Miami-Dade considering support for Dolphins’ tax plan




















The issue of tax-funded sports stadiums will soon be back on the Miami-Dade County Commission’s agenda.

Commissioner Barbara Jordan is slated to introduce a resolution Wednesday backing the Miami Dolphins’ plan to use a state subsidy and local hotel taxes to fund about half of a $400 million renovation of Sun Life Stadium. The resolution urges Florida lawmakers to pass a bill allowing the funding, and cites the upgrades’ ability to attract Super Bowl and other major events to the stadium.

The discussion comes roughly three years after a divided Miami-Dade commission backed borrowing about $360 million to build the Marlins a new $640 million baseball park in Little Havana. (The Marlins contributed $155 million, and Miami paid $120 million toward the complex, including a garage.)





The vote is widely credited with helping fuel the 2011 recall of then-mayor Carlos Alvarez. Dolphins insiders cite Marlins backlash as a major obstacle to winning tax dollars for the Sun Life renovation.

“If you give everything a little time, hopefully it heals a little bit,’’ said Rep. Erik Fresen, the original sponsor of the Dolphins’ stadium bill during the 2011 bid for a tax-funded renovation. “Last time, it was literally on the heels of the recall and everything that was so specific to the Marlins’ stadium.”

Dolphins owner Stephen Ross has pledged private dollars would fund the majority of the $400 million upgrade of the privately owned stadium. The bill would qualify Sun Life for $90 million in state tax dollars over 30 years, and allow Miami-Dade to increase mainland hotel taxes to 7 percent from 6 percent for the renovations. The tax increase would generate about $10 million a year under the current market conditions.

In recent days, the Dolphins have released endorsements from large hotels in the area, including the Fontainebleau, Intercontinental, Trump Doral and, most recently, a string of Marriotts owned by the MDM development firm.

The baseball debate continues to hover over local politics. Last fall, Jordan was targeted by an anti-Marlins group for defeat in a reelection campaign supported by the Dolphins. She was not immediately available for comment Friday evening.

Norman Braman, the auto magnate who tried to block the Marlins plan and targeted Jordan and other baseball supporters for defeat, said he expected the commission to back public dollars for the Dolphins, too.

“I think they’ve got all the chutzpah you can imagine,’’ he said of incumbent commissioners. “I would be shocked if the commission didn’t do this.”

Fresen, a Miami Republican and co-sponsor in the House of the new Dolphins bill, said he needs the commission to endorse the legislation before he pushes it will fellow lawmakers. Rep. Eddy Gonzalez, a Republican from Hialeah and co-sponsor of the bill, said he gives the Dolphins plan a 50 percent chance of passing the House.

“The entire delegation is not on board. We need a product everyone can live with,’’ he said.

The bill would create a special $3 million yearly stadium subsidy designed for Sun Life. The Dolphins currently receive $2 million a year from Florida under the current stadium subsidy program, tied to retrofitting the Miami Gardens facility to house the Marlins in the 1990s. The team moved out in 2011, and the Dolphins $2 million payments end in 2023.

While the bill opens up the subsidy to any renovation project where public dollars make up a minority of the funding, the language also restricts Florida from paying it to more than one stadium. Ron Book, the Dolphins’ lobbyist, said limiting the bill to one $3 million payout a year should make the proposal more palatable amid Florida’s continuing budget squeeze.

“You have to manage the economic impact to the state,’’ he said.





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Nintendo’s Wii U problems turn into a crisis






In just a week, the problems Nintendo’s (NTDOY) new home console is facing have cascaded into something sinister. The traditional post-New Year slump hit Nintendo’s home market in the week ending January 12 and exposed cruelly how weak the consumer interest in Wii U truly is. According to Famitsu, Wii U sales slumped from a pace of 70,000 per week to just 21,000. The ancient PlayStation 3 sold the exact same number of units, which is nothing short of a debacle for Nintendo. The hot portable console 3DS saw its sales slow down from 305,000 units to 106,000 units.  This means that Nintendo’s portable machine is now outselling the brand new home console by a 5-to-1 margin in Japan.


[More from BGR: BlackBerry 10 browser smokes iOS 6 and Windows Phone 8 in comparison test [video]]






No matter how weak the Wii U sales are now, they are likely to get worse. The launch dates of key games seem to be slipping from March quarter to June quarter, including the important Pikmin, Wario and Wii Fit franchises. The Wii U now must depend on Rayman and Lego City in coming months.


[More from BGR: Paid apps are history]


This is a scary prospect, because it now seems that Sony (SNE) is planning to unveil the PlayStation 4 in May and Microsoft (MSFT) is expected to announce the Xbox 720 in June. Nintendo rushed its console out in late 2012 to get a running start before the big guns of the home console industry grab the consumer interest with their new machines. That gambit may now be about to backfire in a spectacular manner. As demand for Wii U is already fizzling in Japan and key games slip from the first quarter of 2013, Wii U faces a very hard January-March period. Sony and Microsoft are then inevitably going to start leaking information about their new consoles in April-May time frame in the run-up to their big unveilings in the second half of the spring quarter.


The clock is ticking for Wii U. If consumers start smelling the scent of the grave emanating from the console just when Sony and Microsoft roll out their new gear, Wii U could face a sudden rejection in the market place by early summer. Nintendo needs some big new titles to revive its home machine very soon.


This article was originally published on BGR.com


Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Buzzmakers: Golden Globes Glamour and Jennifer Lawrence's Butt

1. Jennifer Lawrence: That's Not My Flabby Butt!

Jennifer Lawrence has been silent long enough! The Silver Linings Playbook actress showed up on the Late Show With David Letterman this week to both clarify her Meryl Streep comments during her Golden Globes acceptance speech, and set the record straight on a photoshopped pic of her bikini backside.

The actress is convinced that the paparazzi put a much older butt on her body while she was in Hawaii, telling Letterman as he held up the photo, "It's not my butt and I will not take responsibility for it. It's a 90-year-old butt that's been photoshopped onto my body, and is posing as my butt."

Causing roars of laughter in the audience, The Hunger Games beauty, 22, admits she's not the most photogenic person and she does have some "bloat" at times, but wants everyone to take away from her Late Show appearance Tuesday night that this is not her butt.

Lawrence also felt the need to address her Streep joke while at the Globes. The actress revealed that she was merely quoting Bette Midler in First Wives Club when she said Sunday night, "Look what it says, 'I beat Meryl.'"

"I had no idea Lindsay Lohan would take to the Twitterverse," she joked with Letterman. "Well, first of all it's Meryl Streep. You can't offend Meryl Streep."

2. Golden Globes Fashion Tops & Flops

Which star at the Golden Globes had the best dress, and which ones just looked like a hot mess? You decide!

Click through our gallery and vote here!

3. LeAnn Rimes Talks Infidelity & Her Ex

No topic was off limits when LeAnn Rimes sat down exclusively with ET's Nancy O'Dell.

The country superstar, whose controversial relationship with husband Eddie Cibrian has become both a blessing and a curse, tells Nancy her upcoming album Spitfire was born unexpectedly during her extra-marital affair with Eddie. In fact, a handful of infidelity themed tracks included in the album were initially written about a friend of hers while LeAnn was married to her ex, Dean Sheremet.

"What Have I Done is one of the first songs that I wrote for the record, before anything was actually starting to happen," said LeAnn. "It was written about a friend of mine, but I didn't realize I was writing it for myself at the time... It was my subconscious talking and I didn't know yet."

Speaking on the feelings that sparked her and Eddie's infamous affair, LeAnn acknowledged that her then husband had heard the troubling track and perhaps knew she would soon be led astray.

"He actually heard the song when I wrote it and, actually, he knew what it was about before I did," she reveals. "He knew I was feeling feelings. I'm not sure what those were that he knew."

Sighed LeAnn, "It's a very complicated situation."

When asked if she ever worries whether her husband Eddie would ever cheat on her, LeAnn admits that she does.

"I would be ignorant to say, and everyone else would think I am a liar if I didn't say yes, and I have at times," said LeAnn, going on to reveal that Eddie has had the same concerns about her.

"Speaking for him, I would actually say that's creeped into his [mind]…I think we've been very honest and open with that to each other and our conversations about it have only made me understand how much he actually cares, as much as I do, about being faithful to each other."

