Christie reunites with Obama at White House to ask for more Sandy aid

WASHINGTON — New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie is reuniting with President Barack Obama for the first time since the pair teamed up in response to Superstorm Sandy.

Christie made an unannounced visit Thursday to the White House, where he met with Obama to press for $83 billion in extra disaster aid for his state plus New York and Connecticut.

Obama is expected to ask Congress for about $50 billion in additional emergency aid for 11 states struck by the late October storm.

Christie made a similar pitch to a fellow Republican, House Speaker John Boehner, later at the Capitol.




AP



New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie walks to a meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington.



The New Jersey governor might seek the presidency himself in 2016. His warm praise of Obama's handling of the storm so close to last month's election drew fire some fellow Republicans.

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Scott names counsel to head jobless agency




















— Gov. Rick Scott turned to his top lawyer to take over the state’s jobs agency after the executive director abruptly resigned amid questions about jobless benefits he received before he was hired.

Scott on Thursday named Jesse Panuccio, the governor’s general counsel, to replace Hunting Deutsch. Deutsch quit earlier this week after about eight months on the job.

Panuccio becomes the third person to take over the Department of Economic Opportunity, which was created a year ago at the urging of Scott. The agency — which was formed from parts of several former agencies — handles economic development and runs the state’s unemployment compensation system.





Scott’s decision to turn to another administration official to lead the agency marks a dramatic shift from the governor’s first year in office, when he tried to attract people outside of government to take top posts.

Panuccio has been involved in many high-profile battles of the Scott administration, including appearing in court to argue in favor of Scott’s push to drug-test welfare recipients. Panuccio also recently unsuccessfully tried to get a judge to shield Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll from being questioned in a criminal case involving one of her former aides.

“Jesse’s unparalleled work ethic and intellectual capacity will be a much-needed catalyst for progress,” Scott said in a statement. “Jesse has skillfully represented our office and the people of Florida in important legal cases over the last two years, and we are excited to have him devote his energy and skill to another vital part of state government.”

Scott, just back from a trade mission to Colombia, also appointed outgoing State Attorney Peter Antonacci of West Palm Beach to replace Panuccio as his general counsel. Antonacci is a former statewide prosecutor and deputy attorney general. He also represented former governors in impeachment trials against local election supervisors.

Panuccio will start his new position on Jan. 8.

The changes follow Deutsch’s decision to resign on Tuesday after questions were raised about unemployment compensation he received from September 2009 through May 2011. That period included a time he was traveling in Europe and presumably unavailable to work in Florida as required.

Deutsch maintained he had met eligibility requirements, but some Republican state senators raised questions about how he could get benefits while traveling abroad. Deutsch could have had a rough time getting confirmed by the state Senate if he had remained in the job.

He had spent more than 30 years in the banking industry up to 2009. But the bank that employed him failed and was seized by federal regulators that year.

Deutsch has acknowledged he received a severance payment from the bank, but he has said he cannot discuss it due to a confidentiality agreement. He was out of work until he was hired this past April to his $140,000-a-year post. Despite a gap in Deutsch’s résumé, a spokeswoman for Scott said that the governor was unaware that Deutsch had applied for and received jobless benefits.

The maximum amount of benefits that Deutsch would have been eligible to receive was $275 a week.

Deutsch himself replaced the first head of the agency, Doug Darling, who was forced to resign by the Scott administration right before he was scheduled to have his first confirmation hearing.





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State ethics commission: State Rep. Erik Fresen may have failed to disclose personal finances




















The Florida Ethics Commission announced Wednesday it has found probable cause that state Rep. Erik Fresen, R-Miami, failed to properly disclose his annual net worth, assets, and liabilities from 2008 to 2011.

Fresen called the allegations “baseless and pointless.”

The commission’s next step is to determine whether Fresen violated state ethics laws by failing to properly report his income and liabilities on his annual state disclosure forms. That process could take several weeks.





Fresen’s finances have been the subject of several reports, including in the Miami Herald, and became an issue in his successful primary campaign against opponent Amory Bodin.

