Image copyrightGETTY IMAGESImage captionThe new iPhone X started selling in November
Apple sold 77.3 million iPhones in the final months of 2017, slightly fewer than during the same period in the prior year.
But higher prices compensated for the dip, lifting the firm’s profits in the quarter to more than $20bn (£14bn).
The record results, which included strong growth in Japan, were the first to provide a glimpse of sales of the firm’s expensive iPhone X.
Apple boss Tim Cook said iPhone X sales surpassed the firm’s expectations.
Apple released the 10th anniversary phone, which starts at about $1,000, in November. It has been the top-selling phone every week since, Mr Cook said.
Investors had been worried that demand for the firm’s products may be dimming, concerns that appeared to be bolstered by a weaker-than-expected sales forecast for coming months.
The number of iPhones sold in the period also slipped 1% year-on-year, but Apple executives said it was important to remember that the quarter was one week shorter than in 2016.
Quarterly revenue climbed 13% year-on-year to a record $88.3bn.
“I have long believed that a 90-day clock on unit sales is a very surface way to view Apple,” Mr Cook said on a call with financial analysts.
Mr Cook said he is watching figures such as the 1.3 billion active Apple devices around the world, which provide a strong customer base for the firm’s other growing businesses, such as Apple Pay.
Apple has been under a cloud after the firm revealed that it deliberately slowed batteries in older phones, prompting investigations in several countries.
It has since apologised, offering customers cheaper batteries and other modifications, but analysts have said that could reduce replacement purchases, potentially affecting the firm’s bottom line.
Shares climbed more than 3% in after-hours trade.
ANALYSIS :
Last year Apple launched three new iPhones, but one was not like the others.
The iPhone X was the main event, the talk of the town. In contrast, the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus felt obsolete before Tim Cook had even finished his presentation. Investors were worried that the presence of the iPhone X would put off people buying the cheaper iPhones. And, given the X started at $999, those people may decide not to buy an iPhone at all.
And that appears to be basically what happened. Apple sold marginally fewer iPhones compared with this time last year (though the company blamed that on a shorter accounting period compared with the same time in 2016).
With the average selling price going up by around $100, to $796, it means Apple may be selling fewer iPhones, but it is making more from each one.
Apple investors will be seeing it like this: selling fewer iPhones but dramatically upping the price is certainly one way to solve that ever-present supply chain headache.
So, a timid quarter by Apple’s unparalleled standards. But by no means a problem.
Image copyrightUOSSMImage captionFive missiles managed to blast through the rock protecting the cave hospital
A hospital built under 20m (60 feet) of rock in a rebel-held part of central Syria has been wrecked by a powerful air strike, medical sources say.
They say the hospital in Hama province – regarded as one of the best protected in the country – was put out of service by Thursday’s strike.
No casualties are reported but aid workers say it is the worst in a wave of attacks against hospitals in Syria.
Meanwhile the UN says aid is no longer getting through to besieged areas.
The Al Maghara cave hospital in the town of Kafr Zita was hit by five missiles in Thursday’s strike, says the Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations (UOSSM), an international coalition of medical charities.
“It’s widely believed to be the most secure hospital in Syria,” UOSSM spokesman Avi D’Souza told the BBC.
Image copyrightUOSSMImage captionDamage to the facility appeared to be extensive
Mr D’Souza said the reason there were no deaths seemed to be that staff and patients were evacuated to a safe room when they heard incoming jets.
The group says the facility – which serves a population of 50,000 people and performs about 150 major surgery procedures a month – suffered extensive damage.
Causing such damage is only possible through advanced weapons, such as bunker-buster missiles, the UOSSM added.
“This is the most serious attack in a larger campaign against hospitals,” Mr D’Souza said.
The group recorded 14 strikes against medical facilities in Syria in January alone.
‘Impotence’
It is not clear who carried out the latest strike, but Syrian government warplanes or those of its ally Russia have been stepping up attacks in rebel-held areas.
Both Syria and Russia have consistently denied targeting civilians.
Image copyrightREUTERSImage captionTurkish ground troops have joined the Syrian conflict
Also on Thursday, the United Nations’ Humanitarian Co-ordinator for Syria warned that diplomatic efforts to get aid into the country had become “totally impotent”.
“The last convoy to a besieged area was at the end of November,” said Jan Egeland. “We need an end to the fighting and we need to have Russia, Turkey and Iran again get de-escalation.”
Conditions are at their worst since 2015, he said. Aid convoys must be approved by the Syrian government and armed groups have to offer security guarantees.
As Syrian government and Russian forces have continued to pound rebel targets, Turkey last month launched a ground operation against Kurdish militia – which it regards as terrorists – in northern Syria.
The Kurdish group targeted – the YPG – is active in the Afrin region across from Turkey’s border.
The militia forms a crucial part of a US-backed alliance battling Islamic State (IS) jihadists in Syria.
Donegal’s Laura Feely is in line to make her debut for the Ireland Women’s Six Nation side this weekend.
