Modern Family Stars Get Stuck in Crowded Elevator

No good deed goes unpunished.

PICS: Candid Celeb Sightings

While on their way to a fundraiser for the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Kansas City on Friday night, three stars of ABC's hit sitcom Modern Family were trapped in a crowded elevator for almost an hour, ABC News reports.

Julie Bowen, Eric Stonestreet and Jesse Tyler Ferguson took pictures together during the ordeal, which Ferguson posted to his Twitter account.

"This is us right now. 45 minutes stuck in this elevator," Ferguson wrote, captioning the snapshot from the Sheraton Kansas City Hotel's third floor.

The actors were an hour late to the event after the Kansas City Fire Department rescued them, but they maintained a good sense of humor about their plight, reportedly joking about the ordeal on stage.

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House designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in NJ may be moved due to flooding

AP

The Bachman-Wilson house, designed and built by Frank Lloyd Wright, in Millstone, NJ

MILLSTONE, NJ — Some say it's a work of art — one of the many gems of the Garden State.

Designed and built by Frank Lloyd Wright in the 1950s, the house, which sits along the Millstone River in Somerset County, features the legendary architect's floor-to-ceiling windows that let in all the nature surrounding it.

But for the owners of the Bachman-Wilson house in Millstone Borough, there's been a little too much Mother Nature coming in.

Any significant rain event causes the Millstone River to rise, flooding the historic home.

Hurricane Irene in 2012 was the final straw for the owners, Sharon and Lawrence Tarantino, who have decided to sell the home, but with one stipulation — the new owners must move the house, piece by piece.

The couple is looking to move the house to another part of New Jersey. If that's not possible, they're considering Upstate New York, the Midwest or even Italy.

If the house is moved out of New Jersey, it would leave the state with just three original Frank Lloyd Wright buildings.

"The (current) site is not sustainable," Sharon Tarantino told The Star-Ledger of Newark. "We've been here for 25 years, and for 20 years we've dealt with flooding. It came to a point after Hurricane Irene and we determined the only way to save the house is to relocate it and build it on another site."

Tarantino said she and her husband love their Wright house with its large windows, gleaming wood floors and remodeled kitchen. As a designer and an architect respectively, the couple has done extensive renovations to maintain Wright's original vision for the structure. And after several floods and several renovations, the Tarantinos say they not only want to maintain that vision, but they want to keep it safe.

"This is sort of an organic happening in a way, that the house is transforming through nature," Tarantino said. "I think (Wright) would welcome it — I think he would be really thrilled that we're making the effort to do this to save a house, that isn't grand in scale but grand in its spirit and design and it's jewel that should be saved."

Not everyone is sold on the idea of the house moving out of New Jersey.

"It's a part of New Jersey's heritage and it would be a great loss to our state," said Stephanie Cherry-Farmer, senior director of programs at Preservation New Jersey, an advocacy group that placed the Bachman-Wilson home on their list of endangered historic sites in 2011. "Hopefully, they will be able to find a solution that allows the house to exist but keeps it part of New Jersey's heritage."

The Tarantinos are trying to do just that.

So far they've looked at two sites in New Jersey — one in Princeton and another in northern New Jersey, without being specific. Sharon Tarantino said the couple's top requirement is that the site have some kind of Wright connection, and they're also looking for a place that's similar to where the house stands now.

"It might be a site in New Jersey, but it might not be appropriate it for the house," she said. "So what if it's New Jersey."

The Tarantinos, who own Tarantino Architecture, are asking for $950,000 for house and its contents — which includes all Frank Lloyd Wright furniture — and $550,000 to deconstruct and move the house. And they plan to work closely with the new owner to reconstruct the house.

Over a dozen Frank Lloyd Wright houses are for sale across the nation, according to a Wright building conservancy group. And a few have relocated from their original location, but one expert says those moves are rarer.

