Dolphins get unanimous support for stadium tax deal in first Senate hearing

TALLAHASSEE --
The Miami Dolphins started off the legislative season 1-and-0 in their attempt to get lawmakers to approve a multi-million dollar deal to upgrade

Lawmakers in the Florida Senate Commerce Committee gave unanimous support to a bill that would clear the way for higher hotel bed taxes and a new sales tax rebate to help fund a $400 million renovation of the Fins’ digs.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Oscar Braynon, D-Miami Gardens, has cleared its first hurdle, but it still faces an uphill climb. There will be several more committee stops and the bill also has to clear the Florida House, where Braynon acknowledged that there’s still some heavy lifting to do.

“In the Senate, I don’t think that we’re going to have as many problems as we’re going to have in the House,” he said.

The bill would allow the Dolphins to collect an annual $3 million in sales tax rebates from the state for 30 years, as well as millions more in new bed taxes.

Several stakeholders came up to Tallahassee to support the bill at its first committee hearing, including Miami Gardens mayor Oliver Gilbert, SunLife stadium CEO Mike Dee and Miami-Dade Chamber of Commerce President Bill Diggs.

All supporters pitched the same message: This tax deal is a smart economic move for the state, and would lead to Super Bowls, college championships and other major tourism events.

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Twilight Star Nikki Reed Kisses and Tells

Gillette is conducting a social experiment to settle the debate over what's more kissable -- stubble or shaven -- and the conversation is drawing attention from celebrities like Twilight star Nikki Reed.

PICS: Hottest Bachelors

For Nikki, who is married to bearded rocker Paul McDonald, the guy should commit one way or the other.

"I like to go for either totally clean shaven or a real full-on beard," said Nikki, who helped launched Gillette's Kiss & Tell tour in New York City. "I think stubble kind of kills the kiss."

Singer Keri Hilson, who joined the tour in Los Angeles, had a different take: "I think we're going to find that most women today prefer a smoothly shaven face."

We'll be announcing the results on Valentine's Day from Gillette's Kiss & Tell event in NYC. CLICK HERE to cast your vote.

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Ex-beauty queen gets early rehab release to aid job hunt

Elegant ex-beauty queen and recovering Vicodin addict seeks high-end, Manhattan retail sales employment — rap sheet provided upon request. Russophiles a plus!

Former Miss Russia Anna Malova — still hoping to shake off her 44-count prescription theft indictment from 2011— was sprung early from her rehab program today so she can get a job.

"We're flipping over backwards to help you," Manhattan Criminal Court Richard Weinberg told the one-time Miss Universe finalist in a court proceeding today.

"I'll do my best!" the svelte blonde answered in her Russian accent.

Steven Hirsch

Former Miss Russia Anna Malova leaves a court hearing in Aug. 2011.

"Do more than your best," the judge warned, telling her that one bad toxicology test and the deal is off.

Malova has been in a Bronx rehab program for 20 months courtesy of the Manhattan Drug Court's judicial diversion program, under which her record will be expunged and she will not face deportation providing she successfully completes drug treatment.

Ordinarily, she would have had to stay in her Bronx-based, in-patient program until she found a job. But the program, Argus Community, rigidly limits computer and telephone use, making job searching difficult, said her lawyer, Robert Gottlieb.

"She's just been stuck — she wants to find a job and get on with her life," the lawyer said.

Now Malova — crowned Miss Russia in 1998 and a physician back in her homeland — can pursue her dream American job.

"I would love to have a sales or reception job at a boutique store, or a salon," Malova said.

"Christian Dior, Dolce & Gabbana, Barneys, Bloomingdales, Frederic Fakai," she said, flashing perfect, beauty queen teeth. "I wouldn't mind working at my favorite spots!"

The road to sobriety has been bumpy for Malova, who had been linked romantically to billionaire hedge-fund big George Soros and comedian Garry Shandling.

In 2011, she was nearly yanked from the program after slapping a female patient and making unauthorized trips to the refrigerator. Last year, officials accused her of hoarding and binging on her prescription meds.

"I'm really proud that I've stood up for myself without falling down, without going to jail, without [getting deported] back to Russia, without relapsing, and without even one positive toxicology report," she said as she left court.

Malova must report back to court next month for an update.

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Cutting edge tech from Swiss Army

The Victorinox Swiss Army Jetsetter looks like a traditional pocket knife the company is famous for, but instead of the knife you get a pocket full of storage.