4. Mindy McCready's Boyfriend Dies from Self-Inflicted Gunshot Wound

More details into the death of Mindy McCready's boyfriend and father of her child David Wilson, who was found dead on January 13 at his Arkansas home, have surfaced.

McCready's rep, Kat Atwood, told People.com that Wilson suffered "a self-inflicted gunshot wound," adding, "Now they're working on funeral arrangements and figuring out where to go from here."

Following the news of her boyfriend's death, the country crooner was reportedly alone for the first 24 hours with her children. "Her family drove up from Florida," Atwood told the website. "I'm not exactly sure when they got there, but her personal friends arrived late last night."

"David was my soulmate," McCready, 37, said in a statement about the late singer-songwriter. "He was a precious gift from God to all of us and, yesterday, he returned home and is now with his mother and father. David loved and was loved. Those who knew and loved him will miss him; those who did know David missed the opportunity to know a truly loving and gifted man."

McCready and Wilson had been together for about two years, and share a 9-month-old son named Zayne (McCready has an older son Zander with country singer Billy McKnight).

5. Jessica Simpson on New Pregnancy: Eric Keeps Knocking Me Up!

Jessica Simpson told Jay Leno on Tuesday night's Tonight Show that she "needs to keep her legs closed" after getting pregnant twice and missing two planned wedding dates.

Wearing a leopard minidress that showed off her growing baby bump, the mommy-to-be admitted that she and her fiancé of two years Eric Johnson are planning to get married if they can quit having children. "We've had two different wedding dates, but he keeps knocking me up," Simpson, 32, joked. "We're doing it very backwards, I know. ... I'll just keep my legs crossed, I guess, this time."

The Weight Watchers spokeswoman, who reportedly lost 60 pounds after giving birth to daughter Maxwell this past year, revealed that this was not a planned pregnancy, telling Leno, "Apparently it was a part of God's plan for my life. I was extremely shocked because I was going through a lot of hormonal changes, trying to get back to the old, vibrant Jessica. You know, it was kind of like a one-night stand. And it happened, all over again!"

Simpson spilled the news on Tuesday that she'll be starring in a NBC show inspired by her life. The once Newlywed reality star quipped that the show will be about "a girl who keeps getting pregnant."

"We don't have a name yet," she confessed to Leno. "We're just now in the process of casting everyone, doing the pilot. I will be playing myself but we'll have actors playing Eric and my dad. That'll be funny."

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Lady Gaga to perform at inaugural ball








WASHINGTON — Watch out Beyonce and Katy Perry. There's another diva set to perform during the inauguration festivities — Lady Gaga.

A person familiar with the inauguration tells The Associated Press that the pop star will perform at Tuesday's ball for White House staffers. The source spoke on condition of anonymity because that person wasn't authorized to publicly reveal the information.

The staff ball is typically a private affair. During the last inauguration festivities, Jay-Z reportedly performed at it.

According to one attendee, Jay-Z rapped a riff on one of his hit songs, "99 Problems but George Bush Ain't One," to the delight of the throngs of young staffers who worked to elect Obama in 2008.





AP



Lady Gaga













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Miami-Dade considering support for Dolphins’ tax plan




















The issue of tax-funded sports stadiums will soon be back on the Miami-Dade County Commission’s agenda.

Commissioner Barbara Jordan is slated to introduce a resolution Wednesday backing the Miami Dolphins’ plan to use a state subsidy and local hotel taxes to fund about half of a $400 million renovation of Sun Life Stadium. The resolution urges Florida lawmakers to pass a bill allowing the funding, and cites the upgrades’ ability to attract Super Bowl and other major events to the stadium.

The discussion comes roughly three years after a divided Miami-Dade commission backed borrowing about $360 million to build the Marlins a new $640 million baseball park in Little Havana. (The Marlins contributed $155 million, and Miami paid $120 million toward the complex, including a garage.)





The vote is widely credited with helping fuel the 2011 recall of then-mayor Carlos Alvarez. Dolphins insiders cite Marlins backlash as a major obstacle to winning tax dollars for the Sun Life renovation.

“If you give everything a little time, hopefully it heals a little bit,’’ said Rep. Erik Fresen, the original sponsor of the Dolphins’ stadium bill during the 2011 bid for a tax-funded renovation. “Last time, it was literally on the heels of the recall and everything that was so specific to the Marlins’ stadium.”

Dolphins owner Stephen Ross has pledged private dollars would fund the majority of the $400 million upgrade of the privately owned stadium. The bill would qualify Sun Life for $90 million in state tax dollars over 30 years, and allow Miami-Dade to increase mainland hotel taxes to 7 percent from 6 percent for the renovations. The tax increase would generate about $10 million a year under the current market conditions.

In recent days, the Dolphins have released endorsements from large hotels in the area, including the Fontainebleau, Intercontinental, Trump Doral and, most recently, a string of Marriotts owned by the MDM development firm.

The baseball debate continues to hover over local politics. Last fall, Jordan was targeted by an anti-Marlins group for defeat in a reelection campaign supported by the Dolphins. She was not immediately available for comment Friday evening.

Norman Braman, the auto magnate who tried to block the Marlins plan and targeted Jordan and other baseball supporters for defeat, said he expected the commission to back public dollars for the Dolphins, too.

“I think they’ve got all the chutzpah you can imagine,’’ he said of incumbent commissioners. “I would be shocked if the commission didn’t do this.”

Fresen, a Miami Republican and co-sponsor in the House of the new Dolphins bill, said he needs the commission to endorse the legislation before he pushes it will fellow lawmakers. Rep. Eddy Gonzalez, a Republican from Hialeah and co-sponsor of the bill, said he gives the Dolphins plan a 50 percent chance of passing the House.

“The entire delegation is not on board. We need a product everyone can live with,’’ he said.

The bill would create a special $3 million yearly stadium subsidy designed for Sun Life. The Dolphins currently receive $2 million a year from Florida under the current stadium subsidy program, tied to retrofitting the Miami Gardens facility to house the Marlins in the 1990s. The team moved out in 2011, and the Dolphins $2 million payments end in 2023.

While the bill opens up the subsidy to any renovation project where public dollars make up a minority of the funding, the language also restricts Florida from paying it to more than one stadium. Ron Book, the Dolphins’ lobbyist, said limiting the bill to one $3 million payout a year should make the proposal more palatable amid Florida’s continuing budget squeeze.

“You have to manage the economic impact to the state,’’ he said.





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Gov. Rick Scott's staff ordered to testify in Carletha Cole trial




















Several current and former employees in the administration of Gov. Rick Scott are being ordered by a judge to testify in a sensational criminal case that centers on allegations of illegal taping.

It is still unclear whether Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll will be forced to answer questions in the criminal case against her former aide that has also included allegations of improper relationships in Carroll’s office.

Carletha Cole, who was fired last year, was arrested in 2011 and accused of giving a reporter a secret recording containing a conversation between Cole and Carroll’s chief of staff. Cole has not been charged with making the recording — nor have prosecutors said exactly when the recording was made.





Circuit Judge Frank Sheffield initially ruled that Carroll must answer questions from lawyers representing Cole. But then he changed his mind at the urging of Scott’s top lawyer. Sheffield said Carroll would be questioned last and only if Cole’s lawyers could show her testimony was needed.

Sheffield, however, made it clear that questions of Scott administration employees will be limited to illegal taping and whether or not top officials working for the governor had ordered widespread taping as alleged by Cole.

The judge said lawyers could not ask Carroll or anyone else about the lieutenant governor’s sexual preference or whether or not the her office was the "absolute worst place in the world to work."

"We are not going to try the lieutenant governor’s office," Sheffield said.

Cole’s attorneys have asserted that their client was being set up because she witnessed unprofessional behavior by Carroll and other employees, including walking in on Carroll and a female aide in a "compromising position." Carroll, who is a former Navy officer and married, has called the allegations "false and absurd."

Attorney Stephen Webster in court on Friday suggested other employees in Carroll’s office placed recordings on Cole’s computer and she assumed they were public records. A spokesman for the governor’s office has previously denied that there was a widespread policy of taping people.

It is against Florida law to record someone without consent, but there have been legal questions about recordings made in public buildings. Cole is charged with a third-degree felony and could face up to five years in prison.

The current and former employees who were ordered to answer questions include Carroll’s travel aide Beatriz Ramos, former chief of staff Steve MacNamara, and former chief of staff Mike Prendergast.

