Miami Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones running for reelection




















Eight years have passed since Michelle Spence-Jones was elected to the Miami City Commission.

She isn’t willing to leave just yet.

Spence-Jones — who was charged with bribery and grand theft in 2009, suspended from office, acquitted and reinstated to her post — is seeking reelection, she announced Friday. She represents District 5, which includes Overtown, Little Haiti and Liberty City.





Whether Spence-Jones could run again has been the subject of much debate. The Miami city charter limits commissioners to two terms and Spence-Jones has twice won election. But City Attorney Julie O. Bru opined that Spence-Jones could run again because her second term was interrupted by the suspension.

“Our charter prohibits a commissioner or the mayor for running for reelection after that commissioner or mayor has served two consecutive terms,” Bru reaffirmed to Spence-Jones at a City Commission meeting Thursday. “You are eligible to seek reelection because you did not serve two full consecutive terms.”

Spence-Jones’s opponent isn’t buying it.

“The bottom line is, Michelle is term limited,” said the Rev. Richard P. Dunn II, who held the commission seat in Spence-Jones’s absence. “She received financial compensation for the time she was away and she was fully vested in the pension. Are the citizens of Miami going to pay her twice?”

Dunn plans to file a legal challenge “immediately,” he said.

Spence-Jones wants the additional term, she said, “to finish what I started.”

She pointed to the improvements she’s spearheaded along Northeast Second Avenue in Little Haiti. “We cleaned the place up, repainted many of the buildings and recreated a Caribbean feel by adding steeples,” she said.

The ultimate goal, Spence-Jones said, is to make Little Haiti a destination for tourists akin to Little Havana’s Calle Ocho. She has a similar vision for Overtown, which was once the cultural hub of Miami’s black community. To that end, Spence-Jones pushed for improvements to Northwest Third Avenue and provided grant money for local businesses.

“Now we’re going to move forward with a marketing campaign and build relationships with cruise lines and tour operators,” Spence-Jones said. “But these sorts of things take time.”

Other big projects are in the works.

Earlier this year, Spence-Jones pushed through a $50 million bond issue for improvements in Overtown — the largest investment the blighted community has seen in decades. The money will go toward affordable housing and some retail projects.

But Spence-Jones takes an equal amount of pride in some of her smaller initiatives, including a project that brought Hollywood director Robert Townsend to Overtown to film an independent movie. Students from the University of Miami and several local high schools had the opportunity to serve as interns. The film will debut this summer.

She plans to focus future efforts on Liberty City. She is already laying the groundwork for a program that will train residents to become laboratory technicians. A second program will help people with criminal records pursue careers in the automotive industry.

Spence-Jones’s tenure has been somewhat of a rollercoaster. After being elected to her second term, she was charged with bribery and grand theft in two separate cases and removed from office by then-Gov. Charlie Crist. Jurors later acquitted her of bribery, and prosecutors dropped the grand-theft charges.

A vindicated Spence-Jones returned to City Hall in August with newfound political heft.

Spence-Jones is now suing Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernández Rundle and Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado, accusing them of conspiring to destroy her political career via the prosecutions. She declined to talk about the suit, saying only: “I’m going to let my lawyers fight that battle.”

She may have another legal fight ahead.

Dunn believes the city attorney’s opinion giving Spence-Jones the go-ahead to run again won’t withstand a legal challenge. He says Spence-Jones has served two consecutive terms because she was paid for two consecutive terms.

Dunn also criticized the city attorney, saying she likely felt pressured to give that opinion because Spence-Jones is her boss.

“If it stands up in a court of law, I will respect that,” said Dunn, who attended Thursday’s commission meeting and took notes on a legal pad. “But I’m not going to be whitewashed by a city attorney’s opinion that’s biased by her boss’s posturing position.”

Dunn, who also sat on the commission in the mid-‘90s after Commissioner Miller Dawkins was removed from office, pointed to his own accomplishments as a commissioner. He said he helped secure funding for Gibson Park,and quelled racial tensions after Miami police officers shot and killed seven black men in 2010 and 2011.

“Michelle Spence-Jones does not own that seat,” he said. “It’s owned by the people of District 5.”

No other candidates have announced they are running for the post.





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Notre Dame’s Te’o says had no part in forming hoax






Jan 24 (Reuters) – Notre Dame football player Manti Te‘o said he was the victim of an elaborate online hoax and denied in an interview broadcast on Thursday having had any part in the construction of the dramatic story of his dying girlfriend.


“No, I did not,” Te’o said in the interview with Katie Couric broadcast on the daytime talk show “Katie.” “I think what people don’t realize is that the same day that everybody else found out about this situation, I found out.”






The reported deaths of Te’o's grandmother and purported girlfriend, both on Sept. 12, and his response to the tragedies, were often repeated stories during Notre Dame‘s bid for a national championship last season. His grandmother did die that day.


Te’o, who was a finalist for college football’s highest individual honor for helping drive Notre Dame to an undefeated regular season, admitted he maintained the public deception after he learned the truth that she had never existed, but he did not do so for personal gain.


Couric asked Te’o to respond to several theories people have raised since the hoax was revealed, including that he might be gay and created the relationship to hide his sexual orientation.


“No, far from it,” Te’o said when asked by Couric if he were gay. “Far from that.”


Te’o sat with his hands often clasped and responded in a soft tone to Couric‘s questions, telling her he did not know if the Lennay Kekua story had supported his Heisman trophy candidacy.


It was his first on-camera interview since sports blog Deadspin.com broke the story on Jan. 16 that Kekua did not exist. Couric also interviewed his parents, Brian and Ottilia Te‘o, who defended their son.


Notre Dame, one of the most powerful institutions in U.S. collegiate athletics, held a news conference within hours of the Deadspin.com story to say that Te’o had been duped.


Te’o had told sports network ESPN in an off-camera interview on Friday that an acquaintance, Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, had told him he was behind the hoax.


CONFESSED HOAX


Te’o said in the interview with Couric that Tuiasosopo, who he had spoken to twice before and had believed was Kekua‘s cousin, confessed the hoax to him on Jan. 16.


Te’o said he received a telephone call from the person claiming to be Kekua on Dec. 6 – two days before the Heisman presentation – and he wasn’t really certain she never existed until Tuiasosopo‘s confession to him.


“My whole reality was she was dead, and now all of the sudden she’s alive. At that time I didn’t know that it was just somebody’s prank.”


He went along with the Kekua story the day of the Heisman presentation, though he knew at a minimum that she was alive, and did not tell his parents until Christmas, he said.


“Part of me was saying that if you say she is alive what would everybody think? What are you going to tell everybody who follows you, who you inspire? What are you going to say? At that time, on Dec. 8, two days after I just found out she was alive, as a 21-year-old, I wasn’t ready for that.”


Te’o said he “wasn’t forthcoming” about the extent of his relationship with Kekua, that they had never met in person, but reporters did not ask him directly if they had met in person.


He said he was most sorry for having told his father he had seen Kekua in person when he was in Hawaii, a story that his father repeated to media when asked.


When asked why he wouldn’t simply want a girlfriend he could spend time with on campus, Te’o said he was drawn to Kekua because her background appeared similar to his own.


“What I went through was real,” Te’o said. “The feelings, the pain, the sorrow, that was all real. That is something I can’t fake.”


Te’o said he did not know how the hoax would affect his position in the National Football League draft.


“As far as my draft status, I hope and pray that good happens obviously, but as long as my family is OK, I can live with whatever happens,” he said. (Reporting by David Bailey; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Tim Dobbyn)


Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Report: J.J. Abrams to Direct New 'Star Wars' Movie

Disney/ Andrew H. Walker/ Getty Images

The Force is with J.J. Abrams. The prolific producer/director has agreed to direct the next installment of the Star Wars franchise, confirms Walt Disney Studios.

Pics: Must-See Movies of 2013

"I've consistently been impressed with J.J. as a filmmaker and storyteller," said George Lucas of Abrams in an official statement. "He's an ideal choice to direct the new Star Wars film and the legacy couldn't be in better hands."

In October, it was announced that Disney had acquired Star Wars creator George Lucas' company Lucasfilm Ltd. for $4.05 billion in cash and stock, in turn announcing that new Star Wars movies will be released. The first new Star Wars movie -- Star Wars: Episode 7 -- will be released in 2015 with Lucas serving as creative consultant. Kathleen Kennedy, who is the current co-chair of Lucasfilm, will become Lucasfilm's president and serve as executive producer on new Star Wars feature films.

Of course, Abrams successfully rebooted the Star Trek franchise in 2009, with his highly anticipated follow-up sequel, Star Trek Into Darkness, hitting theaters May 17.

Related: New 'Star Wars' Films in the Works

Said Abrams, "To be a part of the next chapter of the Star Wars saga, to collaborate with Kathy Kennedy and this remarkable group of people, is an absolute honor. I may be even more grateful to George Lucas now than I was as a kid."

