King’s son brings message to South Florida

The past few days have kept the eldest son of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. busy. He’s been to at least three states to carry on his father’s message: ending violence and learning from historical wrongs.

In a Fort Lauderdale Baptist church early Friday, he delivered another directive:

“A nation is judged on how we treat our most prized possession,” Martin Luther King III said. “And our most precious resource, I think, is our children.”

King served as the keynote speaker at the ninth annual Martin Luther King Jr. inspirational breakfast hosted by the YMCA of Broward County.

More than 500 gathered inside the First Baptist Church on Broward Boulevard, selling out the $2,500 per table event, to honor King’s legacy.

“My concern was that it would not be reduced to a day of relaxation,” said King III. “We have to look at this as a day on — not a day off.”

The Rev. King, a prominent civil rights leader, was born this week 84 years ago. He lead peaceful protests and bus strikes working for racial equality until his 1968 assassination.

The younger King told the South Florida audience about spending his youth at the local YMCA in Birmingham, learning to swim and working out with his dad.

“Those were wonderful experiences, experiences that I will never forget,” he said.

Like his father, King III has been a fighter for human rights, justice and non-violence in the United States and abroad. He also served as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s president, a position his father once held.

During his 2009 inauguration, President Barack Obama declared the holiday honoring King should be spent as a national day of service.

At Friday’s event, 15 youngsters from the Lauderhill YMCA were honored for their service to the community. The young friends managed to clean up a popular overpass and get rid of gangs who were harassing children.

They called their project “Own the Overpath.” The idea started when 14-year-old Kervens Jean-Louis was attacked by a gang on a fenced in walkway that spans the Florida Turnpike while coming from the YMCA, based at Boyd Anderson High School. But Jean-Louis didn’t back down.

He and other students mobilized and launched a campaign to clean-up the area surrounding the “overpath.” The youngsters made a formal presentation to the Lauderhill City Commission and Florida Department of Transportation officials.

Now, there is a $400,000 project in the works to install more lights on the bridge to increase visibility. The city broke ground in November.

“I learned that when you speak out loud it makes a difference,” said Jean-Louis.

For Jean-Louis, speaking loud meant going back to the bridge to warn others of the dangers of traveling across it at night.

He will spend this upcoming Saturday as a volunteer, painting and cleaning up a garden.

“Now I tell others what’s going on and how they can help out,” he said, much like the man they had all come to honor.

After the youngsters were honored, King III left the crowd to ponder a final thought: “We can either be a thermometer or a thermostat.”

A thermometer, he explained, takes the temperature while a thermostat regulates the temperature.

Despite the progress his father saw in his lifetime, and the decades since his death, there is still much work to be done, King III said.

“I always come with a heavy heart in January,” he said. “Because we have not fully realized the dream.”

Read More..

Drew Barrymore on Oprah's Next Chapter

Drew Barrymore opens up about her complicated childhood and the lessons she's learned when it comes to being a new mother on Oprah's Next Chapter, and we have a sneak peek!

Pics: Celebs and Their Cute Kids

Marking the first time cameras have ever been allowed inside her home, Drew also talks to Oprah about her new marriage to Will Kopelman, shares details about their newborn baby Olive, and reveals the story behind why her mother did not attend her wedding.

Related: Drew Barrymore's Daughter Olive Lands First Cover

Oprah's Next Chapter with Drew Barrymore airs Sunday at 9 pm ET/PT on OWN.

Read More..

A ‘cold’ treat to eat

Finally, a fun way to fight the flu.

A small-batch ice-cream company claims to have scooped up a cure for the worst epidemic in years — a bold new flavor called “Influenza Sorbet.”

The virus-soothing treat — made by Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams — blends Maker’s Mark bourbon, lemon and cayenne pepper to mimic an old family flu remedy.

The dessert, which sells for $12 a pint, includes ginger and honey.

Owner Jeni Britton Bauer, who operates Manhattan ice-cream trucks, says it eases sore throats and clears up nasal passages.

“I’ve had people tell me it’s the only thing that makes them feel better. It actually does have a physical effect,” she said.

That’s likely due to a secret ingredient: a small dose of pectin, which is found in cough drops, Bauer said. “It coats your throat. It’s just what some people need,” she said.

The snack might be medicinal — but it sure doesn’t taste like meds. The flavor is like a whiskey sour with a spicy kick, Bauer said.

The new treat comes after the state last week declared a health emergency, noting that the number of flu cases had more than quadrupled — from 4,404 to 19,128 — in the past year.

Cases this week have since spiked to more than 23,500 — and many elderly New Yorkers have been hospitalized. That’s exactly why some flu experts say we should be lining up for shots — not scoops.

“It’s cute but I’d like to see the science behind it,” said Doris Bucher, who helped develop this year’s flu vaccine with a team of scientists at New York Medical College. She added, “It might spice you up or knock you out — but it’s no vaccine,” she said.

But others say it’s hitting New York just in time.

“It’s seasonal brilliance [for anyone] with an itchy throat,” wrote a reviewer with the food-and-drink blog thekitchn.com.

New Yorkers can buy the sorbet online. The Ohio-based company delivers in packs with dry ice.

Jeni’s began producing the flu-fighting sorbet in 2004 — but kept it a secret, stashed on the bottom shelf for sick regulars for years.

“We didn’t really tell anyone about it — we didn’t think it was marketable,” Bauer said.

But after this year’s flu crisis hit, she opted to share it nationally — and start a marketing effort.

Orders have spiked dramatically in the past two weeks, she said.

“It’s not a miracle. It’s an at-home remedy — like chicken soup,” she said.

Read More..

Norwegian Cruise Line launches strong IPO

Miami-based Norwegian Cruise Line joined its larger local competitors on Wall Street Friday in a strong debut.

Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. raised nearly $447 million in an initial public offering of about 23.5 million shares and saw stocks sail 30 percent in trading.

Shares closed Friday afternoon at $24.79, up $5.79 from the $19 offering price set late Thursday night. That was above the range of $16-$18 that the company had expected.

“I think this was a classically beautiful IPO, albeit relatively small in terms of total dollars,” said Roderick McLeod, partner in the management consulting practice McLeod.Applebaum & Partners and a former cruise executive.

In regulatory filings, the company has said it plans to use proceeds from the IPO to reduce debt and pay expenses related to the offering. Norwegian is giving the underwriters a 30-day option to buy up to an additional 3.5 million shares.

Previously, the company was privately held in a partnership of Genting Hong Kong, with 50 percent of the cruise line, and private equity firms Apollo Management and TPG. Genting Hong Kong is a subsidiary of gambling and resort conglomerate Genting Group, which purchased the land currently occupied by The Miami Herald in 2011 for $236 million.

