REDDING, Conn. — Metro North train service has been suspended on the Danbury line following a train accident involving a car.
A Metro North spokesman said the train struck a car in Redding on Sunday afternoon. The train had no passengers and there was no information about whether there were injuries involving the car.
Bus service will ferry passengers between Danbury and South Norwalk.
Jared Kleinert, a South Florida entrepreneur, plans to soon launch Synergist, a platform that allow social entrepreneurs to meet potential co-founders online, collaborate and crowdfund their new projects. He also just launched AliveNDead, a blog about risk-taking, and he interns for a Silicon Valley startup.
And when he’s not doing all that, he’s going to class — he’s a junior at Spanish River High School in Boca Raton.
Lester Mapp is CEO and founder of the new Miami-based startup called designed by m. His team has just designed a sleek, ultra-thin aluminum iPhone bumper and launched the project on Kickstarter. After just a few days, Mapp is already more than a third of the way to his $20,000 fund-raising goal.
Read about both these entrepreneurs on The Starting Gate blog, where there’s also a post on the most pressing issues facing small businesses in the coming year — taxes, healthcare, lending and a skilled worker shortage, for starters.
And as you are ringing in the New Year, you may be resolving to beef up your business’ social media strategy. Susan Linning's guest post offers five top tips for boosting your social media effectiveness. Among them: Go beyond retweets and make your posts original, fun and personal (but not too personal.) Use visuals, too. Find this and other news, views and tools for entrepreneurs on the blog, which is at the bottom of MiamiHerald.com /business.
Follow me on Twitter @ndahlberg and Happy New Year to all.
A looming longshoremen’s strike set for midnight Saturday, which threatened havoc at 15 ports along the eastern seaboard and Gulf Coast, has been averted for at least a month.
The two sides, the International Longshoreman’s Association and the U.S. Maritime Alliance, announced Friday morning they would continue to negotiate after a couple of days of tense mediation.
After eight months of talks the sides went their separate ways Dec. 18. But talks picked up again this week in response to pressure from port directors, retail federations, even the White House.
The longshoremen, a group of 14,650 workers, some who operate the giant gantry cranes at the nation’s ports, threatened to walk out on contract talks early Sunday morning if the U.S. Maritime Alliance didn’t back off its demand that the union stop receiving royalties, or bonuses, for each container leaving or loaded onto a ship. In many cases those bonuses allow longshoremen to double their salaries to more than $100,000 a year.
Port directors throughout the nation have expressed concern that a strike would virtually halt economic activity throughout the country. It would affect mostly non-perishable goods like clothing and televisions. PortMiami does close to $20 billion a year in container business.
The longshoremen’s contract actually expired at the end of September, but the sides agreed to continue talks for 90 days.
Watch an exclusive video of mega-platinum artist Taio Cruz performing his latest single, Fast Car, acoustically on the roof of Drai's in Hollywood – only on ETonline!
Related: Demi Lovato and Taio Cruz Reveal Top Nominated AMA Artists
Taio is well-known for posting a series of amazing acoustic performances online, starting with simple homemade videos of him doing covers of Adele and Rihanna. Now he's doing higher-quality versions, covering Bruno Mars and performing unique acoustic versions of his biggest hits, Break Your Heart and Dynamite (which is the biggest-selling song in the history of his label, Island Def Jam, and the original video has more than 121 million views!).
Watch, listen and enjoy!
More than three million Cablevision customers could wake up New Year’s Day without shows such as “SpongeBob Squarepants” and “The Daily Show.”
The Long Island cable operator is set to drop 17 channels, including MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central, in a dispute with Viacom over programming fees. Their current contract expires on Jan. 1.
It marks the second time in the past year that Viacom has faced off against a major pay-TV distributor. Viacom-owned channels went dark for DirecTV’s 20 million customers for more than a week in July in a similar dispute over fees.
REUTERS
SpongeBob Squarepants might be a thing of the past for Cablevision customers come January 1st.
While Cablevision has just 3.5 million households, its influential coverage area includes New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, where many network and advertising execs reside.
Reps for Viacom and Cablevision weren’t able to immediately comment.
A looming longshoremen’s strike set for midnight Saturday, which threatened havoc at 15 ports along the eastern seaboard and Gulf Coast, has been averted for at least a month.
The two sides, the International Longshoreman’s Association and the U.S. Maritime Alliance, announced Friday morning they would continue to negotiate after a couple of days of tense mediation.
After eight months of talks the sides went their separate ways Dec. 18. But talks picked up again this week in response to pressure from port directors, retail federations, even the White House.
The longshoremen, a group of 14,650 workers, some who operate the giant gantry cranes at the nation’s ports, threatened to walk out on contract talks early Sunday morning if the U.S. Maritime Alliance didn’t back off its demand that the union stop receiving royalties, or bonuses, for each container leaving or loaded onto a ship. In many cases those bonuses allow longshoremen to double their salaries to more than $100,000 a year.
Port directors throughout the nation have expressed concern that a strike would virtually halt economic activity throughout the country. It would affect mostly non-perishable goods like clothing and televisions. PortMiami does close to $20 billion a year in container business.