The Ballybofey native who plays her rugby with Connacht has been named among the replacements for Saturday’s game with France.
Only five of the team selected for the game against the French in Toulouse started in Ireland’s final game at the World Cup last year.
With options scarce at out-half, Niamh Briggs has been handed the number 10 jersey.
IRELAND WOMEN’S Team & Replacements (v France Women, 2018 Womens Six Nations Championship, Stade Ernest Wallon, Toulouse, Saturday, February 3, kick-off 9pm local time/8pm Irish time):
The promise follows revelations that German automakers funded studies in which humans and monkeys inhaled diesel fumes. Volkswagen has placed its chief lobbyist on leave following the reports.
On Tuesday, Volkswagen’s chief lobbyist said the auto giant would stop testing its products on animals. The statement came in the wake of a major scandal that revealed that the effects of diesel fumes were tested on monkeys and humans in a study funded by German automakers.
“We want to completely eliminate animal testing in the future so that something like this doesn’t happen again,” Thomas Steg told the Bild daily.
Later on Tuesday, VW announced that Steg was being put on leave until further notice.
An explosive report published by TheNew York Times last week exposed a 2014 study carried out by the now-defunct European Research Group on Environment and Health in the Transport Sector (EUGT). It was followed on Monday by reports in the Süddeutsche Zeitung and Stuttgarter Zeitung that those tests had also been carried out on humans.
Funded by Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW and carried out at Aachen University Hospital, doctors studied the health effects of “short-term nitrogen dioxide inhalation by healthy people.”
Following the report, Aachen University Hospital released a statement saying the experiment was “extremely sensitive,” and was carried out to optimize safety for truck drivers, mechanics and welders.
The study was reportedly financed by the car industry to defend diesel following revelations that the fumes were carcinogenic.
Further steps
Volkswagen has promised an inquiry into the scandal.
“I will do everything possible to ensure that this matter is investigated in detail,” said the chairman of Volkswagen’s supervisory board, Hans Dieter Pötsch.
Germany’s Greens in the Bundestag have promised to take up this matter with the administration of Chancellor Angela Merkel.
“We call on the federal government to clearly state how much they knew about the unsavory practices of the auto industry and how much public money financed them,” Greens parliamentary leader Britta Hasselmann said.
This is the second time in recent years that diesel cars have been at the center of a major scandal. In 2015, the US Environmental Protection Agency published findings that Volkswagen had programmed software in its diesel cars so that they would pass emissions tests despite not meeting environmental regulations.
Other companies implicated in the Dieselgate scandal included Daimler, Volvo, Jeep, Hyundai and Fiat.
HUNTSVILLE, Texas – Attorneys for a former Dallas accountant condemned for fatally shooting his two young daughters while their mother listened helplessly on the phone are hoping a federal court keeps him from the Texas death chamber.
John David Battaglia is set for execution Thursday evening for the May 2001 slayings of his 9-year-old daughter, Faith, and her 6-year-old sister, Liberty. Battaglia and his wife had separated and the girls were killed at his Dallas apartment during a scheduled visit.
He’d be the nation’s third prisoner executed this year, all in Texas.
His lawyers had appeals before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court, contending the 62-year-old Battaglia is delusional and mentally incompetent for execution.
A member of the FBI leaves the Mandalay Bay hotel following the mass shooting in Las Vegas, Oct. 4, 2017. (Reuters)
An Arizona man was once considered a “person of interest” in the Oct. 1 Las Vegas shooting because his name was found on a box of ammunition inside the gunman’s hotel room, a law enforcement official said this week.
But now authorities believe Douglas Haig, of Mesa, had no involvement in or knowledge of gunman Stephen Paddock’s rampage that left 58 people dead, said the official, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Haig’s name surfaced this week because his name had failed to be redacted from a single page of more than 270 documents provided to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Information on why authorities considered Haig a person of interest was not disclosed in the documents.
Haig told “CBS This Morning” on Wednesday that he sold more than 700 rounds of ammunition to Paddock, and didn’t detect anything unusual about Paddock at the time.
Officials have not officially said whether Haig has been cleared in the investigation.
Law enforcement officers found the box of ammunition when they went through Paddock’s 32nd-floor suite at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, where the mass shooter gunned down the crowd of fans at a country-music festival.
“Within hours, they contacted my client,” Victor said.
The FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents interviewed Haig, Victor said.
Haig never thought his name would be “wrapped up” in a case that has caused grief and trauma to so many people, the report said.
“I think what’s important to know here is that he is aware there are bad people out there and he was on the lookout for that stuff,” Victor said. “In this case, there wasn’t anything strange. There wasn’t anything strange about this sell.”
Victor said he doesn’t expect his client to be charged with any crime. He said it’s been several months since federal agents have contacted his client.
Haig told the Republic that his transaction with Paddock still haunts him.
“It really starts to get me upset when I heard what he did,” Haig said. “I think about it every day. Every day.”
