an agreement to quell violence in Kiev last week, saying they had failed to hold the opposition forces now running the Ukrainian government to the letter of the pact. He accused European Union and U.S. diplomats of encouraging the three-month revolt against him, saying the crisis wracking the country "was not scripted in Ukraine."

Instead of ensuring that all arms were laid down at the violent epicenter of the confrontation on Independence Square, known as Maidan, "Kiev was flooded with people carrying weapons who started breaking into houses and churches, inflicting suffering on absolutely innocent people who were robbed and beaten up," he said. "This is going on now."

The European Union mediators who brokered the Feb. 21 settlement after at least 82 people were killed last week failed to compel the opposition to keep to a timetable of first enacting constitutional changes, then organizing early presidential elections by the end of this year, he contended.

Yanukovich loyalists in parliament defected in droves after the deadly crackdown by special forces who fired on demonstrators. The opposition-led parliament then voted to oust Yanukovich as president, appoint former speaker Oleksandr Turchynov as interim president, set a May 25 presidential election and disband the Berkat special police unit that had clashed with protesters.

Deputies switched their allegiance to the opposition only because their lives and those of their families were threatened, Yanukovich alleged.

"They were forced to vote in this way," he said. "Their houses were burned. These are the realities in Kiev."

Yanukovich sent mixed signals to the Russian-speaking community in Crimea, where ad hoc militiamen have taken up positions at the Simferopol airport, occupied the autonomous republic's parliament and stationed roadblocks at the border between the strategic peninsula in the Black Sea and the rest of Ukrainian territory.

Crimean Russians' fear and anger is "understandable," Yanukovich said. But he appealed to his supporters there: "Do not allow blood to be shed or for conflict to begin. As the legitimate president of Ukraine, I think Crimea should be part of the Ukrainian state with their autonomous rights ensured."

But Yanukovich later seemed to appeal to Moscow to send in troops to restore order.

Russia has numerous industrial interests and economic agreements in Ukraine, he said in answer to a question of whether he wanted intervention by Moscow to restore what he considers the constitutional order. "Russia has the right to act. I think that Russia should and must act."

Crimea remained tense Friday amid reports from UNIAN that about 30 gunmen had surrounded the Ukraine border coast guard unit in Sevastopol. The coast guard officers identified the gunmen as Russian marines from Brigade 810 of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, the report said.

Later in the day, a Russian naval officer arrived on the scene and demanded that none of the coast guards leave their base, saying the marines were fulfilling the demands of the Crimea regional Security Council to prevent the captures of weapons by extremists, UNIAN reported.

Yanukovich appeared nervous at the start of his address to Russian and Ukrainian media in the city near the border with Ukraine. He repeatedly said he would return to Ukraine as soon as his security and that of his family could be guaranteed.

He arrived in Rostov-on-Don on a flight from Moscow late Thursday that was escorted by military aircraft, the DonInfoBuro agency reported, according to RIA Novosti.

Earlier Friday, Swiss authorities announced in Geneva that they had launched a criminal probe of Yanukovich and his son, Aleksander, after searching and seizing documents from a business owned by the ousted Ukrainian president there. The office of Geneva's chief prosecutor, Yves Bertossa, said in a statement on its website that the probe was investigating allegations of "aggravated money laundering."

Ukraine's newly installed interim prime minister, Arseny Yatsenyuk, charged Thursday that the former government had plundered the country's finances and siphoned off about $70 billion to private offshore accounts since Yanukovich came to power in 2010. During the last three years, Yatsenyuk said, Ukraine's gold and hard currency reserves had plunged to $15 billion from $37 billion.

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carol.williams@latimes.com

Twitter: @cjwilliamslat

Times staff writer Sergei L. Loiko in Kiev contributed to this report.

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Dixie Chicks perform in honor of Rick Rubin at David Lynch benefit

The Dixie Chicks made a rare U.S. concert appearance Thursday night as the headlining act at a benefit for the David Lynch Foundation.

Held in a ballroom at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, the evening doubled as a salute to the record producer Rick Rubin, who oversaw the Dixie Chicks' Grammy-winning 2006 album "Taking the Long Way" and Thursday received the Lifetime of Harmony Award from the foundation that promotes Transcendental Meditation.

