Zooey Deschanel TCA Winter Press Tour Interview 2013

Season two of Fox's New Girl has so far taken audiences deeper into the weird lives of star Zooey Deschanel and her three roommates (and model best friend), while teasing but not quite pursuing a possible love-connection between Zooey's character Jess, and the ever-cynical Nick Miller, played by Jake Johnson.

Also from TCA: 2013's Six Best New Shows

The pair is seemingly always exchanging undeniable chemistry, only to find themselves pursuing other people. While this frustrating cycle has led to some great guest stars like David Walton and Olivia Munn, Zooey and Jake hinted to ET at the 2013 TCA Winter Press Tour in Pasadena, CA that the conclusion of season two will finally see Jess and Nick's relationship start to heat up.

"I think it's been split," Jake said of the fan reaction to his character's relationship with Olivia Munn, adding, "whenever Nick dates anybody that's not Jess... it's split."
Adding support for the get-together, Zooey herself.

"I like the chemistry and I think that they have kind of an amazing thing going," said the actress. "I don't know if they're ready for each other yet, but I want them to get together."

That's when Jake alluded to the episodes to come.

"The writers are naturally going there. Starting to put these two together more and seeing what happens.... The end of season two gets pretty heavy with Nick and Jess."

While it's good that it doesn't seem like the show's writers will keep fans waiting too much longer for the Jess and Nick romance that virtually everybody wants to happen, does this signal trouble for David Walton's recurring role as Jess' boyfriend?

While commenting on how Walton is "so handsome," Zooey did add that "[Jess is] always kind of messing up a little bit."

"That's kind of the nature of the show, is that everybody screws up," added Jake.

See Also: Kaling talks 'Mindy Project' Upcoming Guest Stars

In addition to Jess and Nick's budding relationship, the co-stars dished on guests we can expect to see in the coming months on New Girl. Names included Brooklyn Decker, Nate Corddry, The Social Network actress Brenda Song, and former Law & Order detective Dennis Farina. Who knows what's in store for the actors, but Zooey and Jake do hint that the remainder of season two will feature a horse-track, a murder-mystery, and the return of the roommates' fan-favorite fictitious drinking game 'True American.' Sounds like the rest of the season promises to be as crazy as it is hilarious.

Watch the video above for more of ET's TCA interview with Zooey Deschanel and Jake Johnson. New Girl airs Tuesdays at 9/8c.

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318 FDNY 'probies' sworn in

After years of court battles, the city today swore in its first class of probationary firefighters since 2008.

Mayor Bloomberg told the 318 "probies” that they made up “our most diverse class ever … a class as diverse as the communities you serve.”

Some 42 percent of the class is black, Hispanic or Asian, compared with the 35 percent minority members in the last class in December 2008.

The FDNY had been entangled for years in a legal dispute over whether its hiring has been biased against minorities.

FDNY Commissioner Salvatore Cassano today said the delay in hiring a new group of probies was due to a budget crisis and because “we got ordered by the court to hire in a certain way that we didn’t think was the right way to hire.”

FDNY Photo Unit

FDNY 'probies' being sworn in.

In September, a federal judge approved a new entrance exam, allowing hiring to resume.

Cassano said the FDNY is still below its desired staffing level.

“We’re short almost 800 firefighters,” he said at the Randall’s Island swearing-in ceremony. “But it’s a start.”

The probies were already working for the department as emergency medical technicians and paramedics.

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Coral Gables culinary students learn the art of sushi making

Christian Rivas is still years away from becoming a professional sushi chef, but his hand-crafted California roll looks good enough to serve professionally.

“The hard part was getting the roll to be in good shape,” Christian, a 16-year-old junior at Coral Gables Senior High, said of his first attempt.

The Gables student was one of about 30 who stood in rapt attention inside the school’s kitchen classroom. He is a member of the school’s culinary arts program.

On Tuesday morning, chefs and executives from Sushi Maki, including CEO Abe Ng, volunteered to teach these students about the restaurant business. The main part of the presentation was Kingston-bred director of sushi education Steve Ho Sang’s instruction on how to make sushi rolls and hand rolls.

Sushi Maki goes through three tons of fresh salmon every week, Ng said. The succulent Norwegian fish in front of the class, expertly filleted via Ho Sang’s knives, looked like half a week’s supply.

The executives were there as part of the Education Fund’s Teach-a-Thon program which brings business professionals into Miami-Dade County Public School classrooms. These pros volunteer to teach a class at the elementary, middle or high school level to help raise money for school activities such as Coral Gables’ culinary program and to promote the value of public school teachers.

