Con Ed worker injured by explosion on UWS

On Friday a Con Ed worker was injured when a small electrical explosion burned his face and arms as he worked inside a tony Upper West Side apartment building, authorities said.

The explosion sent the unidentified Con Ed worker and one other injured person to New York Presbyterian Hospital/Cornell Medical Center in stable condition at about 12:50 p.m., the FDNY said.

The Con Ed worker suffered a flash burn to his face with first and second degree burns to his arms, neck and hands while working on a service box, Bob McGee, a spokesman for Con Ed said.

The other victim was burned on his hands, neck and face, FDNY officials said.

It wasn't immediately clear whether the second victim was a resident in the Windermere – an upscale building on West 92 Street and West End Avenue – but a Con Ed spokesman confirmed there was only one worker injured.

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Healthcare experts see bumpy road ahead: “Shift happens”

The healthcare industry in South Florida, like the rest of the country, faces huge challenges in the year ahead as major federal reforms kick in, experts told about 700 people at a University of Miami conference on Friday.

“We are at a critical time in health policy,” said Mark McClellan, former head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. “There are going to be some bumps along the way,” especially starting in 11 months, when the biggest changes in the Affordable Care Act kick in.

“Bumps may be understating what we may go through,” said Patrick Geraghty, chief executive of Florida Blue, the state’s largest health insurer.

They spoke at the conference on the Business of Healthcare Post-Election. The speakers accepted the federal reforms — often referred to as Obamacare — as not only inevitable but necessary. As Tom Daschele, a former Democratic U.S. senator from South Dakota, put it, “having 50 million uninsured is just unacceptable.”

But the reform act, signed into law in 2010, contains more than 2,000 pages, plus thousands of pages more of enabling regulations — details that will have major, and perhaps unexpected, impacts on the healthcare industry, which now makes up almost 20 percent of the nation’s economy.

In October, insurance exchanges will open for enrollment — groups that will allow individuals and small businesses to purchase policies with no exclusions for pre-existing conditions. Starting next January, virtually everyone will be required to have insurance, Medicaid will expand in many states, and businesses with more than 50 full-time equivalent employees will be required to provide insurance or pay fines.

“Jan. 1 is a very significant date,” said Steven Ulllmann, director of health policy programs at the UM business school. He called reforms “a process” that will change over time.

“The one thing we know is that healthcare reform will be reformed,” said Chris Jennings, a Washington health policy advisor for the Clinton administration and three senators.

Karen Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, the insurers’ trade group, said she had strong ideas about tweaks that could minimize disruption. One arcane, but crucial provision of the law requires that an older person’s policy can be no more than three times as expensive as a young person’s.

The provision will mean huge increases in the policies of younger persons, to pay for the much higher costs of their elders. Insurers are asking for that policy to be postponed for two years, retaining the present maximum spread of about five to one, so that younger people could sign up for insurance without huge sticker shock.

For example, if a 25-year-old pays $100 and a 60-year-old pays $500, the new rule would hike the younger person’s premium to $150 and cut the older person’s premium to $450 — a 50 percent increase for one and a 10 percent decrease for the other.

The thinking of lawmakers was that by lowering ratio, the costs of healthcare would be spread out and shared more equally by the population.

Anne Phelps, a healthcare principal with Ernst & Young, said she favored another change in the law, which now requires that next year a company with the equivalent of 50 employees to provide insurance for anyone working more than 30 hours a week or pay a fine. She thought the threshold should be raised to 32 or 34 hours.

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Feral cats to be trapped at federal wildlife refuges in Florida Keys

Efforts to protect native animals in Florida Keys wildlife refuges will trap feral cats and other unwanted "pests," say federal managers.

The "Final Integrated Pest Management Plan" for the Florida Keys National Wildlife Refuges, released this week, says U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service staff "will begin actively controlling and removing certain exotic animals from public lands within these refuges."

That includes national wildlife lands at Crocodile Lake on North Key Largo, National Key Deer Refuge based on Big Pine Key, and the Great White Heron and Key West refuges in the Lower Keys.

"They've been talking about this for several years but this is the first we've heard that they're actually going to begin implementation," said Jerry Dykhuisen, an officer of Forgotten Felines, a cat-rescue group in the Middle and Lower Keys.

Forgotten Felines and several other national animal groups oppose trapping feral cats, which often are considered unadoptable and put to death.

A number of conservation groups including the Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation and the American Bird Conservancy support the plan, saying birds and local endangered species have few defenses against predatory cats that do not belong in Keys wild areas.

