A man was left in cardiac arrest and two firefighters injured after a raging inferno erupted at a Brooklyn medical lab, fire officials said.
The fire started on the third floor of the four-story building at 2:03 p.m. on the corner of Utrecht Avenue near 52 Street in Borough Park, sources said.
The critically injured man, who was found inside the burning building, was rushed to Lutheran Hospital. The two firefighters suffered non-life-threatening injuries, fire officials said.
No company today elicits such devotion and dedication among its customers and shareholders like Apple. The fervor felt by Apple fans for its products, its leaders and its business underscore the company’s technological eco-centric strategy. While that loyalty has made for rich rewards over the long term, it will mean very little to a myopic stock market when Apple reports its latest financial results Wednesday.
When a company so dominates a business like Apple does, it is subject to plenty of rumors, especially when that company, like Apple, is disciplined to not respond to speculation. There have been a series of anonymous and Wall Street analyst worries floated in the past quarter centered on the iPhone 5. First were concerns Apple couldn’t get enough supplies to build the phones fast enough. Then there were hints Apple cut its supply orders, suggesting slower sales.
Apple optimists have been quick to defend the company even as its stock has fallen from $700 to around $500 per share since September. The stock drop has come even as Apple probably sold a record number of iPhones and iPads during the holiday quarter.
No doubt Apple will trumpet its financial prowess on Wednesday. And it should. After all it generates more than $500 million dollars a day. But the short-sighted stock market has been conditioned to expect big numbers. Therein is the challenge for Apple: incubating such devotion without inflating expectations.
Tom Hudson is anchor and managing editor of Nightly Business Report, produced by NBR Worldwide and distributed nationally by American Public Television. In South Florida, the show is broadcast at 7 p.m. weekdays on Channel 2. Follow him on Twitter, @HudsonNBR.
TALLAHASSEE --
What do violent video games, gory movies and high-powered assault weapons have in common?
They have all been blamed for tragic mass shootings, including last month’s at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. — and are all subsidized by Florida taxpayers.
With Florida’s tax code more business-friendly in recent years, economic incentives and tax breaks have flowed to companies and industries currently under fire for their roles in America’s gun violence.
Meanwhile, the state has cut funding for mental healthcare and school safety programs, two areas at the forefront of the national gun control debate.
While it has become more difficult and expensive to access mental health care in Florida, it is getting easier and cheaper to obtain high-powered weapons. Last year, the Legislature cut the cost of obtaining a weapons license by $5, and a string of gun-friendly measures has boosted the number of concealed firearms carriers past 1 million.
As the White House, Congress and states across the country look at new measures for curbing gun violence, Florida’s tax code and budgeting measures could be having the opposite effect.
“I think the state of Florida has a role to play in preventing gun violence and in gun regulation,” said Sunrise mayor Mike Ryan, who has pushed for gun control but acknowledged that the controversial companies receiving tax breaks are all helping to create jobs in the state. “When you get to the issue of assault weapons, you get to a thornier issue.”
Nationally, Florida ranks 49th in mental health funding, and first in gun ownership. The state has been a trailblazer in providing lucrative tax incentives to a smorgasbord of companies in return for promises to create jobs.
In 2012, a tough budget year when the Legislature cut funding for school safety by $1.8 million and Gov. Rick Scott vetoed $5.7 million for mental health programs, lawmakers were able to find more than $10 million for economic incentives that went to violent film productions, bloody video games and gun manufacturers.
In South Florida, that meant millions of fewer dollars for mentally ill prisoners, while movie-maker Michael Bay received $4.2 million in tax breaks to produce Pain & Gain, an action film about South Beach bodybuilders who become violent criminals.
Tax breaks for gun dealers
The Legislature and powerful business groups are pushing to boost the state’s manufacturing industry, a sector that includes makers of military-style weapons.
At least three gun makers have been on the receiving end of lucrative tax break deals aimed at spurring job creation. Colt Manufacturing Co. was approved for a $1.6 million deal in December 2011, after it opted to open a new regional headquarters in Osceola County, bringing 63 jobs. Scott hailed the tax credit program as a “clear message that Florida is both open for business and a defender of our right to bear arms.”
More tax breaks for gun makers would soon follow.
Kel Tec CNC, a Cocoa Beach company that manufactured the handgun used in the controversial Trayvon Martin shooting last year, received nearly $15,000 in taxpayer cash to train its employees. The company, which also makes the types of high-powered assault weapons used in recent mass shootings, did not have to create any new jobs in return for the money. Repeated efforts to reach company officials were unsuccessful.
