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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Six finalists chosen for Miami-Dade Police director

County Mayor Carlos Gimenez has chosen six finalists to become the next director of the Miami-Dade Police Department.

Gimenez and his top deputies plan to interview the finalists next week and make a decision soon thereafter. The department has been without a permanent leader since former Director James Loftus retired early last August. All of the finalists come from within the department.

The finalists are: Maj. Andrianne Byrd, who oversees the economic crimes bureau; Division Chief Randy Heller, who is in charge of north operations; Maj. Delma Noel-Pratt, who heads the Kendall district; Assistant Director J.D. Patterson, who has temporarily been at the helm of the department; Division Chief Juan J. Perez, who is in charge of south operations; and Maj. Alfredo Ramirez, who leads the homicide bureau.

Gimenez culled the finalists after one-on-one meetings he held after Loftus’s retirement with the nearly 30 members of the department’s command staff.

A previous version of this report misspelled Maj. Andrianne Byrd’s name.

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Beyonce GQ Cover Shoot BRoll

Earlier this week, ETonline revealed that Beyonce had been named Miss Millennium in the February issue of GQ and now we've got some behind-the-scenes video of her steamy photoshoot!

VIDEO - Beyonce's Beautiful Inauguration Performance

Titled Home Alone with Miss. Millennium, the video chronicles Terry Richardson's sexy shoot with the new mom (although you'd never know it judging from her bangin' bod)!

VIDEO - Beyonce Reveals Blue Ivy's Ultrasound

So go inside Beyonce's filthy (you'll see) photoshoot, and click here to see the other 99 women who were named to GQ's list of The Millennium's Sexiest Women!

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College student sues NYPD over Empire State Building shootout

REUTERS

A security official places signs to identify evidence after a shootout at the Empire State Building on August 24, 2012.

A University of North Carolina student wounded in last summer's shooting outside the Empire State Building is suing New York City police department.

Chenin Duclos and eight other bystanders were wounded by police gunfire, ricochets and fragments. Officers were engaged in a gunfight with a man suspected of gunning down a former co-worker.

Duclos alleges the officers were grossly negligent.

The lawsuit says police should have taken steps to avoid the confrontation. It suggests they should have waited until he moved away from bystanders.

The shooting happened as thousands were on the streets surrounding the landmark on a bright August morning.

There was no immediate comment from city officials.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages. It was filed Tuesday in Manhattan's state Supreme Court.

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Series for Miami’s emerging art collectors begins Thursday

For art enthusiasts interested in bring their interest home, Miami’s Bakehouse Art Complex is hosting a lecture series for emerging collectors. The first panel, slated for Thursday at 6 p.m., features arists and curators who will talk about fine tuning your taste and learning to make informed decisions. The second session, Feb. 7, is oriented to the mechanics of purchasing. The third, on Feb. 21, explores how to manage your collection.

Moderating all three panels will be Denise Gerson, independent curator who served as associate director for the Lowe Museum of Art for 24 years. Cost is $25 per session or $60 for the series. Seating is limited; reservations are recommended.

Information at 305-576-2828; www.bacfl.org.

Jane Wooldridge

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Cuban exile mother of inaugural poet Richard Blanco now in spotlight

At first, Geysa Blanco thought her son was kidding.

"He said, ‘Mom, I have news for you,’ " Blanco said, recalling the telephone call from her son a few weeks ago.

"Between English and Spanish, he told me that they had chosen him to write and read a poem at the presidential inauguration,” she said.

But Richard Blanco, a child of exiles who was raised in Miami and graduated from Florida International University, was serious.

The Barack Obama inaugural committee chose the 44-year-old Cuban-American civil engineer and author to recite an original poem at Monday’s inauguration.

Richard Blanco has also been speechless. “It took me 10 minutes to remember what the word for inauguration is in Spanish," he said in a telephone interview Sunday from Washington, D.C., less than 24 hours before taking center stage.