"In terms of influencing the Lower Keys marsh rabbit or Key Largo woodrats chance of persisting, the significance of cat predation exceeds other threats," says the management plan. "Cats impact a remarkable proportion of species in affected communities."

White-crowned pigeons and many other protected bird species "depend upon Keys habitats to sustain them before and after long, over-water migrations," said Audubon Florida's Julie Wraithmell in an FWS statement. "This management plan helps ensure a future for these species in the Florida Keys."

Phillip Hughes, an FWS biologist and acting manager at the Key Deer refuge, said the agency will not mount a large-scale trapping program, but will place traps in known areas where cats and wildlife may come together.

Cats captured will be taken to local animal shelters where staff "can use their expertise regard final disposition of the cats..."

That could include trying to place the cats with "responsible pet owners or placement in long-term cat care facilities on the mainland."

The county-contracted shelter closest to Big Pine Key is based in Marathon.

"When they were talking about this before, there was a no-kill shelter on Big Pine where people could go to get their pets back," Dykhuisen said. "Now there's no shelter at all, so that's a complicating factor."

Iguanas, also considered an unwanted exotic species that eats plants needed by native wildlife, also could be targeted under the plan.

When the draft Pest Management Plan was published in late 2010, the Fish and Wildlife Service received 9,614 comments. The final plan says "over 99 percent" of those were "Internet-generated letters with standard comments."

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3 Things That Still Worry Me About BlackBerry

BlackBerry put on a pretty good show on Wednesday when it revealed the Z10 and the Q10, its first new smartphones in a year and a half. The demos were crisp, and the new BlackBerry 10 software looked clever. At the very least, it seems that BlackBerry has finally joined the modern smartphone era.

But despite my interest in BlackBerry’s new phones, I’m still worried about the future of the platform, and not merely because it’s been off the radar for a while. Looking at what BlackBerry did and didn’t announce, and what reviewers are saying about the product, gives me a few big reasons for concern:

Apps, Both Present and Future

BlackBerry deserves credit for having lots of apps out of the gate–more than 70,000, the company says–including some important ones like Twitter, Facebook, Angry Birds and The New York Times. Still, there are some big names missing from the list, including Netflix, YouTube, Spotify and Instagram. You can’t expect a new platform to have everything right away, though, so I don’t want to judge BlackBerry’s current app count too harshly.

It’s the future that I’m really worried about. What happens when the next Instagram comes out, and becomes a sensation on the iPhone and Android? Will BlackBerry be like Windows Phone–that is, just an afterthought in the minds of up-and-coming app developers? The good news is that Android apps are relatively easy to port to BlackBerry 10 (in fact, roughly 40 percent of those 70,000 launch apps are simple ports, ReadWrite notes), so RIM just has to convince developers to make a relatively small effort. We’ll see if they do.

Never Neglect Maps

The consensus among BlackBerry Z10 reviews is that its Maps app is subpar. The Verge complained about inaccurate data, and said the software couldn’t reliably find local businesses. CNet bemoaned a lack of features, such as walking directions, transit maps and street views. Apparently the software doesn’t even let you jump into the Maps app by tapping on an address or map in the web browser. That’s just basic stuff. At least the Maps app includes voice-guided turn-by-turn directions.

In any case, having a good mapping service isn’t just about telling you where to go. It’s about using your location to deliver useful information. Google Now, for instance, can warn you about traffic before your commute home, and Apple‘s Passbook can call up a boarding pass when you get to the airport. These days, a really good standalone Maps app is only part of the equation, and BlackBerry doesn’t even have that yet.

Voice Commands and Virtual Assistants

BlackBerry has added voice commands in its new phones, but the list of supported actions is paltry compared to what Android and the iPhone offer. You can’t ask for movie times, the weather forecast, directions, or things to do. You can’t tell the phone to start playing music, answer a trivia question, calculate numbers or set reminders.

You may argue that it doesn’t matter, that most people don’t rely too heavily on voice commands to begin with. I think that will change as these virtual assistants become faster and support more types of queries. They’ll also become more useful in automobiles–in fact, some car makers are now starting to integrate Siri–and they may some day play a big role in wearable computing, allowing you to communicate by voice when your phone is just out of reach. It’s still early days for this kind of technology, but Apple and Google already have a huge head start. BlackBerry, by comparison, is just getting started.