A foldout and detachable USB 2.0 flash drive is among the features in the mini tool kit, which includes a ball point pen, bottle opener, Phillips screwdriver, tweezers and scissors in the 16 GB model I tested out.

The detachable flash drive is Windows- and Mac-friendly, although it comes loaded with Mac-friendly security software to protect your data stored on the device.

It’s available in capacities of 8 GB black ($39.95), 16 GB red ($49.99) and 32 GB silver ($99.99). There are a few different features in each, with the 32 GB model having a LED mini light, for example.

Details: www.swissarmy.com

A great find

Kensington’s Proximo Fob and Tag Kit creates a wireless (Bluetooth) monitoring system between your keys, accessories and an iPhone (4S or 5) that will alert you if they are separated.

I tried the starter kit ($59.99), which includes a fob, tag, keyring and has a screen driver to open the hardware and insert the included CR2032 lithium coin batteries, along with a key ring.

The fob attaches to the key ring and after you have it linked with the free Kensington Proximo app, anytime the devices are separated an alarm sounds. If your phone is within range but you can’t find it, press a button.

It’s easy to think of this as a monitoring device for your expensive smartphone but it also works in reverse once everything is linked up. With your phone in your pocket or purse, it can alert you that you have left your keys behind.

can be placed in a computer bag or attached to anything (or anyone) that you want alarmed. But unlike the fob, it’s only one direction; the app will find it but you can’t use it to find your phone.

The Proximo App Dashboard tracks up to five items with a single fob and up to four tags. Additional tags cost $24.99 each.

If you get out of range between the devices, an app lets you tap a button to let you know where your device was last seen and even pulls up a map with a specific address.

Details: www.Kensington.com

Sound investment

RadioShack’s Auvio expanding Bluetooth speaker ($39.99) is as simple and useful as a gadget can be. Just twist open the speaker, pair it with your device via Bluetooth and you’ll be amazed at how much better the sound is than the built-in speaker on your smartphone or tablet.

A rechargeable battery is built in for up to eight hours of use and can be powered up in two hours with a USB charge using the included cable.

It is 2.5 inches in diameter, just over 3-inches tall when expanded and about 2.5 inches when closed.

Another choice, with a bigger size (2.8-by-6.5-by-2.9 inches) but much better sound is the brick-shaped Auvio Portable Speaker ($79.99).

Both speakers have aux-in ports to connect to non-Bluetooth devices.

Details: www.radioshack.com

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Driver killed after car hits home in Opa-locka

One person was killed when a car plowed into a home in Opa-locka early Monday morning.

Neighbors in the 1800 block of Opa-locka Boulevard said the driver lost control around a curve.

The car slammed into a utility pole, sending a power line flying. It then struck a wrong-way sign before it hit the home and caught fire.

Homeowner Alan Burrows said he and his neighbors tried to help the men in the car.

“I had just gone to bed. I heard a loud crash, right against the house, opened up the door to see what was going on and I couldn’t open the door,” he said.

“The car crashed. There was guy on the ground and another guy on the ground. We tried to help to help them. Our neighbors came out and they had the guys who were in the car,” Burrows said. “The [power] line was down, jumping around and there was fire and smoke. Chaos.”

The driver, Julian Lamar Mitchell, died. His passenger, whose name has not been released, was injured.

Police said the two men had been at a bar earlier and suspect alcohol played a role in the crash.

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Kuwait says backs free speech but must protect ruling emir

KUWAIT (Reuters) – Kuwait supports free speech but must act against illegal comments made about the Gulf state’s ruler, the government said on Monday, after a Twitter user was jailed for five years.

A Kuwaiti court sentenced a man to prison on Sunday for insulting the emir on the social networking site, a rights lawyer and news websites said, in the latest prosecution for criticism of authorities via social media.

“Kuwait has a longstanding proud tradition of open debate and free speech,” the Ministry of Information, which regulates the media, said in a statement to Reuters addressing the case.

“We are a country led by the rule of law and our constitution holds our Emir to be inviolable. If our citizens wish to amend the constitution there is a straightforward legal way to do this, but we will not selectively enforce our laws.”

In recent months Kuwait has penalized several Twitter users for criticizing the emir, who is described as “immune and inviolable” in the constitution.