"You do lose a lot when you move a Frank Lloyd Wright house from an original site to another one," said Victor Sidy, dean of the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture in Arizona. "He designed each one of his house in relation to the building site the views the sun angle, the neighbors; each house was a solved problem, and the problem was living within the constraints of the site."

This problem, though, has gotten out of hand, the owners say.

"We feel like it's something that has to be done because of the environment," Sharon Tarantino said. "We have to save the house. We cannot go through another flood."

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How to create a winning business plan

If you are creating a short business plan to enter in the Miami Herald Business Plan Challenge or to send to an investor, how do you make your plan stand out from the pack?

With the March 11 deadline for the Challenge looming, our judges, all very experienced in business planning and capital-raising, have some advice for you on writing a plan, whether you are starting your very first business or are a serial entrepreneur. “You have a short space, we get a stack of these, you have to grab our attention from the start,” Melissa Krinzman told the audience Tuesday night at our Business Plan Bootcamp at Miami Dade College. So let’s get started.

Krinzman, a veteran Challenge judge and managing director of Venture Architects, which helps companies with business planning and the capital-raising process, moderated a panel that included Richard Ginsburg, a former CEO of electronic security companies and co-founder of G3 Capital Partners, a mid-market and early stage investment company; Steven McKean, founder and CEO of Acceller, a 13-year-old Miami-based tech company in the business of customer acquisition for phone, cable and satellite companies, and a Challenge judge; and Mike Tomas, CEO of Miami-based Bioheart, president of ASTRI Group, an early-stage private equity investment group in the healthcare space, and a Challenge judge in the FIU Track.

According to the panel, a short business plan should always include:

•  A strong opening statement: “We want to know what it is you actually do. If we have to keep guessing we don’t want to keep reading. Action verbs are important: Do you manufacture, do you sell, do you create. Be specific,” said Krinzman.

•  The problem you are solving in the marketplace: Also include how your solution is better than the competition. And don’t say you don’t have any competition; directly or indirectly, there is always competition.

•  How you plan to make money: This may seem obvious but it is surprising how many entries expend all their space on explaining their product or service and its awesome features and forget to include this. Are you a subscription-based model, are you selling a product nationally or locally. Tell us.

•  Sales and marketing: If you are already on the market, briefly tell us your marketing strategy and your customers. If you don’t have customers yet, who do you think they will be and how will you market to them?

•  Team: No need for long bios here — include relevant experience for you and members of your team.

“Include why you have the right management team and why we should bet on you,” said Tomas. What particularly impresses an investor, he said: relevant industry experience, if you’re a serial entrepreneur and been there before and if you have people around you that are stronger than you are.

The panelists also talked about their vast capital-raising experiences, as both entrepreneurs and investors. “I have been raising money my entire life, you never stop,” said Tomas. “To me the most important component is networking — go to as many events as you can and get to know folks… Some of the best leads I got for raising funds were from folks who have never written a check.”

All mentioned looking for investors that can offer more than a check — expertise in your industry, connections, management experience. There’s value even if the answer is no.

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Near-record warm winter for South Florida

Winter won’t officially be over for a few weeks but it’s already been a near-record warm one in South Florida – not including the cold front rolling through this weekend.

From December through February, Miami recorded the third warmest winter on record, the National Weather Service’s Miami office reported Friday. The average temperature of 72.3 degrees was 2.7 degrees warmer than normal.

Fort Lauderdale and Naples recorded the fifth warmest winters and West Palm Beach the ninth.

In Miami and Fort Lauderdale, November 2012 actually wound up colder than any of the three following winter months, the Weather Service said – something that has happened only twice since 1910.

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'Skyfall' Jameson Empire Awards Nominations

Daniel Craig's third outing as 007, Skyfall, has grown to become the most successful James Bond film ever and the biggest-ever U.K. box-office hit – and after winning two Academy Awards it now leads the pack for the 18th Jameson Empire Awards with six nominations. Read on for details and to vote for your favorite films and stars!

CLICK HERE TO VOTE for the Jameson Empire Awards 2013.