After the IPO, the three groups own a total of about 88 percent of the company’s ordinary shares.

Norwegian, with a fleet of 11 ships and three more on the way by the fall of 2015, has made its name by emphasizing a “freestyle” type of cruising that allows guests to choose from a variety of dining, entertainment and rooming options.

In an interview Friday morning, Norwegian Cruise Line President and CEO Kevin Sheehan said that the timing was right for the offering.

“It just seemed like a very logical time: We’re into 2013, we’ve got these beautiful new ships coming out soon and the marketplace is very excited about them,” he said. “The locomotive is moving and we’re at the tipping point with the brand.”

As the industry grows by just about 2.5 percent over the next five years, Sheehan said, Norwegian will grow capacity by more than 10 percent.

“It’s the double whammy,” he said. “Lower growth in the future with a phenomenal set of assets.”

He said the benefits of going public include raising capital, allowing the company to strengthen its balance sheet and putting it in the same playing field as its competitors. Carnival Corp., the world’s largest cruise ship company, and rival Royal Caribbean Cruises are both publicly traded. Carnival closed up about a percent at $38.58 Friday, while Royal Caribbean dropped just over a percent to $36.90.

“Now we’re out there and people can look at our results and the analysts can talk about us freely,” he said.

The launch capped years of attempts by Norwegian to go public, all abandoned for economic reasons.

Miami cruise expert Stewart Chiron, CEO of CruiseGuy.com, said the timing was good, with an industry performing well and a vastly improved company.

“I’m glad they finally got it done,” he said. “This was by far one of the important milestones that they wanted to cross.”

McLeod remembers an effort when he was president and chief operating officer at Norwegian that coincided with the stock market crash in October of 1987. He has also worked in senior positions at Royal Caribbean Cruises and Carnival Corp.

“I think we’ve all kind of known this was coming eventually and some of us have known it’s coming for 25 years,” McLeod said. “It’s never too late to do the right thing; this is the right thing for them to do.”

The move is smart, McLeod said, for several reasons.

“In addition to improving their leverage, reducing their debt, this expands their strategic options,” he said. “This is a currency, and that can work for them in lots of different ways.”

This report was supplemented with information from the Associated Press.

Read More..

Sen. Marco Rubio to swear in Miami-Dade commissioner Rebeca Sosa on Friday

Miami-Dade Commissioners Rebeca Sosa becomes Miami-Dade commission’s first Hispanic chairwoman when she is sworn in on Friday by U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio.

Also being sworn in is fellow commissioner Lynda Bell, who is now the vice chair. Miami-Dade County Judge Gladys Perez will swear in Bell

The installation ceremony will be at 11:30 a.m. ceremony at the commission chambers at the Stephen Clark Center, 111 NW First St.

First elected in 2001, Sosa represents District 6, which includes areas of Miami, Coral Gables, West Miami, Hialeah and Miami Springs, as well as unincorporated zones.

Sosa’s office explained the Florida Senator is doing the honors at the historic swearing in because the two are long-time friends.

Bell who was elected in 2010 represents District 8, which encompasses a significant area of southeastern Miami-Dade, including the municipalities of Palmetto Bay, Cutler Bay and Homestead with portions of Kendall an the Redlands.

Sosa and Bell won two-year terms in November.

The installation ceremony is open to the public.

Read More..

Undercover Boss Gets Chastised by Pushy Manager

A verbally abusive manager is bound to get his comeuppance on the next Undercover Boss.

PICS: Celebrity Dream Jobs

President of Moe's Southwest Grill, Paul Damico, gets a rude awakening while going through employee training at one of the restaurant's branches. Under the alias Marc, Paul is chastised by a store manager on a power trip.

"Tito's a little flippant with me," Paul says, who felt the atmosphere was less than professional. "As the leader of the brand, I don't like to see managers run a shift like this."

Paul grows more irritated as he realizes that Tito has been treating all of the associates with the same lack of respect.

"I'm not okay with what is happening in front of the guests," says Paul.

Click the video for more. Watch an all-new Undercover Boss Friday at 8/7c on CBS.

Read More..

B'klyn teen dialed 911 more than 400 times for fake emergencies: police

A Brooklyn teen dialed 911 more than 400 times to phone in fake emergencies, police said yesterday.

Dean Whylie, 16, disguised his voice as a girl when he made 404 calls reporting non-existent incidents, starting on May 26 of last year, police added.

“He reported police officers needing assistance, shots fired, motor vehicle accidents and disputes,” a police source said.

Whylie allegedly used two phones that weren’t yet activated, but were set up for emergency calls only — which made it difficult to trace the hundreds of fake reports, police said.

At least 329 bogus incidents were reported at locations in the 70 Precinct, which includes Kensington, cops added. Other fake calls reported crimes in Borough Park and other parts of southern Brooklyn, according to police.

Investigators finally traced cell phone pings to the teen’s home on East 22nd Street in Ditmas Park, where he made his last call Monday, police said.

The teen gave no explanation as to why he made the prank calls, cops said.

He was arrested Tuesday afternoon and charged with reckless endangerment, criminal impersonation, obstruction of governmental administration, filing false reports and criminal nuisance, police said.

One of the two phones — which had been used to dial 186 bogus calls — was recovered, cops added.

Read More..

Prices for Miami Beach luxury condos soar to records

Ultra-luxury condominiums on South Beach are fetching nosebleed prices.

On Tuesday, a penthouse at the Setai Resort at 2001 Collins Avenue closed for $27 million — the highest price ever for a South Florida condominium, according to real estate agents.

“We’re definitely seeing the market turning upward,” said Jeff Miller, of Zilbert International Realty in Miami, who represented the buyer in the sale of the palatial 7,100-square-foot condominium. “We’re seeing buyers come in from all over the globe.”

Just a few weeks ago, Ohio coal mining businessman Wayne Boich Jr. completed the sale of his Icon South Beach penthouse at 450 Alton Road in the uber-trendy South of Fifth neighborhood for just under $21 million.

The 6-bedroom, 7 1/2-bath Icon condo sparked a bidding war that drove the sale $2 million above the listing price — a level that is three times the $7 million Boich paid in July 2007 in the depths of the bust. It was a record price for a Miami Beach bayside condo.

“The luxury market is on fire in South Beach — especially the South of Fifth neighborhood,” said Dora Puig, principal of PuigWerner Real Estate Services, who was the listing broker for the Icon unit. “It’s moving Miami to totally different pricing points.”

The Setai’s record may not reign for long.