Kuwait allows the most dissent in the Gulf Arab region and boasts a lively press and critical political debate. But the U.S. ally and OPEC member has been clamping down on politically sensitive comments aired on the internet in recent months.

Twitter is extremely popular in the country of 3.7 million inhabitants and well-known figures can have hundreds of thousands of followers.

In January, a court sentenced two men in separate cases to jail time for insulting the emir on Twitter.

In June last year, a man was sentenced to 10 years in prison after he was convicted of endangering state security by insulting the Prophet Mohammad and the Sunni Muslim rulers of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain on social media.

Two months later, authorities detained a member of the ruling family over remarks on Twitter in which he accused authorities of corruption and called for political reform.

Kuwait has avoided the kind of mass unrest that has spread across the Arab region in the past two years but in 2012 tension escalated between authorities and opposition groups ahead of a parliamentary election.

(Reporting by Sylvia Westall; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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The Following Exclusive Clip The Poets Fire

While the body count is already into double digits, the world has only begun to see the extent of Joe Carroll's plan, and on tonight's all-new episode of The Following, another one or two (hundred) bite the dust!

RELATED - How Kevin Williamson's Abandoned Scream 3 Script Became The Following

In The Poet's Fire, fans of Fox's fearsome Following will not only have tons of present day chills wriggling up their spine, but also get a huge clue to the history Joe and Ryan Hardy share thanks to some very unexpected flashbacks.

RELATED - The Following Star Talks Defying Fan's Expectations

ETonline scored an exclusive clip from tonight's all-new episode that begins to peel back the layers ... but you'll have to tune in tonight at 9 p.m. on Fox for the full flaying!

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Bonnie Hammer wins control of all NBCU cable channels

NBCUniversal boss Steve Burke is handing sole oversight of the company’s lucrative stable of cable entertainment channels to Bonnie Hammer, The Post has learned.

The move, which will give Hammer new control over NBCU’s women-focused channels Bravo, Oxygen and Style — properties that were overseen by Lauren Zalaznick — in the latest shake-up at the media conglomerate.

Hammer had overseen USA, Sci-Fi, E! and a handful of other channels since a November 2010 split of duties with Zalazick instituted by Burke not long after the Comcast-NBCU merger.

Under the most recent changes, Zalaznick’s will oversee NBCU’s digitial properties.

WireImage

Chairwoman of NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment Bonnie Hammer

Comcast is bringing someone new in to run Telemundo, its broadcast and cable Spanish language asset.

News of Hammer’s big promotion will be official Feb. 5, sources said.

Zalaznick and Hammer were known to have a “competitive” relationship and both had angled for the complete cable entertainment portfolio as new boss Burke surveyed his management team back in 2010.

Burke didn’t want to lose either executive and carved up cable between them.

Hammer’s enlarged role, sources added, is a reward for progress at E! Entertainment, the cable network that had struggled to grow under Comcast ownership before it became part of NBCUniversal.

Comcast owns 51 percent of NBCU — with GE holding the balance.

Hammer had also harbored ambitions to run the struggling NBC Network, but that job went to Bob Greenblatt.

The move continues a busy week of management gyrations at 30 Rock — as days ago NBC News boss Steve Capus announced he was leaving.

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Bright spots in Latin America despite global economic uncertainty

There are bright spots as Latin American and Caribbean economies begin the year but the uncertain health of the U.S. economy, the lingering financial crisis in Europe and more sluggish growth in China are casting shadows over the region.

A decade ago, dim prospects in those major markets would have delivered a knock-out punch in the region, but this year Latin American and Caribbean economies are expected to grow by 3.5 percent and average 3.9 percent growth in 2014 and 2015, according to a World Bank forecast. The United Nations’ Economic Commission has a slightly more sanguine forecast of 3.8 percent growth in 2013.

Both are better than the 2.4 percent growth the World Bank is forecasting for the global economy and the mere 1.3 percent increase it is predicting for high-income countries.

The U.S. economy grew by 2.2 percent in 2012. But the economy shrank 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter and the first quarter of 2013 also could be sluggish..

“That creates a soggy start for 2013 in Latin America,’’ said David Malpass, president of Encima Global, a New York economic consulting and research firm.

With a recession in Japan, even slower growth expected in Europe than in the United States, and questions about whether the dip in the Chinese economy has bottomed out and whether the United States will be making sharp cuts in defense spending and other federal programs come March 1, Latin American and Caribbean nations can’t really depend on the industrialized world to spur growth.