The longshoremen’s contract actually expired at the end of September, but the sides agreed to continue talks for 90 days.
Last week I received several emails from readers who wanted me to write again about computer safety since many got a computer for Christmas. Therefore, I pulled some information from one of our crime prevention partners, The National Crime Prevention Council, and here are tips you need to take seriously whether you are a senior or a parent:
• Use anti-virus software and keep it up-to-date. The software is designed to protect your computer against known viruses but, with new viruses emerging daily, anti-virus programs need regular updates. Check with the website of your anti-virus software company to see sample descriptions of viruses and to get regular updates for your software. I do updates on my computer every other day.
• Don’t open emails or attachments from unknown sources. Be suspicious of any unexpected email attachments even if they appear to be from someone you know. Should you receive a suspicious email, the best thing to do is to delete the entire message, including any attachment.
• Protect your computer from Internet intruders by using firewalls. These create a protective wall between your computer and the outside world. They come in two forms, software firewalls that run on your personal computer and hardware firewalls that protect a number of computers at the same time. Firewalls also ensure that unauthorized persons can’t gain access to your computer while you’re connected to the Internet.
• Use hard-to-guess passwords. Mix upper case, lower case, numbers or other characters, and make sure your passwords are at least eight characters long. Don’t share your password and don’t use the same password in more than one place. Don’t use your maiden name or the names of your mother, your children or your spouse’s family. Those are easy to figure out.
• Disconnect your computer from the Internet when not in use. This lessens the chance that someone will be able to access your computer. Also, if you haven’t kept your anti-virus software up to date or don’t have a firewall in place, someone could infect your computer or use it to harm someone else on the Internet.
• Check your security on a regular basis. You should evaluate your computer security at least twice a year.
• Back up your computer data on a thumb drive, just in case we have a hurricane, you can take it with you. There is nothing worse than losing pictures, information and work when a computer crashes.
Last, I want to remind all parents, if you gave a computer to your child, no matter what age, please make sure that the computer is somewhere you can see it.
In closing, I want to wish everyone a blessed 2013, I wish you the best of health and happiness!
With that said, I must remind everyone that there are crazy people out there that like to shoot guns into the air, a deadly habit, therefore the first shot fired you hear please call the police immediately. You might think it’s fire crackers, but it may not be so please stay away from windows or outside at midnight. Remember what goes up must come down, and that is when people get hurt.
Have a great week!
From Angelina Jolie's glamorous Atelier Versace Golden Globes dress, to Sofia Vergara's gorgeous glittery teal Zuhair Murad gown (that ended up giving her one of the most memorable wardrobe malfunctions of all time) at the Emmys, the year was full of buzzworthy red carpet fashion moments.
Pics: 2012's Top 12 Amazing Gowns
Check out the video to see the best of the best, and to relive star-making moments such as Jennifer Lawrence in her gold cut-out Prabal Gurung gown at The Hunger Games premiere and Anne Hathaway's dramatic Tom Ford Les Miserables look that's sure to go down in the history books!
AP
This Nov. 13, 2012 photo provided by the family via The Washington Post shows Noah Pozner. The six-year-old was one of the victims in the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting in Newtown, Conn.
HARTFORD, Conn. — A New York City woman has been arrested by federal authorities who say she tried to scam donors by posing as a relative of one of the children killed at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.
Thirty-seven-year-old Nouel Alba of the Bronx was arrested Thursday and charged with lying to FBI agents.
Federal prosecutors say Alba used her Facebook account, telephone calls and text messages to seek donations for what she called a "funeral fund" for 6-year-old Newtown victim Noah Pozner. Alba posed as Pozner's aunt and allegedly solicited donations in his memory, according to NBC.
"I never sent any message on Facebook," Alba told NBC before claiming that she refunded all the donation money she recieved.
When contacted by FBI agents investigating charity schemes related to the shooting at Sandy Hook Elemenatry School, Alba denied seeking donations.
Alba appeared Thursday in federal court in Hartford and was released on $50,000 bond. If she is convicted of lying to federal agents she faces a maximum term of five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
Pozner scam charity complaint
Information from the Associated Press contributed to this report
Homebuyers continued to sign contracts to buy homes and condominiums in Miami-Dade county at a brisk pace in November.
Pending sales for an existing single-family home or condominium spiked 52 percent in Miami-Dade in November to 3,374 units from 2,226 a year earlier, according to the Miami Association of Realtors.
The volume of pending sales – reflecting a sales contract signed on a transaction that hasn’t closed – fell 19.1 percent in November from October, the Realtors’ group said.
Pending sales for single-family homes rose 73.8 percent in November from a year earlier, while that for condos increased 37.4 percent year over year, Miami Realtors said.
The group said Miami-Dade is on track to hit a new sales record existing homes and condos for 2012.
With exceptionally tight inventory of residential property on the market and rising demand, properties are selling at closer to their asking prices. Single-family homes sold in November got 93.7 percent of the original listing price on average, while condominiums fetched 96.2 percent, Miami Realtors said.
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