Fresen said Wednesday the charges were filed against him by an aide to Bodin and he considers them "nothing but a textbook political attack" and he expects to fight the charges. He said the probable cause findings "deal with technicalities and not substantive issues."

"I’m confident that it will be dismissed and we will be responding to it as the process dictates,’’ Fresen said. "It’s baseless and pointless."

Fresen, a land-use consultant, has been dogged by questions about his personal finances since 2008, when a lender filed a foreclosure suit against him, his wife and his mother. He reported a $357,000 net worth in 2011, according to documents posted on the web site of Integrity Florida, a Tallahassee-based government watchdog group.

Prior to the Republican primary in August, the Herald reported that a mortgage company filed suit against Fresen after he failed to make payments in May 2008.

Fresen says the lender tried to double-bill him for $14,000 in property taxes on the house, taxes he said he paid at closing when he bought the house in 2006. (The home was actually purchased by Fresen’s mother, who transferred the deed to Fresen and his wife a month later, records show.) He says the bank sued after he refused to pay the extra amount.

“They would not accept anything but the total amount,” said Fresen, who calls the lawsuit a “legal nightmare.” Fresen said in court papers that he tried to “cure” the default before the foreclosure suit was filed in 2008.

In 2009, a judge ordered the sale of Fresen’s house to pay off a $641,000 judgment, court records show. But in February 2010 — only days before the scheduled sale — the judge rescinded the order because the bank had failed to notify other parties with claims against Fresen and his mother, records show.

No new sale date was ever set, though the foreclosure suit is still pending, court records show.

Fresen said the case has been slowed because the mortgage has been transferred among several banks, but he’s confident the case will be settled soon.

“I can more than cover my mortgage,” Fresen said. “I’m willing to pay whatever must be paid.”

The mortgage, however, does not appear as a debt listed in Fresen’s financial disclosure forms filed with the state. A Miami woman has filed an ethics complaint against Fresen saying he failed to disclose both the mortgage and the foreclosure suit, records show.

Fresen said he doesn’t believe he’s obligated to list the mortgage among his debts because it’s effectively suspended — he says he hasn’t paid the mortgage company in months. “They’re not billing anything,” he said.

Property records and court records show that the mortgage on Fresen’s home is in his mother’s name, not his own. But Fresen says he is responsible for the mortgage, and it appears on his credit report.

Fresen is also facing a $29,199 lien filed by the IRS in May 2011 for taxes owed from 2004 and 2007, records show. Fresen said the 2007 portion of the lien also stems from taxes levied on the money at the heart of the mortgage dispute, and said his accountant is still trying to learn the source of the 2004 tax bill.

In addition, Fresen is trying to remove a $10,000 lien filed on his house by the Miami-Dade Building Department for a code-enforcement violation. The lien was filed over a pool fence erected without obtaining a final permit. Fresen said the contractor was supposed to obtain the final permit and never did; the contractor called the county last week to renew the permit, records show.





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'In Vogue' Fashionistas Buzz About Kate Middleton's Baby

The world's most influential fashion magazine and the creative forces behind it took center stage at The Met in New York Tuesday night for the premiere of HBO's In Vogue: The Editor's Eye, and the stars and fashion's top designers were buzzing about the pregnant Kate Middleton and her maternity fashion possibilities. Watch the video!

Pics: Vogue's Best-Dressed Stars

Joining Vogue commander Anna Wintour were fashionable celebs Sarah Jessica Parker, Dianna Agron and Christina Ricci alongside former model Carol Alt and such fashion icons as Vera Wang, Donna Karan, Marchesa's Georgina Chapman and Keren Craig, Derek Lam and Zac Posen.

Video: Inside Vera Wang's Star-Studded Fashion Show

Coinciding with the 120th anniversary of the trendsetting publication, In Vogue: The Editor's Eye -- from filmmakers Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato -- mines the fashion mag's extensive archives to study some of the world's most influential fashion images as conceived by the magazine's iconic fashion editors. The documentary features behind-the-scenes interviews with celebrated Vogue subjects, industry icons and designers.

In Vogue: The Editor's Eye debuts Thursday, December 6 at 9pm on HBO.

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Dark Knight shooter's school records released








The University of Colorado at Denver on Wednesday released thousands of documents that may relate to the man accused in the Colorado theater shootings, but much of the material appeared to be heavily redacted.

