For new year, resolve to commit random acts of kindness

Well, here we are, dear Friends and Neighbors, on the eve of another new year. So much happened to us in 2012 — some good and some bad. But through it all, by the grace of God, we made it to the end of the "old" year.When I was a young woman, I made a new year’s resolution every year. The new year brings with it that kind of fresh-start magic. To many of us, the new year...

Read More..

Buzzmakers: Kate Winslet's Wedding and Rider Strong's Engaged

What had ET readers buzzing this week?1. Kate Winslet Ties the Knot!Kate Winslet recently married her boyfriend Ned Rocknroll in a small, secret ceremony in New York.A rep for the 37-year-old Oscar winner tells ET, "I can confirm that Kate Winslet married Ned Rock'nRoll in NY earlier this month in a private ceremony attended by her two children and a very few friends and family." The rep added that...

Read More..

Forced diet at eateries

New York City’s restaurant industry slimmed down in 2012, ending the year with fewer openings and flat revenues, according to analysts and hospitality execs.“We had expected a better year coming out of the recession,” admitted a disappointed Jeremy Merrin, founder and president of Havana Central, the casual, full-service Cuban restaurants with Manhattan...

Read More..

Resources for South Florida small businesses

•  Florida Small Business Development Centers. Counseling and training at centers in South Florida and around the state, www.floridasbdc.org.•  SCORE Workshops, online training and free coaching at local branches, www.score.org, miamidade.score.org, browardscore.org, southbroward.score.org• Florida Women’s Business Center. Provides training, mentoring and...

Read More..

Former Miami Beach resident may be next Israeli ambassador to U.S.

Ron Dermer, a top adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and who has family ties to two former Miami Beach mayors, may soon become the next Israeli ambassador to the United States, according to reports in an Israeli newspaper.The daily Makor Rishon reported late Friday that the current ambassador, Michael Oren, plans to step down from his post in the spring...

Read More..

Makers of $99 Android-Powered Game Console Ship First 1,200 ‘Ouyas’

Like Nintendo’s Wii U game console, the Ouya (that’s “OOH-yuh”) has an unusual name and even more unusual hardware. The console is roughly the size of a Rubik’s cube, and is powered by Android, Google‘s open-source operating system that’s normally found on smartphones and tablets.Ouya’s makers, who are preparing the console for its commercial launch, encourage interested gamers to pop the case open...

Read More..

Uncle Sam’s sorry day of reckoning

Never mind New Year’s Eve — Monday is Debt Ceiling Day! According to the best guesstimate by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the federal government on Monday will reach its statutory borrowing limit of $16.4 trillion — or roughly 104 percent of America’s total economic output. A legal limit on federal debt was first enacted during World War I and has...

Read More..

Resources for South Florida small businesses

•  Florida Small Business Development Centers. Counseling and training at centers in South Florida and around the state, www.floridasbdc.org.•  SCORE Workshops, online training and free coaching at local branches, www.score.org, miamidade.score.org, browardscore.org, southbroward.score.org• Florida Women’s Business Center. Provides training, mentoring and...

Read More..

Relatives take to the streets for clues in the murder of Miami teen

The grieving parents of a slain 16-year-old boy took to the streets Thursday in an effort to find who killed the Miami Jackson Senior High 10th-grader.Bryan Herrera — who will be buried Friday — was shot to death days before Christmas while riding his bicycle in Allapattah. Miami-Dade Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho helped Bryan’s parents hand out fliers Thursday....

Read More..

Police offer ‘virtual ridealongs’ via Twitter

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — Riding side by side as a police officer answers a call for help or investigates a brutal crime during a ridealong gives citizens an up close look at the gritty and sometimes dangerous situations officers can experience on the job.But a new social media approach to informing the public about what officers do is taking hold at police departments across the United States and...

Read More..

Wall Street cliff-hanger as markets gyrate

Wall Street rode a wild roller-coaster yesterday as it clung to hope that Washington’s fumbling team might get back into formation and punt their way out of the fiscal cliff crisis.Stocks nose-dived during the day over fears a budget deal was all but dead in the House, wiping nearly 150 points from the Dow Jones industrial average, and also dragging down...

Read More..

Drug overuse in cattle imperils human health

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Two children seriously injured in the Joplin, Mo., tornado in May 2011 showed up at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City suffering from antibiotic-resistant infections from dirt and debris in their wounds.Physicians tried different drugs, but at first nothing seemed to work.Blame the overuse of antibiotics in livestock, according to the doctors familiar...

Read More..

Man set on fire Christmas night, Miami-Dade police are investigating

A 44-year-old man was set on fire Christmas night at a gas station in central Miami-Dade County. He was burned over 75 percent of his body but remained alive Wednesday as his family pleaded for help in finding his attackers.It was a mystery why Darrell Brackett was set ablaze at the U-Gas station at 4700 NW 27th Ave. Miami-Dade police said they were treating the investigation...

Read More..

Analysis: Amazon’s Christmas faux pas shows risks in the cloud

(Reuters) – A Christmas Eve glitch traced to Amazon.com Inc that shuttered Netflix for users from Canada to South America highlights the risks that companies take when they move their datacenter operations to the cloud.While the high-profile failure – at least the third this year – may cause some Amazon Web Services customers to consider alternatives, it is unlikely to severely hurt a fast-growing...

Read More..