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No cold (or hot) cases! NYC gets nine days without murder during cold streak








They must have frostbite on their trigger fingers.

The deep freeze that has New Yorkers shivering in their boots has been a crime-fighting blessing for the NYPD — and as of midnight had given the city a nine-day streak without a murder, law-enforcement sources told The Post.

“Jack Frost is the policeman’s best friend,” said a source. “The criminals are staying indoors.”

The Big Apple’s last murder occurred Jan. 16 in The Bronx, where Jennifer Rivera, 20, and her uncle, Jason Rivera, 30, were gunned down execution-style while sitting a parked car, police said.




Rivera had a criminal drug history, sources said. No one has been arrested in connection with the slayings.

The murder-free streak ties the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy last year as the longest in recent memory, said NYPD officials.

“I’m sure the weather helps cut down on the numbers,” said a police source. “A lot of murders occur on the street. It’s too cold to hang out outside.”

But the source insisted homicides would sprout up again in the warmer months. “It’ll pick up again in the spring and summer. Always does.”

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly was beaming over the streak.

“I like it,” he said with a wide smile after the department’s promotions ceremony yesterday at Police Headquarters.

Kelly said cold weather and rain often impact the crime rate.

“That’s sort of the anecdotal answer we have in policing,” Kelly said about the current cold snap’s effect on the murder rate.

“There’s no single easy answer, but to the extent that weather played a role, we’re ready for more cold weather,” Kelly joked about the latest homicide freeze-out.

The only potential snag in the NYPD’s run is a woman found dead yesterday in Brooklyn. She was half-naked, and cops were calling her death “suspicious.”

But police said that there were no obvious signs of trauma and that the city medical examiner would determine the cause of death.

Other notable homicide-free streaks were in August 2010, when the city went seven days between murders. And in 2009, there was a six-day stretch with no murders, police said.

So far in 2013, New York City has logged only 18 murders — compared with 23 for the same period in 2012 — for a decrease of 21.7 percent, records show.

There were just 414 homicides in 2012 — an NYPD record that the department chalked up to operations that flood high-crime areas with patrol officers.










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Fed aims for a 6.5% jobless rate




















Six and a half percent unemployment in America would mean almost 2.1 million more people working than today. At the rate the country has been creating new jobs each month, it would take more than a year to find work for that many people.

Keep 6.5 percent in mind this week when the Federal Reserve meets Tuesday and Wednesday to talk about its efforts to push interest rates down. The hope is that the cheap cash will spur on investment leading to job creation. After all, the central bank has promised to keep its target interest rate near zero as long as more than 6.5 percent of Americans in the workforce are without work. The Fed has put other conditions on maintaining its historically low interest rate such as low inflation, but official measures remain tame. So its job growth the Fed is looking for.

It won’t have to wait long for the latest update. On Friday the first jobs report of 2013 will be released. Hiring has been a slow grind but it has been positive.





Finding work in January, though, can be tricky. Winter weather, a hangover from the holidays and seasonal work ending can slow down hiring.

It will be months, maybe even a couple of years before the U.S. unemployment rate hits 6.5 percent. There is nothing magical about that number, but as long as the Federal Reserve has it in its sights, so should we.

Tom Hudson is anchor and managing editor of Nightly Business Report, produced by NBR Worldwide and distributed nationally by American Public Television. In South Florida, the show is broadcast at 7 p.m. weekdays on Channel 2. Follow him on Twitter, @HudsonNBR.





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Broward contractor accused of accepting bribe for Florida Keys roadwork




















A Pompano Beach contractor has been charged by federal authorities with bribery for accepting money to steer a state Department of Transportation contract to a subcontractor working on traffic signals in the Florida Keys, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

Ron Capobianco Jr., 40, is charged with committing bribery in connection with programs receiving federal funds. If convicted, he could get 10 years in prison. He had his first appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Barry Seltzer Wednesday morning.

He is accused of accepting $4,000 for steering a $25,000 contract to a subcontractor. Prosecutors did not say who that subcontractor is or whether the subcontractor approached authorities or they approached the subcontractor.





Prosecutors say Capobianco worked as an engineering and inspection consultant at Miami's Metric Engineering Inc. DOT contracted with Metric to provide services including designing, inspecting and troubleshooting construction of roads, signs and traffic signals.

DOT considered Capobianco an expert on signalization and lighting construction, including the use of video cameras for traffic signalization and control. Prosecutors say that around 2009, DOT began its work in Marathon to improve traffic flow.

They say that around May 2009, an agent of the subcontractor offered to pay Capobianco $5,000 if the subcontractor could receive at least $25,000 to install video detection equipment. Capobianco reportedly agreed to the deal, enabling the subcontractor to make a significant profit.

The subcontractor's estimate was approved and subsequently paid by the state after the equipment was installed. Then around May 2009, Capobianco reportedly met with an agent of the subcontractor in Plantation in Broward County and was paid $4,000 in cash for his help getting the subcontractor the work.





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Somalia militants’ Twitter account down after hostage threat






NAIROBI (Reuters) – A Twitter account run by Somali militant group al Shabaab was unavailable on Friday, days after the al Qaeda-aligned rebels used the social media site to boast about killing a French agent and threatened to kill several Kenyan hostages.


Al Shabaab often used its Twitter account to claim responsibility for attacks on African Union and Somali government troops, as well as senior officials in the Horn of Africa nation and other bombings in the region.






But the militant group’s official Twitter account, which had thousands of followers, was offline on Friday with a message saying “Sorry, that user is suspended”.


It was not immediately clear why the account, which was created in 2011 under the HSM PRESS Twitter handle, was suspended. The account was still unavailable as of 0930 GMT.


Twitter said it does not comment on individual accounts and the Kenyan government denied it had filed any request for the account to be taken down.


“It’s an emphatic no. We would not try to negotiate or have anything to do with the Al Shabaab. We didn’t even know the account was suspended,” said government spokesman Muthui Kariuki.


Al Shabaab posted on the account on Wednesday a link to a video of two Kenyan civil servants held hostage in Somalia, telling the Kenyan government their lives were in danger unless it released all Muslims held on “so-called terrorism charges” in the country.


“Kenyan government has three weeks, starting midnight 24/01/2013 to respond to the demands of HSM if the prisoners are to remain alive,” the group said.


Last week the rebel group said on its Twitter account that it had executed French agent Dennis Allex, who was held hostage since 2009, after a French commando mission to rescue him failed.


Al Shabaab wants to impose their strict version of sharia, or Islamic law, across Somalia. However, it has lost significant territory in the southern and central parts of the country in the face of an offensive by African Union troops.


(Reporting by Drazen Jorgic and George Obulutsa; Editing by Jon Boyle)


Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Amanda Seyfried Calls Mean Girls Her Best Work

Despite being fresh off an Oscar-nominated film (Les Miserables), Amanda Seyfried apparently holds a soft spot for her breakout film Mean Girls, calling it her "best work" to date.

"I was so innocent. I was so green," reflects Seyfried in an interview with Indiewire. "I still look back at Mean Girls as my best work."

Pics: Amanda Seyfried as Porn Star Lovelace

The 27-year-old star stole the show playing the lovably ditzy Karen Smith in the 2004 comedy. Interestingly enough, Seyfried had little confidence in her on-screen work at the time.

"I look back and I’m like, 'Really, I thought I was doing a terrible job.' But it was written so well and so wonderfully directed," says the actress. "Mark Waters (the director) made me look good; he made me funny. And Tina Fey wrote the coolest script of all time."

Now, quite a bit more assured in her abilities, Seyfried is gearing up to show off her chops (and much more) as '70s porn star Linda Lovelace in the new biopic Lovelace. When asked about her reservations in taking on such a risque role, the star says she felt surprisingly comfortable disrobing and simulating sexual acts on film.

Video: SJP Talks About Replacing Demi Moore in 'Lovelace'

"I don't know why I’m comfortable. Nudity: whatever! Sex: we all do it," Seyfried explains to Indiewire. "There's a time and a place to be naked. There's no part in this movie that makes me think, 'Oh, wow, she's naked.' She's a porn star! We simulated some scenes but there's no graphic content in this movie, at all. I mean the graphic stuff is when he's raping me on my wedding night. You see my skirt go up over my head when I’m being gang raped, but it's like, so perfectly done."

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Mayor Bloomberg blasted at candidates forum








William Miller


New York City mayoral hopeful Joseph Lhota at at a Thursday forum discussion.



It looks like Mayor Bloomberg is in for a very long campaign year.

The mayor got battered last night at a forum in the East New York section of Brooklyn that featured Republican contender Joe Lhota in his first appearance with other candidates.

The former MTA chairman offered carefully constructed responses to questions that focused on affordable housing before a packed audience at the St. Paul Community Baptist Church.

But most of his Democratic rivals, as well as Republican hopeful Tom Allon, unloaded at just about every opportunity at Bloomberg.