The region must look inward and undertake structural reforms that will allow growth from domestic factors, said Malpass, who was in Miami in January for an event organized by the University of Miami’s Center for Hemispheric Policy.

Panama’s $5.25 billion investment in expansion of the Panama Canal is an example of the inward focus that will pay off down the road, said Malpass. By 2015, Panama plans to have completed two new sets of locks on the Atlantic and Pacific sides of the canal and the deepening and widening of existing channels to accommodate the so-called Post-Panamax ships too big to traverse the current locks.

“It’s a difficult period but a period where developing countries are growing solidly but not as quickly as they might otherwise want to,’’ said Andrew Burns, the lead author of the World Bank’s annual Global Economic Trends report.

That means they should focus on investment in infrastructure and healthcare, structural policies, regulatory reforms and improvements in governance that will pay future dividends down the road, Burns said.

Such economic reforms, plus high commodity prices enjoyed by countries with fertile fields and mineral wealth, helped the region move beyond the global financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 far more quickly than it did when it was so dependent on economic cycles in the rest of the world.

Economic growth slowed in Latin America and the Caribbean from 4.3 percent in 2011 to an estimated 3 percent but that was still better than the 1.3 percent growth high-income countries managed in 2012, according to The World Bank.

China will continue to play a major role in Latin America and the Caribbean this year but whether the slowdown in China has reached its low point is subject to debate. But it’s relative. Slow growth in China would be brisk growth elsewhere. China says its gross domestic product grew 7.8 percent in 2012, the most tepid growth in 13 years and a comedown from 9.3 percent growth in 2011.

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Details emerge about Boynton Beach man who killed two sons

BOYNTON BEACH (AP) The Boynton Beach man who killed two of his sons before killing himself had declined an invitation to a party hours earlier, saying he had to do “something important,” his roommate said on Sunday.

Police say Isidro Zavala killed his younger sons, 12-year-old Eduardo and 11-year-old Mario, early Saturday at his estranged wife's home.

According to police, Victoria Zavala was watching television when she heard a commotion just before 2 a.m. She found Isidro Zavala choking one of his sons, and she begged him to kill her and spare the boys.

Isidro Zavala told her that he would leave her alive to suffer their loss. She was not injured. Officers found both boys dead at the scene, and they found Zavala, dressed all in black, dead with self-inflicted gunshot wounds in the chest and head.

“This is an unusually brutal type of murder,” said Boynton Beach Police Chief Matthew Immler.

The Palm Beach Post reports the couple had filed for divorce in October after nearly 20 years of marriage. They were scheduled to go to court Tuesday for a mediation hearing.

Zavala's roommate said he last saw Zavala Friday evening at their house, less than a mile away from the crime scene. Mariano Batalla told the newspaper that Zavala said he couldn't attend a friend's birthday party because “he had to do something important.”

Batalla said he returned from the party around midnight and repeatedly tried to call Zavala, who never answered his phone. Zavala's truck remained parked in their driveway. Police woke Batalla around 5 a.m. and told him what happened.

“I feel so, so, so sad because he's my best friend,” Batalla said. “It's a big surprise for me. He don't tell me nothing about this.”

The Zavalas also have a 19-year-old son who does not live at his mother's house. Investigators found a note from Zavala to his oldest son in a bag at the crime scene.

In the note, Zavala told the 19-year-old that he was a good son and to take care of himself, Immler said. The bag also contained a second gun, extra ammunition, duct tape and cutting shears.

A second note was found at Isidro Zavala's home, but police did not release its contents.

Victoria Zavala had been licensed as a cosmetologist, and Isidro Zavala owned a landscaping company.

Children who live across the street say they last saw Mario several days ago when they were flying kites with another friend. They remembered him playing in their backyard or playing video games, and they could not understand why Mario's father would kill him.

Police said they had never visited the Zavalas' home. A spokeswoman for the Department of Children and Families said the agency also had no previous history with the family.

Batalla said he knew Zavala as a gentle friend who made pork and rice dishes for special occasions and who walked to church every weekend. Batalla had recently been baptized, and he had encouraged Zavala to do the same.

“But he kept telling me, `No, not yet,“’ Batalla said. “He said he wanted to learn more before he got baptized.”

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Information from: The Palm Beach (Fla.) Post, http://www.pbpost.com

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