More than 2,000 records were released after news organizations, including The Associated Press, requested them to learn about James Holmes' year at the school. But a significant number appeared to be entirely redacted by the school.

The university cited federal laws that bar the release of academic or medical information.

Holmes was a graduate student in neuroscience at the school before the July 20 shooting. He is accused of opening fire inside a suburban Aurora theater during a showing of "The Dark Knight Rises." Twelve people were killed and 58 others were injured.





Getty Images



James Holmes





Holmes is charged with multiple first-degree murder and attempted murder counts. He has not entered a plea and won't do so until after a weeklong preliminary hearing in which prosecutors present evidence supporting the charges. That hearing is scheduled to begin Jan. 7. A motions hearing in the case is set for Monday.

The documents shed little new light on how the school handled Holmes, who, according to his attorneys, suffers from a mental illness.

He allegedly began stockpiling firearms and ammunition while taking classes in the spring. In June, prosecutors say, he made threats to a professor, and he filed withdrawal papers June 10 after failing a year-end final exam. The next day he saw his school psychiatrist, who tried to report him to a campus security committee, according to Holmes' lawyers.

Four days after the attack, campus police chief Doug Abraham said at a news conference that campus police had no information on Holmes. The school has since declined to answer detailed questions about Holmes' behavior, citing a gag order that remains in effect and federal privacy laws that limit the amount of medical and academic information it can disclose.

Those laws also limited the number of documents released Wednesday. At the request of defense attorneys, about 100 emails between Holmes and his family and friends were withheld because they are not covered under Colorado's Open Records Act.

The remaining documents were released only after a lengthy court battle.

In the days after the shooting, the Arapahoe County District Attorney's office asked Judge William B. Sylvester to bar the university from releasing records requested by numerous media organizations. Prosecutors argued that the information could jeopardize Holmes' right to a fair trial. Sylvester agreed, but amended his order last month to allow the release after media organizations objected in court.










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Innovate MIA puts spotlight on startup community




















If you think the next week is all about art, you may be surprised to learn there are also six entrepreneurship events vying for your time.

And that is all by design.

In much the way that Art Basel helped put Miami’s arts community on the international map, organizers of the first Innovate MIA hope their weeklong grouping of events will shine a light on the city’s growing tech startup community and its position as the gateway to Latin America.





Many of the events — ending with Florida International University’s Americas Venture Capital Conference — are after Art Basel. That’s also why the third annual AVCC was moved to Dec. 13-14 from its previous mid-November dates.

“Our message is come for Art Basel, and stay for AVCC,” said Juan Pablo Cappello, a lawyer, entrepreneur and investor who is on the steering committee of the venture capital conference and several other Innovate MIA events. And all week, there will be plenty of opportunities for Miami’s entrepreneurs, creatives and investors to mingle with their counterparts from all over the Americas and beyond.

In addition to the AVCC, there’s Incubate Miami’s DemoDay, where its class of startups present their companies, the martial arts-inspired TekFight and HackDay, which dangles a $50,000 cash prize. Endeavor, the global nonprofit that promotes high-impact entrepreneurship in emerging economies, is bringing its two-day International Selection Panel to Miami, and Wayra, an international accelerator, is holding a one-day event to showcase its promising startups from Latin America and Spain. It’s all part of Innovate MIA week: “I don’t think anything like it has ever been organized here in South Florida,” Cappello said.

The AVCC will be the big draw, with about 300 people expected to attend the two-day event at the JW Marriott Brickell. The conference, themed “Data, Design & Dollars,” will feature thought leaders from all over the world, particularly Latin America, and presentations by 29 selected companies. This year, the format has been overhauled and energized, with lots of short talks and more time for question-and-answer sessions and networking, said Jerry Haar, associate dean of FIU’s College of Business, director of the Pino Global Entrepreneurship Center and AVCC co-chair.

