Kat Graham Vampire Diaries Season Four Interview

This has been an interesting season of The Vampire Diaries for Bonnie Bennett, who, despite factoring into the overall year-long mystery of finding the cure for vampirism, has been segregated from the main characters as she works on harnessing her magic.

But according to Kat Graham, Bonnie is about to come into focus in a big way as she not only regains full control over her powers, but could potentially use them for with potentially polarizing effects!

ETonline: Hey Kat, how's it going?

Kat Graham: Good, I'm driving from Cleveland, Ohio to Detroit to visit some radio stations and meeting a few fans, hanging out with some locals.

ETonline: Congrats on the Wanna Say music video? You look amazing in it!

Graham: Thank you so much! That means a lot coming from you, because you remember my terrible videos [laughs]. We won't talk about those, but I'm really proud of this. From the director to the choreography to the track, I think everyone did a killer job!

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ETonline: Logistically, how did you work on the song and the video while shooting The Vampire Diaries?

Graham: It just kind of works. The show doesn't go around my music schedule -- I don't even ask to get cleared most of the time because the show has such a grueling schedule. But, I'm actually not in episode 416, the episode they're shooting now, and they had scheduled to release the video on January 18, and I wrapped on January 17 by coincidence. Sheer blessing, total fate.

ETonline: I feel like Bonnie's had a lighter workload this season; did that help at all?

Graham: You know what’s funny, we're on episode 17, and for me, it might have been light in the beginning, but this episode [off] has been a godsend. I haven't had any days off in forever -- it gets really Bonnie heavy this season, and you'll see some crazy, crazy Bonnie stuff. I always tell Julie [Plec, executive producer], you have to write what you're inspired to write. I think she's got a better hold on the show than anyone and she's been very inspired to write all this incredible stuff recently -- and it shows. This show can't be forced, it's so smooth and there's such huge storylines coming up.

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ETonline: And Bonnie's dad is now the Mayor!

Graham: It's funny, the fans have no problem writing Julie or me or Mark Pedowitz [president of The CW] to let us know what they see for the character [laughs]. They are not shy with their opinions and they've always wanted to see Bonnie's dad. So it's been really cool ... I think I'm the only character on the show with both her parents still alive! Who'd have thought that!

ETonline: Yeah, well, she might not be for long; I feel like being the mayor of Mystic Falls is one of the most dangerous jobs in television!

Graham: Yeah, but Julie can break her own rules. When people start to think they're figuring out The Vampire Diaries, it switches on you. Caroline Dries [a TVD writer] said something pretty amazing to me -- she said, if we give the audience everything they want, they won't watch the show because there will be nothing for them to wait for. You can get them excited about something they really want by giving them a bit of it. So you almost don't want to give the audience everything they want, and I love that the audience can't figure us out. They don't know how grand the show is going to get this season. I mean, it's huge, epic episodes every week.

ETonline: Would you say that all the lessons with Professor Shane are leading to a revelation for Bonnie?

Graham: Oh yeah. Big time. One thing about Vampire Diaries is they plant these seeds that sometimes we as actors don't even know about ... by the end of this season, who Bonnie becomes, has everything to do with all those scenes in Shane's office. He has a huge impact on who she becomes. It's important to pay close attention and not miss an episode. The lines get blurred and allegiances get blurred. You have all these paradoxes and total opposites working together for the benefit of a common goal.

ETonline: Looking ahead, what are you excited for the fans to see with Bonnie this season?

Graham: So much crazy Bonnie stuff is coming up. I'm excited that, if Bonnie makes any turn as to who she is and what she's about, I'm excited to know that a lot of fans will come with her. I'm excited for them to grow with Bonnie and excited for them to see what Bonnie can do. For so long, this was a character who was never at her full power. She was always losing it and then getting some of it back ... she's struggled with finding herself as a witch and finding herself in her power. So I'm excited for the fans to see all the cool stuff this character is capable of once she really gets a grasp on that power and finds out what she's really capable of.

The Vampire Diaries airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. on The CW.

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Family of slain highway worker 'saddened' by drunk driver's easy sentence

Loved ones of a highway worker who was killed by a drunk and unlicensed driver on the Grand Central Parkway last summer said they were “saddened” by his assailant’s lenient sentence.

"This is still fresh to me," said Israel Rosario, who witnessed Abdullah Munshi slam a 2002 Audi A6 into his 63-year-old co-worker, Frank Avino as they were setting up traffic cones near the Jewel Avenue exit of the highway on July 10.

"We were preparing to repair the lights on the highway, the car passed me first and hit Frank. I heard a very short shriek and Frank was gone," said an emotional Rosario as a fellow co-worker consoled him outside of Queens Criminal court.

