Cops shoot man outside Brooklyn Technical High School

Police shot and seriously wounded a man today just outside Brooklyn Technical High School in Fort Greene, according to authorities.

The gunfire broke out just before 3:22 p.m. across the street from the school near or inside the brownstone at 48 Fort Greene Place, between Lafayette and DeKalb avenues, authorities said.

Emergency services workers are taking the shot man to Kings County Hospital.

An officer involved in the shooting was transported to Methodist Hospital, which is standard procedure for cops who shoot someone.

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Portion of Macy’s Flagler Street property sold

In a deal that could have implications for the future of Downtown Miami’s anchor retail tenant, a New York real estate investment firm paid $15.5 million to acquire about 60 percent of the property that now houses Macy’s Flagler Street store.

The acquisition by Aetna Realty Group includes the 48,000-square-feet of land that was first leased to R.W. Burdine back in 1917 for the Burdines store. The property was currently owned by 23 heirs of Richard and Harriet Ashby, who signed the initial 99-year lease with Burdine.

The sale was motivated by the impending expiration of that lease in 2016, said Lewis R. Cohen, a shareholder at GrayRobinson, who represented the Ashby family in the transaction that closed on New Year’s Eve.

Over the years, Macy’s has grown the downtown store well beyond the Ashby portion. Aetna has also made a commitment to purchase the remaining portion of the building that is currently owned by Macys, Cohen said. But that deal hasn’t closed yet.

“That deal is a sure thing,” Cohen said. “They could not have closed with us without having an agreement with Macy’s completely nailed down.”

Macy’s spokesman Jim Sluzewski said this transaction doesn’t impact Macy’s lease and he declined to comment on any other pending transaction regarding the property the retailer owns in Downtown Miami.

“It’s business as usual,” said Sluzewski, who would not discuss Macy’s long-term plans for Downtown Miami beyond the expiration of its lease.

But Cohen said Macy’s is in the process of finalizing a short-term deal with the new owners.

“They intend to stay for at least the foreseeable future,” Cohen said. “For a minimum of five years they’ll be there and possibly longer.”

Macy’s long-term future on Flagler Street has been in doubt since 2007, when then Macy’s Florida chairman took city leaders to task for the deplorable conditions downtown and threatened that the retailer might leave.

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South Florida starts the year on the right foot

Eating healthier. Quitting smoking. Saving money. Common New Year’s resolutions, all.

But none may be more popular than the decision to hit the gym and finally get into shape.

Tuesday morning, Dana Todd and her mother Donna Dardeen were two of the 130 people who got up early to attend a 90-minute Zumba class at the YMCA in their Pembroke Pines neighborhood.

Todd had already lost 25 pounds since she started dieting in September. But the new year inspired her to add exercise to her routine.

“I’ve been lazy, but no more,” said Todd, 31, who hopes to lose another 50 pounds. “Now is the time to do it.”

The decision to get into shape is logical, particularly after the overeating and indulgence of the holiday season.

“I ate too much and I need to exercise,” said Maria Rose Heggins Fallon, who is competing with her husband to see who will be the first to lose the weight they gained from a holiday cruise. “I am going to beat him. I want to lose 10 pounds in one month so I will be serious.”

Aside from the usual self-improvement vows, some people strolling down Lincoln Road on Miami Beach Sunday morning had more original resolutions in mind.

Sol Genet, 37, of Miami Beach says he has resolved “to boycott all forms of voting until Congress gets their act together. Until then, I’m sitting politics out.”

Aviva Raucher, 24, who was visiting from Connecticut, says she has vowed to “do one good deed a day, every day.” Her first? Leaving an extra fat tip at the restaurant where she had brunch.

Rodrigo Najar, 43, from Brazil, was in the middle of a jaunt through Florida, from Orlando to Key West, with his wife and two teenaged kids. “We usually take three trips a year, but I want to make it five this year and see more of the world with my family.”

The most philosophical resolution of the day, though, came from Julie Glasgow, 50, of Miami. “I’m going to treat every day as if it were January 1. You can start fresh every morning. Why wait until the beginning of the year to change and improve your life?”

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Four Android productivity apps you should use in 2013

Happy New Year! Like most folks, I am working on some resolutions for 2013. One resolution I have is to be more productive. One way I am going to do this is by using my Android phone better. Now there are apps that I have, but really have not used to their fullest. As I work on this resolution, I might discover even better apps. For now I will focus on these impressive apps that can make anyone more productive.