Given the worldwide attention given to Manti Te'o and his fake girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, since it was inevitable the football star would break his silence sooner rather than later. Last night, Te'o sat down for an off-camera interview with ESPN's Jeremy Schaap, where he admitted to lyng about actually meeting Kekua because he believed his friends, family and coaches would think he was "crazy" for engaging in an intense relationship with someone he'd never met. But, throughout the interview, Te'o maintains he was not complicit in perpetuating the story for personal gain.
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"I wasn't faking it. I wasn't part of this," Te'o tells ESPN's Jeremy Schapp, insisting he was duped by the online hoax, now commonly referred to as "Catifshing," thanks to the documentary and MTV show of the same name.
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"She friend requested me on Facebook the winter of my freshman year at Notre Dame," Te'o explains. "We spoke on the phone. We spoke on the phone and talked on the phone, texted. But it's always as acquaintances, as friends. And then she contacted me that Purdue game and she just said 'Hey, how are you doing? I'm going through some hard times with my boyfriend' -- at the time she had a boyfriend at the time. And just want you to be there for me, just be my friend. I said sure, I'll be here for you."
Te'o clarifies that the duration of the relationship has been widely misreported, saying that their were large chunks of time they went without speaking throughout the four year period in question.
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Then, during Te'o's junior year at Notre Dame, Kekua (who is now believed to be a man named Ronaiah Tuiasosopo and at least one female accomplice) reconnected with him. "We spoke on the phone. We spoke on the phone and talked on the phone, texted. But it's always as acquaintances, as friends ... And eventually we just kept talking and kept talking and kept talking. Everything kind of changed a little when her dad passed away. She told me her dad passed away, and I was there. I was just being that shoulder to cry on ... And so our relationship kind of took another level. But not the kind of exclusive level yet. I was trying to get to know her and get to know a whole bunch of other people. And for that period of time we talked and talked and got to know each other better and better and better. And everything changed April 28th. I got a phone call from her brother that she had got in the car accident."
Te'o says that Kekua's brother acted as an intermediary between them throughout her hospitalization. "I would ask to talk to her, and the only communication I had was through her brother and he used her phone," Te'o says. "He would put me supposedly right next to her mouth and I could hear the ventilator going. And she would be breathing ... They were telling me, 'Bro, she recognized your voice. We know she's there. We know she can hear you.' She would quicken her voice. And I heard it on the phone. They would do it to me. And so that was my communication while she was in a coma."
When asked by Schaap why Te'o didn't think to visit her, he says, "It never really crossed my mind. I don't know. I was in school. I was finishing up my year and I was going home. It was towards the end of my junior year. End of my junior year, and I was about to go home. When I decided to go home, the day that I decided to -- the day I left to go home -- they called me and said that that was the same day that they were going to pull the plug. And so it intensifies the whole thing. I'm on the plane. I figured they're about to pull the plug on someone ... All my focus went just to her, in caring for her. Making sure she was OK. Whenever you feel that you're about to lose somebody, you know, reality kicks in, and it's like, okay, I'm going to be here for her, take care of her. And so my focus turned straight to Lennay."
Te'o not only recounts pieces of the elaborate backstory he was fed, but also explains there was a seemingly endless array of photos; all of which convinced him Kekua was real.
Then, in early July, Te'o is told that Keuka has leukemia, which only intensifies his feelings for her. Throughout her treatment, Te'o constantly spoke to Keuka via phonecalls and online chats. Then, on September 12, Te'o's parents called to say his grandmother had passed away, hours later, Keuka called. "I had already found out that grandma is dead. I was angry. I didn't want to be bothered. So Lennay was just trying to be there for me. I just -- I just wanted my own space. We got in an argument. She was saying, you know, I'm trying to be here for you. I didn't want to be bothered. I wanted to be left alone. I just wanted to be by myself."
"Later that day I get a text message from her brother, just saying 'Bro. That was it.' I wondered why her brother was contacting me. Couple minutes later, I get the call from her brother. He's telling me, he's crying, screaming, and he's just telling me, 'She's gone! She's gone!' He's mumbling, 'She's gone, she's gone, bro', she's gone.' And I'm sitting there wondering who is gone? Why is he telling me that somebody's gone. Lennay's supposed to get home on September 11th, the day before. She was fine, you know? She was going home, she was fine. People were saying that she's getting better. I get a phone call that she's gone. They tell me Lennay's gone."