The AVCC’s 36 speakers include Martin Varsavsky, Argentine tech entrepreneur, investor and founder of Viatel, Ya.com, Jazztel and FON; Hernan J. Kazah, co-founder and managing partner at Kaszek Ventures and co-founder of Mercadolibre; and Jason L. Baptiste, CEO and co-founder of Onswipe. There’s also Michael Jackson, former COO of Skype and now a venture capitalist; Albert Santalo, founder and CEO of Miami-based CareCloud; and Bedy Yang of 500 Startups.

Chosen from more than 100 applicants, the 29 presenting companies hailing from all over the Americas will be giving either two-minute or five-minute pitches, fielding questions from a panel of judges and competing for prize packages valued at about $50,000. Eight of the startups are from South Florida: itMD, Kairos, Trapezoid Digital Security, Esenem, LiveNinja, OnTrade, Rokk3r Labs and Zavee.

The presenting companies have “proven innovation, proven management teams and the ability to scale well and be a pan-regional player,” said Faquiry Diaz Cala, president of Tres Mares Group and co-chair of AVCC. “The word is out this is a great place to come and pitch to great investors in addition to potentially being one of the prize winners.”





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Commission postpones Jackson decision




















Miami-Dade County Commissioners postponed Tuesday voting on a resolution concerning the future shape of the governing board of the Jackson Health System.

Commissioner Rebeca Sosa asked for the delay and no one opposed the move.

In October, the commission voted 6-5 to make permanent a seven-member Jackson board, selected by a nominating committee of nine persons, five of whom would be board members. The commission would then approve the nominees.





That resolution was pushed hard by Commission Chairman Joe Martinez. Martinez, who lost the mayoral race, left the board in November, and Commissioner Barbara Jordan led an effort to reconsider.





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Video: Prince William Visits Kate in the Hospital

News broke Monday that royal bride Catherine Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, is expecting her first child with Prince William, and ET has new footage of the prince visiting Kate at the hospital, and an update from the Palace about her current condition.

PICS: Baby on the Way: Will & Kate's Royal Romance

The Palace said in a statement Tuesday, "The Duchess of Cambridge is continuing to feel better. She and the Duke are immensely grateful for the good wishes they have received. She will remain in hospital at present and will continue to be treated for Hyperemesis Gravidarum."

Her Royal Highness is suffering from a severe form of morning sickness. William looked like he was in good spirits as he exited King Edward VII Hospital in London on Tuesday evening.

ET can confirm that the queen and other members of the royal family found out about Kate’s pregnancy on Monday. Sources tell People.com that the queen won't be visiting her granddaughter-in-law while she remains in the hospital, mainly because her visit would interfere with the running of the hospital.

Watch the video for more, and keep checking ETonline for the latest on the Duchess' health.

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Singer loses bid to wrest $250M from Argentina








Paul Singer’s last-ditch attempt to get cash from Argentina this year has failed.

A motion by Singer’s hedge fund, Elliott Management, requesting that the South American country put up a security deposit of $250 million by Dec. 10 was denied by a federal appeals court today.

“Since we will not have a big payment for ages (if ever), this looks like a huge blow to [Elliott’s] strategy,” said sovereign-debt expert Anna Gelpern,

The appellate slap-down of the billionaire hedgie is the second in a week. Last week, the same panel overturned a decision by a District Court judge that would have required Argentina to put $1.3 billion in escrow to pay Elliott by Dec. 15, pending further appeals in a court battle that has dragged on for a decade.




Argentina is scheduled to pay $3 billion on Dec. 15 to exchange bondholders who agreed to big write downs on their debt. Elliott and other so-called holdouts did not agree to the restructuring and are demanding full repayment.

District Judge Thomas Griesa ruled Singer and his band of holdout bondholders are entitled to get paid in full when Argentina made payments to the others.

Argentina President Cristina Kirchner has repeatedly said that the country would never pay Singer and the other holdouts.

In the wake of Griesa’s ruling, when it appeared Argentina might make no payment in order to avoid paying Singer — which could have caused the restructured bonds to default — the price of those bonds went into a tailspin while the price of insuring the country’s debt skyrocketed.

The prices of both returned to more normal levels this week.

The concerns of exchange bondholders — as well as other third parties involved in making the payments, such as Bank of New York — were ignored by Griesa.