Haig is an aerospace engineer for Honeywell who ran a small ammunition business from his home in Mesa, through a website called Specialized Military Ammunition, the newspaper reported, but the website said the business is closed indefinitely.
OP’S NEWS OP FROM INTERNET CONTRIBUTED TO THIS STORY
Former Trump legal spokesman allegedly had concerns about possible obstruction of justice.
By OP
Photo by Saul Loeb-Pool/Getty Images
Reports in recent months have indicatedthat Special Counsel Robert Mueller is very interested in President Donald Trump’s role in drafting his son’s false statement about a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between campaign officials and aRussian lawyer with ties to Putin’s government.
This is a big deal because, according to the Times, Corallo has some information to share about White House Communications Director Hope Hicks:
Mr. Corallo is planning to tell Mr. Mueller about a previously undisclosed conference call with Mr. Trump and Hope Hicks, the White House communications director, according to the three people. Mr. Corallo planned to tell investigators that Ms. Hicks said during the call that emails written by Donald Trump Jr. before the Trump Tower meeting — in which the younger Mr. Trump said he was eager to receive political dirt about Mrs. Clinton from the Russians — “will never get out.” That left Mr. Corallo with concerns that Ms. Hicks could be contemplating obstructing justice, the people said.
On an Air Force One flight, Trump reportedly dictated the statement to Hicks that said Don Jr.’s June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with the Russians “primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children.” The statement, released on July 8, was attributed to Don Jr., and was later proven to be false, after the emails revealed Don Jr. had accepted the meeting after being promised dirt on Hillary Clinton as part of the Russian government’s efforts to bolster Trump in the US election.
Trump’s involvement in creating the misleading statement isn’t a revelation — but Corallo’s information represents the latest development in the investigation into whether the president or his close aides attempted to obstruct justice.
Corallo reportedly told colleagues that he informed Trump and Hicks that the false statement would backfire because documents showing the true purpose of the meeting would leak. Hicks dismissed this, saying the documents wouldn’t get out. Corallo reportedly told colleagues at the time that he was alarmed by Hick’s statements, which seemed to indicate that she was either “being naïve or was suggesting that the emails could be withheld from investigators.”
Corallo did not dispute the Times’ report, but didn’t offer additional comment.
An attorney for Hope Hicks denied the report, telling the Times: “She never said that. And the idea that Hope Hicks ever suggested that emails or other documents would be concealed or destroyed is completely false.”
Wait, who is Mark Corallo?
Mark Corallo is the latest person to join the cast of characters in the unfolding drama of the Trump-Russia investigation. Corallo worked as a spokesman for Trump’s legal team, until quitting in mid-July —- after the events allegedly transpired on Air Force One.
Corallo pops up for a brief, but notable, cameo in Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury — the gossipy White House tell-all that won’t go away. As Vox’s Andrew Prokop writes, “Wolff’s book claims, with vague sourcing, that Corallo “quit” after “privately confiding that he believed the meeting on Air Force One represented a likely obstruction of justice.”
The likely confidant was former chief strategist Steve Bannon, one of the main sources for Wolff’s book. And indeed, the New York Times says that Corallo informed Bannon of his conversation between Hicks and Trump, along with other colleagues.
Mueller is likely interested in Corallo’s testimony as part of his larger examination of Trump’s role in drafting this false Russia statement. This matters, as Vox Zack Beauchamp’s explains, because it all points to Trump’s intent:
Lying to the press is not a crime. But there’s a reason Mueller seems to be focusing so much on this statement anyway: The circumstances around its drafting may be a uniquely good source of evidence of obstruction of justice, committed either by Trump or by his close associates. It’s the kind of evidence that could be used to support impeachment charges against the president and criminal charges against some of his associates.
By OP Hostage negotiators were trying early Thursday to coax out a handcuffed suspect who fired on two Harris County Sheriff’s Office deputies Wednesday night, injuring one of them.
One deputy was shot in an arm while responding to a disturbance call before midnight Wednesday, and another narrowly escaped injury when a bullet grazed his pant leg, authorities said.
A second person, uninvolved in the altercation, also was shot after the two Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to the call before 10 p.m., the Houston Chronicle reported.
The officers identified a suspect and put handcuffs on him. The suspect then took a gun from his waistband and began firing at the deputies, Houston’s ABC 13 reported.
The officer shot in an arm was alert as he was transported to a nearby Memorial Hospital in the Woodlands, the Harris County Sheriff’s Office said.
By 11 p.m. more than a dozen officers had arrived at the scene, closing off nearby streets to traffic.
“Expect large police presence,” Sheriff Ed Gonzalez tweeted. “Avoid the area.”
By 11:30 p.m. the Harris County Sheriff’s office tweeted, “UPDATE: Deputy involved in Kipland Way shooting was wounded in the arm and is alert, en route to Memorial Hermann in The Woodlands. Suspect believe to be inside home. #HouNews”
The suspect barricaded himself in a home where hostage negotiaters were trying to coax him out.
The motive for the shooting was not immediately known.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES
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