Munshi, 26, dodged up to 15 years in prison when he plead guilty to second-degree vehicular manslaughter -- a non-violent felony -- and will be sentenced to 2 1/3 to 7 years in prison on March 12, said Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown.

"I understand vehicular manslaughter is a non-violent crime and we need to change that. My husband was killed...it is saddens me," said Avino's heartbroken wife, Patricia.

"It's hard for me to hear a kid before [Munshi's] case was called get threatened to be put into jail for 1 1/2 to 3 years for a marijuana charge and he didn't kill anyone, yet this guy gets almost the same amount time, its not fair," said Rosario, who worked with Avino, an electrician for Welsbach Electric Corp for seven years.

Patricia is hoping to work with the Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD) in order to help with "changing the laws" when intoxicated drivers are charged.

Munshi, a citizen of Qatar, admitted to prosecutor, John Kosinski, that he drank alcohol before he got into the car with his friends and also "purchased beer" at a corner store before the 11 a.m. crash.

The reckless driver was unable to produce a valid NYS driver's license and also admitted that he was driving a "friend's car" because "they were too drunk to drive," said Brown.

At the scene, Munshi's blood alcohol content read .21 percent -- well above the legal limit of .08 percent in New York.

Following Munshi's release from prison he is ordered to a three-year conditional discharge and install an ignition interlock into any car he owns for five years -- at his own expense.

Munshi also faces deportation.

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Meet the judges: FIU Track

John C. Fleming, a serial entrepreneur, is the technology practice lead at Biztegra Partners, a social Web agency based in West Palm Beach. He started his career as a software developer in 1979 and has worked nationally and internationally in engineering, sales, marketing, services and general management in industries ranging from high tech to real estate. Fleming has started companies, raised money and has been part of teams that built products that became market leaders.

Robert H. Hacker is the managing partner of GH Capital, a Miami-based financial consulting boutique. He is a professor in the FIU Engineering School and the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is author of “Billion Dollar Company” and is finishing his next book on social entrepreneurship. He is also the CFO at the One Laptop Per Child Association and is a board member of the Eugenio Pino and Family Global Entrepreneurship Center at FIU and the South Kent School.

Mike Tomas is president of The ASTRI Group, an early-stage private equity investment company providing capital, business development and strategic marketing support. He is also president and CEO of Bioheart, an adult stem cell company dedicated to autologous cell therapies for the treatment of chronic and acute heart damage and peripheral vascular disease. Previously, he worked 18 years in the telecom industry in the U.S. and Mexico. He chairs FIU’s Pino Global Entrepreneurship Center.

Erika Twani is CEO and a founding board member of Learning One to One Foundation, which aims to improve the potential of today’s youth. Before that, she was the education industry director for Microsoft Latin America’s Multi-Country Region and received the Microsoft Circle of Excellence Award. Twani also owned a company in Brazil, which she grew to $60 million in sales in six years. She serves on FIU’s Pino Global Entrepreneurship Center Board of Advisors.

Ricardo Weisz is an international marketing expert in startups, brand development, licensing and marketing of products and services and has successfully headed various ventures. During his tenure with The Walt Disney Co., he launched operations in multiple countries, was a Zone VP and GM, and headed a Latin American SBU. The angel investor has held board positions including Orangi Corp., Consult A Doctor, Miami Innovation Fund, The Winner’s Circle and New World Angels.

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Student accused of shooting girl on school bus to be tried as adult

The teen accused of accidentally shooting a fellow student on a school bus will be tried as an adult, a Miami-Dade judge ruled on Wednesday,

Lourdes Guzman-DeJesus was killed just before Thanksgiving on the way to school from her South Miami-Dade home.

The suspect in the shooting, 15-year-old Jordyn Howe, will be transferred to Miami-Dade County Jail from house arrest. Judge Orlando Prescott ruled Wednesday that he will be tried as an adult.

Lourdes Guzman-DeJesus, whose nickname was "Jina, " was killed when Jordyn took a .40-caliber pistol out of his backpack on the school bus transporting kids to three charter schools in South Miami-Dade. The gun went off, striking Lourdes in the neck. Howe was a student at Somerset Academy Silver Palms.

The shooting occurred as the bus was near Southwest 296th Street and 137th Avenue. Lourdes, a student at Palm Glades Preparatory Academy, was shot in front of her 7-year-old sister.

Jordyn was not in court Wednesday, but will appear on Thursday when his bond will be set. He faces formal charges in court on Jan. 28 that include manslaughter and manslaughter with a firearm.

