Testimony about Colorado massacre resumes in James Holmes hearing

More emotional testimony was expected at a hearing on the Aurora movie theater massacre, as prosecutors continued to lay out their case against the defendant, James Holmes.

CENTENNIAL, Colo. — Vivid testimony about the movie theater massacre that shocked a nation extended into a second day as a preliminary hearing for James E. Holmes resumed Tuesday.

Prosecutors continued to lay out their case against Holmes, 25, accused of killing 12 people and injuring about 70 during a shooting rampage on July 20 in a suburban cinema. At issue in the proceeding, expected to last a week, is whether there is a sufficient case to go to trial.

In the first day of testimony Monday, law enforcement officials described the bloody shooting scene and heartbreaking rescue attempts to bring the gravely wounded to treatment.

PHOTOS: Colorado movie theater shooting

The prosecution has been trying to show that Holmes acted deliberately while the defense in cross-examination has focused on how the former neuroscience graduate student appeared emotionally detached, bolstering their expected insanity presentation.

Throughout, Holmes has sat impassive, while some of the victims' relatives have wept during the more graphic testimony.

On Tuesday, the atmosphere at the Arapahoe County Court House contained less of the frenzy that marked the first day. Yet the proceedings come as the debate over gun control has heated up in the wake of the attack last month in Newtown, Conn., in which 20 children and six adults were killed by a lone gunman who invaded the Sandy Hook Elementary School. The gunman first killed his mother in their home and ended his shooting spree by killing himself.

WHO THEY WERE: Aurora theater shooting

Tuesday’s testimony also comes as the nation commemorates the second anniversary of the Tucson shooting where six died and 13 were injured when gunman Jared Lee Loughner opened fire in a supermarket parking lot where former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was holding a meet-and-greet with her constituents. Tucson, which has had events for several days, will mark the exact time of the shooting with the ringing of bells across the city at the moment of the morning attack.

Giffords, who went through a painful recovery and rehabilitation for gun wounds to the head, has become a spokeswoman for greater gun control. She and her husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly, announced they would raise money to support gun control efforts. The pair visited Newtown last week.

On Monday, Aurora police testified about the horrors they found in the theater, including blood-soaked aisles and walls, crumpled bodies, and scores of spent shell casings.

TIMELINE: U.S. mass shootings

The prosecution also showed surveillance video of Holmes entering the theater complex just past midnight. He had purchased his ticket 12 days earlier. The chilling, soundless video shows Holmes redeeming his ticket at a kiosk, giving it to a ticket taker, then lingering near the concession stand for a few minutes before turning toward Theater 9, where the Batman movie, “The Dark Knight Rises” was playing.

Prosecutors have yet to announce whether they will seek the death penalty.

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Supreme Court rejects challenge to Obama stem cell policy

Chicago man fatally poisoned a month after hitting lotto jackpot

Alabama police: High school white supremacist planned bomb attack

Deam reported from Centennial, Colo.; Muskal reported from Los Angeles. 

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Help Wanted: Astronauts Needed for Mars Colony

Mars One, a nonprofit organization based in the Netherlands, intends to establish a human settlement on Mars in 2023.

They need astronauts.

Anyone on planet Earth can apply if they meet the basic requirements. But obviously, the job isn’t for just anyone.

Today, Mars One released its application criteria. Among other virtues, astronaut candidates must have “a deep sense of purpose, willingness to build and maintain healthy relationships, the capacity for self-reflection and ability to trust. They must be resilient, adaptable, curious, creative and resourceful.” And be at least 18 years old (no maximum age has been set).

The selection process will begin during the first half of 2013. Mars One experts and viewers of a “global, televised program”  — think reality TV where the prize could be a trip to a dry, dusty world — will choose from among the applications. Those ultimately selected will be assembled into teams of four. At least six teams are supposed to be ready to launch in September 2022. But only one team will make the first trip to the Red Planet, and that team will be decided democratically.

“The people of Earth will have a vote which group of four will be the first Earth ambassadors on Mars,” the Mars One website says. Subsequent teams will be sent in two-year intervals.