"It's quite possible Mayor Bloomberg does not know what mold is," mocked Comptroller John Liu when the questioning turned to the city's response to super-storm Sandy.

All six candidates agreed the city hasn't done enough to help residents still struggling to recover.

"This is a city administration that wanted to run a marathon while people were just moving into shelters and unfortunately bodies were still being found," said former Comptroller Bill Thompson.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who is closest the the mayor of all those running, said mold removal should have been included in the "rapid repairs" program initiated by the city after a homeowner from Gerritsen Beach said hundreds of homes there might be lost due to spreading contamination.

Bloomberg has said that he doesn't intend to respond to every single issue raised by his would-be successors.

But Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson felt compelled to tweet last night, "Reality check-- Bloomberg at 65-23 (per cent in polls) on Hurricane Sandy performance."

The harshest attacks on the mayor came during a discussion of the Housing Authority and its embattled chairman, John Rhea.

Public Advocate Bill de Blasio charged that the agency can't function well "if the mayor doesn't care about people who live in public housing. There's an old colorful Sicilian expression that says the head stinks from the head down."

Longshot GOP hopeful Tom Allon went him one better by describing Rhea as the "Cathie Black" of housing, a stinging reference to the schools chancellor appointed by the mayor who lasted 96 days.

There's not much political downside for the Democratic candidates hammering away at Bloomberg before the primary, where the electorate tends to lean to the left and the mayor is an easy target.

The one place where Bloomberg got some credit was his ambitious program to build or rehabilitate 165,000 housing units before he leaves office, the largest such project in the nation.

Every candidate pledged to keep that pace of 15,000 added apartments a year. None explained how they'd paid for them.










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Lennar design accommodates multigenerational families




















In some cases, it may be Grandma moving in with the family. Other times, it may be a recent college graduate returning to the nest.

For all sorts of reasons — financial, medical, personal — a rising number of Americans are moving into extended family households.

Spotting a niche in the growing trend, Lennar Corp. has launched a new concept tailor-made for multigenerational family living.





It’s basically a house within a house: a smaller living unit next to the main home designed to provide independence but also access to the rest of the family household.

“People are really loving the whole concept,” said Carlos Gonzalez, president of the southeast Florida division of Lennar, a Miami-based home-building giant. “We adapted to the market from a design standpoint.”

In Miami-Dade County, Lennar is selling various versions of multigenerational homes in three new developments in Doral, Kendall and Homestead.

Louis Moreno of Kendall and his wife, Danilza Velez, signed a contract for a large NextGen home in The Vineyards development in Homestead last October — even before the models had been built.

“We loved it,” said Moreno, a 45-year-old engineer.

Moreno said his mother-in-law will be able to use the new suite when she visits, as will his family members who frequently come to town from Puerto Rico. “This will provide them with more comfortable space and more privacy,” he said. He also plans to use it as a game room and entertainment area.

The two-story Zinfandel home Moreno picked has three bedrooms and 2 1/2 bathrooms in the main home with a family room and two-car garage. In addition, it has an ample 789-square-foot suite with two bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchenette. The suite has its own garage, a separate front entrance and an internal door connecting to the main home.

The Zinfandel, which has 2,249 square feet of air-conditioned space in the main house, starts at $283,990 in the Homestead community at 128 SE 28th Ter., but a similar home in Kendall would run about $100,000 more, primarily because of higher land costs, Fernandez said. (In Doral, there is a NextGen home priced at $677,990.)

Some multigenerational models have suites as small as 489 square feet, but all have a separate entrance, a bedroom, a bathroom and some sort of kitchen space.

The idea takes various shapes. One option at the Kendall Square development at 16950 SW 90th St. is a Granny unit above a detached garage.

“Independence is the key word,” said Frank Fernandez, director of sales and marketing for the southeast Florida division.

Depending on local zoning rules, some homes can have full kitchens, others are restricted to kitchenettes with a microwave but no stove. Similarly, some municipalities permit the space to be used as a rental, others prohibit it.

The choice is proving popular. Fernandez said in The Vineyards development in Homestead, 10 of the 14 homes sold to date are NextGen. At Kendall Square, 35 of 107 sales are multigenerational, and at the Isles at Grand Bay development at 11301 NW 74th Street in Doral, five of 48 houses are.

Adapting homes for special needs, such as wheelchairs and safety railings, is done at cost, Fernandez said: “That is company policy.”

As one of the nation’s largest home builders, Lennar has been rebounding strongly from the housing crash. Last week, the builder, whose shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange, posted better than expected earnings for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended Nov. 30, 2012.





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Last call? Iconic Keys bar closes indefinitely




















One of Marathon's most iconic watering holes is closed for the foreseeable future.

Famous for its Sunday night jam sessions and waterfront Boot Key Harbor location, Dockside Bar & Grill co-owner Brian Sweeney said Monday that the business has been closed since mid-December for significant renovations.

"Basically, we're rebuilding the floor," he said. "We're going to put in new pilings and make the building safer than it was. You can't have people in a restaurant if you're concerned about the floor."





Sweeney said the repairs were a long time coming because of concrete poured improperly some 20 years before. He said he's been working with an architect and general contractor on the project.

Sweeney said it was an "owner's decision" to move forward with the remodel. He said the decision did not involve lessees Tony and Caitrin Piscetello.

"We just decided we wanted to get it done. Whatever he has planned, we'll discuss it with him," Sweeney said.

Caitrin declined to discuss specifics, but said she and her husband would not be involved with the reopening of the bar.

"We are not opening it back up; we've removed ourselves from the location," she said. "The building has needed repair for quite some time and they came in to fix it."

Dockside has undergone change in recent years. Sweeney said it was sold to L & E Entertainment "four or five years ago," L & E later defaulted on the mortgage and turned it back over to Servais, Sweeney and Johnson Property Company LLC. The Piscetellos took over one year ago.

Sweeney said he's already had several inquiries about the business, and that "you've got to kiss a lot of toads" before you find the right match.

"I've gotten a lot of interest," he said.

Sweeney added that renovations would likely carry on through the end of tourist season, so renovations won't be rushed. There is no target date to reopen, he said.

"It's just too early to tell," he said.





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SAG Awards Flashback: Helen Mirren 2007

Helen Mirren has received many accolades for her acting over the years, but no year was more special for her than 2007. The nominations and awards came crashing over the English actress for her roles as Queens Elizabeth I and II. Backstage after winning an award at the SAG Awards, Dame Mirren finds her king.

At that year's SAGs, Mirren was nominated for both of her Queen Elizabeth performances: Best Actress in a TV Movie or Miniseries for Elizabeth I and Best Lead Actress for The Queen. She had just received Golden Globes for the two acclaimed performances and was nominated for what could be her first Oscar.

It was an exciting year for Mirren, who embraces her "Woman of the Year" tag from ET's former correspondent Jann Carl but wishes that the sweetness of her success weren't so concentrated.


VIDEO: Oscars Flashback '07: Helen Mirren and Jamie Foxx

Also having a career year for his acting was Forest Whitaker, who received a Golden Globe, SAG, and an Oscar for his role in The Last King of Scotland, which was also written by The Queen writer Peter Morgan.

Although he didn't literally play a king in the film, Whitaker takes on a royal persona when congratulating Mirren backstage for her win, spoiling her with compliments and kisses.

"There's nothing like that particular role," she says of her role as Elizabeth I. "...It demanded everything you had as an actress/actor and I gave it everything that I had, everything. It means so much to me for it to be recognized here in America."


RELATED: Helen Mirren to Play the Queen Again

Her success at that year's awards season was beyond mere recognition; it bordered more on the lines of idolatry. Or fittingly: worship.

Mrs. Mirren went on to win her other award that night for The Queen and also won the Oscar a few weeks later for her role in the film.

While she has since stepped down from her royal platform, she has another opportunity to add to her SAGs collection with a nomination for her leading role as Alfred Hitchcock's wife in Hitchcock.

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It’s plenty of 20 – plus flurries








When they say it’s “too cold to snow,” don’t believe them. A dusting of 1 to 2 inches is expected when snow showers develop tomorrow afternoon and continue into the evening.

Before that we’ll get more struggling sunshine today, with temperatures peaking at 21 degrees — but icy winds feeling like only 2 degrees. Tonight’s low temperature will be about 13, forecasters said.

Tomorrow’s temps should be more of the same, with a high around 22 degrees.

The weekend will be warmer, but just a bit. Saturday’s high is expected to be 24 and Sunday’s will be 27.



Don’t expect relief until next week. Forecasters say temps will finally go above freezing and hit 36 on Monday, 40 on Tuesday and a positively balmy 48 onWednesday. Andy Soltis










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Miami Dolphins slam Norman Braman, Marlins Park deal




















The Miami Dolphins ramped up their public campaign for a tax-funded stadium renovation this week, buying full-page ads against their top critic and trying to distance the plan from the unpopular Marlins deal.