Blanco, who now lives in Maine, will become the first Hispanic inaugural poet and the first openly gay one. He is also only the fifth and youngest poet in the exclusive club of poets.

The first was Robert Frost, who in 1961 wrote a poem for the inauguration of John F. Kennedy.

Then in 1993, Bill Clinton chose the African-American writer Maya Angelou. William Miller was chosen for Clinton’s second inauguration, and Elizabeth Alexander wrote the poem for Obama’s first ceremony.

In a statement, Obama said Blanco’s work represents "the great strength and diversity of the American people."

This diversity and strength could be reflected in the story of the poet’s Cuban exile mother.

"She is a very brave woman and has worked hard all her life for my brother and me," Blanco said.

During an interview at her Westchester home, Geysa Blanco, 75, said that it still seems surreal that a woman who grew up in a sugar refinery in Cienfuegos will stand in front of the National Capitol, watching her son recite a poem for the nation and the president of the United States.

“My son said reporters might want to interview me and I said, ‘Me? What for?’ ” Geysa Blanco said. Indeed, local reporters and TV cameras have come knocking and the proud mother has given several interviews.

Geysa Blanco has also become a celebrity among her neighbors, friends and customers at Regions Bank on Bird Road, where she has worked for more than 30 years.

The roots of Richard Blanco’s writing began in 1968 when his parents fled the Communist island and went into exile in Spain. At the time, Geysa Blanco, a teacher, was pregnant and she and her late husband Carlos, already had an older son, also named Carlos.

"We decided to leave Cuba because the government was becoming more and more difficult to live under," she said. "But it was very painful for me because I left my mother and brothers behind and came here virtually alone and with nothing."

After five months in Spain, where she gave birth to Richard, they emigrated to New York.

As a boy, she said Richard always had an interest in exploring his Cuban roots.

"I always had questions about Cuba, about the family we left there," he said. On his website he refers to himself as being “made in Cuba, assembled in Spain, and imported to the U.S.”

That sense of not belonging and trying to belong seeps through his books of poetry, which often feature his family and their efforts hold on to their traditions.

When Richard was about 5 and Carlos 11, the family moved to the closest place to Cuba – Miami. His mother went to work in a supermarket and later landed her bank job.

"We lived three generations in one house, my husband’s parents, my husband and I, and Charles and Richard," the poet’s mother said. "Sometimes it was hard because grandparents are not accustomed to the modern ways of young people.”

Today, she laments that those family members are gone. “I wish Richard’s father and grandparents were here to enjoy this day,” she said.

Richard Blanco did get to visit the homeland his parents yearned for when he was growing up.

"Everyone thought he wasn’t going to speak Spanish and was going to feel uncomfortable," Geysa Blanco said of her relatives on the island. "But they were surprised because he picked yucca in the fields, jumped in the canals and danced a lot, just like everyone else.”

That trip as a young man would shape the poet’s future work, his mother said. "I think that’s where he caught the bug to write about his roots," she said.

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Ex-Mayor Diaz to talk about new book at alma mater

Congratulations to my friend and former Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, who has will be presenting his new book at 9:45 a.m. in the Roca Theater at his alma mater, Belen Jesuit Preparatory School, 500 SW 127th Ave. in West Miami-Dade.

His book is titled Miami Transformed: Rebuilding America, One Neighborhood, One City at a Time.

Born in Cuba, Diaz really is a Miami success story. He came to Miami when he was 6, and went on to become a local attorney and later mayor, serving two terms. He also served as president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

Diaz is being presented by the Belen Alumni Association of Jesuit Schools from Cuba and Miami, the Ramón Guiteras Memorial Library and the school's Social Studies Department.

For those who are unaware, the school was founded in 1854 in Havana. In 1961, Belen and all private schools in Cuba were confiscated by the new political regime. That same year, Belen was re-established in Miami. Today the all-boys' school has an enrollment of 1,500 in grades six through 12 and has more than 6,000 alumni.