I use Hootsuite on the computer, but rarely find myself engaging with it on my smartphone. With Hootsuite, you can manage Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Foursquare accounts. The free version allows for up to five accounts and one member of your team to access the account. There is a pro version with a monthly fee, in which you can have more accounts and team members and helpful analytics tools.

The design of the app is very good. If you sync the web version to mobile, you will have everything automatically downloaded to the phone. When viewing content, you swipe left or right to change columns or streams. If you are in the middle of a stream, simply tap the top menu bar to automatically return to the top. The app allows for multiple profiles and scheduled tweets. My goal is to keep up with my feeds and tweets in real-time rather than waiting until I get to a computer.

Another web service that I started to use, but find myself not using it to the fullest. Producteev is a web-based task management service. With Producteev you can work as an individual or in a team by setting up workspaces and then organize tasks by labels. For each task you can assign a priority, due date, and share with team members, if you have any. Overall, this is a great service, since I like making lists, even though I rarely remember having made them.

The Producteev app is available for all platforms. The app has a very clean interface and is easy to find tasks. Probably the best way to keep up with tasks is to use the different widget for the home screen. Seeing the widgets will help keep those key tasks in the forefront of your mind. The app will work offline and syncs in the background.

I read blogs every single day, especially those related to new apps, Android, or mobile news. The only way I can do that is via my Google Reader. I find myself trying to catch up each day on the computer (just like with Twitter activity) when I would be better off reading a little bit over time during the day. NewsRob is a Google Reader that I have had for years. The interface is very clean and easy to use. The developer created a bunch of customizations options, which really make this reader stand out.

With NewsRob you can set up a notification of new articles, how you synchronize with Google and when, how many articles to keep in your cache, and more. If you set up folders within Google Reader, NewsRob will download the folders, too. This enables you to read the posts by blog or folder. The app provides a very clean blogpost display optimized for smaller screens. With each post you can zoom in or out, mark a post read or unread, view in the browser, and share the link to email or services such as Evernote. There is a free version of the app.

The last task I need to work on to be more productive is to keep up with the calendar. I find myself checking on the computer, after the fact, finding out that I am either late or forgot about a meeting or appointment. Using Google calendar is a good place to start, but I have not found the standard calendar app on my Droid was all that helpful.

Business Calendar is a very capable calendar app that has a ton of features. The app lets you view your calendar in a number of different views, and has search and favorite-calendar features, to name a few. The option of viewing different calendars, color coding and being able to easily add, delete, and edit events is helpful. The ability to use widgets for reminders is important. The pro version has over 10 different sizes and allows for the import or export of calendar files in the iCalendar format. Business Calendar also has a free version.

So my top goal or resolution for 2013 is to be more productive. I think using these apps more will help me accomplish that goal. Are there any apps you have but not using to their fullest? What resolutions do you have for 2013?

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Taylor Swift Harry Styles New Years Eve Kiss

Taylor Swift and Harry Styles had equally amazing 2012's, and they kissed good-bye to the preceding 365 days together in Times Square last night.

After singing on ABC's New Year's Rocking Eve, Swift and Styles braved the crowds to watch the ball drop. And to the hordes of fans who'd gathered to count down to midnight, "Haylor's" ensuing smooch ended up being more captivating than all the twinkling lights in the sky.

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World's largest Ferris wheel to go forward in Superstorm Sandy devestated SI

While New York City grapples with rebuilding after Superstorm Sandy, developers are pressing ahead with plans to build the world's largest Ferris wheel on the shoreline of storm-torn Staten Island.

Sandy's flooding spurred some changes to the nearly $500 million project, which includes an outlet mall and hotel. But developers haven't slowed it or scaled it back.

Supporters say Staten Island needs the boost now more than ever.

Some residents have asked whether it makes sense to push ahead with a tourist attraction, set partly in a flood zone, before officials take a comprehensive look at how to build smarter after Sandy.

REUTERS

An artist rendering of the giant ferris wheel planned for Staten Island.

Wheel developer Richard Marin says the project stands to provide a one-of-a-kind boon that Staten Island "would have no other way of getting right now."

