Appeals court again upholds power of Miami’s Civilian Investigative Panel

An appeals court has struck down a police officer’s challenge to the validity of Miami’s Civilian Investigative Panel — the second time the panel has withstood a legal challenge from police officers in the past five years.

Police Lt. Freddy D’Agastino and the Fraternal Order of Police filed a lawsuit arguing that the civilian panel, which reviews citizen complaints against officers and makes recommendations to the police chief, had no legal authority to investigate officers.

But in a ruling on Wednesday, the Third District Court of Appeal found that the panel neither conflicts with state or local law, nor intrudes on the police department’s power to discipline its officers. The CIP does not have the authority to discipline officers, though it does have the power to subpoena records and witnesses in its own investigations.

The appeals court also upheld the panel’s authority in 2008, when then-Police Chief John Timoney sought to prevent the panel from investigating him.

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BlackRock to buy $80 million Twitter stake: source

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – BlackRock, the world’s largest asset management company, has taken an $ 80 million stake in Twitter Inc, a person with knowledge of the deal said Friday.

The six-year old social media company will not raise new capital as part of the private deal that values the firm at more than $ 9 billion. BlackRock will buy shares directly from early Twitter employees seeking to liquidate their stock holdings and options.

Twitter’s new valuation represents a slight rise from late 2011, when the company facilitated a similar tender offer with Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia that valued the company at a reported $ 8.4 billion.

Twitter sought investors for another tender offer last summer in the wake of Facebook Inc‘s botched initial public offering in May, but did not complete the deal until recently, according to people with knowledge of the situation.

In recent years other tech companies including Facebook, Groupon Inc and SurveyMonkey have used similar transactions to cash out existing employees and delay an initial public offering. Twitter itself is rumored to be a potential IPO prospect within two years.

Several hundred Twitter employees, including many who joined the company before 2009, will be eligible to sell their shares as part of the transaction.

(Reporting By Gerry Shih; editing by Andrew Hay)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Burt Reynolds Hospitalized with Flu

Burt Reynolds is recuperating in a Florida intensive care unit after being hospitalized for dehydration and severe symptoms relating to the flu.

A representative for the 76-year-old actor tells CNN that, as of Friday afternoon, Reynolds is "doing better" after being admitted to the ICU.

Related: Burt Reynolds Undergoes Open Heart Surgery

"We expect, as soon as he gets more fluids, he will be back in a regular room," says rep Erik Kritzer.

When asked, Kritzer declined to say which hospital facility Reynolds is currently recovering in.

The actor has suffered other bouts of ill health in recent years. In 2010, Reynolds underwent a quintuple heart bypass one year after entering rehab to end a reliance on prescription drug habit acquired after back surgery.

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Caught: Suspect who escaped during bathroom break nabbed in Bronx

They finally flushed out this fugitive!

A murder suspect who escaped from a Brooklyn police precinct yesterday by asking a cop for a bathroom break was captured today by cops hiding out in a friend’s Bronx apartment, the NYPD said.

Brandon Santana, 24, was apprehended at 3:15 p.m. at 3930 Third Avenue by NYPD officers and the Regional Fugitive Task Force, about 37 hours after he ran, un-handcuffed, from the 78th Precinct in Park Slope after knocking down a cop escorting him to the toilet.

Police said that the girlfriend of Santana’s friend opened the door when they arrived, and she told them that a pal of her boyfriend was staying there.

NYPD

Brandon Santana, escaped during bathroom break.

Cops found Santana standing in the bedroom, and took him into custody without incident, according to the NYPD.

Santana is suspected of repeatedly bashing 22-year-old dad-to-be Alexander Santiago with a lead pipe during a gang assault on the man and three of his friends at 12th Street and Fifth Avenue in Park Slope on Aug. 1, 2010.

After Santana’s latest arrest today, Santiago’s girlfriend Stephanie Mercado, told The Post, “'I hope the cops keep him tight, and don't let him get away.”

“No bathroom breaks this time,” Mercado said. “And now that they have him we want them to get the rest of the cowards. I want justice."

Santana’s apprehension was the second time in the past week he was caught by cops.

He had been hiding out with a relative in Iowa, but returned to the city this week – and was promptly caught by cops who wanted to arrest him for Santiago’s murder.

Detectives questioned Santana at the station house Wednesday night, and then left at the end of their shift at 1 a.m. yesterday, expecting to put him in a witness lineup later.

An hour later, after he had been placed in a first-floor holding cell, Santana asked the officer minding him if he could use the bathroom.