But the appeals court decided to give them time to make their case. It allowed the other bondholders — led by hedge funds Gramercy, Brevan Howard and Alliance Bernstein — to intervene in the case.

The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals panel in Manhattan also set up a schedule for a fuller hearing of the argument, which stretches into late February.

Elliott tried to amend the process via its emergency motion requesting a security deposit as a “good faith” effort by Argentina. Singer’s $20 billion hedge fund argued that if its motion wasn’t granted by Dec. 15, it might get nothing.

“Argentina is . . . actively planning to evade the [court order] by attempting to move offshore its payment structure under the exchange bonds and will use the time to implement such plans,” said lawyer Ted Olsen in Elliott’s motion.

The hedge fund had made such arguments before, citing speculation in the Argentine press. However, a source close to Elliott told The Post it was “highly unlikely” that such work-arounds would be successful.

While Elliott’s emergency motion was a long shot, its demand for $250 million so incensed the exchange bondholders that they quickly shot back at Singer — asking the appeals court to force the billionaire to post $2 billion to an escrow account to help cover losses they might incur if it granted Elliott’s request and Argentina refused to post the security deposit.

Previously, Argentina broached the notion of reopening its debt exchange just days before the appeals court reinstituted its stay. Bondholders who had feared default were encouraged by that, believing it signaled Argentina that was open to negotiating with Elliott behind closed doors.

Those plans are believed to be on ice now, as the country works on its new brief.

mcelarier@nypost.com










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The business behind the artist: Miami’s art gallery scene still evolving




















This week, thousands of art collectors, museum trustees, artists, journalists and hipsters from around the globe will arrive for the phenomenon known as Art Basel Miami Beach. The centerpiece of the week: works shown at the convention center by more than 260 of the world’s top galleries.

Only two of those are from Miami.

While Art Basel has helped transform the city’s reputation from beach-and-party scene to arts destination in the years since its 2002 Miami Beach debut, the region’s gallery identity is still coming into its own.





“Certainly Miami as an art town registers mightily because of the foundations, the collectors who have done an extraordinary job,” said Linda Blumberg, executive director of the Art Dealers Association of America. “I think there’s a definite international awareness there. But the gallery scene probably has a bit of a ways to go. That doesn’t mean it’s not really fascinating and interesting.”

The gallery business, especially where newer artists are concerned, is a game of risk, faith and passion. Once a gallery takes on an artist who shows promise, they become an evangelist on their behalf, showing their work in-house and at fairs, presenting it to museums and curators and potential collectors and bearing the cost of that promotion.

For contemporary artists, most galleries take work on consignment, meaning they get a cut of as much as 50 percent when works sell. While local art galleries have been growing in number and popularity in the last several years — just try to find parking during the monthly art walk in Miami’s hot Wynwood neighborhood — even some of the area’s top art dealers say that while business overall is good, they struggle in the local marketplace.

“Our problem is that we have to do lots of art fairs in order to connect with the market that we need to connect with to sell the work that we have,” said Fredric Snitzer, a Miami-Dade gallery owner for 35 years. “The better the work is, the harder it is to sell in Miami. And that ain’t good.”

A handful of serious collectors call Miami home and store their own collections in Miami, including the Braman, Rubell, Margulies and de la Cruz families. But outside a relatively small local group, many gallerists say, their clients come from other parts of the country and world.

And some gallerists point out the troubling reality that even the powerhouse Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin could not stay open in Miami for more than a few years.

“The fact that big galleries have not been able to sustain their business models in South Florida tells you we’re obviously not at this high established point,” said gallery owner David Castillo. “It’s not like we’ve arrived, let’s sit back and watch Hauser & Wirth open down the street.”

Still, Miami’s gallery business has come a long way since the early 1970s, when a few dealers on Bay Harbor Island’s Kane Concourse were selling high-end pieces but the local scene was hardly embraced.

Virginia Miller, who owns ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries in Coral Gables, first opened in 1974 to showcase Florida artists, though her focus soon added an international scope. She and other longtime observers credit several factors for Miami’s transformation, including the community’s diversity, the establishment of important museums, the Art Miami fair that started 23 years ago, the presence of major collections and, of course, Art Basel Miami Beach.





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