When offers to perform arrive, "usually the answer is no," said the Dixie Chicks frontwoman, Natalie Maines, during the group's 30-minute set. But this time they accepted after learning that Rubin – "the man who never allows himself to be honored," as Maines described him -- would be in attendance.

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Once one of country's biggest live acts, the Dixie Chicks have played only intermittently in the United States since 2006, three years after Maines set off a storm of criticism over remarks she made about President George W. Bush in the run-up to the Iraq war.

Last year the singer released a rock-leaning solo album, while her bandmates Martie Maguire and Emily Robison put out their second record as Court Yard Hounds. (The Dixie Chicks toured Canada in the fall and are scheduled to play a string of European dates next month.)

For Thursday's Lynch event, which followed a benefit in January at the El Rey where the filmmaker honored Ringo Starr, Maines said she asked Rubin for his requests. His reply, according to Maines? "The good songs from our album."

Backed by five additional musicians, the trio drew from "Taking the Long Way" for crisp renditions of "The Long Way Around" and "Silent House" and a dreamy "Lullaby." It revved the tempo for the hard-rocking "Lubbock or Leave It," then shifted gears for the acoustic dirge "Easy Silence."

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The group closed with "Not Ready to Make Nice," its impassioned response to the Bush controversy, and if the eight years since then have cooled Maines' outrage, you couldn't tell Thursday.

"I'm still mad as hell," she sang convincingly, a vehement endpoint to an evening otherwise saturated with peace and love.

Other performers at the event -- which drew Russell Simmons, Flea, Vincent Gallo and Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne -- included Damien Rice and Jake Bugg, the young English singer-songwriter who recorded his latest album, "Shangri La," at Rubin's studio by that name in Malibu.

A session at Shangri La was among several packages offered in a live auction, along with dinner (and yoga) with Simmons, lunch with Sharon Osbourne at Soho House and a 45-minute car trip with Lynch in a Tesla on Mulholland Drive.

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Zefr raises $30 million in new financing

A Venice company whose technology helps brands find their most passionate YouTube fans and incorporate their enthusiast videos into marketing campaigns has attracted $30 million in new funding.

Zefr attracted the fresh round of financing from a group of investors led by Institutional Venture Partners, a  late-stage venture capital fund that previously backed Netflix, Snapchat and Twitter. The fund's general partner, Dennis Phelps, will join Zefr's board.

"The new investors believe it has the potential to be a billion-dollar business, and I believe that too," said Mark Terbeek, who led an early investment in the company.

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Zefr cofounder Zach James said the infusion of capital will help the company bulk up its engineering staff and expand sales and marketing.

Zefr started distributing legally licensed film clips on YouTube. It discovered movie aficionados were uploading the same movie scenes, but attracting more views.

"We were like, are we threatened by this, or do we think this is totally awesome?" said James.

Zefr began using its technology to identify the film clips on behalf of the Hollywood studios, which could choose to give Google Inc.'s YouTube permission to sell advertising against the videos -- producing a fresh source of digital revenue for the studios.

James said the company began to apply its expertise to help brands like Adidas manage their YouTube presence.

Brands typically underestimate their presence on the sprawling online video site. When asked about how much notice they attract on YouTube, brands frequently cite the video views on their own channels.

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"We'll run the analysis ... and we consistently get back 90% percent of the total presence is actually views [of videos] uploaded by their fans," James said.

One cosmetics company thought it had garnered just 700,000 views of a commercial it ran on YouTube.  A Zefr analysis revealed 7.7 million people had watched user-created videos about the product -- including some demonstrating how to apply the makeup to achieve the same look as the celebrity in the commercial, James said.

Michael Holz, interactive strategy director at Wieden + Kennedy said the ad agency uses Zefr's technology to get a truer picture of how content is performing on YouTube, identify a brand's fans and monitor what competitors are doing.

"We also have plans to start increasing our dialog with commenters to build a stronger presence between campaigns," Holz said in an email. "It's a pretty robust offering and I feel like we've found some really tasty nuggets to work with while only scratching the surface of what Zefr can really offer."

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Stocks open mixed; Lowe's rises on earnings

U.S. stocks were mostly higher in early trading Wednesday as investors assessed earnings reports from retailers and other companies. Home builders rose after sales of new homes jumped in January to fastest pace in more than five years. 