The Scott administration last year had tried to get the judge to shield both Ramos and Carroll from answering any questions but Sheffield denied the request.

Pete Antonacci, a former prosecutor and now general counsel for Scott, repeated the request on Friday and said that as an elected official that Carroll was "special" and she should not be subjected to questioning.

"It’s very clear from what the prosecutors said that she had no role," Antonacci told the judge.

Sheffield shot back that she "is not special" and that she and anyone else should be subject to questioning since the criminal case could result in Cole going to prison. But the judge then agreed to Antonacci’s request that Carroll’s deposition be delayed.

Sheffield on Friday also turned down requests for a long list of records and documents sought by Cole’s attorneys, including surveillance tapes, emails, calendars and phone logs of various administration employees. He did agree to allow some travel records and calendars of Carroll’s chief of staff to be turned over.

The tape recording at the center of the criminal case was placed on the website of The Florida Times-Union. On it John Konkus, the chief of staff for Carroll, can be heard saying that MacNamara, is afraid of Carroll. Konkus also complained that Scott "is not leading."





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With an air kiss or empty hug, Te’oing is Twitter craze






NEW YORK (Reuters) – Manti Te’o, the Notre Dame linebacker entangled in a girlfriend hoax that gives a whole new meaning to the term “air kiss,” is inspiring a new fad racing through social media: Te’oing.


An avalanche of pictures of people hugging empty chairs or puckering up to an otherwise empty room were posted to Twitter with the hashtag #Te’oing days after the college football star’s story about his girlfriend’s cancer death was exposed as a fraud. Not only did she never have leukemia, she never existed.






Notre Dame officials said Te’o told them he had been duped into believing he had an online relationship with the fictitious woman.


“Te’oing – Mile High Club edition” read one tweet with a photo of a man hugging the air in an airplane bathroom, an apparent reference to the whispered practice of having sex in mid-flight.


Clint Eastwood was hailed in several tweets as a “Te’oing” pioneer for the actor’s interlude with an empty chair at the 2012 Republican Convention. Other tweets showed Ronald McDonald Te’oing on his cozy bench and President Barack Obama spending quality time Te’oing with a vacant seat.


“Just some afternoon bubbly with my baby” said one Te’oing tweet with a photo of a man clinking his champagne flute against another that appeared to be suspended in mid-air.


The snarky social media frenzy recalled another similar trend called the “Tebowing,” named for New York Jets quarterback Tim Tebow, who frequently kneeled for on-field prayers and inspired copy-cat poses by people whose pictures flooded social media last year.


In its own riff on emptiness and romance, a Kentucky minor league baseball team, the Florence Freedom, has announced it will give away Manti Te’o Girlfriend Bobblehead dolls – actually empty boxes – to the first 1,000 fans at the May 23 game.


One section of the Florence, Kentucky, stadium has been reserved “for fans to sit with their imaginary friends, girlfriends/boyfriends or spouses” who may be caught on the “pretend kiss cam” and are invited to compete in an air guitar contest or an imaginary food fight.


(Writing by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Paul Thomasch and Vicki Allen)


Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Sneak Peek of The Wanted's I Found You Music Video

ET has been rolling out sneak peeks of The Wanted's highly anticipated music video for I Found You all week, and this brand new exclusive clip features the one and only Siva Kaneswaran!

Video: Max George Smolders in The Wanted's New Video

Click the video to check out the handsome 24-year-old showing off both his singing and guitar skills, with his outspoken band mate Jay McGuiness banging on the drums.

Video: The Wanted Teases 'I Found You' Music Video

The catchy jam is off their upcoming album Third Strike, out later this year. ET will premiere the full music video for I Found You Tuesday, January 22nd, and you can catch the video on Vevo.com and ETonline.com Tuesday night.

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2007 transcripts show Fed officials underestimated approaching financial crisis








WASHINGTON — Federal Reserve officials in 2007 underestimated the scope of the approaching financial crisis and how it would tip the U.S. economy into the worst recession since the Great Depression, transcripts of the Fed's policy meetings that year show.

The meetings occurred as the country was on the brink of the worst financial crisis since the 1930s. As the year went on, Fed officials shifted their focus away from the risk of inflation as they slowly began to recognize the severity of the crisis.

During 2007, the Fed began to cut interest rates and took extraordinary steps to ease credit and shore up confidence in the banking system. Throughout the year, the housing crisis deepened. Banks and hedge funds that had invested big in subprime mortgages were left with worthless assets as foreclosures rose. The damage reached the top echelons of Wall Street.





REUTERS



Ben Bernanke





At the Fed's Oct. 30 policy meeting, Janet Yellen, then-president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, said the economy faced increased risks. But she hardly predicted anything dire.

"I think the most likely outcome is that the economy will move forward toward a soft landing," she said.

Chairman Ben Bernanke noted that housing was "very weak" and manufacturing was slowing.

"But expect for those sectors, there is a good bit of momentum in the economy," he said. Bernanke did acknowledge that there was "an unusual amount of uncertainty" surrounding the Fed's economic forecasts.

"In the aggregate data, there is yet no clear sign of a spillover from housing," Bernanke said in summing up the views of the committee.

By December, the economy had plunged into the recession, which would last until June 2009. Five years later, the economy has yet to fully recover.

The Fed did take action in 2007, although investors seemed to think it waited too long. Markets were disappointed when the Fed refused to cut interest rate cuts at its Aug. 7 meeting. After the meeting, the Fed issued a statement declaring that the threats to growth had only "increased somewhat."

At the meeting, various Fed officials signaled their belief that the biggest threat facing the economy was inflation — not slower growth, the transcripts show.

Days later, BNP Paribas, France's largest bank, announced that it was suspending withdrawals from three investment funds, a move that jolted financial markets around the world.

On Aug. 10, the Fed held the first of three emergency conference calls to discuss the emerging crisis. The committee announced that it would pump billions of dollars into financial markets to try and calm turmoil on Wall Street and ease the tightening of credit.

One week later, the Fed called an emergency meeting to cut the discount rate on loans to banks.

Then in September, the Fed cut its key short-term interest rate for the first time since June 25, 2003. The Fed would cut the rate two more times in 2007 as the financial crisis worsened.

Still, the transcripts showed the central bank struggled through the year to develop a clear sense of how serious the unfolding crisis could be and what harm it might do to the U.S. economy.

At the Fed's final meeting of that year in December, the central bank's staff presented an economic forecast for 2008 that proved to be overly optimistic.

And despite concerns about the lending market and the quality of loans — particularly in real estate — Bernanke predicted that no major bank would fail.

"The result of this is that, although I do not expect insolvency or near insolvency among major financial institutions, they are certainly going to become more cautious."

In March 2008, investment banking giant Bear Stearns was rescued with the help of Fed support. In the fall, mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were taken over by the government and the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 set off a full-blown financial panic.










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Bioethics commission meets at UM to consider testing anthrax vaccine on children




















In “Dark Zephyr,” fictional terrorists released a cloud of anthrax on San Francisco. Adults were successfully vaccinated, but doctors didn’t know the safe dosage to give children.

Fortunately this was just a practice exercise in emergency response in 2011. But the realization that modern medicine had no protocol to protect children from a deadly bacterial pathogen prompted U.S. Secretary of Health Kathleen Sebelius to ask the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues to consider the ethics of using healthy children in anthrax vaccine research.

The discussion has taken the 13-person commission a full year. The central question is to find the balance between the hypothetical risk of not knowing how to treat children in an anthrax bioterrorism attack and the real risk to healthy children who would participate in a study.





The commission, composed of leaders in medicine, social policy and law, met at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine this week for the last of four sessions to publicly ponder these ethical issues. The UM Ethics Program has long been identified by the World Health Organization as one of the six global “Collaborating Centres for Bioethics.”

Amy Gutmann, the commission’s chair, reminded participants the commission’s role is advisory only. “The question we must address is whether the U.S. Government could ethically support a pediatric [anthrax vaccine] study under any circumstance,” Gutmann said. “We will not render a final decision as to whether a particular study should move forward. Nor are we working to justify any particular protocol or outcome.”