“What a lot of people don’t realize is that teaching is really brain surgery,” said Linda Lecht, president of The Education Fund. “We want to call attention to the fact that teaching is a hard job and we, as a community, have to rally around our teachers if we are going to improve education. We want to get out the message of how important teaching is to our whole economy.”

Mercy Vera, Coral Gables’ culinary teacher, sought a partnership with The Education Fund — a North Miami-based non-profit that helps fund programs at Miami-Dade public schools from Homestead to Miami Gardens — to help prepare her students for careers in the profession.

The Education Fund’s latest fundraising campaign currently has $23,202 to split among 26 participating schools.

But having pros come into the classroom is also invaluable, Vera said, because it is impractical, if not near impossible, to cram 30 or more teenagers into a professional restaurant kitchen. And, of course, they would not be allowed to use the knives and other utensils. Here, in the school’s carefully stocked kitchen classroom, the guests give the kids a taste of reality.

“This brings a totally different dynamic to the classroom. This is an experience they normally wouldn’t have and this is the only way to show the children industry,” Vera said.

“I love the energy of public schools,” said Ng, 39. “I’m excited to do a restaurant 101, and to ignite a spark in them would be a big thing to me.”

The experience met with much enthusiasm from senior Jorge Castro, 19, who says he hopes to follow in the footsteps of Food Network star chef Bobby Flay, one of his inspirations in the culinary world.

“This is one of those jobs where you meet a lot of people and you make people smile when you make them good food and that counts — to see them smile,” Castro said.

Ng, a Palmetto High and Cornell grad, is part of a family that opened the Canton chain of Chinese food restaurants locally in 1975. His mom and dad still work at the South Miami and Coral Gables locations and the family also operates the spin-off Sushi Maki chain, which opened in 2000.

Ng enjoyed stepping out of the boardroom and into the classroom for his two-hour teaching experience.

“These students seem to have a good foundation,” he said as the students hustled to clean the kitchen. “The future generation of culinary, I’m optimistic about it.”

Follow @HowardCohen on Twitter.

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Miami police sergeant takes stand, denies accusations in federal corruption trial

A Miami police sergeant who headed a drug-fighting squad testified in his federal corruption trial Monday, denying ever planting drugs on a suspect or stealing drugs and money from dope dealers.

Sgt. Raul Iglesias, 40, accused of being a dirty cop, also denied ever asking detectives in his unit for “throw-down dope’’ to plant on the suspect in a downtown Miami parking lot in early 2010.

“Absolutely not,’’ Iglesias testified, disputing the recent testimony of two detectives who accused him of asking them for throw-down drugs. “That’s a ridiculous statement.’’

Iglesias further testified that he never told a third detective that it was OK to pay confidential informants with drugs. That detective testified that he did that once in 2010, with Iglesias sitting by his side in an unmarked police vehicle, but Iglesias denied that the confidential informant was paid with a small amount of cocaine.

“I have no knowledge that he ever paid [the informant] with drugs,’’ Iglesias testified during direct examination as the first defense witness. The government rested its case on Friday.

Iglesias, who is scheduled to continue testifying, faces nine counts of conspiracy to possess cocaine, violating suspects’ civil rights, obstruction of justice and making false statements. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison.

This story will be updated as more information becomes available.

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Facebook shares rise in buildup to mystery event, earnings

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Facebook Inc’s stock opened on Monday above $ 32 for the first time since July as anticipation about upcoming products and financial results underscored Wall Street’s renewed confidence in the online social network.

Facebook will on Tuesday host its first major press event at its headquarters in Menlo Park, California, since its troubled initial public offering in May, triggering a guessing game among technology observers and online blogs about what it could unveil – everything from a smartphone to a search engine.

“There’s a lot of speculation. Nothing to me seems to be that certain,” Jefferies & Co analyst Brian Pitz said.

“If I were to bet, I’d think it was something that was ad-platform related. I’m not convinced on the phone,” said Pitz, citing previous comments by Facebook’s leaders including CEO Mark Zuckerberg that making a smartphone would be the “wrong strategy” for Facebook.

In an email to reporters last week, Facebook invited the media to “come and see what we’re building” without providing details.

Some analysts said the stock’s recent gains – shares are up roughly 17 percent since the start of the year – may have more to do with the company’s upcoming fourth-quarter financial results, slated for January 30.

“The stock is up because they have driven a dramatic increase in the ad load of their mobile app which is giving investors hope that they exceeded expectations,” BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield said.

Shares were down about 1.3 percent to $ 31.30 in mid-afternoon trading.