KEEPING SCORE: The Standard & Poor's 500 index edged up four points, or 0.2 percent, to 1,849 as of 10:25 a.m. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 42 points, or 0.3 percent, to 16,225. The Nasdaq composite rose 11 points, or 0.3 percent, to 4,298. 

HOME SPENDING: Lowe's climbed $2.47, or 5.1 percent, to $50.59. The company said its net income rose 6 percent in the most recent quarter as the home-improvement retailer continued to benefit from a recovery in the housing market. 

IN OTHER HOUSING NEWS: Several home builder stocks rose sharply after the government reported that U.S. sales of new homes rebounded in January to the fastest pace in more than five years. That's a hopeful signs after a slowdown in the housing market last year caused by higher interest rates. PulteGroup rose 56 cents, or 2.7 percent, to $21.24 and Lennar rose $1.38, or 3 percent, to $43.65. 

BOOKING A PROFIT: Barnes & Noble rose 81 cents, or 4.6 percent, to $18.15 after reporting a third-quarter profit. Cost cuts at the company's Nook e-reader unit and elsewhere helped offset declining revenue. Barnes & Noble has been trying to turn itself around as competition from discount stores and online retailers gets tougher and consumers shift to buying digital books. 

DON'T LET THE SUN GO DOWN: First Solar slumped Wednesday after reporting earnings that fell short of financial analysts' expectations. The company's stock fell $6.73, or 11.6 percent, to $51.45. 

CLOSE, BUT NO RECORD: The S&P 500 index has climbed above its record closing high of 1,848.38 during the last two days, only to fall below that level before the market closed. The level is starting to turn into a psychological hurdle for traders and investors. The index needs to close decisively above 1,850 before it can climb further, said JJ Kinahan, a strategist at TD Ameritrade. 

BONDS AND COMMODITIES: The yield on the 10-year Treasury note was little changed from Tuesday at 2.70 percent. The price of oil rose 40 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $102.22 a barrel. Gold fell $10.10, or 0.8 percent to $1,332.80 an ounce. 

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Credit Suisse CEO says aiding U.S. tax evasion is 'unacceptable'

WASHINGTON -- The chief executive of Credit Suisse told U.S. senators Wednesday it was "unacceptable" for Swiss banks to help Americans evade U.S. taxes and he regrets some of the firm's employees did so in the past.

"We deeply regret that -- despite the industry-leading compliance measures we have put in place -- before 2009, some Credit Suisse private bankers appear to have violated U.S. law," Brady Dougan said in prepared remarks for a Senate subcommittee hearing into the bank's tax-evasion activities.

On Tuesday, the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a report accusing Credit Suisse, Switzerland's second-largest bank, with helping thousand of Americans hide billions of dollars in assets from the Internal Revenue Service.

The bipartisan report also criticized the Justice Department for not being more aggressive in pursuing tax evaders and bankers who assist them.

"The American public is angry about offshore tax abuse -- efforts by well-off Americans to evade their U.S. tax obligations by hiding money offshore," Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the subcommittee's chairman, said Wednesday at the start of the hearing.

Under Levin, the subcommittee since 2008 has been investigating tax evasion by U.S. citizens and companies. The investigation first focused on UBS, Switzerland's largest bank, which helped lead to the bank providing nearly 5,000 names of U.S. account holders to U.S. officials.

"The bottom line is that Credit Suisse was in it as deep as UBS, aiding and abetting U.S. tax evasion both in Switzerland and on U.S. soil," Levin said.

The Justice Department has been investigating Credit Suisse since at least 2011 and has indicted seven bank employees on charges of aiding and abetting U.S. tax evasion.

Dougan noted he is the first U.S. citizen to be the chief executive of a major Swiss bank and that he "recognizes the historical reality that Swiss laws that protect client identity -- commonly referred to as "Swiss banking secrecy" -- were vulnerable to abuse and were abused."

"To our deep regret, it is ... clear that some Swiss-based bankers at Credit Suisse appear to have helped their U.S. clients hide income and assets in the past," he said. 

"Although it was not and is not illegal for Swiss banks to accept deposits from Americans, it is absolutely unacceptable for Swiss-based bankers to help U.S. taxpayers evade taxes or to provide them with securities advice in the U.S. without being properly licensed," Dougan said.