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Why the Future of TV Still Isn’t Here Yet

As content providers continue to intimidate tech companies with a seemingly endless couch-potato conundrum, the latest innovation in the war to win your living room isn’t some new gadget from Apple or Netflix, or even that exciting à la carte content delivery system from Intel — it’s a protocol that helps our screens better communicate with one another. YouTube and Netflix have teamed up to create something called DIAL, a competitor of sorts to Apple’s AirPlay, which, as GigaOm’s Janko Roettgers describes it, ”helps developers of second-screen apps to discover and launch applications on smart TVs and connected devices.” Basically, it turns your phone into a kind of wireless super-remote for your TV, as Roettgers explains: 

With DIAL, the Netflix app on your phone will automatically discover that there is a device with a Netflix app connected to your TV. It will fire up that app, and then the two apps are free to do whatever they want — which presumably involves some healthy binge-viewing.

This solves a “big problem” because it makes using those apps on your smart television a lot easier.  As of right now, controlling the Netflix app on a PlayStation still requires the console remote to open up the app on your television before controlling it from a phone or tablet. This eliminates a step — and that, ladies and gents, is the biggest thing actually happening in TV tech right now. Instead of letting us pay just for the content we want, the cable industry’s aging model is still forcing tech companies to help us sift through all the extras were forced to buy. Because with the big media companies refusing to budge on innovative content deals so far this year, “content discovery” tools like GIAL and AirPlay remain one of the only ways everyone can get along. 

RELATED: Netflix Is Winning the Internet

It wasn’t supposed to be this way, of course. Many expected hardware like a supped-up Apple TV or the Roku streaming stick to “fix” television — instead of some protocol that makes finding stuff on our TVs easier. But, as Netflix discovered when it tried to get in the hardware business, the total package can alienate the other key players. Back in 2007, the streaming company had a set-top box in the works that would transform Netflix into a cable competitor, reports Fast Company’s Austin Carr. But CEO Reid Hastings scrapped the idea because it was too competitive. “We could not be competing against Sony, LG, and Samsung,” says Steve Swasey, then the company’s VP of communications. On top of the potential loss of support from hardware makers, this separate Netflix box scared away the content owners, with which Netflix has worked so hard to get streaming TV deals. 

RELATED: The Future of Streaming Video Looks Like TV Reruns

The old-school media industry’s fear of tech-world competition has driven the future of television in a spiraling direction. When one of the too-many entities gets offended, the future falls apart, as we saw with Google TV in an experiment that ultimately scared off content providers as well. A protocol like DIAL is the politically correct solution: It doesn’t change how we pay for content — but it sure does work within the comfortable way we’re used to sitting down and watching TV!

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Batman Star Christian Bale Thrills 8-year-old Cancer Patient with Personal Call

Christian Bale received his share of negative publicity after audio surfaced of him angrily ranting on the set of the 2009 action movie Terminator Salvation. But the Dark Knight actor has done a lot to change that image since, including his recent gesture to an 8-year-old Batman fan suffering from cancer.

As we can see in this video posted on YouTube by the parents Leukemia sufferer Zach Guillot, Bale clearly gives the boy a thrill by calling him in his hospital room and chatting with him about his role in the Batman franchise.

VIDEO: Christian Bale's Heroic Visit to Aurora, CO 

"The thing that's great about Batman, and the whole point of the movie, is that anybody can be Batman," Bale can be heard telling Zach. "You know, anyone can be as strong as that, and help people, and do good in the world."  

Watch the video to see more of this uplifting phone conversation between the star and his young lifelong fan.

PICS: Star Sightings

You can read more about Zach's battle with Leukemia at his personal Facebook page.

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Thief hits two banks in Morningside Heights

A bank bandit hit two banks in Morningside Heights -- 15 minutes apart, authorities said.

He first tried to rob an HSBC bank on Broadway near West 102nd Street around 2:10 p.m. and fled without getting any cash, police said.

Then, 15 minutes later, the thief went to a Bank of America just six blocks north of his attempted heist and passed a demand note to the teller, cops said.

In the second robbery, he fled with an unknown amount of dough, cops said.

No one was injured in either incident and no weapons were displayed, police said.

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Miami Dolphins slam Norman Braman, Marlins Park deal

The Miami Dolphins ramped up their public campaign for a tax-funded stadium renovation this week, buying full-page ads against their top critic and trying to distance the plan from the unpopular Marlins deal.

The team bought an ad in Tuesday’s Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald knocking auto magnate Norman Braman’s criticism of the Sun Life Stadium deal, which would have Florida and Miami-Dade split the costs with owner Stephen Ross for a $400 million renovation. The Dolphins would pay at least $201 million, with taxpayers using state funds and a higher Miami-Dade hotel tax to pay $199 million.

In a fact sheet sent to media Tuesday morning, the Dolphins listed ways their deal differs from the 2009 Marlins deal. First: Ross, a billionaire real estate developer, would use private dollars to fund at least 51 percent of the Sun Life effort, compared to less than 25 percent from Marlins owner Jeff Loria. Second, Sun Life helps the economy more than the Marlins park does.