At least eight years of training will be provided before launch, including simulated missions, practice in a restricted mobility environment, and lessons in electronics, equipment repair, basic and critical medical care. In 2016, the company plans to begin rocketing supplies to Mars, including spare parts, two rovers, and living units that can be assembled into a base once humans arrive.

But it’s a one-way trip for all involved: Once on Mars, there’s no coming back.

Video: Mars One

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Fox: Passion, disagreements with new ‘Idol’ team

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — Five minutes into their season-opening news conference and the new team at “American Idol” were having their first disagreement — about their disagreements.

Asked Tuesday whether a supposed feud between new judges Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj was a publicity stunt, Fox network executive Mike Darnell said it was authentic. He said there was a lot of passion within the group, which also includes country star Keith Urban and returning judge Randy Jackson. He said there were also a lot of disagreements.

Carey, however, called the story “some trumped-up thing.”

Minaj later called Carey one of her favorite all-time artists who has shaped a generation of singers.

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Gaps Seen in Therapy for Suicidal Teenagers

Most adolescents who plan or attempt suicide have already gotten at least some mental health treatment, raising questions about the effectiveness of current approaches to helping troubled teenagers, according to the largest in-depth analysis to date of suicidal behaviors in American teenagers.

The study, posted online Tuesday by the journal JAMA Psychiatry, found that 55 percent of suicidal teenagers had received some therapy before they thought about suicide, planned it or tried to kill themselves, contradicting the widely held belief that suicide is due in part to a lack of access to treatment.

The findings, based on interviews with a nationwide sample of more than 6,000 teenagers and at least one parent of each, linked suicidal behavior to complex combinations of mood disorders like depression and behavior problems that include attention-deficit and eating disorders, as well as alcohol and drug abuse.

The study found that about one in eight teenagers had persistent suicidal thoughts at some point, and about a third of them had made a suicide attempt, usually within a year of having the idea.

Previous studies have had similar findings, based on smaller, regional samples. But the new study is the first to suggest, in a large nationwide sample, that access to treatment does not make a big difference.

The study suggests that effective treatment for severely suicidal teenagers must address not just mood disorders, but also behavior problems that can lead to impulsive acts, experts said. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1,386 people between the ages of 13 and 18 committed suicide in 2010, the latest year for which numbers are available.

“I think one of the take-aways here is that treatment for depression may be necessary but not sufficient to prevent kids from attempting suicide,” said Dr. David Brent, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh, who was not involved in the study. “We simply do not have empirically validated treatments for recurrent suicidal behavior.”

The report said nothing about whether the therapies given were state of the art, or carefully done, said Matt Nock, a professor of psychology at Harvard and the lead author; and it is possible that some of the treatments prevented suicide attempts. “But it’s telling us we’ve got a long way to go to do this right,” Dr. Nock said. His co-authors included Ronald C. Kessler of Harvard, and researchers from Boston University and Children’s Hospital Boston.

Margaret McConnell, a consultant in Alexandria, Va., said that her daughter Alice, who killed herself in 2006, at the age of 17, was getting treatment at the time. “I think there might have been some carelessness in the way the treatment was done,” Ms. McConnell said, “and I was trusting a 17-year-old to manage her own medication; we found out after we lost her that she wasn’t taking it regularly.”

In the study, researchers surveyed 6,483 adolescents from the ages of 13 to 18 and found that 9 percent of male teenagers and 15 percent of female teenagers experienced some stretch of having persistent suicidal thoughts. Among girls, 5 percent made suicide plans and 6 percent made at least one attempt (some were unplanned).

Among boys, 3 percent made plans and 2 percent carried out attempts – which tended to be more lethal than girls’ attempts.

(Suicidal thinking or behavior was virtually unheard-of before age 10.)

Over all, about one-third of teenagers with persistent suicidal thoughts went on to make an attempt to take their own lives.

Almost all of the suicidal adolescents in the study qualified for some psychiatric diagnosis, whether depression, phobias, or generalized anxiety disorder. Those with an added behavior problem – attention-deficit disorder, substance abuse, explosive anger – were more likely to act on thoughts of self-harm, the study found.