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Skyfall is up for Best Thriller, Best British Film, Best Director, Jameson Best Actor (Daniel Craig), Best Actress presented by Citroën (Dame Judi Dench), and Best Film presented by Sky Movies. Nipping at Bond's heels are The Avengers and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, going head-to-head in five categories: Best Science-Fiction/Fantasy (with strong competition from Looper, Prometheus and Dredd 3D), The Art Of 3D presented by RealD (up against Life of Pi, Dredd 3D and Prometheus), Best Director and Best Film. Those films' stars, Robert Downey Jr. and Martin Freeman, will face off in the Jameson Best Actor category against Daniel Craig and Oscar-winners Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln) and Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained).

Among the other categories, Entertainment Tonight is presenting Best Male Newcomer, with Suraj Sharma (Life of Pi), Domhnall Gleeson (Anna Karenina), Rafe Spall (Life of Pi), Steve Oram (Sightseers) and Tom Holland (The Impossible) in the running.

For the full list of nominees, CLICK HERE.

Video: Craig on Showing 'Skyfall' Skin: 'It's a Living'

Pitched as an antidote to more formal, industry-voted awards, the Jameson Empire Awards are voted for entirely by the cinema-going public, who can now vote on the final short list of nominees comprised of many names and titles that may have missed out at other awards ceremonies.

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Conn. Dem disgrace: Call for resignation after pol tells girl, 17, 'I got a snake sitting under my desk here'

HARTFORD, Conn. — The chairman of Connecticut's Republican Party is calling for a Democratic state lawmaker to resign over what was taken as a lewd remark to a teenage girl.

State Rep. Ernest Hewett already has been stripped of his leadership title for the reference he made to "a snake" under his desk at last week's budget hearing. He has said his remark came out wrong and he understood how it could be misconstrued.

Republican Party chairman Jerry Labriola said Friday that the remark was "a disgrace and an embarrassment."

The 17-year-old girl had been testifying in support of funding for the Connecticut Science Center's youth programs which helped her get over a fear of snakes. Hewett said: "If you're bashful I got a snake sitting under my desk here."

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Florida class-action case takes aim at Citizens’ reinspection program

Thousands of Florida homeowners buffeted by higher windstorm premiums have sued state-run Citizens Property Insurance Corp. to recover potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in “back-door” rate increases driven by “arbitrary” reinspections of their residences.

The proposed class-action lawsuit, filed in Broward Circuit Wednesday, aims to halt Citizens’ reinspection program, claiming it has illegally stripped discounts from homeowners who had earned them under a 2007 inspection program approved by the Florida Legislature. Their original inspections were supposed to be valid for five years.

But in 2010, Citizens violated the due-process rights of homeowners, who had submitted official inspection forms, by arbitrarily reinspecting their properties to boost lost revenue that the agency could not generate lawfully through premium hikes, the suit said.

Lawyers who filed the suit, whose class representative is a Broward homeowner, said Citizens violated the due-process rights of its policyholders, costing each higher premiums averaging upwards of $1,000 — and possibly more — a year.

The collective cost to homeowners throughout Florida exceeds more than $100 million, said attorney Todd Stabinksi, whose Miami law firm, Stabinksi & Funt, filed the suit with Farmer, Jaffe of Fort Lauderdale and Kula & Samson of Aventura. They gathered Thursday for a press conference outside the West Broward County Courthouse in Plantation.

“Citizens got the benefit of lowering their risks, but Citizens’ policyholders did not get the benefit of lower premiums,” Stabinski said. “It should have been a mutually beneficial bargain.”

Consumer advocates have accused Citizens of using the reinspection program to impose “massive” rate hikes on homeowners. Citizens has denied the charge, saying that it is simply trying to get accurate information about the homes it insures.

“Since at least 2010, Citizens has used a wind mitigation reinspection program to systemtically deprive policy holders of legitimate wind mitigation credits,” said a nonprofit group, Florida Association for Insurance Reform, which praised the legal action.