An existing vaccine is routinely administered to adults in the military and other fields to protect against anthrax spores that are deadly if inhaled. Before the vaccine can be ethically researched with children, new trials in young adults should occur, said Col. Nelson Michael, director of the U.S. Military HIV Research Program and member of the commission. These studies would administer lower doses of the vaccine to determine the safest dosage in 18- to 20-year old adults.

Such studies would not be efficacy studies, however, which have been done in animals. Researchers would never infect humans with anthrax for a study, according to Michael, who is an expert in vaccine research.

“It would be completely unethical to conduct an anthrax challenge trial in humans,” Michael said.

The issues surrounding this research question are unprecedented in bioethics for a few reasons, according to Lisa Lee, the director of the commission’s staff. First, testing an anthrax vaccine on healthy children is unlike other pediatric research because research subjects will enjoy no direct benefit, as would, for example, a child with cancer who could be saved by previously untested treatment.

Second, anthrax is not a naturally occurring disease, and the probability of an attack is “unknowable.’’ The capability to use anthrax as a biological weapon is widely acknowledged, since letters infected with anthrax spores were sent to politicians and media outlets in 2001, killing five people. (A 2010 FBI investigation blamed the attacks on an Army scientist who helped develop the anthrax vaccine and later committed suicide.) Security analysts have presented their interpretation of the likelihood of a bioterrorism attack, but even the best intelligence cannot put a percentage on the chance that terrorists will unleash anthrax on American cities.





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Amazon holiday results to show sales tax impact






SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Acting as a tax collector may have hurt Amazon.com, Inc’s holiday sales analysts and industry executives said, but they expect to know more when the internet retailer reports its fourth-quarter results on January 29.


Best Buy Co., an archrival of Amazon in consumer electronics, saw holiday online sales increase in three states where Amazon started collecting sales tax ahead of the period.






“There was a little softness in states where Amazon is now collecting sales tax,” said R.J. Hottovy, an equity analyst at Morningstar. “That isn’t surprising to me. It levels the playing field for brick-and-mortar retailers.”


Critics of Amazon argued it had an unfair advantage because most retailers have had to collect state sales tax on online sales for years because they have stores and other physical operations in these locations.


But many states, hungry for extra tax revenue in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, introduced new laws requiring that Internet-only retailers also collect sales tax. Brick-and-mortar retailers hope the requirement will reduce Amazon’s price advantage and help them recoup lost sales.


CHANNELADVISOR DATA


Amazon, the world’s biggest Internet retailer, began collecting sales tax of 7.25 percent to 9.75 percent in California on Sept 15, about two weeks before the start of the fourth-quarter. Third-party sellers on Amazon.com saw a drop in sales during the quarter, compared to other states, according to an analysis by e-commerce firm ChannelAdvisor.


It also started collecting sales tax in Pennsylvania in September and in Texas in July.


Amazon’s fourth-quarter results should provide clues on whether consumers changed their shopping habits when faced with higher taxes on their purchases from the company’s website.


ChannelAdvisor, which helps merchants sell more online, analyzed its clients’ sales on Amazon.com in California, and compared them to other states before and after the sales tax kicked in.


Before Amazon began collecting the tax in California, ChannelAdvisor client sales were 5 percent to 10 percent above other states. The week before the September 15 start of the tax, sales spiked as high as 70 percent compared to other states.


“The surge before the tax went into effect was much larger than I thought it would be,” said Scot Wingo, chief executive of ChannelAdvisor. “Californians definitely bought a lot in the three or four days before the tax went into effect.”


After Amazon began collecting tax, its California sales leveled with other states. Then, in early November, they slipped as much as 10 percent below other states, ChannelAdvisor data showed.


During one of the busiest holiday periods, in late November and early December, sales dipped further in California vs other states. Toward the end of the holiday period, client sales in California recovered, the data showed.


“There was a sales impact of about 10 percent at the worst point of the dip,” Wingo said. EBay, another Amazon rival, is an investor in ChannelAdvisor. Wingo also owned Amazon shares, but sold them in the fourth quarter for personal tax-related reasons.


Amazon’s tax collection in California had the most impact on fourth-quarter sales of more expensive items priced at $ 200 to $ 250, Wingo said.


PRICES, PROFIT


Amazon probably lowered prices by 8 percent to 9 percent on items most affected by this, although it is tricky to separate such reductions from the usual holiday season promotions that were also happening, Wingo said.


The extra price competition may dent Amazon’s profitability in the fourth quarter, Morningstar’s Hottovy said.


Amazon is expected to make 52 cents a share in the fourth quarter, on revenue of $ 22.3 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. In late October, the company forecast operating results ranging from a profit of $ 310 million to a loss of $ 490 million.


Hottovy expects $ 22.4 billion in revenue and an operating loss of $ 210 million, or a $ 135 million loss after excluding stock-based compensation and other operating expenses.


BEST BUY


In California, Texas and Pennsylvania, Best Buy said it saw a 4 percent to 6 percent increase in online sales during the holiday versus the rest of its chain.


The retailer also saw an increase of 6 percent to 9 percent in online orders that are picked up in its stores in those three states compared with the rest of its chain.


Overall, Best Buy reported better-than-expected holiday sales last week, sending its shares up more than 10 percent.


“This makes Amazon equal to everyone else. They no longer have that sales tax advantage,” said Anne Zybowski, vice president of retail insights at Kantar Retail. “If this had happened to Amazon when they were just a bookseller years ago, they may not be as big as they are now.


Despite the tax changes, Amazon’s consumer electronics prices were still at least 5 percent below Best Buy’s during the holiday season, Zybowski said. But Best Buy may have benefited from even a small change in this area.


“Particularly in consumer electronics, any narrowing of Amazon’s price advantage at the margin is important because Best Buy brings service and other shopper benefits to the category,” she said.


Best Buy will take away people’s old TVs when they buy a new one and the company’s Geek Squad service will install devices in shoppers’ homes, services Amazon does not provide, she noted.


An Amazon spokesman declined to comment when asked if the company saw an impact on fourth-quarter sales from the collection of sales taxes in the three states.


In the past, Amazon executives have said there was little or no impact from such changes in other regions.


Several analysts have argued that shoppers use Amazon for its vast product selection and convenient, fast shipping and returns, and not just its low prices.


“While not great for Amazon, it’s just one of many consumer benefits its service offers,” said Ken Sena, an analyst at Evercore Partners. “And while there may be early effects from this change, I still see usage trends remaining in Amazon’s favor.”


(Editing by Leslie Gevirtz)


Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Advice Columnist Dear Abby Dies

Longtime newspaper advice columnist Pauline Friedman Phillips -- who wrote Dear Abby under the name Abigail Van Buren -- has died at age 94.

Her publicist confirmed to the Associated Press that Phillips died Wednesday after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease.

Since her family revealed in 2002 that Phillips had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, her daughter, Jeanne Phillips (pictured above), has been the sole author for the syndicated Dear Abby column.

Phillips' column competed for decades with the advice column of Ann Landers, which was written by her twin sister, Esther Friedman Lederer, who died in June 2002. 

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JM Family Enterprises and Baptist Health South Florida make FORTUNE’s list of best companies




















Two South Florida companies made the ranking on FORTUNE magazine's 2013 list of the “100 Best Companies to Work For” in America, released on Thursday.

Diversified automotive company JM Family Enterprises, based in Deerfield Beach, was ranked No. 32, marking its 15th consecutive year on the list. Two-thirds of the company’s score is based on responses to an anonymous survey sent to 1,664 randomly selected associates in the United States, and the remainder is determined by an evaluation of the company’s overall culture, JM Family Enterprises said.

Baptist Health South Florida also made FORTUNE’S list, coming in at No. 76. Baptist Health, based in Miami, has 14,145 employees, up 6.8 percent in 2012, according to FORTUNE.





INA PAIVA CORDLE





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Driver in Rickenbacker Causeway cyclist death to be sentenced




















A motorist who killed cyclist Aaron Cohen in a hit-and-run crash on the Rickenbacker Causeway will learn his fate Wednesday.

A Miami-Dade judge on Wednesday afternoon will sentence Michele Traverso, 26, who earlier pleaded guilty for the crash that killed Cohen last February.

The fatality, and a similar hit-and-run wreck in 2010, has renewed calls for increased safety for cyclists and joggers on the popular causeway. Fellow cyclists staged a memorial ride and erected a billboard overlooking Interstate 95 in Cohen’s honor.