On that second point, Credit Suisse agreed last week to pay $196 million and admitted wrongdoing to settle allegations by the Securities and Exchange Commission the bank provided brokerage and investment advisor services to as many as 8,500 U.S. customers without registering with the agency.

Dougan said Wednesday that Credit Suisse has led an effort to change a tradition of secrecy in Swiss banking.

"Credit Suisse has repeatedly and publicly supported the principle that banks have an
obligation not to knowingly assist clients in hiding income and assets," Dougan said. "We reaffirm that again today."

But Levin said Credit Suisse has been lax in disclosing names behind accounts of 22,000 American citizens at the bank from 2001 to 2008 that had a total of up to $12 billion in assets.

So far, the U.S. has obtained just 238 of the names, Levin said. And he criticized Credit Suisse and Justice Department officials, who also are scheduled to testify, for not doing more.

"Allowing Americans to evade their tax obligations through hidden offshore accounts deprives the government of needed revenue," Levin said. "More than that, it deprives honest American taxpayers of something vital to the legitimacy of our tax system: fairness."

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the subcommittee's top Republican, said Credit Suisse hasn't done enough.

"While it made some changes to its internal policies …. even today the bank still must answer for decades of ill-gotten profits," McCain said.

In joint prepared remarks, two top Justice officials told the subcommittee "the department is committed to global enforcement against financial institutions that engage in or facilitate cross-border tax evasion."

The officials -- Deputy Atty. Gen. James Cole and Assistant Atty. Gen. Kathryn Keneally -- said the Justice Department has filed tax-evasion related charges against 73 account holders and 35 bankers and advisors since 2009.

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Target posts slump in earnings after hack, warns of further fallout

The holiday season was never going to be easy for Target Corp. as it tried to lift foot traffic and keep up with competitors' discounts.

But it was the vast data breach at the Minneapolis retailer in the heat of Christmas shopping season that really knocked the Minneapolis-based chain off its feet. And, the company said Wednesday, the hack may continue to have financial repercussions for months to come.

Target's net income for the fourth quarter ended Feb. 1 slumped 46% to $520 million, or 81 cents a share, from $961 million, or $1.47 a share a year earlier.

Sales slid 5.3% to $21.5 billion. Same-store sales, a measure that strips out volatility by including only stores open more than a year, fell 2.5%.

The retailer had chugged along with "better than expected" sales during the first half of the quarter, said Chief Executive Gregg Steinhafel in a statement. But then the company watched as "results softened meaningfully" after it announced the data breach just a few days before the final Christmas shopping rush, he said.

Wall Street had feared worse, with analysts on average estimating Target's earnings per share at 80 cents, according to FactSet. As a result, Target shares rose 4.8%, or $2.69, to $59.20 a share in the first hour of trading Wednesday.

Target has already swallowed $17 million in net expenses due to the intrusion: $61 million in total costs offset by the effect of $44 million in insurance coverage.

The company said it had to pay to investigate the breach, offer free credit monitoring to affected customers, boost the number of workers in its call centers and replace its in-house payment cards and cover related fraud losses.

In the weeks after the disclosure, Target gave shoppers a 10% discount on purchases one weekend and sent executives to apologize before Congress.

The breach "may have a material adverse effect on future earnings," according to the company, though it indicated that it is "unable to estimate future expenses" related to the security hole.

Target suggested that related costs down the line could come from claims made by payment card networks dealing with counterfeit cards and fraudulent payments, civil litigation from customers and banks and more government hearings.

The breach was "the biggest drain" on earnings in the quarter for Target, according to a client note from Sandy Skrovan, U.S. research director at Planet Retail. A "very promotional holiday season and January clearances" probably also weighed down results.

The retailer entered the season -- which by some estimates accounts for 20% to 40% of the industry's earnings for the year -- after four straight quarters of traffic declines, Skrovan said.

"It really took the wind out of Target's sails -- and unfortunately sales," Skrovan said. "The immediate consequence was a loss of shopper trust -- and at a time when Target had already been struggling to lure shoppers through the doors."

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New home sales surge in January

Feb. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Bloomberg Economics Editor Michael McKee breaks down January U.S. new home sales figures on Bloomberg Television¿s ¿Market Makers.¿

By Andrew Khouri

February 26, 2014, 7:48 a.m.

Sales of newly built homes rose unexpectedly last month, bucking a cooling trend in the housing recovery.