The team bought an ad in Tuesday’s Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald knocking auto magnate Norman Braman’s criticism of the Sun Life Stadium deal, which would have Florida and Miami-Dade split the costs with owner Stephen Ross for a $400 million renovation. The Dolphins would pay at least $201 million, with taxpayers using state funds and a higher Miami-Dade hotel tax to pay $199 million.

In a fact sheet sent to media Tuesday morning, the Dolphins listed ways their deal differs from the 2009 Marlins deal. First: Ross, a billionaire real estate developer, would use private dollars to fund at least 51 percent of the Sun Life effort, compared to less than 25 percent from Marlins owner Jeff Loria. Second, Sun Life helps the economy more than the Marlins park does.





“Just because the Marlins did a bad deal doesn’t mean we should oppose a good deal where at least a majority of the cost is paid from private sources and more than 4,000 local jobs are created during construction alone,” the fact sheet states. And while the Dolphins’ Miami Gardens stadium has hosted two Super Bowls since 2007 and is in the running for the 2016 game, “Marlins Stadium does not generate the ability to attract world-class sports events -- other than a World Series from time to time depending on the success of the team.”

NFL teams play eight home games a year if they don’t make the playoffs, while baseball teams have 81.

Miami and Miami-Dade built the Marlins a $640 million stadium at the site of the Dolphins’ old home at the Orange Bowl in Little Havana. The Marlins contributed about $120 million and agreed to pay between $2.5 million and $4.9 million a year for 35 years to pay back $35 million of debt the county borrowed for the stadium. As a publicly owned stadium, the Marlins ballpark pays no property taxes. Most of the public money came from Miami-Dade hotel taxes, along with $50 million of debt tied to the county’s general fund.

Sun Life is privately owned and pays $3 million a year in property taxes to Miami-Dade. It currently receives $2 million a year from Florida’ s stadium program, a subsidy tied to converting the football venue to baseball in the 1990s when the Marlins played there. The Dolphins also paid for a second full-page ad with quotes from leading hoteliers in Miami-Dade endorsing the stadium plan. Among them: Donald Trump, whose company recently purchased the Doral golf resort. “Steve Ross’ commitment to modernize Sun Life Stadium -- while covering most of the construction costs -- is the right thing for Miami-Dade,’’ the ad quotes Trump as saying.

Also on Tuesday, Ross and team CEO Mike Dee sent a letter to Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez and county commissioners requesting negotiations over the stadium deal. The letter said the deal Ross unveiled last week is a “baseline for debate” and asked for talks. The letter also urged the commission to adopt a resolution proposed by Commissioner Barbara Jordan endorsing the state bill that would allow taxes for Sun Life. The resolution is on the agenda for Wednesday’s commission meeting.





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Drug-tracking Fat Albert blimp in the Keys will be deflated in March




















Fat Albert, the familiar military blimp based on the bayside of Cudjoe Key, is set to come down permanently on March 15 after keeping watch over the Lower Keys since 1980.

Due to federal defense funding cuts, the U.S. Air Force's Tethered Aerostat Radar System, comprising Cudjoe and eight other sites along the Gulf of Mexico, Mexican border and Puerto Rico, will shut down.

The surveillance program is "capable of detecting low-altitude aircraft at the radar's maximum range by mitigating curvature of the Earth and terrain-masking limitations," according to Air Force literature from the Langley, Va.-based Air Combat Command.





The Cudjoe Key aerostat's primary mission is to support counter-drug operations. U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Joint Interagency Task Force-South, the latter located in Key West, employ the data, among others.

"Its presence has a deterrent value to illicit trafficking here in the area," U.S. Coast Guard Sector Key West Cmdr. Al Young said on US1Radio this week. "It also allows us here at the Coast Guard to maintain real-time visibility of air and surface resources that we may have and on occasion, we have used that information to vector assistance resources to find search objects."

NAS Key West spokeswoman Trice Denny said the Navy doesn't use the system to any appreciable extent.

On Saturday, a Summerland Key man identified only as R.H. posted a petition on the White House's website asking to "keep the Tethered Aerostat Radar System operational in order to help secure the southern border of the United States.... If we truly are concerned with the war on drugs and wish to have a cost-effective sensor to fight that war, then this sensor must remain active."

By Tuesday, it had more than 300 signatures. To get a response from President Barack Obama's staff, the petition would have to get 100,000 or more signatures by Feb. 18. The petition is available through www.whitehouse.gov/petitions.

Contractor Exelis Systems Corp., based in Colorado Springs, operates the network of blimp-mounted radars. Following the March 15, shutdown, "the remainder of the fiscal year will be used to deflate aerostats, disposition equipment and prepare sites for permanent closure," according to a notice from Program Manager Tim Green.

The Cudjoe aerostat holds 275,000 cubic feet of helium and measures in at 186 feet with a 62.5-foot diameter. The normal operating altitude is around 12,000 feet and it has a radar detection range of some 230 miles.

Radar data is transmitted to a ground station, where it's digitized, then transmitted to various federal users. Up until 1992, the Air Force, U.S. Customs Service and U.S. Coast Guard operated the network. In 1992, Congress switched management over to the Department of Defense.

The average per-site annual cost for a TARS site in 2002 was $2.8 million, according to a history prepared by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. Updated numbers weren't available Tuesday.

Other than off the aptly named Blimp Road on Cudjoe, there are TARS sites in Deming, N.M.; Morgan City, La.; Lajas, Puerto Rico; Fort Huachuca and Yuma in Arizona; and Eagle Pass, Marfa, Matagorda and Rio Grande City, all in Texas.

In April 2007, a 1997 Cessna 182Q crashed into the Cudjoe aerostat's tether, killing all three people aboard. The plane had violated a three-mile radius, 15,000-foot air-space restriction around the Cudjoe site.





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Google’s 4Q earnings rise despite Motorola woes






SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google eked out slightly higher earnings in the fourth quarter, despite a financial drag caused by the Internet search leader’s expansion into device manufacturing and a decline in digital ad prices as more people gaze into the smaller screens of smartphones.


The results announced Tuesday pleased investors, helping to lift Google’s stock by 5 percent in extended trading.






More advertising poured into Google during the holiday shopping season, fueling a moneymaking machine that has steadily churned out higher profits since the company went public in 2004. Google’s fourth-quarter ad revenue totaled $ 12.1 billion, a 19 percent increase from the previous year.


Some of that money, though, has been shifting away from personal computers as advertisers try to connect with an expanding audience that relies on smartphones and tablet computers to reach Google’s search engine, email and other online services. By some estimates, about one-fourth of the clicks on Google’s search ads are now coming from mobile devices.


So far, advertisers have been unwilling to pay as much money to market their wares on mobile devices, largely because the smaller screens leave less room for commercial links and other marketing messages. The trend is one of the reasons that the average price for the ads that Google shows next to its search results has fallen from the previous year in five consecutive quarters, including the final three months of last year.


In a positive sign, though, Google’s average ad prices in the most recent quarter dropped by just 6 percent from the same period in 2011. That’s the smallest decline during the pricing downturn, raising hopes that Google may be starting to solve the pricing problems posed by the growing usage of mobile devices.


In a conference call Tuesday, Google CEO Larry Page predicted ad prices will gradually rise as the devices become even more sophisticated to unleash new ways to reach potential customers at the times they are most likely to buy something.


“In today’s multi-screen world, the opportunities are endless,” Page said.


Google earned nearly $ 2.9 billion, or $ 8.62 per share, during the fourth quarter. That compared to net income of $ 2.7 billion, or $ 8.22 per share, at the same time last year.


If not for the costs of employee stock compensation and certain other accounting items, Google said it would have earned $ 10.65 per share. On that basis, Google exceeded the average earnings estimate of $ 10.54 among analysts surveyed by FactSet.


It proved to be a difficult quarter to decipher because of an accounting quirk and the additions of new business lines that muddied the comparisons with the previous year.


For instance, Google Inc. didn’t own Motorola Mobility in 2011, having completed its $ 12.4 billion acquisition of the troubled handset maker eight months ago. What’s more, the Google is bringing in more revenue from tablet computers, which it began selling under the Nexus brand during the final half of last year.


Things were further complicated by Google’s recent agreement to sell a part of the Motorola Mobility division that makes cable TV boxes. That division is now accounted for as a discontinued operation whose revenue wasn’t booked in the latest quarter, even though it will remain a part of Google until the $ 2.35 billion sale is completed later this year.


Under that equation, revenue surged 36 percent from the previous year to $ 14.4 billion.


After subtracting advertising expenses, Google’s revenue totaled $ 11.3 billion. That figure was well below the average analyst estimate of $ 12.1 billion, according to FactSet.


But many of the analyst forecasts included revenue from Motorola Mobility’s set-top division, which Google excluded from its breakdown. Had the set-top division been included in Google’s accounting, the company’s net revenue would have matched analyst estimates.


The performance boosted Google’s stock by $ 35.33 to $ 738.20 in Tuesday’s extended trading.