Members of Miami’s avid cycling community are expected to be on hand for the 1 p.m. sentencing.

Traverso, driving on a suspended license, struck Cohen and cycling partner Enda Walsh as the two rode in the northbound lanes near the crest of the bridge. Traverso surrendered to police 18 hours after the crash.

Though there were reports of Traverso drinking in Coconut Grove that night, investigators could not prove that his blood alcohol content level was above the legal limit because of the delay in turning himself in.

Traverso pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident involving a death, leaving the scene of an accident with great bodily harm, and driving with a suspended license. He also pleaded guilty to earlier cocaine possession charge.

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge William Thomas could sentence him to as little as 22.8 months in prison, and as much as 35 years behind bars.

In May, Thomas told Cohen’s widow, Patricia Cohen, that he would be unlikely to deliver the maximum sentence, although he could consider “20 or 25 years” after hearing from her and Traverso’s own family at a possible sentencing.

The Cohen family is suing Traverso and his father, who owned the car.





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Facebook search to generate revenue, no rival to Google: analysts






(Reuters) – Facebook Inc’s new search tool has strong potential to generate revenue for the social networking company, though it is unlikely to challenge Google Inc as the world’s dominant search engine, Wall Street analysts said on Wednesday.


Facebook’s “graph search” tool, rolled out on Tuesday, lets its more than 1 billion users trawl their network of friends to find everything from restaurants to movie recommendations and is the company’s biggest foray into online search.






Graph search contains some category suggestions that can be easily monetized, BofA Merrill Lynch analysts said in a note.


“It should be easy to incorporate commercial search results via Facebook’s partnership with Bing,” they added.


Facebook currently has a partnership with Microsoft Corp, whose Bing search engine provides search results for external websites. Microsoft also integrates certain Facebook results into its Bing search results.


BofA Merrill Lynch analysts estimated Facebook could add $ 500 million in annual revenue if it can generate just one paid click per user per year, and raised its price target on the stock by $ 4 to $ 35.


Facebook’s shares were flat at $ 30.10 in early trading on Wednesday. They have jumped about 50 percent since November to Tuesday’s close after months of weakness following its bungled Nasdaq listing in May.


However, analysts at J.P. Morgan Securities said the lack of a timeline for the possible launch of graph search on mobile devices may weigh on the tool’s prospects.


The success of the graph search, which will rely heavily on local information, depends on Facebook launching a mobile product, the analysts said. Half of all searches on mobile devices seek local information, according to Google.


Graph search also lacks the depth of review content of Yelp Inc, the analysts added.


Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Wieser said monetization potential would be largely determined by Facebook’s ability to generate a significant portion of search query share volumes and he expects that quantity to be relatively low.


“Consumers are likely to continue prioritizing other sources, i.e. Google. Advertisers would consequently only use search if they can, or are perceived to, satisfy their goals efficiently with Facebook,” Wieser said.


NO GOOGLE KILLER


Analysts mostly agreed that Facebook’s search tool was unlikely to challenge Google’s dominance in web search at least in the near term.


“As of now, we do not see Graph Search as a threat to Google Web search. Looking forward, Facebook Graph searches could be competitive with certain categories of Google searches, such as Places and Maps,” BofA Merrill said.


Internet search, social networking tools and e-commerce are among the biggest weapons that companies such as Facebook, Google and Amazon.com Inc have in their battle for supremacy. A successful combination of the three could win the day for them.


Google has been trying to combine social networking and search for more than a year by integrating Google+ into its search engine.


“Overall, Graph Search offers users a unique view to information not available on Google, but does not replace Google. We view the relationship between Facebook Graph Search and Google as both competitive and complementary,” Piper Jaffray & Co analysts said.


The brokerage said users looking to buy a cellphone, for example, could search for friends’ reviews on Facebook and expert reviews on Google.


(Reporting by Sayantani Ghosh in Bangalore; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)


Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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First ET Interview: Naomi Watts

Naomi Watts is making waves with her intense performance in The Impossible, and now we're flashing back to Naomi's first-ever ET interview, when she sported brunette locks and was starring in a 1996 TV movie.

Video: 'Impossible' Oscar Buzz Makes Naomi Watts Nervous

Naomi starred opposite James Earl Jones, Ellen Burstyn, Richard Thomas and Kevin Kilner in Timepiece, a drama about an old clockmaker who faces racism and is tried for murder. The film is set in the 1940s, and despite the serious nature of the plot, the mood was light on the set as Naomi was filming a Christmas scene and enthusiastically reminiscing about her own family's holiday traditions.

Video: Naomi Talks Princess Diana Movie

There's also a fun outtake featuring Naomi and co-star Kilner doing a holiday promo for ET; Kilner gets uncomfortably close to Naomi, and you can see her blush while attempting to keep her composure…

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Flu activity high in all regions of NJ








TRENTON, NJ — The New Jersey Health Department says flu activity is now high in all regions of the state.

But Health Commissioner Mary O'Dowd said Wednesday that the flu vaccine has shown to be "a very good match" for the various strains that have been circulating in the state.

Three of the state's five regions had reported moderate flu activity last week, but the number of cases in those areas has increased in recent days.

O'Dowd says those who get the flu should stay home for at least 24 hours after their fever is gone without the use of a fever-reducing medicine, except to get medical care.











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Miami Dolphins bill would bring state money to aging stadiums




















A bill drafted by the Miami Dolphins would give Florida sports teams $3 million a year in state money to improve older stadiums, provided the owner pays for at least half the cost of a major renovation.

Under the law, the stadium would need to be 20 years old and the team willing to put in at least $125 million for a $250 million renovation. That’s less than the $400 million redo of Sun Life Stadium that Dolphins owner Stephen Ross proposed this week, which he hopes will win state approval thanks to his offer to fund at least $200 million of the effort to modernize the 1987 facility.

Miami-Dade and Florida would fund the rest through a mix of county hotel taxes and state general funds set aside for stadiums. Sun Life currently receives $2 million a year through the program, and the Dolphins want to create a new category that would give them an additional $3 million.





While the Miami Marlins and Miami Heat both play in stadiums subsidized by county hotel taxes, the Dolphins receive no local dollars. The bill would change that by allowing Miami-Dade to increase the tax charged at mainland hotels to 7 percent from 6 percent, and eliminate the current rule that limits the money to publicly owned stadiums. Sun Life Stadium, in Miami Gardens, is privately owned but sits on county land.

The bill pits enthusiasm for one of Florida’s most popular sports teams against a lean budget climate and lingering backlash against the 2009 deal that had Miami and Miami-Dade borrow about $485 million to build a new ballpark for the Marlins. Ross also must navigate a Republican-led Legislature that has twice rebuffed his requests for public dollars.

“I would be surprised if that bill even got a hearing in committee,” said Mike Fasano, a Republican representative from the Tampa area and a critic of tax-funded sports deals. “I’m a big Dolphin fan, and have been for years. But with all due respect, we’ve got people who are struggling throughout this state right now . .. The last thing we should be doing is giving a professional sports team or facility additional tax dollars.”

While the bill would open up the $3 million subsidy to other the teams, the Dolphins see it as unlikely that another owner would be willing to put up as much money for renovations as Ross, a billionaire real estate developer.

If the bill were enacted today, any stadium opened before 1993 would be eligible for the money, provided it could show the proposed renovation would generate an additional $3 million in sales taxes.

Ross and his backers are pitching the renovation as a boon to tourism, with Sun Life a magnet for the Super Bowl, national college football games and other major events. The National Football League is considering South Florida and San Francisco for the 2016 Super Bowl, and the Dolphins say approval of renovation funding is crucial to winning the bid.

Sen. Oscar Braynon, D-Miami Gardens, who sponsored the Senate bill, said the funding makes sense because when Sun Life hosts a Super Bowl, the entire state benefits from both tourism dollars and publicity.

“It’s a small price to pay for economic development, and for all the shine we get from major sporting events,” said Braynon, whose district includes Sun Life. Rep. Eduardo “Eddy” Gonzalez, R-Hialeah, is the sponsor on the House side.





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Gov. Scott scolded by legislative black caucus




















Gov. Rick Scott heard a litany of complaints Tuesday from the Legislative Black Caucus, on matters ranging from judicial appointments to civil rights for ex-felons. Throughout an hour-long discussion, the Republican governor held his ground in the face of grievances from Democratic lawmakers.