New homes sales rose 9.6% from December to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 468,000, the U.S. Commerce Department said Wednesday. Sales are up 2.2% from a year earlier.

Economists had expected sales to fall last month, but instead they rose to the highest level since July 2008. The unexpected surge injects fresh optimism into a cooling housing market. 

The figures follow a string of dour housing reports that indicated falling demand. Economists have blamed cold weather across much of the country, in addition to other factors. Higher mortgage rates and prices have priced many out of a market with too few homes for sale.

QUIZ: Test your knowledge of mortgages

But January's new home data may signal buyers can adjust to the new reality. December's figures were also revised up from an annual rate of 414,000 to 427,000.

Sales rose from December in all regions except the Midwest, where they fell 17.2%. Sales surged 73.7% in the Northeast and rose 11.0% in the western U.S.

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Stocks mixed after consumer confidence weakens

U.S. stocks were mixed in mid-morning trading Tuesday as investors reacted to an unexpectedly steep decline in consumer confidence this month. The weak start came a day after the Standard & Poor's 500 index came within a point of closing at another record high. 

KEEPING SCORE: The Dow Jones industrial average fell 14 points, or 0.1 percent, at 16,194 as of 11:05 a.m. Eastern. The S&P 500 lost two points, or 0.1 percent, to 1,847 and the Nasdaq composite was up a point to 4,294. 

CONSUMERS SHAKEY: The Conference Board's index of consumer confidence fell to 78.1 in February from 80.7 the month before. That was below the 80.1 level economists polled by FactSet were expecting. The report is a closely watched indicator of how likely consumers are to spend money and keep the economy moving forward. 

SICKLY TENET: Hospital management company Tenet Healthcare fell $3.50, or 7 percent, to $45.62 after the company reported a loss in the fourth quarter. Tenet took on more debt because of an acquisition and a stock repurchase program. 

HOME DEPOT, IMPROVING: The nation's largest home improvement chain rose $1.94, or 3 percent, to $79.78. While Home Depot reported a decline in net income from a year earlier, the results still beat analysts' expectations. Home Depot also raised its dividend by 21 percent. 

DEFENSE CONTRACTOR WOES: Shares of several defense contractors fell following Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel's announcement Monday that the size of the nation's armed forces would be reduced to below World War II levels. Northrup Grumman fell 1 percent, while Raytheon and Lockheed Martin fell 0.5 percent. 

WEATHER EFFECT: Macy's rose $1.72, or 3 percent, to $54.78 after the company reported that its income rose 11 percent in the fourth quarter. However, the department store chain had a slowing of sales, citing the winter storms that hit most of the country in the last couple months. 

BACK NEAR A RECORD HIGH: The S&P 500 barely missed hitting another record high on Monday. It closed at 1,847.61, less than a point from its record close of 1,848.38 set on Jan. 15. Both the Nasdaq and S&P 500 are positive for 2014, while the Dow is still down 2 percent. 

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Macy's profit up 11%; sales miss forecasts

Macy's Inc.'s fourth-quarter profit rose 11 percent, but the department store chain suffered a sales shortfall because a string of winter storms chilled business in January.

The results, released Tuesday, come on the heels of a solid but fiercely competitive holiday shopping season for the Cincinnati-based operator of Macy's and Bloomingdale's stores. The department-store chain has been a standout among its peers throughout the economic recovery as it has benefited from its moves to tailor merchandise to local markets.

But like other retailers, severe winter storms have caused Macy's to close stores and kept shoppers at home. At one time during January, 244 Macy's and Bloomingdale's stores, or about 30 percent of the company's total, were shut down because of the weather. Business remained sluggish until Valentine's Day, Macy's Chairman, President and CEO Terry Lundgren said in a statement.

But the company was still sticking with its annual profit and sales forecast, on hopes that business will bounce back in the spring.

"Once warm spring weather arrives and our full assortment of fresh spring merchandise is in place, we believe customers will return to a more normalized pattern of shopping," he said.

Like other retailers, Macy's is also dealing with cautious shoppers and trying to respond to shoppers' shift toward buying and researching on their computers and mobile devices. Last month, the company announced it was cutting, 2,500 jobs as part of a reorganization to sustain profitability. While Macy's is cutting jobs, it is also adding positions related to online shopping. That will leave its workforce level at about 175,000.