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Housing, jobs key to lifting S&P toward record

NEW YORK --
With it appearing that Washington lawmakers are working their way past the “fiscal cliff,” many analysts say that the outlook for stocks in 2013 is good, as a recovering housing market and an improving jobs outlook helps the economy maintain a slow, but steady recovery.

Reasonable returns in 2013 would send the S&P 500 toward, and possibly past, its record close of 1,565 reached in October 2007.

A mid-year rally in 2012 pushed stocks to their highest in more than four years. Both the Standard & Poor’s 500 and the Dow Jones industrial average posted strong gains in 2012. Those advances came despite uncertainty about the outcome of the presidential election and bouts of turmoil from Europe, where policy makers finally appear to be getting a grip on the region’s debt crisis.

“As you remove little bits of uncertainty, investors can then once again return to focusing on the fundamentals,” says Joseph Tanious, a global market strategist at J.P. Morgan Funds. “Corporate America is actually doing quite well.”

Although earnings growth of S&P 500 listed companies dipped as low as 0.8 percent in the summer, analysts are predicting that it will rebound to average 9.5 percent for 2013, according to data from S&P Capital IQ. Companies have also been hoarding cash. The amount of cash and cash-equivalents being held by companies listed in the S&P 500 climbed to an all-time high $1 trillion at the end of September, 65 percent more than five years ago, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices.

Assuming a budget deal is reached in a reasonable amount of time, investors will be more comfortable owning stocks in 2013, allowing valuations to rise, says Tanious.

Stocks in the S&P 500 index are currently trading on a price-to-earnings multiple of about 13.5, compared with the average of 17.9 since 1988, according to S&P Capital IQ data. The ratio rises when investors are willing to pay more for a stock’s future earnings potential.

The stock market will also likely face less drag from the European debt crisis this year, said Steven Bulko, the chief investment officer at Lombard Odier Investment Managers. While policy makers in Europe have yet to come up with a comprehensive solution to the region’s woes, they appear to have a better handle on the region’s problems than they have for quite some time.

Stocks fell in the second quarter of 2012 as investors fretted that the euro region’s government debt crisis was about to engulf Spain and possibly Italy, increasing the chances of a dramatic slowdown in global economic growth.

“There is still some heavy lifting that needs to be done in Europe,” said Bulko. Now, though, “we are dealing with much more manageable risk than we have had in the past few years.”

Next year may also see an increase in mergers and acquisitions as companies seeks to make use of the cash on their balance sheets, says Jarred Kessler, global head of equities at broker Cantor Fitzgerald.

While the number of M&A deals has gradually crept higher in the past four years, the dollar value of the deals remains well short of the total reached five years ago. U.S. targeted acquisitions totaled $964 billion through Dec. 27, according to data tracking firm Dealogic. That’s slightly down from last year’s total of $1 trillion and about 40 percent lower than in 2007, when deals worth $1.6 trillion were struck.

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3 ways to dispose of your Christmas tree in Miami-Dade

Miami-Dade residents have three options for disposing their Christmas trees.

• Those who want to recycle can take trees to one of the county’s 13 Trash and Recycling Centers or two Home Chemical Collection Centers.

The trees will be converted into mulch and available free to residents on a first-come basis beginning in mid-January.

Those who choose not to recycle their Christmas tree have the following two options:

•  Cut the tree into smaller pieces and place it inside their green waste cart for collection on any of their regularly scheduled waste collection days. The tree must fit entirely inside the waste cart.

Trees placed next to the waste cart will not be collected by the automated waste collection truck.

•  For those residents who cannot drop off their Christmas trees for recycling or cut it in pieces and place it in their waste cart, trees may be placed at the curbside no later than Monday, Jan. 7. They will be picked up by special collection crews.

The county is asking residents to be patient as these crews will be covering a large area. Christmas trees placed at the curbside after that date will not be picked up and must either be dropped off or placed in the green waste cart.

To be recycled, decoration-free Christmas trees must be brought to the following locations:

Trash and Recycling Centers (open seven days a week, 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.)

North Dade Landfill — 21500 NW 47th Ave.

Norwood — 19901 NW Seventh Ave.

Palm Springs North — 7870 NW 178th St.

Golden Glades — 140 NW 160th St.

West Little River — 1830 NW 79th St.

Snapper Creek — 2200 SW 117th Ave.