Criticized for making only a handful of black appointments to the judiciary, Scott said he’s limited to the choices given him by nominating panels and won’t appoint judges who believe in “judicial activism.” He said 6.5 percent of his judges are African-American (Florida’s black population is more than twice that). But Scott broke the tension by pointing out that he has appointed the wives of Reps. Darryl Rouson, D-St. Petersburg, and Joe Gibbons, D-Hallandale Beach, to state boards.

Faulted for signing a flawed election law that cut back the days of early voting, Scott said: “We’ve got to make changes, I agree. I didn’t have anything to do with passing it.” Scott’s administration, however, did spend more than $500,000 in legal fees last year successfully defending the law against numerous legal challenges.





Black lawmakers make up about one-fifth of the Legislature’s membership. They remain angry at Scott for one of his first decisions as governor: He and the three Republican Cabinet members imposed a five-year waiting period after ex-felons leave prison before they can apply for restoration of their civil rights.

“Once you’re out as a felon, you should spend time making sure you’re doing the right thing before you get your rights back,” Scott told the group, seated around a large square table.

The meeting ended with a plea that Scott appoint a task force to look at disparities in sentencing that affect young black men. Scott did not directly respond to the request.

“It’s deja vu all over again from last year,” said Sen. Arthenia Joyner, D-Tampa, as the session ended. “He’s still stuck on judicial activism. He wants everyone to think like him. He wants to run the state like a corporation, like it’s Florida, Inc. He’s not flexible on a lot of things.”





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Apple supplier sees big Q4 boost, likely a good sign for iPhone 5 demand






Shares of Apple (AAPL) have been hit hard over the last few days. Investors continue to worry about the company’s profit margins, demand for its popular line of smartphones and tablets, and its future endeavors. With upcoming competition from Research in Motion (RIMM) and Microsoft (MSFT), and an ongoing battle with Google’s (GOOG) Android operating system, analysts fear that Apple’s mobile dominance may be a thing of the past. While we won’t officially know anything until the company reports its holiday earnings on January 23rd, a small German company has painted a calming picture for Apple shareholders.


[More from BGR: HTC One SV review]






Dialog Semiconductor announced last week that it expects to report a significant increase in sales for its December quarter. The company noted that the increase was due to “a stronger than anticipated end of year, underpinned by a strong late surge in demand for smartphone and tablet products.” Dialog Semiconductor now expects to report revenues of $ 268 million, an increase from between $ 215 million and $ 235 million.


[More from BGR: Extensive BlackBerry Z10 demo video posted by German website [video]]


The important thing to note is that, as of this past fall, Apple is Dialog’s largest customer and accounts for 60% of its total revenue.


Logic dictates that solid demand for Apple’s iPhone and iPad during the holidays helped boost Dialog’s performance. This could also mean that the iPhone-maker will report not only a strong December quarter, but a better-than-expected March quarter as well.


It looks like all this talk about customers losing interest in Apple may indeed be premature.


This article was originally published on BGR.com


Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Justin Bartha The New Normal Interview

Save for Burt and Kurt Hummel, creating empathetic families has never been Ryan Murphy's strong suit. In fact, he's built an incredibly successful empire on the backs of the dysfunctional McNamara, Harmon and McQueen/McPherson clans. But with The New Normal, Murphy and co-EP Ali Adler have presented one of the most adorable blending broods currently on TV, reminding the world that it truly does take a village.

In tonight's all-new episode, titled Stay-At-Home Dad, that fact is hammered home in both Brian and David as each believes he could trade in his career for a permanent position driving carpool. ETonline caught up with star Justin Bartha to talk about this episode (one of his favorites yet), what it means to be part of a show like The New Normal and why he signed up in the first place.


ETonline: The evolution of the show, and its characters, has been great to watch. What have you thought of the season so far?


Justin Bartha: The first season of a TV show is very hard, and in trying to speak objectively, I think we started off on a high note. It's very hard to get your footing so fast. There's a lot of early episodes that I think are really great television. As everyone gets to know these characters and how they relate to each other, we're settling into something that feels like a family, which I think every show tries to obtain.


RELATED - Ryan Murphy Makes ET's Entertainers Of the Year List


ETonline: What have you enjoyed learning about David as the season progresses?


Bartha: On a TV show, since you get a chance to sit with a character for a long slow burn, there's a certain point where you start thinking as the character, and your point of view changes as the character's point of view changes. The heart of our show is the way this group of people connect and how their points of views change as the characters get to know each other, so that's been the biggest enjoyment for me. David's evolution is such a living thing, and because the other actors are so talented, everything is changing week to week because of what the actors are doing with their characters.


ETonline: I've loved the flashbacks we've seen of Brian and David's pre-pilot lives. How helpful has it been to have a tangible reference point like that?


Bartha: Oh my god, it's absolutely invaluable. Those are some of the most fun things to shoot because the show is about how all these characters from different backgrounds and points of view relate to each other and evolve over this short amount of time. In the episodes coming up, you'll see snippets of them as children, which really helps the audience fill in the pieces of who these people are. And for the viewers stuck on the sexuality aspects, those moments really show how everyone is the same at their core.


RELATED - 6 Best New Shows of 2013


ETonline: There was so much controversy around the show before it actually premiered, now that The Million Moms have marched away, what kinds of reactions have you gotten from fans?


Bartha: The fans have been overwhelming generous and nice. Because of how strong the writing is and how talented this cast is, the material is handled with such respect, so I think the fans are responding because it's kind of a fresh take on what a half-hour comedy is. We didn't want to do the usual sitcom, obviously you can't get away from certain aspects of that, but we wanted to have a different vibe, and I think people are responding to that fresh take while also loving the characters.


ETonline: Would you have been interested in doing a more traditional sitcom?


Bartha: The one thing we all talked about before I even signed on to do the show is that we all [Ryan Murphy, Ali Adler, Andrew Rannells] very much wanted to portray a couple in the most realistic way possible. That includes intellectually, comically, sexually. Everything has to be on the table because the only way people will care about the characters is if they seem authentic. It was a concerted effort to do that, and that's part of the journey -- not everything is funny all the time, you can't always have characters hanging out and making quips. And if they are, they're probably hiding something. We wanted to be as real as possible, and if it's grounded in that reality, even if it's uncomfortable for some people, hopefully it will transcend the usually throwaway entertainment you see on other channels.


ETonline: What can you tease about tonight's episode?


Bartha: For me, this is very much the epitome of what our show is trying to say. I love this episode. You'll see a jumping off point to the guys as fathers, and for whatever fantasy you have about what it's like to be a parent, actually being a parent is nothing like that. It's not to be taken lightly, and they both feel they have what it takes, in different ways, to quit their lives and just be a dad. Brian and David both have these fantasies and they get a chance to practice with Shania. You'll see how they both take on the responsibility of actually being a father and if they have what it takes.


ETonline: Speaking of Bebe Wood [who plays Shania], I am astounded by her performance every week. How cool is it to see such a young actor bring so much to the table?


Bartha: What's interesting about Bebe is you forget she's a child. There are very rare moments on set where she acts like a little kid. Sometimes Andrew and I will turn to one another and say, "Oh yeah, she is a child!" You honestly forget because she's so fantastic -- she's my favorite actress right now. She's such a fun person to be in a scene with and she's genuinely funny. A lot of times, especially with kid actors, they're just reciting lines and those become funny because a kid is saying it. Bebe has the unique ability to actually make something funny. I don't even know how that works. It's so much fun to watch.


The New Normal
airs Tuesdays at 9:30 p.m. on NBC.

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Global entrepreneurship nonprofit Endeavor coming to Miami




















Flawless execution helped propel Argentine Marcos Galperin’s e-auction site, Mercado Libre, above the competition to become a $3.8 billion company. Some 50,000 small businesses now use it to market their wares.

Leila Velez and Heloísa Helena Assis, cousins who grew up in the slums of Rio, started with one product and one salon. Today their company, Beleza Natural, operates 24 salons that bring in $75 million in revenues, employs 1,500 people and has an eye on U.S expansion.

Both were powered, in part, by Endeavor, a global nonprofit that selects, mentors, supports and accelerates high-impact entrepreneurs in metropolitan areas of 16 countries — and, soon, in Miami.