The world’s No.1 social network with 1 billion users, Facebook became the first U.S. company to debut on stock markets with a value of more than $ 100 billion. Its value subsequently plunged by more than 50 percent on mounting concerns about slowing revenue growth and the challenges of making money as users shift from personal computers to mobile devices.

Facebook surprised Wall Street in the third quarter by announcing that mobile ads accounted for 14 percent of its total ad revenue. Some analysts expect the company to report further growth in its nascent mobile ad business for the fourth quarter.

Zuckerberg, who founded Facebook in his Harvard dorm room, has said that mobile is the “most misunderstood aspect” of Facebook. But he has repeatedly poured cold water on rumors that Facebook would build its own smartphone to compete against Apple Inc’s iPhone and smartphones based on Google Inc’s Android operating system.

During an on-stage interview at a conference in September, Zuckerberg said that he believed search could be a ripe area of growth for Facebook.

“Facebook is really uniquely positioned to answer a lot of the questions that people have,” Zuckerberg said, such as finding a good restaurant or learning more about a job opportunity.

Still, many technology observers believe that Facebook is more likely to improve the search capabilities within Facebook than to develop a full-fledged search engine that indexes all the Web’s content and competes head-on with search leader Google.

Among the other items that technology blogs and analysts speculate might be unveiled on Tuesday were new standalone apps for Apple’s iPad tablet, new features to display video ads and even a new wing of corporate headquarters.

Some cautioned that expectations of a game-changing new product were likely to cause disappointment.

“There’s no way they’re announcing anything that has financial impact, or they wouldn’t do it now, they’d wait two weeks,” said Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter, citing Facebook’s upcoming earnings.

“Why would you announce something that has a financial impact during the quiet period?,” he said.

(Reporting By Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Paul Simao)

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Five Things You Don't Know About Jodie Foster

This Hollywood A-lister's moving and revealing speech at last night's Golden Globes turned out to be one of the most talked about moments of the show. Here are five things you probably don't know about actress/director/producer Jodie Foster.

1. Began her career at age 3 appearing in several commercials -- most notably for the sunblock company Coppertone -- and made her first credited TV appearance on The Doris Day Show in 1969.

VIDEO: Stars React to Jodie Foster's Globes Speech

2. Has had a lifelong fear of cats after being attacked and briefly carried by a lion while filming on the set of Disney's Napoleon and Samantha in 1972.

3. Was cast as Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs after Michelle Pfeiffer turned down the role.

VIDEO: Kristen Stewart Announces Honor for Jodie Foster

4. Became fluent in French after graduating from a French-language prep school in Los Angeles. In college, she earned a B.A. degree in literature from Yale University.

5. Has a Mars-crossing asteroid named after her -- "17744 Jodiefoster."

RELATED: Jodie Foster to Receive Cecil B. DeMille Award

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Brookfield Office Properties starts long-awaited Manhattan West deck

Steve Cuozzo

After six years of promises, Brookfield Office Properties has finally started to build a deck over the exposed Amtrak rail yard for its planned Manhattan West development project.

The platform is a long-awaited breakthrough in Mayor Bloomberg’s dream to create a vast new Hudson Yards District in the once-forlorn far West 30s that will be home to major companies, residents and a wealth of public amenities.

It’s also crucial to publicly traded Brookfield’s plan for a $4.5 billion, five million-square-foot project on five acres anchored by two tall office towers and an apartment building.

The Manhattan West project, between Ninth and Dyers avenues and W. 31st and 33rd streets, will include a public plaza designed by High Line Park creator James Corner Field Operations.

The deck was first announced in 2006 but held up by caution over the real-estate market, changes to the original mix of towers and delays in negotiating agreements with Amtrak over use of the rail lines through the yard.

Manhattan West spans the irregular rectangle bounded by Ninth and Dyer avenues and West 31st and 33rd streets. Most but not all of it consists of the exposed train yard 65 feet below street level.

Brookfield CEO Dennis Friedrich told The Post, “Excavation started a while ago. This is the formal launch of the next phase.”

Giant machines will soon appear on-site to erect a street-level surface comprised of 16 “bridges.” The deck will occupy 50 percent of the entire site.

Friedrich said the platform will be finished in late 2014 and the site will be ready to receive tenants by 2016.

He estimated Brookfield’s land and platform costs at a total $700 million. The deck is to be financed with a five-year, $340 million construction loan from a bank consortium including HSBC, Bank of New York Mellon and four others.

Brookfield will invest more than $300 million of its own capital with no public subsidies.

The details are to be announced tomorrow at a photo-op. Bloomberg, Friedrich, Brookfield co-Chairman John Zuccotti, Port Authority Executive Director Pat Foye and Hudson Yards Development Corp. President Ann Weisbrod are expected to attend.