The program is free and open to the public.

Music for Overtown

The Overtown Music Project will have its annual fundraiser from 7 to 10 p.m. Saturday at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach. The program will include an 18-piece big band, along with hip hop, funk and soul.

According to Amy Rosenberg, spokeswoman for the fundraiser, the event will celebrate the connection between Overtown and the Fontainebleau, a hotel where Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie and Etta James once performed.

The program will include several musicians who played in Overtown's many venues during its heyday. The musicians are now in their 60s and 90s and will be showcased at the event.

Rosenberg said the event will fund the six annual events in Overtown, and three programs geared toward bringing music back to the area permanently.

For tickets and more information go to: www.evenbrite.com/event/5147700912 or www.overtownmusicproject.org.

Children’s Chorus

The Miami Children's Chorus will present a program, "Bring on the Boys," a singing workshop for boys with unchanged voices, from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday at the University of Miami Frost School of Music in the Victor E. Clarke Recital Hall, 5501 San Amaro Dr. in Coral Gables. Timothy A. Sharp is the music director for the Miami Children's Chorus..

The registration deadline is Thursday and the fee is $20 per person and $17 per person when registering five or more youngsters together.

For more information call 305-662-7494 or go to miamichildrenschorus.org or info@miamichildrenschorus.org.

Play looks at gay marriage law

A staged reading of the play 8 will be performed at 7 p.m., on Jan. 27, in Room E352 at the University of Miami School of Law. The play, written by Dustin Lance Black, chronicles the historic constitutional challenge to California's Proposition 8. Black is the Academy Award-wining screenwriter of Milk

The production of 8 will be staged under license from the American Foundation for Equal rights (AFER) and Broadway Impact. It will be directed by Marc Fajer, a member of the law school's faculty who has had more than 30 years of theatrical directing experience.

The performance was arranged by OUTlaw, a student organization at the University of Miami School of Law, that seeks to advance the priorities of the gay, lesbian, bisexzual and transgender community on the campus.

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Google says Wall Street estimates need adjusting

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Google Inc issued a rare advisory to Wall Street on Friday that analyst estimates for its fourth quarter financial results are flawed.

The world’s No.1 search engine, which reports its quarterly results on Tuesday, said most analysts have not adjusted their estimates to reflect the pending $ 2.35 billion sale of the Motorola Home business.

The business must be presented separately from the results of Google’s continuing operations under U.S. accounting rules, Google Treasurer Brent Callinicos wrote in a post on Google’s investor relations Web page on Friday.

“As of this writing, a majority of Wall Street analysts who cover Google have not reflected the Home business as discontinued operations in their estimates,” Callinicos wrote.

The discrepancy means the fourth-quarter net revenue that Google reports on Tuesday could appear to be less than the $ 12.34 billion average that analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S are expecting.

Raymond James analyst Aaron Kessler says his fourth-quarter net revenue estimate includes nearly $ 900 million from the Motorola Home business.

“They’re saying that the headline number is going to be less than what most analysts have for Q4,” said Kessler.

The advisory is a rare move for Google, which does not provide financial forecasts and typically has limited interactions with analysts. The company has in the past provided accounting advisories to analysts about the Motorola Mobility business, which Google acquired for $ 12.5 billion in May.

Google bought Motorola Mobility primarily for its large portfolio of communications patents and its mobile phone business.

In December, Google agreed to sell the Motorola Home television set-top box business to Arris Group Inc for $ 2.35 billion in cash and stock.

Analysts expect Google to report adjusted earnings of $ 10.56 per share for the fourth quarter.

“It’s a little surprising that they’re doing this the Friday before the report,” said Kessler. “They should have put it out a week ago if they wanted analysts to change their numbers.”