Doctors have tested a range of therapies to prevent or reduce recurrent suicidal behaviors, with mixed success. Medications can ease depression, but in some cases can increase suicidal thinking. Talk therapy can contain some behavior problems, but not all.

One approach, called dialectical behavior therapy, has proved effective in reducing hospitalizations and attempts in people with so-called borderline personality disorder, who are highly prone to self-harm, among others.

But suicidal teenagers who have a mixture of mood and behavior issues are difficult to reach. In one 2011 study, researchers at George Mason University reduced suicide attempts, hospitalizations, drinking and drug use among suicidal adolescent substance abusers. The study found that a combination of intensive treatments – talk therapy for mood problems, family-based therapy for behavior issues and patient-led reduction in drug use – was more effective that regular therapies.

“But that’s just one study, and it’s small,” Dr. Brent said. “We can treat components of the overall problem, but that’s about all.”

Ms. McConnell said that her daughter’s depression seemed mild and that there was no warning that she would take her life. “I think therapy does help a lot of people, if it’s handled right,” she said.

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Wall Street Closes Lower as Earnings Reports Begin

Stocks trading on Wall Street ticked lower on Tuesday as an earnings season that is expected to show sluggish corporate growth got under way.

The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index closed 0.3 percent lower, the Dow Jones industrial average lost 0.4 percent and the Nasdaq composite index fell 0.2 percent.

Over the next couple of weeks, reports on fourth-quarter profits are expected to come in above the previous quarter’s lackluster results, but analysts’ current estimates are down sharply from where they were in October. Quarterly earnings are expected to grow by 2.8 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data.

German data showed industrial orders fell more than forecast in November because of a sharp drop in demand from abroad, reinforcing concerns that Europe’s largest economy may have contracted in the fourth quarter of 2012.

“I’m surprised futures are holding up, given the relative disappointment that German data showed, but I think all eyes are on the beginning of earnings season,” said Kim Forrest, senior equity research analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group in Pittsburgh.

European shares ended mixed after the German report, with the DAX index in Frankfurt down 0.5 percent and the CAC 40 in Paris up slightly.

Monsanto shares rose 2 percent after the world’s largest seed company raised its earnings outlook for fiscal 2013 and posted strong first-quarter results.

Shares of the restaurant-chain operator Yum Brands fell 4.2 percent. On Monday, the company, which owns KFC, warned that sales in China, its largest market, shrank more than expected in the fourth quarter.

Vodafone shares rose 2 percent in London after its American partner in the joint venture Verizon Wireless said it would be “feasible” to buy out the British group.

Sears Holdings shares were 6.4 percent lower a day after the company said its chief executive would step down for family health reasons.

GameStop shares fell 6.3 percent after it reported sales for the holiday season and cut its guidance.

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Ten banks to pay $8.5 billion to settle foreclosure abuse review

WASHINGTON -- Ten of the nation's largest mortgage servicers have agreed to an $8.5-billion settlement with federal regulators to end a review of foreclosure abuses.

The settlement, announced Monday, involved some of the biggest names in the financial industry, including Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc..

They agreed to pay a total of $3.3 billion to more than 3.8 million borrowers whose homes were in foreclosure in 2009 and 2010, according to the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Borrowers could receive as much as $125,000, depending on the type of problems with their foreclosures.

In addition, the banks agreed to provide $5.2 billion in other assistance to those borrowers, including modifications to their mortgages or having judgments against them forgiven.

The other servicers participating in the settlement are Aurora Loan Services, MetLife Bank, PNC Financial Services, Sovereign Bank, SunTrust Banks and U.S. Bancorp. Four smaller servicers whose foreclosure practices have been under review did not sign on to Monday's settlement.

Under the original plan devised by the comptroller and the Federal Reserve in April 2011, 4.4 million Americans whose homes were in foreclosure proceedings in 2009 and 2010 could request a free review. Only about half a million have done so.