Google would be doing even better if not for problems at Motorola Mobility, a cellphone pioneer that has been struggling since Apple revolutionized the industry with the release of the iPhone in 2007.


Motorola Mobility suffered an operating loss of $ 353 million on revenue of $ 1.5 billion in the fourth quarter


Google has been able to offset the slump in its search advertising prices by selling more video advertising on its YouTube subsidiary and other more graphical forms of marketing. The number of clicks on Google ads has still been rising, too. That’s important because the company typically gets paid by the click. In the fourth quarter, Google’s total ad clicks rose 24 percent from the previous year.


To gain a foothold in the mobile market, Google bakes its services into its Android software, an operating system that it gives away to makers of smartphones and tablets.


Android is now powers more than 500 million mobile devices worldwide, giving it a wide lead over Apple’s software for iPhones and iPads. Through September, Apple had shipped about 370 million iPhones and iPads. Apple Inc., which has morphed from a Google ally to bigger rival in the past five years, is scheduled to release its fourth-quarter results after the stock market closes Wednesday.


Google, which is based in Mountain View, Calif., didn’t update how many more Android devices were activated in the fourth quarter..


Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Miranda Lambert Talks Self Esteem Issues, Husband Blake Shelton and Pedigree Dog Charity

"They're our family," describes country superstar Miranda Lambert of her growing collection of pooches, horses, chickens and hogs with husband Blake Shelton.

While Miranda has a soft spot for just about any four-legged creature she comes across, the 29-year-old singer tells ET's Brooke Anderson that her brood of five pups holds her heart and she views them just as she would her very own babies.

"We don't have children so our dogs are our children and we kind of treat them that way," laughs Miranda of her of the dogs who travel with her everywhere, including on tour.

Related: Miranda Lambert Defends Chris Brown Comments

Although Blake is currently gearing up for a return to The Voice and Miranda recently kicked off her 2013 Locked & Reloaded tour and started recording with her band The Pistol Annies, in less hectic times the twosome enjoys the country life on their farm in Tishomingo, Oklahoma.

"We go home it's like a totally different world," says Miranda. "We're in the country, just with animals and we're miles from any major city and it really calms us down, keeps us grounded.

It should come as no surprise that, next to music, Miranda calls animals her "passion" which is why the singer has chosen to use her fame to benefit animals in need by partnering with the PEDIGREE feeding project. The program offers five shelters-in-need (from all across America) the opportunity to receive free food for a year if selected.

Video: Blake Reveals The Craziest Place He's 'Made Whoopee'

"It's saved shelters up to $100,000 in the past," explains Miranda of the project. "I think it will draw so much [attention] to shelters and adoption and just really get people involved in their local communities with adopting pets."

To learn more about her partnership with the PEDIGREE feeding project, and find out how you can nominate a local shelter for a year's worth of free food, visit Facebook.com/Pedigree.

Watch the video for more from Miranda, who dishes on possibly judging a singing competition and why she frequently unfriends her husband on Twitter.

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Filling no pain: Dentist all smiles in drunk-drill bust








Victor Alcorn


TOOTHY GRIN: Robert Garelick, a Long Island dentist, sports a goofy grin on his face as he is led away by cops in Suffolk County yesterday.



It wasn’t the drill that was buzzing — it was the dentist.

Long Island cavity filler Robert Garelick, 57, flashed his own pearly whites yesterday on his way to face charges that he operated on unsuspecting patients while completely hammered.

Garelick had bloodshot eyes at his Lindenhurst office Monday when he injected novocaine on the wrong side of a patient’s mouth — while swilling vodka from a sports bottle — then used a high-powered drill to file down another man’s chipped tooth, court records show.




His assistant, who said he’s been boozing on the job for months, decided she’d finally seen enough and pulled the plug on her boss, records show.

“I texted [a co-worker] . . . and told her he had the bottle in his hand and we had to do something,’’ assistant Kimberly Curtis told authorities.

Just after his bust, Garelick told cops he had a few beers with his pizza for lunch.

He then changed his story — not that it helped.

“I never had any beers with my pizza. I’ve been sipping at that bottle all along today,’’ the married dad of two from Melville told police. “I did something incredibly stupid.”

At 11 a.m., “I observed Dr. Garelick give [a] patient novocaine, an anesthetic for pain relief, in the wrong place in the patient’s mouth. [Then], I observed Dr. Garelick looking for the cavities on the right side of the patient's mouth, but the cavities were on the left side,” Curtis, 41, told officials.

“I pointed this out to the doctor, and that’s when he requested more novocaine for the patient. So now, he basically numbed the whole patient’s mouth.”

Then before 4:30 p.m., Curtis said, she went into Garelick’s office, and, “I noticed that he was drinking from a white and purple squeeze bottle.’’

“I smelled a strong odor of alcohol,” she said, and when he left the room, “I opened [the bottle] up. I smelled vodka in it. It was at that time that I had to do something. I was concerned for [his next] patient.”

Garelick “was treating him with a drill. He was filing the tooth down. When you’re using that drill, you have to be very careful and have a steady hand.”

She texted dental hygienist Dina Fara, who alerted cops.

Garelick was busted at the office and charged in Suffolk County Court with reckless endangerment, a misdemeanor. He plead not guilty and was released on his own recognizance.

None of Garelick’s Monday patients was injured.










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Miami Dolphins slam Norman Braman, Marlins Park deal




















The Miami Dolphins ramped up their public campaign for a tax-funded stadium renovation this week, buying full-page ads against their top critic and trying to distance the plan from the unpopular Marlins deal.

The team bought an ad in Tuesday’s Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald knocking auto magnate Norman Braman’s criticism of the Sun Life Stadium deal, which would have Florida and Miami-Dade split the costs with owner Stephen Ross for a $400 million renovation. The Dolphins would pay at least $201 million, with taxpayers using state funds and a higher Miami-Dade hotel tax to pay $199 million.

In a fact sheet sent to media Tuesday morning, the Dolphins listed ways their deal differs from the 2009 Marlins deal. First: Ross, a billionaire real estate developer, would use private dollars to fund at least 51 percent of the Sun Life effort, compared to less than 25 percent from Marlins owner Jeff Loria. Second, Sun Life helps the economy more than the Marlins park does.





“Just because the Marlins did a bad deal doesn’t mean we should oppose a good deal where at least a majority of the cost is paid from private sources and more than 4,000 local jobs are created during construction alone,” the fact sheet states. And while the Dolphins’ Miami Gardens stadium has hosted two Super Bowls since 2007 and is in the running for the 2016 game, “Marlins Stadium does not generate the ability to attract world-class sports events -- other than a World Series from time to time depending on the success of the team.”

NFL teams play eight home games a year if they don’t make the playoffs, while baseball teams have 81.

Miami and Miami-Dade built the Marlins a $640 million stadium at the site of the Dolphins’ old home at the Orange Bowl in Little Havana. The Marlins contributed about $120 million and agreed to pay between $2.5 million and $4.9 million a year for 35 years to pay back $35 million of debt the county borrowed for the stadium. As a publicly owned stadium, the Marlins ballpark pays no property taxes. Most of the public money came from Miami-Dade hotel taxes, along with $50 million of debt tied to the county’s general fund.

Sun Life is privately owned and pays $3 million a year in property taxes to Miami-Dade. It currently receives $2 million a year from Florida’ s stadium program, a subsidy tied to converting the football venue to baseball in the 1990s when the Marlins played there. The Dolphins also paid for a second full-page ad with quotes from leading hoteliers in Miami-Dade endorsing the stadium plan. Among them: Donald Trump, whose company recently purchased the Doral golf resort. “Steve Ross’ commitment to modernize Sun Life Stadium -- while covering most of the construction costs -- is the right thing for Miami-Dade,’’ the ad quotes Trump as saying.

Also on Tuesday, Ross and team CEO Mike Dee sent a letter to Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez and county commissioners requesting negotiations over the stadium deal. The letter said the deal Ross unveiled last week is a “baseline for debate” and asked for talks. The letter also urged the commission to adopt a resolution proposed by Commissioner Barbara Jordan endorsing the state bill that would allow taxes for Sun Life. The resolution is on the agenda for Wednesday’s commission meeting.





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Appeals court throws out Miami judge’s controversial fingerprint ruling




















An appeals court has thrown out a Miami-Dade criminal court judge’s controversial ruling restricting long-accepted fingerprint evidence.

The Third District Court of Appeals this week ruled that Circuit Judge Milton Hirsch should have removed himself from the case before issuing his ruling.

The reason: Hirsch had earlier told two prosecutors that he would remove himself from similar cases because he harbored “preconceived opinions on the subject of fingerprints.”





In October, Hirsch ruled that a police fingerprint examiner could not testify that he identified a conclusive fingerprint “match” for Miami’s Radames Borrego, who is accused of two burglaries.

The judge’s ruling raised eyebrows among legal observers because U.S. courts have long allowed experts to testify to jurors that the accused person’s fingerprint is unique to him or her.