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"I dropped the phone. I walk around the corner to get to the hall way where nobody is... I started crying and crying, punching the wall." Te'o adds, "Looking back on it now? I don't know. I really don't know. One, to lie about it, and two, to coordinate this death on the same day that I lost my grandmother, I don't know."
For those who believed Te'o created this entire scenario to garner sympathy in a big to win The Heisman Trophy, their biggest piece of evidence is that Te'o didn't attend Keuka's funeral. He tells ESPN the reason he didn't go was because her funeral fell on the same day as a big game. "Before Lennay passed away, we had a conversation where she asked me if she passed away, if I could go to her funeral? I told her no, I'm not going to talk like that. I'm not going to talk like that. She said tell me this, if anything happens, promise me that you'll send me white roses and say you'll play. She said all I want is white roses. And leading up to the funeral, her siblings kept telling me that their mom told them she didn't want me to come. They didn't want -- and I didn't want myself -- I didn't want that to be the first time that I saw her was lying in a coffin. That's why I didn't go."
Months pass, and Te'o begins dating a girl named Alex del Pilar. Then, on December 6, he gets a phonecall from Lennay's sister U'i. "She said, 'Hey, I've got to tell you something that's very important.' So she goes through this whole spiel how my family's involved with drugs and like bad people. And we have to hide and make sure that everybody's -- she's giving me this background about their life. She just basically said I think you know. And I said what do you mean? I don't know anything. She said, well, Manti, it's me. That's all she said."
"I eventually just gave up and said, who is me? And she said, it's Lennay. So we carried on that conversation, and I just got mad. I just went on a rampage. How could you do this to me? I ended that conversation by saying, simply this: You know what, Lennay, my Lennay died on September 12. I don't know who you are, but Lennay died on September 12th and that conversation ended."
Another fact detractors point to as evidence Te'o was complicit in the lie is that he continued to talk about Lennay in subsequent interviews as if she were real. Te'o cites his initial confusion as the reason behind those incidents.
Since then, Te'o has continued to speak with U'i and Ronaiah in a quest to find out the truth. However, once the story broke, Te'o says his been contacted by several people who were similarly duped by the duo. "Multiple people that he's done it to me contacted me ... and said hey, he's done the same thing to me with the same girl, with the same story. And if you need any help, I'm here."
Te'o, for one, is hoping this saga comes to a close much faster than I believe it will. As for what he'd like to see happen to his hoaxers, Te'o says, "To be honest with you, it doesn't seem real. I hope he learns. I hope he understands what he's done. I don't wish an ill thing to somebody. I just hope he learns. I think embarrassment is big enough."
To read Manti Te'o's entire and all-encompassing interview with ESPN, click here.
Raspberry Pi’s $ 35 Linux-based computer is a runaway success. Creator Eben Upton told ZDNet in a recent interview that his team thought they would sell 1,000 units when they were designing the mini PC, but sales have now topped 700,000. ”We honestly did think we would sell about 1,000, maybe 10,000 in our wildest dreams,” Upton said. “We thought we would make a small number and give them out to people who might want to come and read computer science at Cambridge.” On a slightly disappointing note to those hoping for an upgraded model in 2013, Upton said in the interview that the company has no plans to launch a sequel to the latest Raspberry Pi “Model B” this year.
[More from BGR: BlackBerry 10 browser smokes iOS 6 and Windows Phone 8 in comparison test [video]]
This article was originally published on BGR.com
Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News
SAN ANDREAS, Calif. — Authorities in Northern California say a man arrested in nothing but a trench coat and socks after a break-in told investigators he had been using the homeowner's sauna.
Calaveras County sheriff's deputies arrested 49-year-old Robert London this week after they responded to a report of a burglary at a home in San Andreas. He pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges of burglary and possession of stolen property.
Sheriff's Sgt. Chris Hewitt says arriving deputies found the homeowner on top of a nearly naked London on the driveway.
The homeowner said he discovered London going through his kitchen cabinets and chased him out the door.
Hewitt says London told investigators he thought the house was vacant, and he had used the sauna there in the past.
The issue of tax-funded sports stadiums will soon be back on the Miami-Dade County Commission’s agenda.
Commissioner Barbara Jordan is slated to introduce a resolution Wednesday backing the Miami Dolphins’ plan to use a state subsidy and local hotel taxes to fund about half of a $400 million renovation of Sun Life Stadium. The resolution urges Florida lawmakers to pass a bill allowing the funding, and cites the upgrades’ ability to attract Super Bowl and other major events to the stadium.