The department store chain said it earned $811 million, or $2.16 per share, in the three months that ended Feb. 1. That compares with $730 million, or $1.83 per share, a year earlier.

Excluding items related to closing some stores and other cost-reduction strategies, the company earned $2.31 per share in the latest quarter.

Revenue slipped 1.6 percent to $9.2 billion.

Analysts were expecting $2.17 per share on revenue of $9.28 billion, according to FactSet.

Revenue at stores open at least a year rose 1.4 percent, below the 2.5 percent increase that Wall Street analysts expected.

For November and December combined, the traditional holiday shopping season, revenue at stores open at least a year rose 4.3 percent. The figure includes sales from departments licensed to third parties.

Macy's reiterated that revenue at stores opened at least a year for the current year is expected to be up in the range of 2.5 percent to 3 percent. It also stuck with its earnings forecast of $4.40 to $4.50 per share for the year.

Analysts had expected $4.45 per share for the current fiscal year, according to FactSet.

Shares slipped 12 cents to $52.94 per share in premarket trading.

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Home Depot profit slips, boosts quarterly dividend

Home Depot's fiscal fourth-quarter net income dipped 1 percent, hampered by bad winter weather and one less week in the period than a year ago.

Still, cost cuts helped earnings top Wall Street's view, and the No. 1 home improvement retailer raised its quarterly dividend by 21 percent. Shares rose more than 2 percent in early trading.

The U.S. housing market has emerged from a deep slump, aided by rising home prices, steady job growth and fewer troubled loans dating back to the housing-bubble days. That has spurred customers to spend more to renovate their homes.

But some believe that the combination of anticipated higher interest rates, continued dampened availability of mortgages, and price increases for new homes from 2013 will tamp down housing demand this year. And that in turn might slow down spending on homes.

Home Depot Inc. earned $1.01 billion, or 73 cents per share, for the three months ended Feb. 2. That compares with $1.02 billion, or 68 cents per share, a year earlier. There were fewer shares outstanding in the latest quarter.

Analysts polled by FactSet expected earnings of 71 cents per share.

Revenue for the Atlanta company fell 3 percent to $17.7 million from $18.25 billion, hurt by one less week in the latest quarter. Stripping out the extra week from the prior-year period, revenue rose 3.9 percent in the latest quarter.

Wall Street predicted revenue of $17.92 billion.

Home Depot said that fourth-quarter sales at stores open at least a year rose 4.4 percent. For stores in the U.S., the figure increased 4.9 percent.

This metric is a key indicator of a retailer's health because it excludes results from stores recently opened or closed.

Full-year net income rose to $5.39 billion, or $3.76 per share, from $4.54 billion, or $3 per share, in the previous year.

Annual revenue climbed 5 percent to $78.81 billion from $74.75 billion.

Home Depot also announced Tuesday that it is increasing its quarterly dividend to 47 cents per share from 39 cents per share. The dividend will be paid on March 27 to shareholders of record on March 13.

Looking ahead, the retailer anticipates fiscal 2014 earnings of $4.38 per share. Revenue is expected to rise by about 4.8 percent. Based on 2013's revenue of $78.81 billion, this implies approximately $82.6 billion.

Analysts forecast full-year earnings of $4.42 per share on revenue of $82.85 billion.

Home Depot's smaller rival Lowe's Cos. reports its quarterly results on Wednesday.

Shares of Home Depot rose $1.97, or 2.5 percent, to $79.84 in early morning trading. Its shares have risen almost 25 percent over the past year.

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Limits sought on weed killer glyphosate to help monarch butterflies

With monarch butterfly populations rapidly dwindling, a conservation organization on Monday asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to implement tougher rules for the weed killer glyphosate — first marketed under the brand name Roundup — to save America's most beloved insect from further decline.

In a petition, the Natural Resources Defense Council argued that current uses of glyphosate are wiping out milkweed, the only plant upon which monarch caterpillars feed. The loss of milkweed is having a devastating effect on the life cycles of the large, fragile orange-and-black butterflies, which migrate through the United States, Canada and Mexico.

It takes several generations of the insect scientists know as Danaus plexippus to make the round trip because each monarch lives only a few weeks in the summer.

Since federal glyphosate rules were last updated a decade ago, its use has spiked tenfold to 182 million pounds a year, largely due to the introduction and popularity of corn and soybeans genetically modified to resist the herbicide, the petition says.