A spokesperson for Citizens said the company has been operating under the law, and that the reinspections came after regulators changed the mitigation criteria. “Our position is Citizens’ reinspections were conducted under statutory authority afforded any insurer to verify, at the insurer’s expense, the accuracy of inspection reports submitted for a mitigation discount,” said spokesman Michael Peltier.

Discontent has been widespread among Citizens’ policyholders, who spent large sums of money on roof, window and other upgrades to earn windstorm mitigation discounts while protecting their homes against potential hurricane damage. In response, Citizens unveiled major changes to its home reinspection program last August, after consumers expressed outrage over media reports about a staggering $137 million in premium increases generated by the unpopular program.

Under its new plans, homeowners who lose insurance discounts because of a reinspection can receive a second inspection free of charge. They will have new tools to dispute the findings of the first reinspection. That decision could impact more than 200,000 property owners, who have already seen their premiums go up by an average of about $800 after the initial reinspection.

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Driver gets 6 years for hit-run death of 11-year-old

A Miami-Dade County judge on Thursday sentenced a driver for the 2009 hit-and-run death of an 11-year-old girl to six years in prison, plus eight years of probation.

Harvey Abraham, 37, was convicted in November of fleeing the scene where he struck and killed Ashley Nicole Valdes as she crossed a West Kendall street on Jan. 8, 2009.

He was arrested after a citizen who had been following the case saw Abraham’s Ford F-150 outside a South Miami auto body shop. Abraham took the truck to the shop and filed an insurance claim after the crash, saying he was the victim.

On Thursday, Judge Thomas J. Rebull decried Abraham’s decision to flee the scene.

“Mr. Abraham, if you had just stopped, even if there was nothing you could do to help Ashley Valdez, I can’t imagine you would be facing what you are facing,” he said.

Abraham received six years in prison plus four years of reporting probation for leaving the scene of an accident involving death. For tampering with evidence by attempting to have his truck repaired, he received an additional four years of probation.

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White Collar Season 4 Finale Exclusive Clip

All season long White Collar fans have watched Neal, Peter, Mozzie and Jones race to find Ellen's Empire State Building box -- and in Tuesday's season finale, the chase finally climaxes.

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But with the newly installed F.B.I. chief seemingly on Senator Pratt's payroll, the boys are forced to race against one more enemy during In The Wind, an episode creator Jeff Eastin calls intense.

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"I'm really excited about our finale, it's big this year," Eastin told ETonline. "We shot it in The Empire State Building, up on the 103rd floor, which is the secret top deck that only celebrities can see. It's pretty intense. We got to shoot Neal and Sara up there, for good reasons -- it starts out as part of the con they're running, but it ends with the two of them up there and it's really beautiful and emotional. We can always come back to those two if we want, but it's also a fantastic summation of their relationship."

Watch ETonline's exclusive clip from the White Collar season finale, and tune in Tuesday at 10 p.m. on USA to see the whole affair!

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Feds hunt for 3 LI sex offenders gone missing after Hurricane Sandy

US Marshals are searching for several Suffolk County sex offenders who disappeared after Hurricane Sandy.

The federal law-enforcement agency launched Operation Shore Restore in December to track down offenders who were displaced during the superstorm, authorities said.

“These local agencies during the Hurricane were pretty taxed,” said Charlie Dunne, the US Marshal for the Eastern District of New York. “So marshals want to come in and help other law-enforcement get a handle on where these sex offenders are.”

There are about 1000 individuals on Suffolk County, and marshals focused on 500 offenders in the operation.

Authorities found 450 of the offenders living in their registered homes, while forty had relocated because of the storm. They were found living with family members, in hotels, or even in homeless shelters because their residences were damaged in the storm.

“There were ten we felt had absconded as a result of the hurricane, and left,” said Dunne.

Seven so far have been located and arrested, but three have not been found yet.

It was not immediately released how serious the crimes were that the offenders had been convicted of before they were released.

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