Penthouse 2 in the decade-old Continuum South tower at 100 South Pointe Drive in the South of Fifth neighborhood is on the market for $39 million.

That is a record listing price for a Miami-Dade condominium, according to Puig, who also snagged that listing.

Amid the market sizzle, Puig bumped up the asking price late last summer from $35 million.

The penthouse, which has 11,000 square feet of interior space, belongs to Manhattan real estate developer Ian Bruce Eichner, who built the Continuum project at the tip of South Beach and kept the trophy for himself.

The Continuum penthouse, which has 6,000 square feet of deck and a rooftop heated pool, boasts sweeping 13 1/2-foot ceilings that give the feel of a single-family home. The floor-to-ceiling glass walls offer a 360-degree view of the Atlantic Ocean, Biscayne Bay, downtown Miami and Miami Beach from 40 stories up.

“It looks down on Fisher Island, way down,” Puig said with a smile.

The unit has a private interior elevator, of course, and stretches over two indoor levels and two largely exterior levels.

One big plus: It has a gated entrance and sits on an expansive enclave of rolling lawns and gardens adjacent to a city park at the tip of the island.

The unit comes with an additional 874-square-foot guest quarters that would delight most mortals. “The guest unit is intended for professional quarters: the maid, the nanny, the chef, the pilot,” Puig explained.

Also included is a snazzy cabana on the beach.

Eichner has used it as a vacation home and once rented it to Tom Cruise for a couple of months while he was in Miami to film Rock of Ages.

On Thursday, Puig hosted Miami’s power brokers for a look at the Continuum penthouse over champagne and hors d’oeuvres. Next week, she plans to spend three days in New York touting the property to high-end brokers.

Such palatial properties typically are paid for in cash. But what would a monthly payment be?

With a 20 percent down payment of $7.8 million, the buyer would have to finance $31.2 million.

“I don’t know that I’d be able to find anybody willing to go that high on one unit,” warned Steve Schneider, a mortgage broker who is owner and president of Abacus Lending Group in South Miami.

If a buyer could line up a 15-year fixed rate mortgage at 3.5 percent, the monthly payment for principal and interest would be $223,043.35.

“I’d hate to see the tax bill,” said Schneider.

According to Miami-Dade County Property Appraiser records, the 2012 property tax bill on the Continuum penthouse was $264,896.17. That was based on an assessed value of just $9.5 million, less than half what the Property Appraiser listed as the market value of $19.3 million. The tax break came as a result of the state law that caps increases in assessed values on non-homesteaded property at 10 percent a year.

The condo maintenance fee for Eichner’s unit runs $7,624 a month. “I think that’s low for what you get,” said Puig.

Read More..

Scammers to be sentenced for selling fake Cuban birth certificates to people seeking U.S. residency

U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga is expected Friday to sentence members of a network who sold false Cuban birth certificates to undocumented immigrants so they could pretend to be Cubans and obtain green cards.

Thanks to the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, Cubans who arrive in the United States without a visa can remain in the country and apply for residence after a year and one day. This immigration benefit is available only to people who can prove they are Cuban citizens.

The case in Miami federal court exposed the first public details of what has become an increasingly common practice in South Florida.

Miami immigration attorney Wilfredo Allen said he has represented more than a half-dozen clients in the past few years who have been accused by immigration authorities of carrying residence cards obtained illegally with false Cuban documents.

Allen said immigration authorities have developed sophisticated methods to discover the fraud related to the Cuban Adjustment Act, and can verify, if they have any suspicion, whether the applicant is presenting an authentic Cuban document.

The network, consisting of four members, three from Naples and one from Kissimmee, was dismantled in September, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested and charged them with conspiring to commit immigration fraud.

All initially pleaded not guilty, but changed their minds and their pleas. Since then, Judge Altonaga has sentenced one of them to six months in prison and two years of parole, including nine months of house arrest.

Two more are scheduled to be sentenced Thursday.

The accused are Nelson Daniel Silvestri Soutto, Laura María Ponce Santos and Amelia Osorio of Naples, and Fidel Morejón Vega of Kissimmee.

People familiar with the case said Morejón and Osorio are Cubans and Silvestri and Ponce are Uruguayans. Their clients were of various nationalities, including Argentineans, Colombians, Costa Ricans, Mexicans, Peruvians, Salvadorans and Venezuelans.

None of the defense attorneys or immigration authorities would comment Wednesday.

Documents available in court pointed to Morejón as the presumptive leader of the group.

He was charged with selling Cuban birth certificate at prices ranging from $10,000 to $15,000 each while posing as a high-ranking immigration official when meeting with potential clients. One was an undercover agent who posed as a Mexican.

For 3 ½ years, beginning in 2009, at least 50 undocumented immigrants bought false birth certificates, according to court documents. Some of them became residents, including some of the accused who then acted as recruiters for Morejón, the court documents state.

The scam netted more than half a million dollars, according to a memorandum in the case.

Other court documents indicate that Morejón may have obtained the birth certificates in Cuba. They don’t specify whether Morejón obtained the certificates at a Cuban government office or received them from a corrupt official who printed them himself.

One of the network’s clients, identified in court records only as J.R., cooperated with investigators and introduced Morejón to an undercover agent who wanted to buy a Cuban birth certificate.

The court documents include transcripts of some of the conversations between Morejón, J.R. and the undercover agent, identified as Rolando.

In one of the transcripts, Morejón said that for the fraud to be successful, Rolando and J.R. would be taken to the Florida Keys and left there as newly arrived rafters. Morejón told them that when the immigration officials picked them up they had to say they were Cubans and know the details of their birth certificates by heart.

In the conversation taped surreptitiously, Morejón advised them on how to respond to questions, but J.R. stumbled when he tried to remember where he was born in Cuba.

“So, if they ask you, ‘Where were you born?’ at that moment you have the birth certificate. ‘Where were you born?’ asks Morejón in the transcription.

“I was born in Havana . . . no, in Guinness, Guinness, Cuba,” responds J.R, referring to the city of Güines, 25 miles southeast of Havana.

Morejón also advised J.R. not to talk too much while in the custody of immigration authorities before being paroled, apparently to avoid detection of their non-Cuban accents or saying things that a Cuban could not say or know.

“You’re going to be at a place where there would be seven or eight people,” Morejón tells J.R., according to the transcript. “ ‘Hey, how did you get here?’ ‘In a raft.’ ‘Are you Cuban?’ ‘Yes.’ That’s all. That’s all. You don’t have to say more or make much conversation.”

Read More..