George H.W. Bush in intensive care

HOUSTON — Former President George H.W. Bush has been admitted to the intensive care unit at a Houston hospital "following a series of setbacks including a persistent fever," but he is alert and talking to medical staff, his spokesman said Wednesday.Jim McGrath, Bush's spokesman in Houston, said in a brief email that Bush was admitted to the ICU at Methodist...

Read More..

Deadline to apply for free foreclosure case reviews is Monday

Florida residents who believe they suffered from shoddy foreclosure practices have through Monday to apply for a free case review that could net them up to $125,000 if wrongdoing is found.The program, which is overseen by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, began in November 2011 with an estimated 4 million eligibility letters mailed nationwide.As of late September,...

Read More..

Outdoorsy fun for the New Year’s holiday

So, as Miss Ella once sang, What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?Many of you, of course, will ring in 2013 with champagne and dancing at one of the clubs in Miami Beach or downtown Miami — and many of these same people will wake up with a hangover Tuesday only to wonder why they spent $2,000 to be in the same space as R&B/hip-hop act Drake and a DJ at the Fontainebleau...

Read More..

Lady Gaga Documentary Announced

The nearly 33 million Little Monsters who follow Lady Gaga on Twitter got a massive Christmas present this morning as the singer revealed she'll soon be coming to a theater near you! VIDEO - Lady Gaga Hosts Fame Picnic in Paris"Merry Christmas little monsters," Gaga wrote. "Terry Richardson is making a #LadyGagaMOVIE documenting my life, the creation of ARTPOP + you!""Thank you for being so patient...

Read More..

Hock gets haute

Looking for a quick $1 million? Help is here for Big Apple high rollers: a new breed of upscale pawn shops is willing to trade cash for pricey personal items like jewelry, antique cars and fine wine. The city’s first high-end pawnbroker, Borro.com, has loaned out millions to more than 15,000 well-heeled clients in its initial year, using their extravagant...

Read More..

Miami: We’re still busiest cruise port

Florida’s ports are steaming bow-to-bow in the race to be the world’s businest cruise ship port. Though some publications have reported Port Canaveral in the lead with 3,761,056 million for its fiscal year ending Sept. 30, PortMiami officials Monday said they had hosted 3,774,452 passengers during the same period, putting it slightly ahead. Fort Lauderdale’s PortEverglades...

Read More..

New generation of judges serving on federal bench in South Florida

For a fleeting moment this fall, U.S. District Judge Robert N. Scola Jr. declared in jest that he wished he were “king of the world.” If he had such power, Scola said from the bench, he would deny a defense lawyer’s request to travel to Pakistan to question a group of defendants charged in a Miami terrorism case along with two Muslim clerics. Since the missing defendants...

Read More..

ET Exclusive: Jamie Foxx Opens His Home & Heart

Jamie Foxx may be the most eligible bachelor in Hollywood, and our own Nancy O'Dell is exclusively with the Oscar winner at his Santa Monica, CA home to talk about his career, his family and how he handles the media when there's a woman in his life.The star of the upcoming Django Unchained says the worst thing that can happen in a relationship is to go public with it: "I like to stay quiet with anyone...

Read More..

Merry movieland

For Hollywood, it’s the most wonderful time of the year. The major movie studios are counting on a blockbuster Christmas Day — which traditionally kicks off one of their most lucrative weeks at the box office — to propel them to a record year. An unusually high number of Christmas openings this week — eight versus five on the last year that Christmas Day...

Read More..

Miami: We’re still busiest cruise port

Florida’s ports are steaming bow-to-bow in the race to be the world’s businest cruise ship port. Though some publications have reported Port Canaveral in the lead with 3,761,056 million for its fiscal year ending Sept. 30, PortMiami officials Monday said they had hosted 3,774,452 passengers during the same period, putting it slightly ahead. Fort Lauderdale’s PortEverglades...

Read More..

Police: 16-year-old shot and killed while riding bicycle in Miami

A 16-year-old boy was shot and killed while riding his bicycle in Miami over the weekend, and on Monday his family will ask for help finding the killer. Bryan Herrera was riding his bike Saturday afternoon, going to a friend’s house, when he was shot, according to Miami police. He was struck once, near Northwest 11th Avenue and 39th Street in Allapattah, police said. Officers...

Read More..

How to Get Free Last-Minute Shipping

First, the bad news: the cut off for free shipping on most online sites was Tuesday, Dec 18th. But the good news – we’ve got some sneaky ways to finagle free rush shipping and a list of sites still offering free shipping guaranteed to arrive before December 25th.Free Rush ShippingSome of the biggest online retailers are still offering free last minute shipping:Barnes & Noble – free shipping on...

Read More..

Bethenny Frankel Separates From Husband of 2 Years

After two years of marriage, TV personality Bethenny Frankel and husband Jason Hoppy are separating."'It brings me great sadness to say that Jason and I are separating. This was an extremely difficult decision that as a woman and a mother, I have to accept as the best choice for our family. We have love and respect for one another and will continue to amicably co-parent our daughter who is and will...

Read More..

A Visit From St. Nick

Clement Clark Moore was born in New York City in 1779 and, long before his death 84 years later, established a reputation as a scholar. A noted lecturer and writer, he also generously supported theological education.Yet his life would merit little more than a footnote in New York’s history — except for the one poem for which he is remembered. Written for...

Read More..