(Reporting By Alexei Oreskovic. Editing by Andre Grenon)

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VP Joe Biden sworn in for second term

AFP/Getty Images

Vice President Joe Biden, with his wife Jill Biden, holding the Biden family Bible, shakes hands with Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor after taking the oath of office at the Naval Observatory.

WASHINGTON — Formally embarking on a second term, Vice President Joe Biden took the oath of office Sunday, surrounded by family and friends in an early morning ceremony that kicked off a day of celebrations marking four more years for the Obama administration.

President Barack Obama was to be sworn in just before noon at the White House, 24 hours before re-enacting the ceremony before an expected crowd of hundreds of thousands gathered at the Capitol and across the National Mall.

Biden, following a private Mass, was sworn in at the Naval Observatory. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, appointed by Obama as the first Hispanic on the Supreme Court, administered the oath of office to Biden, who placed his hand on a Bible his family has used since 1893.

"I will support and defend the Constitution of the United states," Biden said as he recited the oath.

Among the 120 guests on hand to witness the vice president's second swearing-in were Attorney General Eric Holder, departing Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and several Democratic lawmakers.

Sunday's subdued swearing-in ceremonies are a function of the calendar and the Constitution, which says presidents automatically begin their new terms at noon on Jan. 20. Because that date fell this year on a Sunday — a day on which inaugural ceremonies historically are not held — organizers scheduled a second, public swearing-in for Monday.

A crowd of up to 800,000 people is expected to gather on the National Mall to witness that event, which will take place on the Capitol's red, white and blue bunting-draped west front. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who famously flubbed the oath of office that Obama took in 2009, was to swear the president in both days.

Once the celebrations are over, Obama will plunge into a second-term agenda still dominated by the economy, which slowly churned out of recession during his first four years in office. The president will also try to cement his legacy with sweeping domestic changes, pledging to achieve both an immigration overhaul and stricter gun laws despite opposition from a divided Congress.

But for one weekend at least, Washington was putting politics aside. Obama called the nation's inaugural traditions "a symbol of how our democracy works and how we peacefully transfer power."

"But it should also be an affirmation that we're all in this together," he said Saturday, as he opened a weekend of inaugural activities at a Washington elementary school.

Only a small group of family members was expected to attend Obama's Sunday swearing-in, including first lady Michelle Obama and daughters Malia and Sasha. A few reporters were to witness the event.

Roberts was to administer the oath of office shortly before noon in the White House Blue Room, an oval space with majestic views of the South Lawn and the Washington Monument.

The room, named for the color of the drapes, upholstery and carpet, primarily has been a reception room as well as the site of the only presidential wedding in the White House, when President Grover Cleveland married Frances Folsum in 1886.

Obama and Biden were also to lay at a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery Sunday morning, then address supporters at an evening reception.

The president planned to save his most expansive remarks for Monday's inaugural address to the crowd gathered on the Mall and millions more watching across the country and the world. Obama started working on the speech in early December and was still tinkering with it into the weekend, aides said.

The president's address will set the stage for the policy objectives he seeks to achieve in his second term, including speeding up the economic recovery, passing comprehensive immigration and gun control measures and ending the war in Afghanistan. Aides said Obama would save the specifics of those agenda items for his Feb. 12 State of the Union address.

The president launched a weekend of inaugural activities Saturday by heading up a National Day of Service. Along with his family, Obama helped hundreds of volunteers spruce up a Washington area elementary school.

Obama wore rubber gloves, picked up a paint brush and helped volunteers stain a bookshelf.

Obama added the service event to the inaugural schedule in 2009 and is hoping it becomes a tradition followed for future presidents.

Mrs. Obama, speaking to volunteers Sunday, espoused the importance of giving back in the midst of the weekend of pomp, circumstance and celebration.

"The reason why we're here, why we're standing here, why we're able to celebrate this weekend is because a lot of people worked hard and supported us, and we've got a job to do and this is a symbol of the kind of work that we need to be doing the next four years," Michelle Obama said at Burrville Elementary.

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Investors await word from Apple

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.

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