The discussion comes roughly three years after a divided Miami-Dade commission backed borrowing about $360 million to build the Marlins a new $640 million baseball park in Little Havana. (The Marlins contributed $155 million, and Miami paid $120 million toward the complex, including a garage.)
The vote is widely credited with helping fuel the 2011 recall of then-mayor Carlos Alvarez. Dolphins insiders cite Marlins backlash as a major obstacle to winning tax dollars for the Sun Life renovation.
“If you give everything a little time, hopefully it heals a little bit,’’ said Rep. Erik Fresen, the original sponsor of the Dolphins’ stadium bill during the 2011 bid for a tax-funded renovation. “Last time, it was literally on the heels of the recall and everything that was so specific to the Marlins’ stadium.”
Dolphins owner Stephen Ross has pledged private dollars would fund the majority of the $400 million upgrade of the privately owned stadium. The bill would qualify Sun Life for $90 million in state tax dollars over 30 years, and allow Miami-Dade to increase mainland hotel taxes to 7 percent from 6 percent for the renovations. The tax increase would generate about $10 million a year under the current market conditions.
In recent days, the Dolphins have released endorsements from large hotels in the area, including the Fontainebleau, Intercontinental, Trump Doral and, most recently, a string of Marriotts owned by the MDM development firm.
The baseball debate continues to hover over local politics. Last fall, Jordan was targeted by an anti-Marlins group for defeat in a reelection campaign supported by the Dolphins. She was not immediately available for comment Friday evening.
Norman Braman, the auto magnate who tried to block the Marlins plan and targeted Jordan and other baseball supporters for defeat, said he expected the commission to back public dollars for the Dolphins, too.
“I think they’ve got all the chutzpah you can imagine,’’ he said of incumbent commissioners. “I would be shocked if the commission didn’t do this.”
Fresen, a Miami Republican and co-sponsor in the House of the new Dolphins bill, said he needs the commission to endorse the legislation before he pushes it will fellow lawmakers. Rep. Eddy Gonzalez, a Republican from Hialeah and co-sponsor of the bill, said he gives the Dolphins plan a 50 percent chance of passing the House.
“The entire delegation is not on board. We need a product everyone can live with,’’ he said.
The bill would create a special $3 million yearly stadium subsidy designed for Sun Life. The Dolphins currently receive $2 million a year from Florida under the current stadium subsidy program, tied to retrofitting the Miami Gardens facility to house the Marlins in the 1990s. The team moved out in 2011, and the Dolphins $2 million payments end in 2023.
While the bill opens up the subsidy to any renovation project where public dollars make up a minority of the funding, the language also restricts Florida from paying it to more than one stadium. Ron Book, the Dolphins’ lobbyist, said limiting the bill to one $3 million payout a year should make the proposal more palatable amid Florida’s continuing budget squeeze.
“You have to manage the economic impact to the state,’’ he said.
The sermon to celebrate Izhar Khan’s acquittal on federal charges of aiding the Pakistani Taliban urged the Muslim faithful gathered in a Margate mosque for Friday prayers to do right, care for others, and lead a life for all to see that Islam teaches brotherhood and peace.
“Let the world see what Islam is about,’’ exhorted Maulana Roshan, who led the service. “The opportunities we have here, we don’t have them in the countries we come from. ... Set an example. Do the right thing.’’
Kneeling on the floor among the faithful inside the mosque was Khan, 26, who returned to the Broward mosque he led for nearly three years on Friday for the first time since his arrest in May 2011. Worshippers filled the floor of the mosque and two additional, elevated platforms.
Dressed in black prayer clothes and a black-and-white smagh headdress, Khan stepped to the front following the sermon. He smiled broadly, spoke softly, and expressed gratitude to his spiritual community for their support during the 20 months he spent in a Miami federal detention center on charges of funneling money to terrorists.
Then he tried to explain the circumstances that led to his arrest — and the loss of his home and his savings — and ultimately his acquittal Thursday by U.S. District Judge Robert Scola, who cited a lack of evidence in the U.S. government’s material-support case against Khan and his father, Miami imam Hafiz Khan.
The case, which drew national media attention, will continue against Khan’s father, who is the lead defendant in the trial. But the judge found that the prosecution, which rested its case Wednesday, failed to prove any wrongdoing by the younger Khan, imam of Masjid Jamaat Al-Mumineen Mosque off Sample Road in Margate.