"The tenfold increase in the amount of glyphosate being used corresponds with huge losses of milkweed and the staggering decline of the monarch," Sylvia Fallon, an NRDC senior scientist, said in an interview. "We are seeking new safeguards desperately needed to allow enough milkweed to grow."

California's monarch population has fallen an estimated 80% over the last 15 years due to urbanization, drought, weed abatement programs and pesticides, according to the nonprofit Xerces Society, a Portland, Ore.-based organization dedicated to conservation of invertebrates.

The caterpillars are about 2 3/4 inches long, with a pair of black antennae-like appendages at either end of a body ringed with black, yellow and white stripes. They spend most of their three weeks of existence munching on milkweed leaves.

The EPA is scheduled to complete a new review of glyphosate rules in 2015. But "given the rapid decline in monarch numbers, the EPA should take immediate steps to review and restrict glyphosate's uses," the petition says.

The petition asks the EPA to consider preventing the use of glyphosate and other weed killers along highways and utility rights of way where milkweed could grow freely without interfering with maintenance or emergency crews.

It also asks that farmers be required to establish herbicide-free safety zones in or around their fields, and urges the EPA to ensure that any new safeguards on glyphosate don't lead simply to more use of other weed killers that would be equally bad for monarchs and may pose health risks.

"The good news is that butterflies are resilient and can rebound quickly," Fallon said. "All they need is milkweed on which to lay their eggs."

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louis.sahagun@latimes.com

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‘Captain America’: Marvel sneaks ‘Winter Soldier’ footage in Hollywood

Marvel Studios previewed the first 10 minutes of "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" at a fan screening of the new one-shot "All Hail the King" in Hollywood on Monday night, providing an early glimpse of the sequel's mix of action-packed superheroics and 1970s-style political intrigue.

The preview was introduced by Kevin Feige, Marvel's president of production, during a post-show Q&A with "All Hail the King" writer-director Drew Pearce and star Ben Kingsley.

(If you'd rather be surprised by the opening when "Winter Soldier" opens April 4, you might want to stop reading now — spoilers are below.)

The "Winter Soldier" clip began with a humorous, possibly fateful meeting between Steve Rogers, a.k.a. super-soldier Captain America (Chris Evans) and fellow military man Sam Wilson, a.k.a. the Falcon (a bulked-up Anthony Mackie), with the former repeatedly lapping the latter on a jog around the Washington Monument.

After a quick post-run chat during which Cap adds Marvin Gaye to a handwritten list of things to catch up on (having been frozen in suspended animation for a few decades), he's picked up by S.H.I.E.L.D. colleague Natasha Romanoff, a.k.a. Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) in a sleek sports car.

"You can't run everywhere," Cap quips.

Then it's time for him and Black Widow to go to work. They're sent under the cover of darkness to recover a mobile satellite launch pad that's been stolen in the Indian Ocean. While being briefed on the mission, Cap grouses that he's tired of cleaning up S.H.I.E.L.D. leader Nick Fury's (Samuel L. Jackson) messes — before free-diving out of a plane into the ocean, then surfacing to single-handedly clear the deck of mercenaries. Black Widow and a squad of black-clad S.H.I.E.L.D. agents eventually catch up with Cap.

MORE: From the set of 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier'

The clip then cuts to a montage of explosions and exposition culled from the rest of the film, teasing big action set pieces and sneaking a peek at the eponymous antagonist, the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), a brainwashed assassin with a mechanical arm and a connection to Cap's past.

The preview of the upcoming film, directed by brothers Joe and Anthony Russo, proved an energetic capstone to an otherwise comedic-leaning evening, which began with the sly "All Hail the King" short, in which Kingsley reprises his role as Trevor Slattery, the washed-up actor and would-be supervillain the Mandarin from "Iron Man 3″ (which Pearce co-wrote). The one-shot is included on the Blu-ray and digital download of "Thor: The Dark World," released Tuesday.

During the Q&A, Kingsley, who clearly had a ball playing Slattery, called the character "a salute to the struggling actor" and admitted that he was "worried about him" after the events of "Iron Man 3."

It turns out Kingsley needn't have worried. As Pearce said, Trevor is a survivor — "like a cockroach in the apocalypse."

– Oliver Gettell | @LATHeroComplex

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