Kirstie Alley's Cheers Reunion

It's been nearly two decades since Cheers went off the air, but the onscreen chemistry hasn't changed between Kirstie Alley and Rhea Perlman, as seen in Kirstie's new TV Land pilot, Giant Baby.

On the show, Kirstie plays a Broadway diva whose life gets up-ended.

VIDEO: Kirstie Alley Celebrates 62nd Birthday with ET

"You know, we were planning this when we were doing Cheers," Kirstie said of reuniting with Rhea. "We said when Cheers isn't on the air anymore we'll do a show together."

Rhea plays Kirstie's best friend on Giant Baby, but she's also been a close friend to the Golden Globe winner in real-life, as Kirstie mentions in her New York Times bestseller, The Art of Men.

Kirstie's book, detailing her sexual exploits and struggles with drug addiction, has had so much success that it's attracted readers that Kirstie never thought would buy it.

"It never dawned on me that my dad would read my book," Kirstie said. "I didn't give it to him!"

Click the video for more.

Read More..

Hellish strike for classy kids

Thousands of plucky New York children trudged to class through sleet and freezing rain yesterday as unionized yellow-bus drivers brought school transportation to a halt with a strike that will make life hell for families across the city.

“It’s hurting the kids,” said 23-year-old mom Erika Rivera, who had to miss work and borrow a car to take her niece to PS 36 in The Bronx. “And it’s hurting all of the parents who have to find a way to get their kids to school.”

The work stoppage left more than 113,200 city schoolkids without buses, forcing parents to scramble to find any way they could get their children to class. Some dug into their pockets to pay for subways, taxis and dollar vans — othets even propped their kids on the backs of bicycles for a treacherous ride.

Upper West Side dad Martin Wallace hoarded five elementary- school kids — including his 5-year-old son, Bruno — onto the 1 train to PS 84 on West 92nd Street.

“I like the school bus, it’s not packed,” Bruno said outside school.

Wallace said, “The inconvenience is that I have to make the trip [with them] rather than just wait at the bus stop.”

The strike — which affected roughly 75 percent of students who are eligible for school bus service — hit the disabled hardest. Many of them aren’t able to use public transportation or regular vehicles to travel.

“It’s impossible for Jessica to get there without it; no bus, no school,” Maria Sanmartin said of her 6-year-old daughter, who has cerebral palsy.

The 46-year-old Sunnyside mom worries about the physical and speech therapy her daughter is missing — and will miss — by being unable to get to PS 58 in Maspeth, Queens.

“She has too many problems for there to be no school bus,” said Sanmartin. “She likes going to school, and she loves riding the bus.”

Attendance was down 2.8 percent yesterday compared with the rest of the month, meaning at least 25,000 students were out. For the severely disabled, attendance dropped by 41 percent.

At City Hall, Mayor Bloomberg said he has no plans of meeting with leaders of Local 1181 of the Amalgamated Transit Union over the removal of job protections from recently bid-out contracts because bus drivers and matrons work for private bus companies rather than for the city.

Asked about whether he’ll take certain steps to ensure the strike doesn’t last as long as the prior one in 1979 — 14 weeks — Bloomberg said he’d encourage the union to hold talks with the bus companies.

“I hope this does not last a long time,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “It’s not going to last more than June — because that’s the end of the school year.”

Union leaders, who insist the decades-old protections must be reinstated into the bus-company bids, said Hizzoner’s decision would ensure yellow buses remain off the roads.

“We remain willing to come to the table to work towards an agreement, and we urge the mayor to adopt a similar attitude,” said Amalgamated Transit Union Mike Cordiello, president of Local 1181.

More than 125 special-education buses were unable to leave their Staten Island depot yesterday because, while the drivers belong to a nonstriking union, the matrons were on the picket lines.

NYPD sources said roughly 1,800 union members stocked picket lines at bus depots across the city. There were no arrests or vandalism reported.

Additional reporting by Sabrina Ford, Kevin Fasick, Lorena Mongelli,Georgett Roberts and Matthew Abrahams

yoav.gonen@nypost.com

Read More..

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.

Read More..

FIU to take over underwater lab in Keys

The last underwater research lab in the world, an 81-ton yellow pressurized steel tube anchored 60 feet down next to a Key Largo reef, won’t be scuttled after all.

Florida International University announced Tuesday that it will take over operation of Aquarius, an aging but unique underwater facility the federal government had considered putting on the chopping block because of budget cuts.

“For our students and our marine sciences program, Aquarius offers fantastic new possibilities and is a natural fit for the work we are doing in the Florida Keys and throughout the world,’’ said Mike Heithaus, executive director of FIU’s school of environment, arts and society.

Last year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which owns the lab, had called for ending Aquarius’ operation, even though it cost a relatively paltry $1.2 million to $3 million a year to run.

But after backlash from scientists and a campaign led by South Florida political leaders — including Republican Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart — NOAA awarded FIU a $600,000 six-month grant to cover basic maintenance of the facility, which boasts six bunks, a bathroom, galley, science lab and “wet porch” allowing divers easy entry and exit.

Ultimately, the Obama administration agreed the lab was a valuable asset that couldn’t simply be left to rust. Removing it could run up to an estimated $5 million, said FIU biology professor Jim Fourqurean, who will take over direction of Aquarius.

“This is a big, expensive piece of hardware on the bottom of the ocean,’’ he said. “You just can’t leave it there.’’

To continue its operation, however, FIU plans to develop a new business plan for the lab that will rely on financial support from other government agencies, private industry and groups and other universities, Fourqurean said.

Aquarius, the last of more than 60 underwater habitats once in operation around the world, allows scientists to literally immerse themselves for hours, days or weeks in a coral reef community without having to worry about repeatedly surfacing for air or decompressing from long dives. The facility, previously managed by the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, has hosted 117 research missions and also served filmmakers, Navy divers and 40 NASA astronauts who trained for the working conditions of space stations and zero gravity.

Fourqurean said the lab offers a perfect platform for students, faculty and outside researchers to study many of the problems plaguing South Florida’s water, from climate change to pollution and over-fishing.

It also will raise FIU’s profile in the Florida Keys, said Fourqurean, who is director of FIU’s new marine education and research initiative for the Keys. The school will close Aquarius’ current land base, hidden in a neighborhood, and intends to open a new more visible office along the main highway, he said.

“This fits the strategic vision of FIU growing into the Florida Keys,’’ Fourqurean said.

Read More..

Megan Fox Apologizes for Lindsay Lohan Comments

In the process of explaining her reason for removing a Marilyn Monroe tattoo on her forearm to Esquire magazine, cover girl Megan Fox unleashed what appeared to be a harsh criticism of actress Lindsay Lohan. In light of all the attention Fox's words have garnered, the star has taken to Facebook in an attempt to clarify her comments. 