Regulators decided to stop the reviews in exchange for the cash payments and assistance.

Borrowers who requested reviews would get bigger cash payments. Those that did not would get a few hundred dollars. Those who requested reviews would get bigger payments.

"When we began the Independent Foreclosure Review, the OCC pledged to fix what was broken, identify who was harmed and compensate them for that injury," said Comptroller of the Currency Thomas J. Curry. 

"While today's announcement represents a significant change in direction," he continued, "it meets those original objectives by ensuring that consumers are the ones who will benefit and that they will benefit more quickly and in a more direct manner."

Curry said that although regulators have "have learned a great deal from the reviews ... it has become clear that carrying the process through to its conclusion would divert money away from the impacted homeowners" and delay compensation to the borrowers.

Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), criticized the decision by regulators to reach a settlement with the mortgage servicers. 

"I am deeply disappointed that the OCC and the Federal Reserve finalized this settlement and effectively terminated the Independent Foreclosure Review process before providing Congress answers to serious questions about how this settlement amount was determined, who these funds will go to, and what will happen to other families who were abused by these mortgage servicing companies, but have not yet had their cases reviewed," Cummings said.

He said he didn't know "know what the rush was to make this settlement without answering these key questions" and that he had "serious concerns that this settlement may allow banks to skirt what they owe and sweep past abuses under the rug without determining the full harm borrowers have suffered."

 ALSO:

Investors bet BofA can begin to focus on expansion

$10-billion settlement of foreclosure abuse cases said to be near

Bank of America to pay Fannie Mae $10 billion in loan settlement

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Why Nvidia's New Console Portends a Transformational Year for Gaming

For videogames, 2013 will be the year of the hardware avalanche. It’ll happen all of a sudden and almost surely cause catastrophic, unpredictable change.

Today at the Consumer Electronics Show, PC hardware maker Nvidia announced its entry into the gaming console market with Shield. It’s based on Android and looks like a smartphone glued to an Xbox controller. Not only will it play Android games, it’ll stream PC games and features an HDMI out for TV display — making it a home console.

In addition to Shield, the upstart Ouya project is humming along, with game creators and hobbyists already tinkering with development kits. This Android-based game machine that was funded on Kickstarter is also slated to drop early this year. Additionally, Valve’s rumored Steam-based console is no longer just a rumor — last month, CEO Gabe Newell told Kotaku it will sell hardware starting in 2013, and PC Gamer added today a report that a Valve engineer recently corroborated this news and said that Valve’s living-room machine would run off Linux.

Meanwhile, the Wii U was just born and there’s every reason to believe that Microsoft and Sony will at least take the veils off, if not actually ship, their new gaming consoles this year. What these upstart devices, from the Steam box to the Shield, all have in common is that they are attempting to upset the console gaming paradigm of the $300 device and the $60 game. A Steam box would aim to bring all kinds of gaming price points to the living room, from free-to-play to full-priced, day-one, triple-A blockbusters (which can then have their prices slashed far below what Microsoft et al. are comfortable with). Ouya and Shield want to use the Android app store to sell cheap but good-looking 720p games on your TV.

I’ve noticed something a little dismaying about the coverage that tends to spring up whenever a new gaming device is introduced. Namely, pundits rush to produce stories about how it is a stupid idea that will never work. Here’s Gamasutra on Shield: “a confused mishmash of current trends.” Penny Arcade: “There is little evidence that mainstream gamers are interested in playing Android games on their television, or in lieu of their other portable gaming options.”

What do you mean, a forest? All I see are these trees! While analyzing the individual merits and flaws of this device or that device can certainly be useful and fun, I think the big picture is getting lost: Everything about living-room gaming is going to change. More and more consumers will be buying their games on open platforms, all but a handful of the biggest games will be playable on these open platforms and they will cost significantly less money than we are paying for them now. The fate of each individual hardware device does not change this; if Ouya goes out of business tomorrow it does not mean that this is not still going to happen.

Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter sent out a note about the state of the traditional console gaming market this morning that included this remark: “We believe that the next generation consoles from Microsoft and Sony will be multimedia devices, and believe that the added features and functionality will allow sales to grow by 10-20% over their current generation offerings, provided pricing is comparable.”

I can’t get my head around how this scenario happens. Microsoft and Sony have sold, roughly, a combined 150 million consoles this generation with effectively zero competition — if you wanted to play the biggest and best games you needed an Xbox 360 or a PlayStation 3. But the next consoles will be released into a vastly different market, one in which Valve plans to sell you a cheap off-the-shelf Linux box that plugs into your TV and plays — I mean, have you looked at all the games on Steam these days?

Fun side note: As game development veteran Ben Cousins pointed out this morning in a Kotaku story, Sony’s and Microsoft’s likely rewards for selling those 150 million consoles have been billions of dollars of losses. By his reckoning, Nintendo is the only company that’s made one thin freaking dime off the game console business in the last decade.

Anyway, there is now a ridiculous amount of competition for gamers’ attentions that simply didn’t exist before. Another prescient Kotaku story: Steven Totilo pointing out that you, yes you, may already own a next-generation gaming console. If all the big games you want to play are released on the PC you already own and are playable with a controller on a TV, what’s the justification for laying out more cash on a new console?

So how is it again that Sony and Microsoft are going to sell more consoles this cycle, when there are so many emerging alternatives?

As I said in my recent piece on the death of the game console, these machines are going to have to be ready for radical change and bring something truly new and innovative to the table. So it’s entirely possible that Microsoft and Sony could really surprise us at E3 with a radical transformation of what an Xbox or a PlayStation can be.

Meanwhile, each new device that competes directly with them takes a stab at pulling the rug out from underneath the big players. It doesn’t matter to us which Android-based device, if any, actually succeeds in the marketplace, because the idea of marrying the Android app store to televisions is the key, not the individual box that does it. Ouya can have a piece, Nvidia can have a piece, and many other makers can release Android-based game devices. Game developers will just support them all in the way they can support a wide variety of slightly different telephones.

It may turn out that getting in on the ground floor, establishing oneself as a maker of Android-based television gaming hardware in the early days, might be significantly more important than getting the hardware right the first time.

There’s also 2013′s elephant in the room, Apple. In contrast to Valve’s direct statements about its plans for a living-room device, Apple still hasn’t said anything at all about the product that some people in the industry are dead sure will arrive in 2013. It’s Apple TV — that is to say, a new version of its line of set-top boxes that brings the App Store to the television. If it’s difficult to imagine an Ouya or Nvidia device stealing sales from Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo, what about Apple?

It’ll be difficult to predict which of these platforms (iOS? Android? Steam? Something as yet unimagined?) will dominate the television. There are too many variables, too many unknowns. But the idea they all embody — open development environments, prices set by developers, download-only delivery — will certainly take over television gaming just as it ate the lunch of handheld games. It is unstoppable.

Ouya knows that, and Nvidia knows that, and that’s why they’re showing off these products. Expect more of them this year. This is the year it all changes.

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Actor Depardieu denies leaving France for tax reasons

PARIS (Reuters) – Film star Gerard Depardieu denied that he was leaving his homeland for tax reasons on Monday, saying that, although he now had a Russian passport, he was still very much French.

In an interview with sports channel L’Equipe 21 – his first since a row broke out in December over his decision to buy a house over the border in Belgium – Depardieu said that if he had wanted to leave to avoid tax hikes he would have gone earlier.

“I have a Russian passport, but I remain French and I will probably have dual Belgian nationality. But if I’d wanted to escape the taxman, as the French press say, I would have done it a long time ago,” he said.

Depardieu was speaking in Zurich on the sidelines of a football awards ceremony after receiving a new Russian passport on Sunday from President Vladimir Putin.

The 63-year-old star of “Cyrano de Bergerac” and “Green Card” has been accused by French government leaders of trying to dodge a proposed new tax rate for millionaires.

But in a letter last month to Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, who labeled the actor “pathetic”, Depardieu said he was leaving because success was now being punished in France.