When the cop opened the cell door, Santana — who was not handcuffed — shoved the officer, knocking him to the ground, and ran straight out of the station house, law-enforcement sources said.

One cop behind the front desk jumped over it to chase him, but hurt himself in the process, sources said.

A lieutenant also went after Santana but couldn’t catch up, sources said.

“It’s like they gave us justice, then took it away,” said Anaisa Santiago, Alexander’s 15-year-old sister yesterday.

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Economist: Euro crisis could erupt again this year

DAVOS, Switzerland --
Is the euro crisis over? A leading U.S. economist says not by a long shot.

Even as the head of the European Central Bank talked Friday of “positive contagion” in the markets and predicted an economic recovery for the recession-hit eurozone later this year, economist Barry Eichengreen warned that the debt crisis that has shaken Europe to its core could easily erupt again this year unless European leaders move faster to solve their problems.

While European governments and markets have been breathing easier in recent months after years of turmoil, it’s no time for complacency, said Eichengreen, a professor at the University of California - Berkeley who has chronicled the Great Depression and explored the consequences of a breakup of the euro currency.

“Nothing has been resolved in the eurozone, where markets have swung from undue pessimism to undue optimism,” Eichengreen told The Associated Press in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, an annual gathering of corporate and government leaders. “They said all the right things last year … and they’ve been backtracking ever since.”

He urged eurozone leaders follow up on its proposals to steady its banking system and keep failed banks from adding to government debt through expensive bailouts.

European leaders in Davos this week are seeking to reassure investors and corporate leaders that the continent is on the mend after its punishing debt crises.

European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi on Friday forecast a recovery in the eurozone economy in the second half of the year, and spoke of “a new restored sense of relative tranquility” and “positive contagion on the financial markets.”

But he acknowledged “we don’t see this being transmitted into the real economy yet.”

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Florida Legislature now rethinking mental health spending

In light of the tragic shootings in Connecticut and Colorado, Florida legislators are taking a hard look at the state’s mental health system, which ranks 49th among states and the District of Columbia when it comes to funding.

“That’s $39 per person per year,” said Bob Sharpe, president and CEO of the Florida Council for Community Mental Health, one of 10 panelists addressing the House Healthy Families Subcommittee Thursday as an “ongoing conversation” to address the system’s woes. That figure, experts said, was lower than per capita funding for mental health in the 1950s.

The violence at Sandy Hook Elementary School is just one reason for action, said the subcommittee’s chair, state Rep. Gayle Harrell, R.-Stuart. “Any time you have a tragedy it certainly focuses public attention on an issue,” Harrell said. “We want to make sure that we don’t just do this however when there’s a tragedy.”

Legislators need to look at the continuum of care “from prevention to identification to intervention to treatment,” Harrell said, if any improvements can occur in a system where issues range from school safety to finding places for mentally impaired nursing home patients.

The lack of funding for prevention in the community, particularly in schools, has been a key issue both at Thursday’s subcommittee meeting and at a Senate meeting Wednesday chaired by Sen. Eleanor Sobel, D-Hollywood.

That’s because the bulk of the state’s $723 million mental health budget is used for treatment, said Rob Siedlecki, assistant secretary for Mental Health and Substance Abuse.

Harrell’s committee asked each panelist to come up with policy rather than funding solutions for mental health issues in the state.

“If we can set up a system in place and look at our system and really change it so that it is much more responsive to prevention, to the needs of the community then you can avoid some of those tragedies perhaps,” Harrell said. “When a tragedy fades and the memory of it fades, you don’t want to let this issue fade. “

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Beyond Google Fiber: Google looks to create its own experimental wireless network

Look out, wireless carriers: Google (GOOG) may have its eye on shaking up your business as well. The Wall Street Journal reports that Google “is trying to create an experimental wireless network covering its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters” that “could portend the creation of dense and superfast Google wireless networks in other locations that would allow people to connect to the Web using their mobile devices.” But before anyone gets too excited about “Google Wireless” coming to their neighborhoods, the Journal notes that documents Google filed with the Federal Communications Commission show that the network will “use frequencies that wouldn’t be compatible with nearly any of the consumer mobile devices that exist today, such as Apple’s (AAPL) iPad or iPhone or most devices powered by Google’s Android operating system.” So for now it looks as though Google’s wireless network is still squarely in the experimental phase and won’t be rolling out across the country anytime soon.

[More from BGR: Unlocking your smartphone will be illegal starting next week]

This article was originally published on BGR.com

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Katy Perry Turns '70s Game Show Host

A mustachioed Katy Perry helps celebrate Ellen DeGeneres' 55th birthday during tomorrow's episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

RELATED: Candid Star Sightings

The comedienne's birthday is Saturday, but instead of receiving gifts she decided to dish them out, allowing Perry to live her dream of being a game show host.