Pics: New Mom Megan Fox's Sexiest Shoot Yet

"In the newly released article that I did for Esquire, there is a reference that is made to Lindsay Lohan that I would like to clarify before it snowballs into something silly," began Fox in an open letter posted to her personal page.

"The journalist and I were discussing why I was removing my Marilyn Monroe tattoo, especially since, in his opinion, Marilyn was such a powerful and iconic figure for women. I attempted to draw parallels between Lindsay and Marilyn in order to illustrate my point that while Marilyn may be an icon now, sadly she was not respected and taken seriously while she was still living.

"Both women were gifted actresses, whose natural talent was lost amongst the chaos and incessant media scrutiny surrounding their lifestyles and their difficulties adhering to studio schedules etc.

"I intended for this to be a factual comparison of two women with similar experiences in Hollywood. Unfortunately it turned into me offering up what is really much more of an uneducated opinion. It was most definitely not my intention to criticize or degrade Lindsay.

"I would never want her to feel bullied, as she does not deserve that. I was not always speaking eloquently during this interview and this miscommunication is my fault."

Related: How Megan Fox Lost All That Baby Weight

Fox's original quote to Esquire reads as follows:

"I started reading about [Marilyn] and realized that her life was incredibly difficult. It's like when you visualize something for your future. I didn't want to visualize something so negative.

"She was sort of like Lindsay [Lohan]. She was an actress who wasn't reliable, who almost wasn't insurable. ... She had all of the potential in the world, and it was squandered. I'm not interested in following in those footsteps."

Read More..

Dad of Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz blames government for suicide

Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz’s heartbroken dad yesterday blamed the US government for his son’s suicide in an emotional eulogy at the young man’s funeral.

“Aaron did not commit suicide — he was killed by the government. And [the Massachusetts Institute of Technology] betrayed all its basic principles” in helping the feds, said grieving dad Robert Swartz to 200 mourners packing Central Avenue Synagogue in Highland Park, Ill.

“Aaron did something that wasn’t illegal and was destroyed by it,’’ Robert added. “He could have done so much more.”

Aaron, 26, hanged himself Friday in his Brooklyn apartment amid charges that he had illegally hacked into millions of archived MIT documents.

John Smierciak

SUICIDAL GENIUS: Aaron Swartz died Friday in Brooklyn. Girlfriend Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman (above) yesterday was among 200 mourners at his funeral.

Aaron Swartz

As the feds bore down in a case that many experts considered basically much ado about nothing, Aaron became so tormented that he finally “fell into the pain,’’ said his weeping girlfriend, Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman.

“Aaron wanted so bad to change the world. He believed you had to see the world for how it really was to change it,” she told mourners through tears.

“With this [upcoming] trial and everything he was facing the last two years, I think [Aaron] fell into the pain.

“I love him, I miss him and I’ve learned so much from him,” she said.

Mourners included Aaron’s stricken mother, Susan, and two younger brothers, Noah and Ben.

Also attending the service were members of the hacktivist group Anonymous — which offered its own defiant “tribute” yesterday.

The group hacked into two Web sites run by MIT — where Aaron had been studying ethics when he infiltrated its computer systems — to post an “in memoriam.’’

“The situation Aaron found himself in highlights the injustice of US computer-crime laws, particularly their punishment regimes,” Anonymous wrote.

Aaron had planned to post the MIT documents on the Web as a statement in favor of freedom of information. He faced decades behind bars and millions of dollars in fines.

He killed himself two days after his lawyer had futilely tried for a second time to negotiate a no-jail plea deal with prosecutors. But the government’s lawyers had insisted Aaron do at least six months behind bars.

Assistant US Attorney Steve Heymann in Boston was leading the probe. It was revealed yesterday that he also was the prosecutor pushing the 2008 hacking case against Jonathan James, 24, who wound up committing suicide, too.

Heymann could not be reached for comment.

Read More..

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.

Read More..

Miami City Commissioner Francis Suarez: I’m running for mayor

It’s official: Miami City Commissioner Francis Suarez is running for mayor.

The 35-year-old son of former Mayor Xavier Suarez will make the formal announcement Tuesday at a press conference at his Coral Gate home.

Suarez’s candidacy has long been the subject of speculation around City Hall. The chatter intensified late last week, when campaign finance reports showed that in the last three months of 2012 he raised $460,000 through his “political communications organization.”

Suarez, in an interview Monday with The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald, outlined his vision for the city. It includes replenishing rainy-day funds, promoting small business, beefing up the police department and making the mayor a player on the national stage.

“It starts with having a stable government that is forward-thinking and innovative,” he said.

Despite having flush campaign coffers and key allies, Suarez faces a tough road to the Nov. 5 election. Incumbent Mayor Tomás Regalado has already launched his bid for reelection, and observers say his popularity remains high among likely voters.

“It is going to be a competitive race,” said Barry University political science professor Sean Foreman.

Suarez, a real estate attorney, first ran for the City Commission in 2009. He was elected to represent District 4, which includes Flagami and stretches to the city’s western edge, and was previously held by Regalado.

Early on, Suarez and Regalado often appeared in public together. The mayor asked Suarez to serve as City Commission chairman in late 2011.

But the relationship soured last summer, when Suarez grew increasingly critical of Regalado’s administration. He voiced concerns about the high turnover among top staffers and questioned the finance department’s ability to balance the $500 million budget on time.

Suarez said those frustrations prompted his decision to run for mayor.

“I fundamentally believe that the administration is not being run professionally,” he said. “I have concerns about what will happen if nothing is done about it.”

Suarez said he has already proven his leadership abilities. He points to a pair of controversial motions he made, both of which passed the commission: one to cut employee salaries and another to fire then-Police Chief Miguel Exposito, who was feuding with the mayor at the time.

“I’ve taken the lead on very difficult positions,” he said.

During his three years in office, Suarez has had mixed results passing policy. In 2011, he championed changes to the city zoning code that made it easier to build affordable housing. But his biggest legislative push to date — an effort to create a strong-mayor form of government — failed to find support.

Suarez said he has a couple of new proposals to pitch, including a measure that would reduce permit fees for home repairs that cost less than $2,500. He also said he has ideas for using technology to make city departments run more smoothly.

If campaign contributions are any indication, Suarez will have the support of key business leaders, including Jackson Health System CEO and former city manager Carlos A. Migoya and former Mayor Manny Diaz.

Regalado, who has raised about $160,000 for his campaign and enjoys popularity in neighborhoods like Little Havana and Flagami, said he welcomed the competition.