“Just because the Marlins did a bad deal doesn’t mean we should oppose a good deal where at least a majority of the cost is paid from private sources and more than 4,000 local jobs are created during construction alone,” the fact sheet states. And while the Dolphins’ Miami Gardens stadium has hosted two Super Bowls since 2007 and is in the running for the 2016 game, “Marlins Stadium does not generate the ability to attract world-class sports events -- other than a World Series from time to time depending on the success of the team.”

NFL teams play eight home games a year if they don’t make the playoffs, while baseball teams have 81.

Miami and Miami-Dade built the Marlins a $640 million stadium at the site of the Dolphins’ old home at the Orange Bowl in Little Havana. The Marlins contributed about $120 million and agreed to pay between $2.5 million and $4.9 million a year for 35 years to pay back $35 million of debt the county borrowed for the stadium. As a publicly owned stadium, the Marlins ballpark pays no property taxes. Most of the public money came from Miami-Dade hotel taxes, along with $50 million of debt tied to the county’s general fund.

Sun Life is privately owned and pays $3 million a year in property taxes to Miami-Dade. It currently receives $2 million a year from Florida’ s stadium program, a subsidy tied to converting the football venue to baseball in the 1990s when the Marlins played there. The Dolphins also paid for a second full-page ad with quotes from leading hoteliers in Miami-Dade endorsing the stadium plan. Among them: Donald Trump, whose company recently purchased the Doral golf resort. “Steve Ross’ commitment to modernize Sun Life Stadium -- while covering most of the construction costs -- is the right thing for Miami-Dade,’’ the ad quotes Trump as saying.

Also on Tuesday, Ross and team CEO Mike Dee sent a letter to Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez and county commissioners requesting negotiations over the stadium deal. The letter said the deal Ross unveiled last week is a “baseline for debate” and asked for talks. The letter also urged the commission to adopt a resolution proposed by Commissioner Barbara Jordan endorsing the state bill that would allow taxes for Sun Life. The resolution is on the agenda for Wednesday’s commission meeting.

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Texas campus issues alert amid reports of shooter

A Texas college has gone into a lockdown amid reports of a shooter on campus.

Jed Young, a spokesman for the Lone Star College System campus in north Harris County, told The Associated Press that a shelter-in-place order has been issued.

Emergency personnel have responded to the Houston-area college campus.

The Harris County Sheriff’s Office had no immediate details.

The shooting happened sometime shortly past noon at the campus, according to the Sheruff’s Office, the Houston Chronicle reported.

Initial reports indicate at least three people may have been wounded. No other information about injuries was immediately available.

"We know that shots have been fired and we are in a shelter-in-place situation on the campus," Vicki Cassidy, manager of media relations for Lone Star College System, told the Chronicle. "It's a pretty chaotic scene at this point in time."

Cassidy said she could not provide any other details about the shooting. The campus is one of six that makes up the community college system.

Early reports indicate the shooting may have occurred in the library as well in the cafeteria.

The campus has been placed on lockdown as authorities investigate the case. Officials asked students and faculty to remain where they are on the campus. They also ask other people not to come to the campus.

This story will be updated as more information becomes available.

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Apple slips, BlackBerry slides and Windows Phone stalls in December

Kantar Worldpanel’s December smartphone market share numbers are out. And they are as fascinating as ever. Kantar pegs the BlackBerry market share in America as 1.1% last month, down from 1.4% in November. Surprisingly, Windows Phone’s market share also ticked down to 2.6% in December from 2.7% in November. That might be a statistical artifact, but it is surprising not to see a substantial boost in Windows share considering the marketing support and new devices from AT&T (T).

[More from BGR: BlackBerry 10 OS walkthrough, BlackBerry Z10 pricing]

In Europe, Windows Phone is rapidly picking up steam. Its market share soared to 13.9% in Italy from 11.8% in November. In the UK, Windows Phone’s share moved to 5.9% from 5.1% in a month.The EU average share of Windows Phone bloomed to 5.4% from 4.7% between November and December.

[More from BGR: Verizon Q4 loss doubles to nearly $ 2 billion despite record subscriber adds]

At the same time, BlackBerry dipped to 4.0% from 4.4%. The stage is set for the spring battle between Windows Phone and BlackBerry camps.

Interestingly, Apple’s (AAPL) share in the UK slipped to 32.4% in December from 36.1% in November. The massive popularity of Samsung (005930) models in the British market was undoubtedly the main reason; Android’s share hit 54.4% in the UK.

This is the latest sign that Apple’s market share problems outside the U.S. market are not limited to emerging markets and Southern Europe. The UK has traditionally been the second most loyal market to the Apple brand, right after the United States. According to Kantar, Apple slipped 2.1 percentage points in America between November and December, ending up with 51.2% share of the smartphone market.

This article was originally published on BGR.com

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