Endeavor and its local supporter, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, announced Tuesday that Knight is providing Endeavor with $2 million in grant funding over five years for Endeavor’s first U.S. expansion. Endeavor’s Miami office could ultimately service dozens of local entrepreneurs, but first a local board needs to be assembled, a managing director hired and offices set up.

Beginning late this year, South Florida’s innovators will be able to apply to become Endeavor Entrepreneurs, connecting them to a global network of mentors and advisors who can help grow their ventures. “We think this is a cornerstone of making Miami more of a place where ideas are built,” said Matt Haggman, Miami program director for the Knight Foundation, which has made entrepreneurship a key focus of its Miami program.

The announcement is an important milestone in Miami’s efforts to accelerate an entrepreneurial ecosystem, which has been gaining momentum, said Haggman, who led the effort for Knight, its largest investment in entrepreneurship to date. Accelerators, incubators and co-working spaces have been opening up, including Launch Pad Tech, which is receiving $1.5 million in public funding and opens for its first class next week. Last month, the first ever Innovate MIA week attracted hundreds of entrepreneurs, investors and other supporters to a packed schedule of daily events, which included the Americas Venture Capital Conference and Endeavor’s International Selection Panel.

“Miami is almost the perfect seeding ground for Endeavor,” said Peter Kellner, co-founder of Endeavor and now an Endeavor board member, an investor and South Florida resident who began discussing the project with Haggman in the spring. “There are commitments from large institutions like Knight, FIU, UM, there is capital, there are people that are interested in making things happen, there are already clusters of activity like accelerators and incubators. That’s where Endeavor thrives.”

Endeavor selects and works primarily with companies from a wide range of industries that are already earning $500,000 to $15 million in annual revenue and ready for the next stage: explosive growth.

“While the vast majority of small businesses employ two or three people, Endeavor businesses employ an average of 237,” said Endeavor co-founder and CEO Linda Rottenberg.

Launched in 1998 and headquartered in New York City, Endeavor now operates throughout Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and Southeast Asia and supports more than 750 entrepreneurs who are chosen in a rigorous selection process.





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Facebook unveils social search feature








AP


Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park today.



MENLO PARK, Calif. —Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled a new search feature on Tuesday in the company's first staged event at its Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters since its May initial public offering.

Called "graph search," the new service lets users search their social connections for information about people, interests, photos and places. It'll help users who want to scroll through all the photos their friends took in Paris or search for the favorite TV shows of all their friends who happen to be doctors.




Until now, Facebook users were unable to search for friends who live in a certain town or like a particular movie. With the new feature, people can search for friends who, say, live in Boston who also like "Zero Dark Thirty".

Zuckerberg says the search feature is "privacy aware," which means users can only search for content that has been shared with them.

Facebook is stressing that graph search will be made available to users very slowly, beginning Tuesday. Though the company has focused on refining its mobile product for much of last year, the search feature will only be available on Facebook's website for now.

Zuckerberg hinted last fall that a search feature was in the works in his first post-IPO public interview.

Facebook's stock slid 50 cents to $30.45 following the announcement. It's still down nearly 20 percent from its IPO price of $38.










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Miami police sergeant takes stand, denies accusations in federal corruption trial




















A Miami police sergeant who headed a drug-fighting squad testified in his federal corruption trial Monday, denying ever planting drugs on a suspect or stealing drugs and money from dope dealers.

Sgt. Raul Iglesias, 40, accused of being a dirty cop, also denied ever asking detectives in his unit for “throw-down dope’’ to plant on the suspect in a downtown Miami parking lot in early 2010.

“Absolutely not,’’ Iglesias testified, disputing the recent testimony of two detectives who accused him of asking them for throw-down drugs. “That’s a ridiculous statement.’’





Iglesias further testified that he never told a third detective that it was OK to pay confidential informants with drugs. That detective testified that he did that once in 2010, with Iglesias sitting by his side in an unmarked police vehicle, but Iglesias denied that the confidential informant was paid with a small amount of cocaine.

“I have no knowledge that he ever paid [the informant] with drugs,’’ Iglesias testified during direct examination as the first defense witness. The government rested its case on Friday.

Iglesias, who is scheduled to continue testifying, faces nine counts of conspiracy to possess cocaine, violating suspects’ civil rights, obstruction of justice and making false statements. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison.

This story will be updated as more information becomes available.





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Facebook shares rise in buildup to mystery event, earnings






SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Facebook Inc’s stock opened on Monday above $ 32 for the first time since July as anticipation about upcoming products and financial results underscored Wall Street’s renewed confidence in the online social network.


Facebook will on Tuesday host its first major press event at its headquarters in Menlo Park, California, since its troubled initial public offering in May, triggering a guessing game among technology observers and online blogs about what it could unveil – everything from a smartphone to a search engine.






“There’s a lot of speculation. Nothing to me seems to be that certain,” Jefferies & Co analyst Brian Pitz said.


“If I were to bet, I’d think it was something that was ad-platform related. I’m not convinced on the phone,” said Pitz, citing previous comments by Facebook’s leaders including CEO Mark Zuckerberg that making a smartphone would be the “wrong strategy” for Facebook.


In an email to reporters last week, Facebook invited the media to “come and see what we’re building” without providing details.


Some analysts said the stock’s recent gains – shares are up roughly 17 percent since the start of the year – may have more to do with the company’s upcoming fourth-quarter financial results, slated for January 30.


“The stock is up because they have driven a dramatic increase in the ad load of their mobile app which is giving investors hope that they exceeded expectations,” BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield said.


Shares were down about 1.3 percent to $ 31.30 in mid-afternoon trading.


The world’s No.1 social network with 1 billion users, Facebook became the first U.S. company to debut on stock markets with a value of more than $ 100 billion. Its value subsequently plunged by more than 50 percent on mounting concerns about slowing revenue growth and the challenges of making money as users shift from personal computers to mobile devices.


Facebook surprised Wall Street in the third quarter by announcing that mobile ads accounted for 14 percent of its total ad revenue. Some analysts expect the company to report further growth in its nascent mobile ad business for the fourth quarter.


Zuckerberg, who founded Facebook in his Harvard dorm room, has said that mobile is the “most misunderstood aspect” of Facebook. But he has repeatedly poured cold water on rumors that Facebook would build its own smartphone to compete against Apple Inc’s iPhone and smartphones based on Google Inc’s Android operating system.


During an on-stage interview at a conference in September, Zuckerberg said that he believed search could be a ripe area of growth for Facebook.


“Facebook is really uniquely positioned to answer a lot of the questions that people have,” Zuckerberg said, such as finding a good restaurant or learning more about a job opportunity.


Still, many technology observers believe that Facebook is more likely to improve the search capabilities within Facebook than to develop a full-fledged search engine that indexes all the Web’s content and competes head-on with search leader Google.


Among the other items that technology blogs and analysts speculate might be unveiled on Tuesday were new standalone apps for Apple’s iPad tablet, new features to display video ads and even a new wing of corporate headquarters.


Some cautioned that expectations of a game-changing new product were likely to cause disappointment.


“There’s no way they’re announcing anything that has financial impact, or they wouldn’t do it now, they’d wait two weeks,” said Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter, citing Facebook’s upcoming earnings.


“Why would you announce something that has a financial impact during the quiet period?,” he said.


(Reporting By Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Paul Simao)


Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Torrey DeVitto PETA Ad Exclusive

Thanks to her roles on The Vampire Diaries and Pretty Little Liars, Torrey DeVitto's popularity with the high school sect has exploded in recent years, and alongside PETA, she's using that power to send a major message to education institutions across the country!


VIDEO - Pretty Little Liars Preview

Every year more than 10 million animals are dissected in secondary-school and college science classes, and DeVitto is taking a stand against animal dissection.

In the Robert Sebree-shot ad, exclusively obtained by ETonline, DeVitto cradles a kitten and says, "You Wouldn't Dissect Her, So Don't Dissect Anyone!"

In an interview with PETA, DeVitto explains how she let fear of disappointing her teachers push her into dissecting when she was in school -- and how she still regrets it. "I didn't think I had an option," she says. "Kids need to know they have the option -- they don't need to be subjected to this. You can do virtual dissection, which gives them just as much information as dissecting a real cat or frog."

Check out ETonline's exclusive video from DeVitto's PETA shoot, and click here to see a full-size version of her ad!