Read More..

Nicki Minaj Cannot Trust Herself on American Idol

On tomorrow's episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, American Idol judge Nicki Minaj confesses that she's worried about looking like 'a crazy psycho again' on the popular singing competition.

"I am not really a crazy psycho you guys," Nicki says, referring to the infamous web video that showed the singer/rapper launching into a tirade during Idol auditions. "No, I am serious. I am really not."

Nicki calls the outburst a defense mechanism, explaining that she began to suspect that fellow judge Mariah Carey was displeased with her being on the panel.

VIDEO: Nicki Minaj on Idol Drama: There is No Feud!

With the incident still fresh in her mind, Nicki admits that she is "not looking forward to live shows" because she "cannot trust [herself]."

"Just, like, if there's a slick comment being made..." Nicki says before catching herself. "I just want it to go well. It's about the contestants."

Watch the entire interview on The Ellen DeGeneres Show Tuesday, January 15. Check your local listings.

Read More..

VOTE for the worst liar in history

Lance Armstrong’s lies weren’t the first to lead to a stunning crash. Here is a list of the rest of history’s 10 all-time greatest liars, a rogues gallery of devious dissemblers who can all be enshrined in the forked tongue Hall of Shame.

AFP/Getty Images


RICHARD NIXON — You know when a guy says “I am not a crook,” watch out. “Tricky Dick” Nixon took presidential perfidy to new heights, when he went on TV on August 15, 1973 and said “I had no prior knowledge of the Watergate break-in.” A year later, he resigned.

AP



BERNIE MADOFF — He was more of a Ponzi King than the scam’s inventor, Charles Ponzi. Madoff pretended to be one of the most savvy investors in New York, but his firm was a bogus house of cards that wound up costing his investors $50 billion when it collapsed. Now Bernie cooling his heels in prison.

Spencer A. Burnett

TAWANA BRAWLEY — Her lie set racial tensions in New York to boiling in the 1980s. The Dutchess County teen falsely claimed to have been abducted and raped by a group of men, including a cop and a prosecutor. In 1988, a grand jury found her story was a horrific hoax.

AP

JOHN EDWARDS — A slick haircut doesn’t mean you’re honest. The clean-cut Edwards went from possible President to loathed liar when — after two years of denials — he admitted in 2010 to siring a love child with mistress Rielle Hunter while his wife, Elizabeth, was dying of cancer.

AP

MILLI VANILLI — Their album may have been called “Girl You Know It’s True, ” but it was really a big lie. The “musical” duo of Rob Pilatus and Fab Morvan, became laughing stocks in 1990 when they had to return their Grammy for best new artist after it was revealed they did not actually sing the songs on the album.

AP

ANTHONY WEINER — Sure, you were “hacked” Mr. Weiner. When a picture of the Queens Congressman’s “member” wound up on the internet he tried to claim he got shafted — by a hacker to stole the picture and put it on line. Later it was revealed that he actually sent the pic to a young woman who was not his wife. He finally admitted “I have not been honest,” and short time later resigned.

AP

PETE ROSE — He was known as “Charlie Hustle.” It was an appropriate nickname. Baseball’s all time hit leader denied for years that he ever gambled on baseball, even though he was banned from the game in 1989. Then in 2004, he admitted he did place bets on the national passtime, and even bet on his own team, the Cincinnati Reds “every night.”

AP

MARION JONES — She lost her golds on the track, but still takes top honors for lying. The disgraced track star had the five medals she won in the 2000 Summer Olympics stripped for doping, charges she initially denied. She was later sentenced to six months in jail for lying to federal prosecutors who were probing use of steroids.

PINOCCHIO — History’s all time greatest liar, this little wooden “boy” wouldn’t know the truth if it bit him. His fibs were so devious that they actually made his nose grow, making him the forerunner of all politicians throughout history.

Read More..

.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.

Read More..

SunPass coming to Rickenbacker, Venetian causeways in 2014

The introduction of SunPass on two Miami-Dade causeways is the latest in a series of initiatives to expand use of Florida’s electronic toll-collection system beyond state highways.

“We are hoping that a year from now, in 2014, the new system will be in place on both the Rickenbacker and then the Venetian Causeway,” said Michael R. Bauman, chief of the Miami-Dade public works and waste management department’s causeways division.

Originally, the county had planned to activate SunPass on the causeways in 2012, but the project was delayed because of contractor issues and efforts by all Florida tolling agencies to centralize back-office operations that include billing and other customer services, Bauman said.

Conversion of causeways’ C-Pass system to SunPass transponders will be one of the most significant changes in the history of the storied roads that carry tens of thousands of commuters every day to and from the mainland.

The 5.4-mile Rickenbacker, the longer of the two causeways, is also the newest. It opened in 1947. The 2.8-mile Venetian opened in 1925.

Tolls have been charged on both causeways for decades. The Rickenbacker was the first to adopt electronic tolling in 1997 with the C-Pass system, followed by the Venetian shortly after.

Both causeways still take cash at some toll plaza lanes.

While the plan is to eliminate cash tolls, Bauman said details are more advanced for the Rickenbacker than for the Venetian.

As a result, he said in an interview, details of how SunPass will operate on the Venetian remain undecided.

On the Rickenbacker, however, he said the toll plaza will be removed and its eight lanes will be reconfigured into four lanes with electronic gantries. Cash will no longer be accepted.

In both cases, said Bauman, lower annual tolls paid by residents and commuters served by the Rickenbacker and Venetian will be preserved under the SunPass arrangement.

The vehicles of residents and commuters already registered with causeway systems will be recognized by SunPass, and no additional toll charges will be made, Bauman said.

The current cash toll price on both causeways is $1.50. Whether that rate will remain once SunPass kicks in is still under discussion, Bauman said.

On the Rickenbacker and Venetian, residents with C-Pass transponders pay a flat $24 per year. Nonresidents who drive the Rickenbacker pay $60 per year and Venetian commuters pay $90.

Registration will continue, but it will be done online.

Drivers who don’t have SunPass will still be allowed to use the causeways. They will be billed later via Toll-by-Plate, Bauman said.

Read More..

Golden Globes Fashion Video

From Jessica Chastain's tantalizingly low-cut Calvin Klein creation to Jennifer Lopez's curve-hugging Zuhair Murad gown, the stars definitely brought their fashion A-game to the 2013 Golden Globes.

Pics: Hit or Miss -- The 2013 Golden Globes!

Click the video for an in-depth look at the show-stopping ensembles of Hollywood's elite!

Read More..

Lady Gaga Bares her gun rack

Does she have a license to pack all that heat?