The appeals court did not rule specifically on Hirsch’s fingerprint order, but nevertheless threw it out, saying the judge should not have presided over the case. It is unclear whether Hirsch will be able to preside over future criminal court cases involving fingerprint evidence.

Hirsch, a former president of the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and a law school professor who wrote a book on state criminal trial procedure, is well-known in South Florida’s legal community. He was elected in May 2010.

The judge — who often quotes Shakespeare in lengthy orders — often delves into polemic legal waters.

In 2010, when a Tampa federal judge ruled that Florida’s drug law was unconstitutional, Hirsch was the only local state judge to follow suit. He threw out more than two dozen cases, but the same Miami’s appeals court later reversed Hirsch.

Late last year, Hirsch from the bench criticized relatives of a murder victim after they criticized him in a Spanish-language television interview. After he declined to recuse himself from the case, the Third DCA booted him from the case.

Also last year, the same appeals court said Hirsch “did not have jurisdiction” when he filled in for a fellow judge, then reversed that judge’s decision to keep behind bars a man accused of violating a restraining order.

Hirsch will be ruling on a high-profile case next week.

Lawyers for Sergio Robaina, accused of voter fraud, have asked Hirsch to throw out two misdemeanors charged under a county ordinance prohibiting possession of more than two absentee ballots. The ordinance is unconstitutional, they claim.





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Cycling-No sympathy for Armstrong on social media






LONDON, Jan 21 (Reuters) – Lance Armstrong’s televised doping confession has done nothing to restore his shattered reputation, a study of responses posted to the Twitter social media site showed.


“What was particularly noticeable in our analysis of the Armstrong revelation was the sheer lack of sympathy out there,” said Charlie Dundas of sports market research company Repucom.






“The tone of the discussion around the Oprah Winfrey interview highlighted the level of disappointment and anger that exists. It’s clear the public are far from ready to forgive Lance Armstrong,” he added.


In the interview, Armstrong admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs on his way to his seven Tour de France titles. The Texan also said he hoped a lifetime ban would one day be lifted to allow him to compete in events like marathons.


The Armstrong interview generated 1.9 million Twitter posts between Jan. 14-20, Repucom said. America accounted for more than a quarter of these, with Australia the second most active nation on the site. (Writing by Keith Weir, editing by Mark Meadows)


Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Jane Kaczmarek Guest Stars on 'Jake in the Never Land of Pirates'

Jane Kaczmarek, best known for her role as the mother on Malcolm in the Middle, recently headed to the vocal booth for an episode of the Disney animated series Jake in the Never Land of Pirates. Watch ETonline's exclusive clip to see if you can recognize her voice.

In her guest appearance on the series, Kaczmarek plays an adventurous pirate named "Red Jessica," which makes her normal voice nearly indiscernible with the accent she puts on for the role.


PIC: 'Malcom in the Middle' Cast Reunion

This isn't the first time that Kaczmarek has taken on an animated role, as she has held an ongoing voice role on The Simpsons as "Judge Constance Harm" since 2001.

Since the finale of Malcolm in the Middle in 2006, Kaczmarek has acted on various short-running TV shows and has guest-starred on shows from Wilfred to The Middle and plays the recurring role of Whitney Cummings' mother on Whitney.


PICS: Malcolm''s Mom Plays a Cougar in 'Raising the Bar'

Check out your exclusive clip in the video above and watch Kaczmarek's full animated appearance on Jake in the Never Land of Pirates Friday (Jan. 25) at 8:30 a.m. on Disney Channel.

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Bath salts bust in Hell's Kitchen








Byron Smith


Police at the scene on West 54th Street where officials had suspected a meth lab — cops found illegal bath salts instead.



Something foul is cooking in Hell’s Kitchen.

Police raided a West 54th Street co-op and found pounds of the illegal designer drug "bath salts" in a possible drug lab after neighbors complained that apartment smelled of cat urine, sources and witnesses said.

“One officer said, ‘I don't want to go in there,” said Chelsea Blakeburn, 20, who lives next to the third floor apartment and smelled the stench.

Blackburn said that a neighbor upstairs in the five story walk up — which is two blocks from a police precinct — was the one who called authorities.




Pounds of a white substance, believed to be illegal bath salts, were found in the apartment’s refrigerator along with beakers, according to police sources.

Bath salts are a low-grade synthetic drug with effects similar to cocaine and methamphetamine.

A 44-year old man who lives in the apartment is being questioned by police, but has not been charged, police said.

Neighbors describe the man as “bizarre and strange.”

DEP has not finished testing the substance and will make a final determination.










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Series for Miami’s emerging art collectors begins Thursday




















For art enthusiasts interested in bring their interest home, Miami’s Bakehouse Art Complex is hosting a lecture series for emerging collectors. The first panel, slated for Thursday at 6 p.m., features arists and curators who will talk about fine tuning your taste and learning to make informed decisions. The second session, Feb. 7, is oriented to the mechanics of purchasing. The third, on Feb. 21, explores how to manage your collection.

Moderating all three panels will be Denise Gerson, independent curator who served as associate director for the Lowe Museum of Art for 24 years. Cost is $25 per session or $60 for the series. Seating is limited; reservations are recommended.

Information at 305-576-2828; www.bacfl.org.





Jane Wooldridge





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Cuban exile mother of poet laureate Richard Blanco now in spotlight as his inspiration




















At first, Geysa Blanco thought her son was kidding.

"He said, ‘Mom, I have news for you,’ " Blanco said, recalling the telephone call from her son a few weeks ago.

"Between English and Spanish, he told me that they had chosen him to write and read a poem at the presidential inauguration,” she said.





But Richard Blanco, a child of exiles who was raised in Miami and graduated from Florida International University, was serious.

The Barack Obama inaugural committee chose the 44-year-old Cuban-American civil engineer and author to recite an original poem at Monday’s inauguration.

Richard Blanco has also been speechless. “It took me 10 minutes to remember what the word for inauguration is in Spanish," he said in a telephone interview Sunday from Washington, D.C., less than 24 hours before taking center stage.

Blanco, who now lives in Maine, will become the first Hispanic inaugural poet and the first openly gay one. He is also only the fifth and youngest poet in the exclusive club of poets.

The first was Robert Frost, who in 1961 wrote a poem for the inauguration of John F. Kennedy.

Then in 1993, Bill Clinton chose the African-American writer Maya Angelou. William Miller was chosen for Clinton’s second inauguration, and Elizabeth Alexander wrote the poem for Obama’s first ceremony.

In a statement, Obama said Blanco’s work represents "the great strength and diversity of the American people."

This diversity and strength could be reflected in the story of the poet’s Cuban exile mother.

"She is a very brave woman and has worked hard all her life for my brother and me," Blanco said.

During an interview at her Westchester home, Geysa Blanco, 75, said that it still seems surreal that a woman who grew up in a sugar refinery in Cienfuegos will stand in front of the National Capitol, watching her son recite a poem for the nation and the president of the United States.

“My son said reporters might want to interview me and I said, ‘Me? What for?’ ” Geysa Blanco said. Indeed, local reporters and TV cameras have come knocking and the proud mother has given several interviews.

Geysa Blanco has also become a celebrity among her neighbors, friends and customers at Regions Bank on Bird Road, where she has worked for more than 30 years.

The roots of Richard Blanco’s writing began in 1968 when his parents fled the Communist island and went into exile in Spain. At the time, Geysa Blanco, a teacher, was pregnant and she and her late husband Carlos, already had an older son, also named Carlos.

"We decided to leave Cuba because the government was becoming more and more difficult to live under," she said. "But it was very painful for me because I left my mother and brothers behind and came here virtually alone and with nothing."

After five months in Spain, where she gave birth to Richard, they emigrated to New York.

As a boy, she said Richard always had an interest in exploring his Cuban roots.

"I always had questions about Cuba, about the family we left there," he said. On his website he refers to himself as being “made in Cuba, assembled in Spain, and imported to the U.S.”

That sense of not belonging and trying to belong seeps through his books of poetry, which often feature his family and their efforts hold on to their traditions.

When Richard was about 5 and Carlos 11, the family moved to the closest place to Cuba – Miami. His mother went to work in a supermarket and later landed her bank job.

"We lived three generations in one house, my husband’s parents, my husband and I, and Charles and Richard," the poet’s mother said. "Sometimes it was hard because grandparents are not accustomed to the modern ways of young people.”

Today, she laments that those family members are gone. “I wish Richard’s father and grandparents were here to enjoy this day,” she said.

Richard Blanco did get to visit the homeland his parents yearned for when he was growing up.

"Everyone thought he wasn’t going to speak Spanish and was going to feel uncomfortable," Geysa Blanco said of her relatives on the island. "But they were surprised because he picked yucca in the fields, jumped in the canals and danced a lot, just like everyone else.”

That trip as a young man would shape the poet’s future work, his mother said. "I think that’s where he caught the bug to write about his roots," she said.