“Our initial plan was for all offices,” Friedrich said. “But we got excited about residential because the market was so heated. So in our current plan, we replaced what was the third office building with apartments.”

Manhattan West lies just east of Related Cos.’ much larger Hudson Yards project. Each giant enterprise can now claim its own bragging rights.

While Related is raising its first tower for Coach Inc. without first building a deck over its own rail yard site, Brookfield is plunging ahead with a deck before it puts up a building — which it won’t do until it lands a tenant. Cushman & Wakefield has been tapped to find one or more.

Manhattan West was originally to have three office buildings. Now, it will have two of them at the yards’ Ninth Avenue corners of West 31st and 33rd Streets, and a high-rise apartment tower between them and Dyer Avenue.

Brookfield also owns 450 W. 33rd St., the massive, million-square-foot office address on 10th Avenue, which stands between the Brookfield- and Related-controlled portions of the sunken rail yard.

While Brookfield has long owned development rights above the tracks, Amtrak still controls the right of way through the yard.

So the two parties — as well as the MTA, Long Island Rail Road and the Port Authority, which also hold easements through the site — had to work out arrangements that will allow the deck and the towers to be built without interfering with the train routes, which terminate at Penn Station.

Despite a popular myth that the deck will support the towers, they will actually rise from bedrock at the sites’ corners and in effect be thrust through the platform. But the deck is needed to create a welcoming location for commercial and residential users.

Brookfield has committed to creating a 100 foot-wide park running east-west through the site, effectively forming an extension of 32nd Street. The public space will be designed by James Corner Field Operations, which designed the High Line Park.

“The platform is needed to create the land to create the plaza,” Friedrich said.

The High Line, which now ends at 30th Street, is to be extended along the old trestle’s loop westward to curl around Hudson Yards, and eastward along a spur toward Ninth Avenue.

Meanwhile, Related has begun work on the first office tower at its own Hudson Yards site — which is not to be confused with Extell’s One Hudson Yards, a 1 million square-foot tower to be developed by Gary Barnett’s company just north of Related’s land.

Brookfield’s portfolio includes 77 million square feet in New York, Washington, Houston and other US cities, as well as in Canada, Australia and London. It owns the World Financial Center downtown as well as trophy properties such as One New York Plaza.

“The new district is going to be successful for everybody here,” Friedrich predicted.

He said Related’s coup in signing Coach as an anchor tenant is “also great news for us. It creates a perfect bookend” for Manhattan West.

scuozzo@nypost.com

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.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.

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Cyclist killed by hit-and-run driver on Ives Dairy Road

State troopers are looking for a driver in a hit-and-run crash that killed a cyclist on Ives Dairy Road in north Miami-Dade County early Sunday.

The cyclist was riding west on Ives Dairy Road near Northeast 13th Court around 3:41 a.m. when the rider was struck and killed by a black Dodge Charger also traveling westbound.

Eyewitnesses to the crash followed the car and obtained a partial license tag number, the Florida Highway Patrol said.

Troopers have not yet released the name of the dead cyclist.

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Johnson’s tweet about Trestman landing NFL job creates buzz in football circles

Marc Trestman remains the head coach of the Montreal Alouettes, at least for now.

Former NFL head coach Jimmy Johnson got the football world — north and south of the border — buzzing Friday when he strongly suggested Trestman was heading to Chicago to become the Bears‘ head coach.

“Looks like 2 of my guys getting NFL jobs..Chud Cleveland and my QB coach at U Trestman to Chicago,” tweeted Johnson, now working as an NFL analyst with Fox.

An Alouettes spokesman said the CFL club had no comment about Johnson’s tweet while the Bears didn’t immediately comment publicly either.

Trestman interviewed with both Cleveland and Chicago but according to numerous reports the Bears continue to speak to potential coaching candidates and haven’t decided on a coach. The Browns are expected to unveil Rob Chudzinski as their new head coach Friday.

The Bears missed the NFL playoffs despite posting a 10-6 record and fired Lovie Smith after nine seasons as head coach.

Trestman, 56, has spent the last five seasons with Montreal, guiding the Alouettes to two Grey Cup victories in three appearances.

His coaching resume includes time in the NFL as an offensive co-ordinator, quarterback or running back coach with Minnesota (twice), Cleveland, San Francisco, Detroit, Arizona, Oakland, and Miami.

Trestman also coached in the NCAA with Johnson at Miami as well as North Carolina State.

Trestman is regarded as a quarterback guru and has a background with Chicago starter Jay Cutler and backup Jason Campbell, helping both in their respective pre-draft preparations.

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