Sunset Kendall — 8000 SW 107th Ave.

Chapman Field — 13600 SW 60th Ave.

Richmond Heights — 14050 Boggs Dr.

West Perrine — 16651 SW 107th Ave.

Eureka Drive — 9401 SW 184th St.

South Miami Heights — 20800 SW 117th Ct.

Moody Drive — 12970 SW 268th St.

Home Chemical Collection Centers (open seven days a week for tree drop off only, from 7:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.)

West Miami-Dade — 8831 NW 58th St.

South Miami-Dade — 23707 SW 97th Ave., Gate-B

Christmas tree mulch will be available at the following six locations beginning in mid-January.

Residents must bring their own bags or containers to fill with mulch, which will be handed out on a first-come, first-served basis, while supplies last.

Here are the locations:

West Perrine - 16651 SW 107th Ave.

Eureka Drive - 9401 SW 184th St.

Moody Drive - 12970 SW 268th St.

Sunset Kendall - 8000 SW 107th Ave.

West Little River - 1830 NW 79th St.

North Dade Landfill - 21500 NW 47th Ave.

For more information, click www.miamidade.gov/publicworks or call 311.

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NYC counts record 52 million visitors in 2012

The Big Apple is a bigger-than-ever tourist draw, welcoming a record 52 million visitors this year, Mayor Bloomberg announced Monday.

The estimate, up more than 1 million from last year, caps several years of effort to make the tourist trade into an economic development engine for the nation's largest city. After reaching a goal of attracting 50 million annual visitors in 2011, Bloomberg has now set sights on 55 million by 2015.

The 2012 statistic "keeps us on course to meet our goal," the mayor said in announcing the number at a news conference animated by some New York razzle-dazzle: It was held at the popular American Museum of Natural History, and Bloomberg was flanked by a half-dozen of Radio City Music Hall's Rockettes.

An estimated 41 million of this year's visitors came from elsewhere in the United States, but the city says its international tourist base is growing notably. The numbers of Brazilian and Chinese visitors have nearly quintupled since 2006, the city says.

The tourism numbers are based on a model that includes surveys, hotel data, airport traffic and other information and includes business travelers and vacationers.

Hotels, for instance, hit a new high of 29 million bookings for some 91,500 rooms citywide this year, up nearly 7 percent from 2011, Bloomberg said.

While New York has always been a magnet for visitors, the city has amped up efforts to market itself to tourists during Bloomberg's 11 years in office. The city's tourism arm, NYC & Co., has opened 18 offices in countries ranging from Australia to China to Sweden in roughly the past decade.

City officials say the efforts have paid off for both businesses and residents here.

This year's visitors generated an estimate of nearly $37 billion in direct spending, and more than $55 billion when such indirect benefits as orders to hospitality-industry suppliers are counted, the city says. Meanwhile, hotel room taxes alone topped $500 million this year; about $15 million went to NYC & Co. and the rest to fund general city operations, NYC & CO. CEO George Fertitta said.

New York's tourism claims have sometimes raised eyebrows in its chief domestic rival for visitors — Orlando, Fla. Orlando officials last year forecast they'd hit more than 53 million visitors from 50 miles away or farther this year. New York officials have rebuffed the comparison, saying Orlando includes surrounding areas in its count.

But, Bloomberg said Monday, there are plenty of tourists to go around.

"Go to Orlando. It's a wonderful place," he said, but "I think New York has a very different experience than Orlando."

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Florida recovery picks up the pace

A Federal Reserve index shows a big improvement for Florida’s economy.

Each month, the Fed’s Philadelphia bank issues state-by-state indices that combine wage, employment and manufacturing data. And while most states have been improving since 2009, Florida’s index for October saw the biggest jump in seven years.

The so-called coincident index by the Philadelphia Fed tracks overall job growth, unemployment, average hours worked in the manufacturing industry and wage levels. The four indicators are combined into a single index, which the Fed says should roughly match growth in each state’s economic output.

For October, the most recent index available, Florida’s coincident score grew by three-tenths of a percent. That would amount to an economy growing at 3.5 percent per year. It was the largest monthly increase since September 2005, when the Florida index grew by slightly more than three-tenths of a percentage point. The biggest dip came in January 2009, when Florida’s “Philly Fed” index dropped by almost two percentage points in a single month.

DOUGLAS HANKS

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