In the clip, Perry enters in '70s TV garb complete with a plaid three-quarter-length suit jacket, bow tie and mustache.

RELATED: Ellen DeGeneres Slams One Million Moms

"I asked for the Anne Hathaway, obviously," Perry joked, referencing her cropped hairdo.

Click the video to see the pop star introduce "everyone's favorite party game" Grab Ellen's Bust. You can watch the entire birthday episode on Friday. Check your local listings.

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Tourist busted after racking up bill & forgetting his wallet

Mama mia!

An Italian tourist got to add a night in jail to his Big Apple itinerary after he racked up a $208 bill at Smith and Wollensky without having a wallet to pay the bill.

Graziano Graziussi, 43, said he begged workers to let him leave an iPhone as collateral while he got money from the apartment where he was staying — but they instead called cops, who were equally unsympathetic.

“I found it completely unreasonable to call the police when I was coming up with possible solutions,” he told The Post. “I wasn’t going to run away. I was there, I had just forgotten my wallet. “

Cops asked Graziussi if he could have someone deliver wallet or recite his credit-card number for the restaurant to run — but he could not and was taken into custody, law enforcement sources said.

A judge released Graziussi the next morning, on the promise he’d pay up.

“I don’t think they should have arrested me in the first place,” the busted steak lover said. “I wanted to pay the check.”

A rep for Smith & Wollensky’s management company declined comment.

A manager and bartender at the restaurant last night said it’s standard practice to call cops when a customer can’t pay.

“If someone doesn’t want to pay the bill then yes, I will call the police,” the manager said. “That’s the best way to handle that type of situation.”

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A made-for-TV drama plays out in Spanish-language television dispute

One of the best-known talk programs on local Spanish-language television has been cancelled and its host is out of a job — the result of a made-for-TV drama unfolding in the South Florida Hispanic media industry.

Hosted by popular journalist María Elvira Salazar, the María Elvira show was launched only three months ago on GenTV (WGEN-Channel 8), now an affiliate of MundoFox Broadcasting, a new Spanish-language network partially owned by a subsidiary of media giant News Corp.

María Elvira was abruptly taken off the air in December and this week Salazar’s contract was terminated.

Luis Calle — vice president for operations, news and sports of Caracol Televisión, one of the dominant media players in Colombia and an owner of Miami-based GenTV — confirmed that Salazar was out.

“We wish her the best future anyone can wish a person with her professional and human qualities,” he said.

The departure of Salazar is the climax of a controversial and confusing contractual tussle that involves two Miami TV stations and the new network, which was launched nationally in August by Fox International and RCN Televisión de Colombia.

GenTV cancelled all the programming it premiered just three months ago during its re-launch except its local newscast. Meanwhile, América CV Network, owner of América TeVé (WJAN-Channel 41), which had announced an affiliation agreement with MundoFox Broadcasting several months ago with great hoopla, has been sued by MundoFox for allegedly breaching two agreements signed last May.

“Obviously, Channel 8 made a decision to become part of a national network and a greater world and, based on its history of scant success in the local market, decided to take another course,” said Tomás Johansen, a veteran Spanish-language television executive.

“This is a real telenovela that we’re watching in 2013,” Johansen added.

On Friday, Dec. 28, at 8 p.m., just before the María Elvira program began, GenTV’s screen went black for a second. Immediately afterward, without notifying the audience or telling Salazar, the station changed its signal to MundoFox programming. The previous program had even promoted the María Elvira show.

Salazar and her team were on vacation. The day’s program was taped in advance.

“This caught the public in South Florida and those of us who work at the channel by surprise,” wrote Salazar on her Facebook page upon returning from vacation. “I am so sorry that so many of you feel deceived by Miami’s Channel 8 when it changed its programming without previous warning,” she continued the following day.

The programming changes and the primetime signal switch were ordered by MundoFox, which only a few hours earlier had announced its affiliation with GenTV. Until that time, the MundoFox signal had been broadcast in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale market through frequencies belonging to América CV Network, a television company that has catered to the local Cuban audience.

“Simply put, from an operational standpoint, we were ready, and that was the time and date chosen by MundoFox,” Calle explained. “There was no ill intention; it happened by chance.”

MundoFox said in a statement that the addition of GenTV, “represents a major step forward for us in Miami, bringing full coverage, a consistent channel position, and a strong, built-in Spanish-language audience in this very important market.”

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