I’m not saying the new BlackBerry phones are no good, or that no one should use them. Like I said before, the software has some clever ideas, such as the Hub that combines all communications into one area, and the Balance feature that acts as a separate login for business use. But the smartphone industry moves quickly, and BlackBerry’s period of rebuilding has taken its toll in a few key areas. As with before, it’s going to be hard for the company to catch up.

MORE: Check out a video about the new hardware and features

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'Elementary': Lucy Liu, Jonny Lee Miller Preview the Post-Super Bowl Episode

Elementary has been given the ultimate network honors this year by being slotted after the Super Bowl. The timeslot gives the show, which is in its first season, exposure to its largest audience, and stars Lucy Liu and Jonny Lee Miller tease a good show.

The post-Super Bowl timeslot has helped many new shows get on their feet, as the audience for the NFL's championship game has averaged well over 100 million viewers in the past few years. The Voice experienced the reward of the timeslot last year for its Season 2 premiere, which garnered a whopping 37.6 million viewers.

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"I didn't understand completely what that meant that we were coming on after the Super Bowl because it's on a Sunday and our show comes on Thursdays," said Lucy Liu, who plays "Watson" in the Sherlock Holmes modern adaptation, "but...that only meant that [CBS was] incredibly excited and confirmed that they believe in the show."

With more eyes than usual on the new crime drama, Liu previewed the episode as amped-up in comparison to Elementary's previous thirteen episodes of its first season. More sex and action are to be expected.

VIDEO: Can Lucy Liu (Watson) Keep Sherlock Holmes Sober?

"I think it's dynamic in the way that it's still involves a procedural aspect of a murder," Liu revealed. "...There's a criminal that's unpredictable and that's what they are focusing on, and there's a side-story of Watson and her living situation...but there's a lot of sex and there's a lot of action in the show--more so than usual--and I think that dynamic actually plays really well into the Super Bowl."

While both Liu and Miller have previously been regulars on TV series, it has been a while for both of them since they have taken on a lead role on a show. Moreover, the two are acclimating to the nuances of this particular show.

VIDEO: Meet the Breakout Stars of the Fall TV Season

"It's a constant adjustment," said Miller, who plays "Sherlock Holmes" in the series. "... You're just getting in the flow and just understanding one episode and then someone hands you a new one which you're about to start in a few days. So, it's a great balance of being kept on your toes and keeping your head straight and discovering the characters."

Watch the video for a sneak peek of this Sunday's post-Super Bowl episode of Elementary, which airs Thursdays at 10 p.m. on CBS.

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At least two dead after suicide bombing at US Embassy in Turkey: police

AP

Emergency personnel are seen in front of a side entrance to the US Embassy following a blast in Ankara, Turkey Friday.

ANKARA, Turkey — A suspected suicide bomber detonated an explosive device at the entrance of the US Embassy in the Turkish capital on Friday, killing himself and one other person, officials said.

US Ambassador Francis Ricciardione told reporters that a guard at the gate was killed in the 1:15 p.m. blast, and a Turkish citizen was wounded.

The bomb appeared to have exploded inside the security checkpoint at the side entrance of the embassy, but did not do damage inside the embassy itself. Footage showed that the door had been blown off its hinges and debris littered the ground and across the road. An Associated Press journalist saw a body in the street in front of an embassy side entrance.

Police swarmed the area and several ambulances were dispatched. An AP journalist one woman who appeared to be seriously injured being carried into an ambulance.

The police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government rules, said police had examined security cameras around the embassy and had identified two people who could have been the suicide bomber.

The phones were not being answered at the embassy. "The US Embassy would like to thank the Turkish Government, the media, and members of the public for their expressions of solidarity and outrage over the incident," it said in a statement.

The embassy building is heavily protected. It is near an area where several other embassies are located, including that of Germany and France. Police sealed off the area and journalists were being kept away.

There was no claim of responsibility, but Kurdish rebels and Islamic militants are active in Turkey. Kurdish rebels, who are fighting for autonomy in the Kurdish-dominated southeast, have dramatically stepped up attacks in Turkey over the last year.

As well, homegrown Islamic militants tied to al-Qaida have carried out suicide bombings in Istanbul, killing 58, in 2003. The targets were the British consulate, a British bank and two synagogues.

In 2008, an attack blamed on al-Qaida-affiliated militants outside the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul left three assailants and three policemen dead.

In the November 2003 attack on the British consulate , a suspected Islamic militant rammed an explosive-laden pickup truck into the main gate, killing British Consul-General, Roger Short, and his assistant, Lisa Hallworth.