Lady Gaga brazenly gave a whole new meaning to the term “gun rack” this weekend when the provocative pop star wore an “assault rifle” bra during a show in Canada — despite the sensitive debate over such weapons gripping the US in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting.

Gaga looked like a musical gun moll as she strolled on stage in Vancouver wearing the outrageous outfit, which is likely to draw even more fashion criticism than the infamous “meat dress” she wore to the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards.

Gaga wore the gun bra Friday — just a day after Vice President Joe Biden met with Congress and the NRA over curbing gun violence after the elementary-school massacre in Newtown, Conn., which left 20 kids dead.

R Chiang / Splash News

WHAT BAZOOKAS! Lady Gaga debuts a new bra in Canada over the weekend — just don’t be rude and ask her what caliber she’s packing.

It also comes about a year after Gaga gave a New Year’s Eve smooch to major gun opponent Mayor Bloomberg, who said of the moment: “You have no idea how cool my daughter thinks I am right now.”

Not everyone yesterday still thought the “gun”-toting Gaga was cool for her latest outfit.

“I suppose when you haven’t enough talent to keep people’s attention, you get a gun bra,” said one wag named ReggieP on Twitter.

Despite the apparent firepower of Gaga’s bosom, the guns were just plastic models and were far less likely to cause harm than the singer’s fashion sense in general.

No stranger to controversy, Gaga’s dress made of meat upset PETA and arch-rival Sharon Osbourne, who was angered by the backlash from Lady Gaga fans.

“I am calling you a bully because you have 32 million followers hanging on your every word and you are criticizing Kelly [Osbourne],” Sharon wrote, asking: “Are you so desperate that you needed to make this public?”

Sharon later said: ‘I thought that Gaga was a main campaigner against bullying.”

Read More..

Miami Dolphins worry Marlins stand between them and a tax-funded redo for Sun Life Stadium

The Miami Dolphins are reviving their failed bid to win tax dollars for a football stadium. But team executives want no comparisons to a successful bid to win tax dollars for a baseball stadium.

Dolphins owner Stephen Ross has called a press conference for Monday to unveil a plan for an improved Sun Life Stadium. Sources say the plan will include asking state and local governments to help pay for a $400 million renovation of the 1987 facility.

State lawmakers in recent years rebuffed the Dolphins when the team asked for help on a less-expensive renovation. And while the economy and state finances are more favorable this time around, Dolphin executives see a bigger challenge now from lingering backlash against the $639 million ballpark taxpayers built for the Miami Marlins in order to move the baseball team from their old home in Sun Life. .

“It can’t be anything close to what the Marlins did,’’ said state Sen. Oscar Braynon, a Democrat whose Miami Gardens district includes Sun Life Stadium and who sponsored a 2011 bill to raise hotel taxes to fund the Dolphins renovation plan. “Unless you do something totally counter to what the Marlins did, nobody is going to vote for it.”

Both the Marlins and the Dolphins declined to comment for this story. The Dolphins have not released details of how they want to pay for the renovation, or what they want to do the stadium. But sources close to the team describe an extensive renovation of Sun Life, including adding a partial roof, a redesign of the seating configuration to improve views of the field, and shifting capacity from the low-priced seats in the upper deck to the more expensive seating closer to the sidelines. Without the space demands of a baseball field, the front row will move 18 feet closer to the field, according to a person briefed on the plans.

Polls showed Miami and Miami-Dade’s 2009 votes to build the baseball stadium with 75 percent public money were never popular. But the Marlins’ recent stripping of star players from their payroll has made the new Little Havana park Topic A when it comes to plotting a Dolphins’ victory for winning tax dollars themselves.

Dolphins executives plan to pursue two funding sources from state and local government, according to several people familiar with the team’s plans. For the first funding stream, the Dolphins plan to ask Miami-Dade to raise taxes charged mainland hotels from 6 percent to 7 percent and earmark the extra money for the stadium. The Dolphins also plan to ask Florida for an additional $2 million rebate on sales taxes on top of the $2 million the stadium already receives from the state each year under a special subsidy for professional sports teams.

Ross is expected to pledge a significant amount of the renovation money himself. Sources who have been briefed on the Dolphins’ proposal say the total pricetag for the project is $400 million. That’s almost double the renovation budget the Dolphins proposed when the team last went to the Legislature for money in 2011.

Staying competitive

At the time, the Dolphins unveiled a $225 million redo of Sun Life with expanded sideline seating, high-definition lighting and a partial roof that would both shade seats during hot games and shield spectators from the kind of downpour that drenched the stands during the 2007 Super Bowl in Miami Gardens. The Dolphins, top executives at the NFL and some community leaders have warned that without upgrades to Sun Life, South Florida risks losing its standing as one of the nation’s top venues for the Super Bowl and college football championships.

Read More..

Newark mayor to headline Broward Democrats’ fundraiser

Rising Democratic star and Newark, N.J. Mayor Cory Booker will be the keynote speaker at the Broward Democrats’ annual fundraiser March 23.

“He is clearly part of next generation of Democratic leaders,” local party chairman Mitch Ceasar said.

Booker, an African-American Rhodes scholar and Yale University law grad, became mayor at age 37 in 2006. He turned down a job offer from President Barack Obama after his first win. In 2012, Booker spoke at the Democratic National Convention and recently confirmed he is exploring running for U.S. Senate.

The Unity Dinner is the main fundraiser for Broward Democrats, who are preparing for the 2014 elections — most notably, a challenge to Gov. Rick Scott.

Read More..

Olivia Wilde and Jason Sudeikis Engaged

Olivia Wilde, 28, and Saturday Night Live star Jason Sudeikis, 38, are engaged, ET can confirm.

The pair, who went public in December of 2011, moved in together last year and have been seemingly inseparable since.

Related: Olivia Wilde Divorces Italian Royal

According to People, Sudeikis proposed to the Tron: Legacy star shortly after the holidays.

"They are so excited," says a source. "And very, very happy."

No word yet on a wedding date.

Video: Olivia Wilde Steams Up the Screen

This will be the second wedding for Wilde, whose divorce to Italian royal Tao Ruspoli was finalized in late September of 2011.

Read More..

Stop the in‘vanity’!

Phoebe Baker Hyde is the author of “The Beauty Experiment” (Lifelong Books), which chronicles the 13 months she spent without makeup, grooming or new clothes.

I pictured myself sexy at my husband’s office party in my far-too-expensive crimson dress, red lips and high-heeled shoes.

But the photographs told another story.