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Notre Dame hoax tip was emailed: Deadspin.com editor






CHICAGO (Reuters) – The tip that led to the revelation that one of the most widely recounted U.S. sports narratives of the past year was a hoax came to the editors of an online sports blog as many of their news tips do: an unsolicited email.


That email led Deadspin.com assignment editor Timothy Burke on the hunt of a story that exposed the heart-wrenching tale of standout Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o's dead girlfriend as a fabrication, Burke said on CNN on Thursday.






Te’o sprang to national prominence last fall when the senior co-captain was seen heroically leading the Fighting Irish to an underdog victory against the Michigan State Spartans within days of learning his grandmother had died. Moreover, it was widely reported, Te’o's girlfriend had died of leukemia just hours after his grandmother’s death.


From that point, Te’o's narrative was a prominent feature in coverage of the team, which has a dedicated following and whose games are televised nationally each week.


Notre Dame went on to an undefeated regular season, culminating in a berth in the national championship game, which the Fighting Irish lost to the Alabama Crimson Tide on January 7.


“We got an email last week at Deadspin.com that said ‘Hey, there’s something real weird about Lennay Kekua, Manti Te’o's allegedly dead girlfriend. You guys should check it out,’” Burke said.


The email prompted Burke and co-author Jack Dickey to begin searching online for background on Kekua. “So we start Googling the name Lennay Kekua. We can’t find any evidence of this person that wasn’t attached to stories about her being Manti Te’o's dead girlfriend.”


Their investigation led about a week later to a 4,000-word expose, published Wednesday under the headline “Blarney,” that painstakingly debunked the story of Kekua’s existence. The story went viral online.


Within hours of its publication, officials at Notre Dame, one of the most powerful institutions in college football and U.S. collegiate athletics overall, held a hastily organized press conference to assert that Te’o had been duped in a hoax perpetrated by a friend of his.


The girlfriend, who called herself Kekua and claimed to be a Stanford University graduate, was merely an online persona who “ingratiated herself with Manti and then conspired with others to lead him to believe she had tragically died of leukemia,” university spokesman Dennis Brown said in a statement.


Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick said the university learned of the hoax from Te’o on December 26. Te’o answered questions forthrightly and private investigators uncovered several things that pointed to Te’o being a victim in the case, Swarbrick said.


Deadspin’s Burke said he remains skeptical of this being a hoax perpetrated on Te’o rather than by Te’o.


“Ask yourself why and what incentive a person would have to execute such a lengthy, time-consuming and expensive con that would involve multiple people and essentially consume his entire life just to screw around with a guy that he knows?” Burke said on CNN.


Deadspin.com said the woman whose photograph was frequently shown on TV and in news reports about Kekua was actually a young California woman who had never met or communicated with Te’o. The website declined to identify her by name.


On Thursday, TV newsmagazine “Inside Edition” said the woman in the photograph was a 23-year-old marketing professional in Los Angeles named Diane O’Meara. Inside Edition, which is syndicated by CBS Television Distribution, said O’Meara was a former classmate of one of Te’o's friends. It Aredid not give the friend’s name.


In the expose published Wednesday, Deadspin.com said a friend of Te’o's named Ronaiah Tuiasosopo was “the man behind” the hoax.


Outside Tuiasosopo’s home in Palmdale, California on Thursday, a member of his family who did not identify himself told reporters, “Please, we have no comment. Please respect that.”


The Te’o hoax is the latest black eye Notre Dame’s legendary football program has suffered in recent years.


In 2011, the school was fined $ 42,000 by an Indiana agency over the death of football videographer Declan Sullivan, 20, who died in October 2010 after a hydraulic lift he was using to record practice toppled over in high winds.


In 2010, Elizabeth “Lizzy” Seeberg, a freshman at nearby St. Mary’s College, killed herself ten days after accusing a Notre Dame football player of sexual battery. Her family began questioning the campus police department’s reluctance to gather evidence and a 15-day delay in interviewing the accused.


After a federal investigation into the matter, the school agreed to revise its policies on sexual misconduct.


(Additional reporting by Dan Burns, Dana Feldman, David Bailey and Mary Wisniewski.; Editing by Vicki Allen, Greg McCune and Andrew Hay)


Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Gayle King Reacts to Oprah Winfrey Interview with Lance Armstrong

ET's Rocsi Diaz chatted with Oprah Winfrey's best friend Gayle King on Sunday, where the CBS This Morning co-anchor revealed that Lance Armstrong wasn't the only one with a lot at stake during last week's interview.

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"I've only seen [Oprah] nervous twice -- Michael Jackson, back in the day that was live, and with Lance Armstrong," Gayle said at The Daily Beast/Newsweek bipartisan brunch. "She knew that there was a lot at stake. She knew that people would be watching her and she knew that people would be watching him."

Those nerves may have brought out the best in Lady O, as Gayle revealed Oprah's preparation leading up to the sit down. Gayle told Rocsi that Oprah looked at every interview that Lance has done, read the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency report and three books all in one week.

On the day of the interview, Oprah issued a series of rapid-fire yes or no questions, in which the retired cyclist confirmed that he had blood transfusions and used the banned substance erythropoietin (EPO) during his career -- particularly during all seven of his Tour de France victories.

RELATED: Lance Armstrong Movie Already in the Works

"You know it's a good interview when you're done and you get in the car and you say, 'There's not another thing I wish I would've asked him,'" said Gayle. "That's pretty good, and that's how she felt."

The brunch was a part of the festivities surrounding the Presidential Inauguration. Other attendees included Eva Longoria, Star Jones, Kerry Washington and Rosario Dawson.

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Death toll climbs past 80 in Algeria terrorist siege








ALGIERS, Algeria — The death toll from the terrorist siege at a natural gas plant in the Sahara climbed past 80 on Sunday as Algerian forces searching the refinery for explosives found dozens more bodies, many so badly disfigured it was unclear whether they were hostages or militants, a security official said.

Algerian special forces stormed the plant on Saturday to end the four-day siege, moving in to thwart what government officials said was a plot by the Islamic extremists to blow up the complex and kill all their captives with mines sown throughout the site.




In a statement, the Masked Brigade, the group that claimed to have masterminded the takeover, warned of more such attacks against any country backing France's military intervention in neighboring Mali, where the French are trying to stop an advance by Islamic extremists.

"We stress to our Muslim brothers the necessity to stay away from all the Western companies and complexes for their own safety, and especially the French ones," the statement said.

Algeria said after Saturday's assault by government forces that at least 32 extremists and 23 hostages were killed. On Sunday, Algerian bomb squads sent in to blow up or defuse the explosives found 25 more bodies, said the security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.

"These bodies are difficult to identify. They could be the bodies of foreign hostages or Algerians or terrorists," the official said.

In addition, a wounded Romanian who had been evacuated died, raising the overall death toll to at least 81.

"Now, of course, people will ask questions about the Algerian response to these events, but I would just say that the responsibility for these deaths lies squarely with the terrorists who launched a vicious and cowardly attack," British Prime Minister David Cameron said. Three Britons were killed and another three were feared dead.

On Monday, Philippine Foreign Affairs officials said six Filipinos were among the hostages killed. Spokesman Raul Hernandez told reporters that 16 Filipinos have been accounted for and four others are still missing.

The dead hostages were also known to include at least one American and French workers. Nearly two dozen foreigners by some estimates were unaccounted for.

It was unclear whether anyone was rescued in the final assault on the complex, which is run by the Algerian state oil company along with BP and Norway's Statoil.

Two private Algerian TV stations and an online news site said security forces scouring the plant found five militants hiding out and learned that three others had fled. That information could not be immediately confirmed by security officials.










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Three-generation family businesses share their secrets of success




















In 2009, when Larry Zinn took over as sales manager for the Infiniti dealership that his father owned, he had a great idea: retrain the sales staff in a team approach and offer customers complimentary add-on services for the first year.

Some salesmen who were used to selling the same way for decades up and quit. But that didn’t deter Larry from insisting a new sales culture and value proposition for new car buyers was necessary. “I was persistent with everything I’ve believed we needed to do going forward. People were going to embrace change or move on,” says Larry, 28.

The resistance quieted, however, after Larry recruited young salespeople and had them trained in the new advantage program. The new approach helped push sales volume up 72 percent. "We had a lot of success with it,” he says.





Larry Zinn’s experience is not unusual for family-owned businesses that survive into a third generation and employ new tactics to keep from becoming obsolete.

Nationally, family-run businesses account for nearly 35 percent of the largest companies including Ford, Koch Industries, Hilton, Wal-Mart, Loews and Ikea. In South Florida, family-run businesses are particularly prevalent and account for a majority of the largest Hispanic companies, including Goya, Bacardi, El Dorado and Sedano’s Supermarkets.