As he stood before his followers Friday, Khan expressed bewilderment over the substance of the government’s charges.
“I know you are thinking there must have been something I’ve done to make them suspicious,’’ he said. “I don’t even know. ... I’m more interested in sports than politics. I don’t even know who the prime minister of Pakistan is.
“I just want to let you be assured,’’ he said, “it was all based on speculation. Basically, because I wear a robe and a scary beard, it was all based on that.’’
Khan’s defense lawyer, Joseph Rosenbaum, also was at the Margate mosque on Friday, where he thanked members for their support — and urged them to help Khan readjust to life as a free man.
“You all have come through big time in your support,’’ he said. “Your prayers, your emotional support, whatever you did, it helped. ... We’d like you to welcome him back, to help him adjust, and to put him back on the road he was on when he left here.’’
Members of the mosque, which was founded a decade ago, said the path the younger Khan followed was one of peace and tolerance — and not what prosecutors alleged when they said Izhar Khan knew that two suspicious fund transfers of $300 and $900 were intended for the Pakistani Taliban, a U.S.-designated terrorist group.
Fazal Deen, secretary of the Margate mosque, said the transfers were remittances to Khan’s family in Pakistan.
“He was sending it to his sister to help the poor and the needy,’’ Deen said. “He’s been doing it for years.’’
Despite the government’s charges, Deen said, members of the mosque remained convinced that the younger Khan was a man of peace. Deen and others interviewed at the Margate mosque Friday said they did not know the elder Khan, and that the two mosques did not interact.
The younger Khan, a U.S. citizen, left Pakistan for South Florida with his family in the 1990s and developed into a beloved Muslim scholar with an interest in American culture and sports.
Deen said Khan built a volleyball court next to the mosque, and frequently played basketball with the children.
“He was a fun-loving person,’’ he said. “He always had a smile on his face. ... We never heard him say anything political or anything against the government or about terrorism. That’s not in his vocabulary.’’
Azan Badrudeen, 51, of North Lauderdale nodded in agreement.
“Since he came here, he’s been a very peaceful guy,’’ he said. “All his speeches are about peace — the way a Muslim should live his life, peacefully and mannerly.’’
Well, that was fast!
Less than 24 hours after his history making confession to Oprah Winfrey, a biopic detailing the rise and fall of disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong has already made some serious headway towards the big screen.
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ET has learned Paramount Pictures & Bad Robot (J.J. Abram's production company) have secured rights to Cycle of Lies: The Fall of Lance Armstrong, a book proposal penned by Juliet Macur. The author, a sports reporter from The New York Times, has covered the athlete over the span of a decade throughout Armstrong's struggle with cancer, years of doping allegations and ensuing lawsuits.
In a no-holds-barred interview Thursday with Winfrey, Armstrong finally admitted to doping during all seven of his Tour de France victories. Last year, the shamed cyclist was stripped of his titles following a damning report from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. Until recently, Armstrong vehemently maintained his innocence.
An admitted buzzed driver dodged up to seven years in prison today when she plead guilty for losing control of her car, killing her pregnant friend and injured other passengers.
Denise Finley was driving "fast under unsafe weather conditions" with Dominique Jamison and four others home from a party when her SUV slipped over, landing in a marsh near Kennedy Airport on Dec 30, prosecutors said.
Everyone got out of the car except 25-year-old Jamison, who died from brain trauma and drowning.
"They were friends from their neighborhood, both families know each other, its a tragedy all around," said Finley's attorney, Robert DiDio, who said his client will be sentenced to 60 days in jail and released on Feb 7.
Finley, 32 of Arverne, admitted to detectives that she drank a cup of cranberry juice and vodka before driving.
The blood alcohol test results were unknown at the time of Finley's arrest where she was originally charged with vehicular manslaughter, driving while intoxicated and without a license, according to court papers.
"I'm sorry," said a tearful Finley when she plead guilty to third-degree assault and driving while impaired, her blood-alcohol level was slightly under the NYS legal limit of .08.
The maximum sentence for third-degree assault -- a misdemeanor -- is up to a year.
Jamison's mother, Lenay declined to comment about the case outside of court.
A Queens judge will sentence Finley to a conditional discharge, three years probation and a $500 fine. She must also attend a drunk driving program, install an ignition interlock to her vehicle and attend a victim impact program for a year.
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