I was not sexy, but shaggy. Not red hot, but hangdog. My outfit was ill-fitting and too loud in a sea of corporate black. My jewelry, makeup and shoes all fought for attention. I myself was lost.

I was not the woman or role model I wanted to be. I was at war with myself and the world around me.

NY Post: Tamara Beckwith

LESS IS MORPH: After 13 months of drastic cutbacks in her style routine, Phoebe Baker Hyde has an increased love of self — and a new book, “The Beauty Experiment.”

So in February 2007, I embarked on an experiment. I swore off Beauty and all her trappings: makeup, new clothes, salon haircuts, jewelry, the works. And I did this for the next 13 months of my life.

The stirrings of change began in 2006 when I had my first child. To hide the pounds, I wore a spandex corset for five hours a day. To fight the exhausted-mom look, I bought thicker foundation and wore brighter lipstick.

2005 when my husband, John, an accountant, was transferred from San Francisco to Hong Kong. The next year, I had my first child.

I found myself in a foreign land — where everyone dressed up even to go to the supermarket — with a new child and baby weight that refused to budge.

But I still hated what I saw in the mirror.

After the red-dress fiasco, I decided to purge myself of the powders, blushes, lipsticks, nail polishes, and even the scales and vanity mirrors that had become so central to my life.

My supportive husband, John, helped me put together a concrete plan. I could use sunscreen and moisturizer, as well as shampoo, a comb and a dab of hair gel. But I would throw out my razors and let my hair grow in all places except my face and lower legs. (My husband wasn’t so thrilled about this at first.)

I would only wear clothes I already owned. No more shopping. I could wear my wedding band and a watch, but the 38 pairs of earrings had to go back in the jewelry box.

The hardest part was saying goodbye to my long, strawberry-blond hair — my favorite feature. A barber, the same my husband frequented, chopped off 14 inches and cut it into a simple, men’s haircut.

“It’s not that bad,” John said when he saw me.

Not exactly a glowing review.

I focused on my dark roots, big nose and weak chin. Without my hair, I felt plain — not ugly, per se, but unbeautiful, unremarkable, uninteresting.

For the first month, I carried around this sense of Plain Jane-ness. I avoided meet-ups, especially in places where I was expected to dress up. My eyes were lost without eyeliner and my lips were wan and thin without lipstick.

Most of my friends were supportive. But some women took my new look as an affront. One well-coiffed ex-pat mother snubbed me. My lack of mascara seemed to her an act of defiance. Part of me felt a little superior, refusing to play the beauty game.

But one day, a few months in, I cracked.

After my one bathing suit nearly disintegrated, I bought — gasp! — a $70 replacement. Strangely, I no longer focused on how bad my body looked; in fact, I kind of liked what I saw in the mirror.

I returned to my experiment with renewed purpose. I honed my beauty regime: shower, comb hair, apply deodorant, slather SPF 30 moisturizer on my body, dress, done. Now it took me 16 minutes to get ready (almost as fast as my husband).

Something had switched inside of me.

I noticed a change in my inner voice. She had become softer and less judgmental, of me and the women around me. Bad-hair days meant nothing to me. My face without makeup said “face,” not hideous problem.

I kept track of the incredible amount of hours I had saved by not obsessing over my appearance. This was more time that I could spend on being a better mother, and a better partner. I realized I was no longer the princess, no longer the bride, and no longer the beauty the whole world wanted — and I was not filled with rage over this.

I ended my experiment 13 months in, but the discoveries have stayed with me.

I use makeup sparingly. I keep my hair short and shop out of purpose and need.

My beauty routine rounds out to about 10 minutes, quicker even than during the height of my experiment. All of this has given me a buoyant undercurrent of calm and well-being that can’t be faked with concealer.

Now when I look in the mirror, I don’t see wrinkles, anxiety, zits or exhaustion.

Instead, I see a face, a person, a personality, a life.

Read More..

After rough year, Carnival hopes for calmer waters

After boarding the latest addition to the Carnival Cruise Lines family, Josh Beaver sampled lasagna at the new onboard Italian restaurant, downed some drinks with his traveling companions and hit the water slides while the afternoon was still young.

“So far, from what I’ve seen, there’s lots to do,” said Beaver, 33, of Holden Beach, N.C.

The Carnival Breeze hadn’t even left PortMiami yet on a recent Saturday, and already it buzzed with vacationers exploring all there was to do: nosh on a Pig Patty from the new Guy’s Burger Bar, make friends with bartenders at the new RedFrog Pub or check out a novel and a glass of the grape at the new Library Bar.

Here aboard one of the largest ships in the biggest brand of the Number One cruise ship company in the world, there was little hint that the last year was one of the toughest in the 41-year history of parent company Carnival Corp. & plc.

Last year got off to a catastrophic start when Costa Concordia, owned by Carnival unit Costa Cruises, struck rocks in Italian waters as the captain steered the ship on an unauthorized route. The massive liner listed to one side, and 32 people died in the chaos that followed.

“When you lose lives, it’s heartbreaking,” said Carnival Corp. Vice Chairman and COO Howard Frank, who devoted much of his time last winter handling the aftermath with Costa leaders. “And so I think in terms of our emotional reaction to it, it’s been the toughest year we’ve had.”

Carnival Corp. Chairman and CEO Micky Arison took criticism for not going to Italy following the wreck, but said he believes the company did the right thing and doesn’t second-guess his actions.

Financially, the company took a hit as well, starting with discounts that were necessary to drum up business after the accident. Costa’s future bookings plunged, but picked up after the operator slashed prices. As of mid-December, prices at Costa remained lower than they were a year earlier, though the company expects that to change once the anniversary of the accident passes.

“I think we’ve been consistent in saying the recovery at Costa is not a one-year issue,” Arison said during the December earnings call with analysts. “It’s going to be multiple years, and we are forecasting a recovery of about half the yield deterioration.”

The ship remains on its side off the island of Giglio; it’s expected to be removed by the end of summer.

A flurry of civil lawsuits have been filed, but none have reached trial yet; the company has reached compensation agreements with 70 percent of the more than 3,000 passengers who were not physically injured and 60 percent of injured passengers and families of those who died.

As the company and broader industry focused anew on safety, the summer months presented a fresh set of problems when the European economy weakened just as cruise lines were stationing more ships in the Mediterranean. While North America was immune to those concerns, the run-up to the Presidential election and the fiscal cliff debates prompted Carnival to worry about a slowdown in business at home.

Last month, Carnival forecast 2013 earnings that were lower than expectations and said advance bookings for the year were behind what they were a year earlier at lower prices. Many analysts believe the projections were conservative, though, and executives said they were hopeful that January would bring more robust business.

Read More..