Turkey has become a harsh critic of the regime in Syria, where a vicious civil war has left at least 60,000 people dead. The first of six Patriot missile batteries being deployed to Turkey to protect against attack from Syria was declared operational and placed under NATO command on Saturday and others were expected to be operational in the coming days.

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Mompreneur jumps into the ‘Shark Tank’

It all started with a 4 a.m. email nearly a year ago: “Do you think a baby bib could change the world? I do...”

Then Susie Taylor included a link to her website, bibbitec.com, and off it went to Shark Tank, the popular ABC television show where entrepreneurs pitch their companies to investors on the show — and by extension, 7 million viewers.

Four months later, as the “mompreneur” was leaving her Biscayne Park home to pick up her kids from school, she got a call from the show asking her to pitch on the spot. Driving with her phone on her shoulder, she told the Bibbitec story.

Shark Tank bit. After a few more back and forths, her segment was filmed last summer.

Friday night, Taylor is scheduled to be on the show pitching Bibbitec’s main product, “The Ultimate Bib,” a patented generously sized, stain-resistant and fast-drying child’s bib made in the USA — Hialeah, to be exact. Bibbitec’s $30 bib can be a burp cloth, changing pad, breast feeding shield, full body bib, place mat, art smock and more, Taylor says.

We won’t be getting any details on what happens Friday night when she and her husband, Stephen Taylor, get into the tank with Daymond John, Mark Cuban and the other celebrity sharks; Taylor has been contractually sworn to secrecy. But whatever the outcome, she believes it will be worth it for the marketing pop.

Taylor was inspired to create her bib after a long and very messy plane ride with her two young sons and started Bibbitec in 2008. She and her team — her husband is CFO, her sister, Heather McCabe, handles sales and marketing, her uncle, Richard Page, is in charge of production, and her aunt, Marcia Kreitman, advises on design — have expanded the line to include The Ultimate Smock for older children and the Ultimate Mini for babies. Coming soon: a smock for adults.

Taylor already got a taste of what a national TV show appearance can do for sales. In September, Bibbitec’s sales jumped 40 percent after she was on an ABC World News "Made in America" segment. “Within 30 seconds, we started getting sales from all over the country and they didn’t even mention our name on the air,” Taylor says. She said that confirmed her belief that a Shark Tank appearance would be worth it.

Plus, Taylor has been hooked on Shark Tank since the first time she watched it in 2008 as she was developing her product. Trained in theater, she admits she didn’t know much about business and learned from the show. She would practice how she would answer the questions.

“I’m all about empowering women who are sitting on the couch watching, because that’s what I was four years ago,” says Taylor. “All I wanted to do was to be on Shark Tank because I believed if I got on Shark Tank the world will see what I am trying to do and that’s all I need. I know it’s a great product.”

Will that theater training come in handy Friday night? Stay tuned. Shark Tank airs at 9 p.m. on ABC and Taylor hopes viewers will join in on Twitter using the hashtag #sharkbib.

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Weather alert: Cool-down to the 50s expected Thursday, Friday nights

A cool front is heading our way.

Temperatures in South Florida are forecast to dip into the 50s starting Thursday night.

Whoo-hoo!

But before that, highs will rise to the mid- to upper-70s before cooling down overnight to the mid-50s with a breeze.

Friday night will be cool again, with lows in the upper-50s.

A similar patter is predicted through the weekend.

Click here for the full weather forecast.

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Nintendo chief rules out price cuts for Wii U

TOKYO (AP) — Nintendo‘s president Thursday ruled out price cuts for its new Wii U home console as a way to boost sales, vowing to become profitable again in its core businesses as smartphones and tablets increasingly threaten specialized game machines.

Satoru Iwata, speaking at a Tokyo hotel to investors and reporters a day after earnings were released, acknowledged the sales momentum for the Wii U, as well as the 3DS hand-held game machine, had run out of steam during the key year-end shopping season, especially in the U.S.

But he said no price cuts were in the works. Price cuts are common in the gaming industry to woo buyers, but the move can backfire by trimming revenue. The Wii U now sells for about $ 300 in the U.S. and 25,000 yen in Japan.

“We are already offering it at a good price,” he said.

Iwata said he expects operating profit of more than 100 billion yen in the 12 months ending March 2014, promising that as “a commitment.”

But he acknowledged more work was needed to have consumers understand the Wii U, which went on sale globally late last year, as well as producing more game software to draw buyers.