Hollande’s original proposal to introduce a 75 percent rate on income over 1 million euros ($ 1.31 million) was struck down by France’s Constitutional Court.

While he has said he will press ahead with a tax on the wealthy, it remains unclear whether the redrafted text will be as severe on top earners.

(Reporting By John Irish; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Massachusetts Plans Stricter Control of Compounding Pharmacies

BOSTON — New laws to strengthen state control of compounding pharmacies were proposed on Friday by Gov. Deval Patrick, in hopes of preventing another public health disaster like the current outbreak of meningitis caused by a contaminated drug made in Massachusetts.

The laws will be among the strongest in the country, said Kevin Outterson, a law professor at Boston University and a member of the expert panel that advised the state on how to curb abuses by companies like the New England Compounding Center, the Framingham pharmacy that made the tainted drug responsible for the nationwide meningitis outbreak.

The legislation would establish strict licensing requirements for compounding sterile drugs; let the state assess fines against pharmacies that break its rules; protect whistle-blowers who work in compounding pharmacies; and reorganize the state pharmacy board to include more members who are independent of the industry and fewer who are part of it.

Alec Loftus, a spokesman for the state’s Office of Health and Human Services, said that Mr. Patrick expected the new legislation to be passed quickly.

Daniel Carpenter, a professor of government at Harvard, said the proposed laws seemed sound and comprehensive. But he warned that if other states did not take similar steps, compounding pharmacies engaging in shoddy practices would just move to places with the weakest laws and the least oversight.

“The remaining question is not what Massachusetts is doing or will do, but will there be a minimum level of regulation like this in the rest of the states?” Professor Carpenter said.

The meningitis outbreak, first detected in September, was caused by contaminated batches of a steroid, methylprednisolone acetate, made by the New England Compounding Center. The drug was injected into about 14,000 people’s spinal area to treat back and neck pain.

As of Dec. 28, 656 people in 19 states had become ill with meningitis or other infections, like severe internal abscesses in the area where the drug was injected. Some have had both meningitis and spinal infections. The case count is expected to keep rising. Thirty-nine have died.

The New England Compounding Center was shut down, and inspections found extensive contamination. Investigations uncovered a long history of questionable practices that had drawn warnings from the state and the Food and Drug Administration.

On Dec. 21, the company announced that it had filed for bankruptcy. Numerous lawsuits have been filed against it.

At the heart of the problem have been gaps in regulation that have allowed such companies to avoid both state and federal controls. The company called itself a pharmacy, and pharmacies are generally regulated by states, while large drug companies are regulated federally, by the Food and Drug Administration.

Compounding pharmacies mix their own drug preparations, like skin creams and cough syrups, supposedly for individual patients with special needs. But the New England Compounding Center began to act like a manufacturer, making and shipping large amounts of injectable drugs, for which sterility is essential. No state law required it to obtain a license for this type of large-scale compounding, to follow good manufacturing processes or to let the state know it was shipping all over the country.

Dr. Lauren Smith, interim commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, said the company “was a manufacturer in pharmacy clothing.”

Governor Patrick said, “The tragic meningitis outbreak has shown us all that the board’s governing authority has not kept up with an industry that has evolved from corner drugstores to the types of large manufacturers that have been at the center of so much harm.”

Dr. Smith said she thought the most important part of the new legislation was the requirement of a license for sterile compounding. “Now we are going to have the ability to develop specialty licenses that will allow us to track and identify those pharmacies that are engaged in different practices that could potentially put higher numbers of individuals at risk, such as those who engage in sterile compounding,” she said.

Professor Carpenter said a particularly powerful part of the proposal is that it requires licensure for out-of-state pharmacies that ship medication to Massachusetts. The state, he said, is a huge market for injectable drugs.

“Basically, if you think about the large hospitals, the amount of medical care that goes on in the state, it’s in a sense using the purchasing power of the state of Massachusetts to induce changes elsewhere,” he said.