But while more than 30 percent of all U.S. family-owned businesses survive into the second generation, only about 12 percent are passed onto the third generation, according to Family Firm Institute, a Boston-based association for family enterprise professionals. Those that do survive have a few intriguing commonalities: an ability to stay relevant, think bigger and take a long term view.

“They try to figure out where they want to be in 10 years and take steps to make that target,” says Wayne Rivers, president of The Family Business Institute in Raleigh, N.C.

Most third-generation family businesses, particularly those in South Florida, were started by a scrappy entrepreneur who saw business ownership as a way to provide for the family. Those businesses include grocery chains such as Sedano’s, restaurant operators such as Las Vegas Cuban Cuisine and airport concessionaires such as NewsLink.

Typically, in those businesses, the founder brought his kids with him to work, put them in the kitchen, the stock room, the sales floor, and taught them on-the-spot business lessons. Those kids eventually came to work full time and helped the company evolve beyond a seat-of-the-pants start-up into a more sophisticated business with processes and systems.

Now comes the third generation, who are more likely to have received formal business education before they return to the company. Often, they are able to leverage that training and move the company forward dramatically. But the succession also comes with challenges. They must keep the respect of longtime employees and show the same dogged commitment to seeing their company succeed, even after having already grown up enjoying the fruits of its success.

In successful third-generation businesses, the senior generation often stays on to ensure that commitment, adopting a role as mentor or advisor while creating an environment where younger family members can take on real responsibility, says Rivers, who consults for family businesses. “They get out of the way, let the next generation make their own mistakes, and gracefully exit when it’s appropriate.”





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Ex-Mayor Diaz to talk about new book at alma mater




















Congratulations to my friend and former Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, who has will be presenting his new book at 9:45 a.m. in the Roca Theater at his alma mater, Belen Jesuit Preparatory School, 500 SW 127th Ave. in West Miami-Dade.

His book is titled Miami Transformed: Rebuilding America, One Neighborhood, One City at a Time.

Born in Cuba, Diaz really is a Miami success story. He came to Miami when he was 6, and went on to become a local attorney and later mayor, serving two terms. He also served as president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.





Diaz is being presented by the Belen Alumni Association of Jesuit Schools from Cuba and Miami, the Ramón Guiteras Memorial Library and the school's Social Studies Department.

For those who are unaware, the school was founded in 1854 in Havana. In 1961, Belen and all private schools in Cuba were confiscated by the new political regime. That same year, Belen was re-established in Miami. Today the all-boys' school has an enrollment of 1,500 in grades six through 12 and has more than 6,000 alumni.

The program is free and open to the public.

Music for Overtown

The Overtown Music Project will have its annual fundraiser from 7 to 10 p.m. Saturday at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach. The program will include an 18-piece big band, along with hip hop, funk and soul.

According to Amy Rosenberg, spokeswoman for the fundraiser, the event will celebrate the connection between Overtown and the Fontainebleau, a hotel where Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie and Etta James once performed.

The program will include several musicians who played in Overtown's many venues during its heyday. The musicians are now in their 60s and 90s and will be showcased at the event.

Rosenberg said the event will fund the six annual events in Overtown, and three programs geared toward bringing music back to the area permanently.

For tickets and more information go to: www.evenbrite.com/event/5147700912 or www.overtownmusicproject.org.

Children’s Chorus

The Miami Children's Chorus will present a program, "Bring on the Boys," a singing workshop for boys with unchanged voices, from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday at the University of Miami Frost School of Music in the Victor E. Clarke Recital Hall, 5501 San Amaro Dr. in Coral Gables. Timothy A. Sharp is the music director for the Miami Children's Chorus..

The registration deadline is Thursday and the fee is $20 per person and $17 per person when registering five or more youngsters together.

For more information call 305-662-7494 or go to miamichildrenschorus.org or info@miamichildrenschorus.org.

Play looks at gay marriage law

A staged reading of the play 8 will be performed at 7 p.m., on Jan. 27, in Room E352 at the University of Miami School of Law. The play, written by Dustin Lance Black, chronicles the historic constitutional challenge to California's Proposition 8. Black is the Academy Award-wining screenwriter of Milk

The production of 8 will be staged under license from the American Foundation for Equal rights (AFER) and Broadway Impact. It will be directed by Marc Fajer, a member of the law school's faculty who has had more than 30 years of theatrical directing experience.

The performance was arranged by OUTlaw, a student organization at the University of Miami School of Law, that seeks to advance the priorities of the gay, lesbian, bisexzual and transgender community on the campus.





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Hundreds attend NYC memorial for Internet activist Aaron Swartz






NEW YORK (Reuters) – Supporters of Aaron Swartz, the 26-year-old Internet activist who committed suicide last week, gathered in New York to remember the computer prodigy on Saturday, with some calling for changes in the criminal justice system they blame for his death.


Swartz, who at 14 helped create an early version of the Web feed system RSS and believed the fruits of academic research and other information should be freely available to all, was found dead a week ago in his Brooklyn apartment.






The city’s chief medical examiner ruled the death a suicide by hanging.


He had been facing trial on federal charges he used the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s computer networks to steal more than 4 million articles from JSTOR, an online archive and journal distribution service.


Swartz, who had also worked on the popular website Reddit, had faced a maximum sentence of 31 years in prison and fines of up to $ 1 million.


“He told me about the 4.5 million downloads of scholarly articles, and my first thought was why isn’t MIT celebrating this?” Edward Tufte, an emeritus professor of computer science at Yale University and a friend of Swartz, said to applause from the crowd gathered in The Cooper Union’s Great Hall in Manhattan.


Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, Swartz’s partner, criticized what she described as MIT’s “indifference” to the saga, saying the school could have acted to end his prosecution.


The president of MIT said this week the school was investigating its role in Swartz’s case. JSTOR has said in a statement it settled any dispute with Swartz in 2011 and praised his “important contributions to the development of the Internet.”


CALL FOR CHANGE


At the memorial, attended by hundreds of friends and supporters, the strongest criticisms were reserved for prosecutors in the office of Carmen Ortiz, the U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts.


Roy Singham, the chairman of ThoughtWorks, a software consultancy firm where Swartz worked, called the case against Swartz “an abuse of state power” intended to intimidate Swartz. He called for the reform of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act under which Swartz was prosecuted.


Swartz’s partner said it all became too much for him to bear.


“He was so scared and so frustrated and more than anything so weary I just don’t think he could take it another day,” Stinebrickner-Kauffman said, adding the pair had discussed getting married after the trial.


Ortiz has defended her office’s actions, saying prosecutors “took on the difficult task of enforcing a law they had taken an oath to uphold, and did so reasonably.”


She said they offered Swartz a deal to plead guilty to multiple counts of wire fraud and computer fraud and spend six months at a low-security facility.


Swartz was remembered as a precocious talent who began addressing technology conferences as a teenager and whose quirks included being loath to wash his dishes and preferring bland foods like crackers and white rice.


Many speakers said he was by far the smartest and most intellectually curious person they had known, and called on those in attendance to continue his work of trying to widen the public’s access to information and communication channels.


Stinebrickner-Kauffman said Swartz disliked grand ceremonies and would have been uncomfortable with some aspects of his own memorial.


“But memorial services are for the living,” she said, repeating it several times like a mantra, “and last Friday he forfeited his right to decide that.”


(Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Xavier Briand)


Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Michelle Obama on Inauguration President Barack Obama

ET's Rocsi Diaz sat down first with First Lady Michelle Obama at the Kids' Inaugural Concert to discuss a variety of topics from her new hairstyle and birthday celebration to Lance Armstrong.


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Mrs. Obama debuted her shoulder-length bob with eye-level bangs via Twitter on her birthday, Thursday, January 17, and she told Rocsi that Dr. Jill Biden may have had an influence on her.

"I've been coveting [Dr. Biden's] bangs for four years," joked Mrs. Obama, quipping that they're "the bang sisters." She also revealed that husband President Barack Obama gave her a "beautiful necklace" as a recent birthday gift.

On the topic of Lance Armstrong's interview with Oprah in which he admits to doping, Mrs. Obama said, "I didn't even get a chance to see it. It's a sad situation for everyone who's watching ... I think we have to remember all the people that have been helped and who will continue to need the help of [The Livestrong Foundation]. We should focus on making sure that cancer survivors and people dealing with the disease have the kind of support, medical and research, that they need to deal with the situation. We can't lose sight of that accomplishment."

Rocsi will present at tonight's Kids' Inaugural, which marks the latest efforts by the First Lady and Dr. Jill Biden's Joining Forces initiative to urge Americans to support our troops, and our Gold Star and Blue Star families.

The First Lady described the event in a video message, explaining that it's about "celebrating who we are as Americans and the people who make our country great -- our men and women in uniform, our military spouses, and our amazing military kids. So it's no surprise that when Jill and I decided to host this event, everyone wanted to join us -- from Katy Perry to Glee, from Nick Cannon to Usher. They know that military kids serve this country right alongside their moms and dads, and we’re really looking forward to celebrating our military families this weekend."

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