For more information, head to PETA.org.

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Peacenik Russel Simmons wants unarmed mediators in schools








Hip hop mogul Russell Simmons called for funding for unarmed peacekeepers in schools during a press conference on City Hall's steps today saying, "when underserved communities are at risk, you're all at risk."

The hip hop mogul joined NYC Council members Leroy Comrie, Ruben Wills, Jumaane Williams and Terrie Williams along with NYC nonprofit Life Camp founder Erica Ford to draw attention to gun violence in the black community where he says the issue is being ignored.

"No matter how much we scream it seems that our calls aren't answered," Simmons said.





WireImage



Russell Simmons speaking at City Hall.





"The recent Sandy Hook incident put gun violence in the forefront but there's a Sandy Hook every weekend in Chicago."

Citing a bloody weekend in Chicago when 56 young people were shot, Simmons argued that the story was dismissed because it happened in a minority community.

"The Sandy Hook incident and other incidents like it are important and have brought this discussion to the forefront, but still it seems that these kids are left out."

Simmons asked for funding for nonprofit organizations like Life Camp, Man Up and I Love My Life that promote peace through unarmed patrol officers and offer counseling to emotionally troubled people.

"It's real national problem," Simmons said.

"We have the peacekeepers in 25 cities and they're just getting started but they need funding as well. We have to fund these programs. All of our underserved communities are at risk and that means you're at risk."










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.CO sets sights on changing ‘the fabric of the Internet’




















For the millions of people who equate the Web with .com, . CO Internet is out to change that mindset.

The Miami company that manages and markets the .co domain is already making impressive gains — more than 1.4 million in 200 countries have hung their businesses, blogs, personal projects or dreams on a .co virtual shingle. Still, that’s just a tiny fraction of industry titan VeriSign’s 105 million .com registrants.

“We want to change the fabric of the Internet,” Juan Diego Calle, founder and CEO of .CO Internet, said during an interview in .CO’s Brickell office. “We can only make that happen not by changing what happened in the last 25 years of the Web, which is owned by .com. We want to change the next 25.”





About 2½ years after the launch of .CO Internet, .co — the country code of Colombia — continues to be one of the fastest-growing Internet domains in the world and grew by 24 percent in 2012. .CO Internet is profitable and is projecting to bring in more than $25 million in revenues this year, the company said. The early success of .CO Internet, with operations in Miami and Colombia, is powered by passion and perseverance.

Calle moved to Miami from Colombia at age 15 with his family. He started several businesses, including one he sold in 2005 providing seed capital for what would come next. “I can’t say I ever sat still.” When he learned Colombia would be commercializing the country's .co domain extension in late 2006, he said it hit him like a lightning bolt.

With the right strategy and by “marketing the hell out of it,” the entrepreneur believed .co could solve a huge problem in the market — vanishing Internet domain names. If you’ve tried to nab a new .com address lately, you can relate — it’s difficult to find one that hasn’t been snatched up.

Calle thought that by appealing to the hearts and minds of the entrepreneur, .co could go where .info, .biz, .net or .me had never gone before. But first he needed the right team.

One of this first stops: The Big Apple, to visit Nicolai Bezsonoff, who had been an advisor and shareholder in Calle’s TeRespondo.com, a sort of Ask Jeeves for the Latin American market that was sold to Yahoo in 2005. At the time, Bezsonoff was the director of technology and operations at Citigroup.

“We went out for coffee, he started pitching me on a napkin. I said ‘really dude you want me to leave a big job at Citigroup for this?’ ” said Bezsonoff. “But he kept showing me the numbers … Later, that napkin was on my desk and it was one of those boring days and I kept looking at it and thought maybe I should.” He would become .CO’s chief operating officer.

Lori Anne Wardi, a lawyer and serial entrepreneur who was working at a venture capital firm at the time, became vice president in charge of brand strategy, business development and global communications. “She’s the heart and soul of the company,” said Calle. Eduardo Santoyo, based in Bogota, would become corporate vice president over policy and be the liaison with the Colombian government. “Some would say it was overkill talent but I needed the best. ... When you have a big dream, you have to think big and hire the right people,” Calle said.





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Cyclist killed by hit-and-run driver on Ives Dairy Road




















State troopers are looking for a driver in a hit-and-run crash that killed a cyclist on Ives Dairy Road in north Miami-Dade County early Sunday.

The cyclist was riding west on Ives Dairy Road near Northeast 13th Court around 3:41 a.m. when the rider was struck and killed by a black Dodge Charger also traveling westbound.

Eyewitnesses to the crash followed the car and obtained a partial license tag number, the Florida Highway Patrol said.





Troopers have not yet released the name of the dead cyclist.





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Miss New York Mallory Hytes Hagan Wins Miss America

Brooklyn, New York native Mallory Hytes Hagan, 23, was crowned this year's Miss America -- beating out Miss South Carolina Ali Rogers and Miss Oklahoma Alicia Clifton, who placed second and third respectively.

Hagan tap danced to James Brown's Get Up Off That Thing and answered a timely question about armed guards in schools – stating that violence is not the proper way to end violence – to clinch the win Saturday night in Las Vegas.

Related: Miss America Contestant to Have Double Mastectomy

Hagan, whose platform issue is child sexual abuse prevention, attended the Fashion Institute of Technology, and plans to obtain a degree in Cosmetics and Fragrance Marketing.

Clearly, her newly won $50,000 scholarship will be put to good use!

Related: Miss America Host Gary Collins Dead

Miss Wyoming Lexie Madden and Miss Iowa Mariah Cary also made the top five, before falling short to Hagan, who was considered an underdog heading into the competition.

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.CO sets sights on changing ‘the fabric of the Internet’




















For the millions of people who equate the Web with .com, . CO Internet is out to change that mindset.

The Miami company that manages and markets the .co domain is already making impressive gains — more than 1.4 million in 200 countries have hung their businesses, blogs, personal projects or dreams on a .co virtual shingle. Still, that’s just a tiny fraction of industry titan VeriSign’s 105 million .com registrants.

“We want to change the fabric of the Internet,” Juan Diego Calle, founder and CEO of .CO Internet, said during an interview in .CO’s Brickell office. “We can only make that happen not by changing what happened in the last 25 years of the Web, which is owned by .com. We want to change the next 25.”





About 2½ years after the launch of .CO Internet, .co — the country code of Colombia — continues to be one of the fastest-growing Internet domains in the world and grew by 24 percent in 2012. .CO Internet is profitable and is projecting to bring in more than $25 million in revenues this year, the company said. The early success of .CO Internet, with operations in Miami and Colombia, is powered by passion and perseverance.

Calle moved to Miami from Colombia at age 15 with his family. He started several businesses, including one he sold in 2005 providing seed capital for what would come next. “I can’t say I ever sat still.” When he learned Colombia would be licensing its .co Internet code in late 2006, he said it hit him like a lightning bolt.

With the right strategy and by “marketing the hell out of it,” the entrepreneur believed .co could solve a huge problem in the market — vanishing Internet domain names. If you’ve tried to nab a new .com address lately, you can relate — it’s difficult to find one that hasn’t been snatched up.

Calle thought that by appealing to the hearts and minds of the entrepreneur, .co could go where .info, .biz, .net or .me had never gone before. But first he needed the right team.

One of this first stops: The Big Apple, to visit Nicolai Bezsonoff, who had been an advisor and shareholder in Calle’s TeRespondo.com, a sort of Ask Jeeves for the Latin American market that was sold to Yahoo in 2005. At the time, Bezsonoff was the director of technology and operations at Citigroup.

“We went out for coffee, he started pitching me on a napkin. I said ‘really dude you want me to leave a big job at Citigroup for this?’ ” said Bezsonoff. “But he kept showing me the numbers … Later, that napkin was on my desk and it was one of those boring days and I kept looking at it and thought maybe I should.” He would become .CO’s chief operating officer.

Lori Anne Wardi, a lawyer and serial entrepreneur who was working at a venture capital firm at the time, became vice president in charge of brand strategy, business development and global communications. “She’s the heart and soul of the company,” said Calle. Eduardo Santoyo, based in Bogota, would become corporate vice president over policy and be the iaison with the Colombian government. “Some would say it was overkill talent but I needed the best. ... When you have a big dream, you have to think big and hire the right people,” Calle said.





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