The state has also taken other steps recently to rein in compounding, apart from the new legislation. It began conducting surprise inspections, and has required compounding pharmacies to report how much medication they are shipping and where, so that it can keep tabs on those that begin acting like manufacturers. It also requires the pharmacies to report when they become subjects of regulatory actions by other states or the federal government.

Abby Goodnough reported from Boston, and Denise Grady from New York.

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Avis and Hertz Expand, Raising Questions Over Future Rates

Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Hertz acquired Dollar Thrifty last November, but it was barred from controlling about 30 sites at airports.

In the short term, industry analysts do not think so. They are less certain about what will happen in the long term.

With the Hertz deal, the number of major car rental companies is dropping to three, from four, but there are still enough brands to keep prices stable, analysts said. Prices, they added, tend to be driven by supply and demand in regional markets.

With the Avis deal, analysts said, Zipcar users may actually gain options.

Zipcar, founded in 2000, works on a car-sharing business model and has a fleet of just 12,000 cars worldwide, compared with about 1.7 million rental cars in the United States alone. Its acquisition by Avis gives members “more alternatives and the potential of having more options,” said Neil Abrams, the founder of the Abrams Consulting Group, a car rental consulting and travel market research organization in Purchase, N.Y.

Zipcar members can rent by the hour or by the day, which is appealing to people who drive infrequently. “Why pay for something you don’t need?” Mr. Abrams said. “It’s a very cost-effective system if used properly.” On the other hand, he said, if you pay by the hour and need the car for a whole day, a Zipcar can cost more, depending on the model, than a traditional rental car.

Zipcars are not typically located in airports, where competition is greater. The company serves a different market, including drivers younger than 25, who may not be able to rent from traditional companies. It also serves large urban areas like New York, Los Angeles, Washington, London and Barcelona, Spain, where people do not want to own a car but want quick access to one for short periods.

Analysts say Zipcar can raise its hourly rate only so much before it will drive away customers.

“Prices can only go so high,” said Chris Brown, executive editor of Auto Rental News, based in Torrance, Calif. “If prices go too high, consumers won’t rent. They will use other types of transportation. They’ll borrow a friend’s car, use public transportation or take a train.”

Avis has indicated that it intends to increase the size of the Zipcar fleet. “We expect to apply Avis Budget’s experience and efficiencies of fleet management with Zipcar’s proven, customer-friendly technology to accelerate the growth of the Zipcar brand and to provide more options for Zipsters in more places,” Ronald L. Nelson, chairman and chief executive of Avis, said in a statement.

In the Hertz deal, the Federal Trade Commission has played a major role in preserving competition in airport car rental markets by requiring Hertz to sell its Advantage Rent a Car business and the rights to operate about 30 Dollar Thrifty locations in airports throughout the United States.

A proposed agreement was open to public comment through Dec. 17, and the F.T.C. will determine soon whether to make it final.

The commission complained that Hertz’s original plans for acquiring Dollar Thrifty would be anticompetitive. It contended that by reducing the number of major competitors to three, the acquisition would create “substantially more concentration in 72 airport rental car markets nationwide” and “eliminate head-to-head competition between Hertz and Dollar Thrifty” at several airports, including Baltimore-Washington International Airport, Chicago O’Hare International Airport and Kennedy Airport in New York.

The F.T.C. said the deal, as originally proposed, would have harmed competition by reducing the number of competitors and enabling Hertz to raise rental car prices.

Precisely because the commission has stepped into the acquisition, prices are likely to remain stable, industry analysts said.

“Better pricing, higher pricing, may be the case, but not in the near future,” Mr. Brown of Auto Rental News said of the Hertz-Dollar Thrifty deal.

He and other analysts described four tiers of rental cars: the premium brands of Avis, Hertz and National; the midprice brands of Budget and Alamo; the value brands of Dollar, Thrifty and Enterprise; and the deep discount brands of Advantage, Payless and Fox, an emerging player.

A deep discount brand like Fox or Sixt, based in Europe, is likely to step into the markets where the F.T.C. requires Hertz to sell its Advantage business and Dollar Thrifty locations, Mr. Brown said, because premium brands are already in those markets.

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