All game machines have suffered in recent years from the advent of smartphones and other mobile devices that have become more sophisticated and offer games and other forms of entertainment.

Nintendo returned to net profit for the April-December period of 2012 from deep losses the previous year, but that was due to a perk from a weaker yen, which helps Japanese exporters such as Nintendo.

Its operating result, which removes currency fluctuations, was a loss of 5.86 billion yen ($ 64 million), and Nintendo expects that to swell to a 20 billion yen ($ 220 million) loss for the full business year ending March 2013 as sales of its game consoles fall short of expectations.

Iwata said Nintendo is preparing more game software, including those developed in-house, for the end of this year.

Kyoto-based Nintendo, which makes Super Mario and Pokemon games, lowered its full year sales forecast Wednesday to 670 billion yen ($ 7.4 billion) from 810 billion yen ($ 8.9 billion). It also said it was going to sell fewer Wii U consoles for the fiscal year through March than its previous projection. The Wii U has a touch-screen tablet controller called GamePad and a TV-watching feature called TVii.

The company forecasts it will sell 4 million Wii U consoles for the current fiscal year, ending March 31, down from its earlier estimate of 5.5 million units. The Wii U, which went on sale late last year, was the first major new game console to arrive in stores in years.

Nintendo, also behind the Donkey Kong and Zelda games, lowered its full year sales forecast for Wii U game software units to 16 million from 24 million.

Iwata said last year holiday sales quickly dissipated in the U.S. and some European nations, including Great Britain, the key market. He said the U.S. home console sales were the worst for Nintendo in nearly a decade.

He said Nintendo needs hit games to push console sales, and the company remains confident Wii U will prove more popular with time.

“The chicken-and-game problem has not been solved,” he said of the need for both game software and machine hardware.

“I feel a deep sense of responsibility for not being able to produce results for our year-end business,” said Iwata.

He declined to say what he would do if the company failed to attain the promised operating profits.

Nintendo sank into a loss the previous fiscal year largely because of price cuts for its hand-held 3DS game machine, which shows three-dimensional imagery without special glasses. That machine is also struggling in most global markets.

Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo’s famed game designer, said what was missing were games for the Wii U that made its appeal clear. The progress in smartphones has also posed a challenge for Nintendo, he said.

“People have to try it to see it is fun,” Miyamoto said of Wii U.

___

Follow Yuri Kageyama on Twitter at www.twitter.com/yurikageyama

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Grammys Flashback: Rihanna 2008

There have been a few Barbadian natives and people with Barbadian descent to become stars over the years, but none have reached the cosmic heights of Rihanna. In 2008, the singer soared into the stratosphere with her first Grammy win, which sent her native Barbados into a frenzy.

Barbados has had successful entertainment personalities like musicians Grandmaster Flex and Doug E. Fresh, and also has star lineage if we include the Barbadian descent of LL Cool J, Cuba Gooding Jr., and even Gwyneth Paltrow.

PICS: Stars Set to Perform at Grammys

For some perspective, the island in The Lesser Antilles has a population of less than 288,000 (roughly the same as St. Paul, Minn.) and is a mere 166 square miles, which is small enough to fit nearly three times over in the city of Los Angeles alone.

Therefore, it's a collective celebration when triumph comes to Barbadian stars.

Only one Barbadian musician had won a Grammy prior to Rihanna (Jimmy Senya Haynes, Steel Pulse), so when she won for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration for "Umbrella," Barbados erupted and then-Prime Minister David Thompson gave the singer a phone call to applaud her achievement.

VIDEO: Grammys Flashback '05: Kanye Wins First of Many

"Everybody's excited. The Prime Minister just called and congratulated me," she tells ET's former correspondent Mark Steines backstage. "It's so awesome. Everybody at home was just screaming. I cannot believe we did it."

Barbados would have plenty of reasons for celebration in the years to come, as Rihanna has won the Best Rap/Sung Collaboration award twice more ("Run This Town," "All of the Lights") and also won Best Dance Recording for "Only Girl (In the World)."

VIDEO: Grammys Flashback '10: Taylor Swift Makes History

Now with four Grammys and a streak of three consecutive years with an award, the Barbadian singer has another opportunity to bring celebration back to her native island with nominations for Best Pop Solo Performance ("Where Have You Been"), Best Rap/Sung Collaboration ("Talk That Talk") and Best Short Form Music Video ("We Found Love").

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