MTA approves sweeping fare, toll hikes

Angel Chevrestt

The MTA has approved a sweeping fare and toll hike, including a raise in the price of a monthly MetroCard from $104 to $112.

The MTA's board – including Chairman Joe Lhota, who will step down on Friday in order to run for mayor -- approved sweeping fare and toll hikes at their monthly board meeting this morning that will raise the price of a monthly MetroCard from $104 to a whopping $112.

The hikes will also make weekly unlimited ride cards $30 - up a dollar from their current price - and will include a twenty five cent increase to the base fare, bringing it to $2.50.

The hikes also include a $1 green fee every time a rider gets a new MetroCard from the machine – which means the rider opted not to refill a current MetroCard.

Officials scrapped a plan to eliminate the seven percent bonus on pay-per-ride purchases over $10 following outcry from the public.

Instead, the MTA will lower the bonus to five percent. But it will kick in on purchases five dollars and over, an effort to take the sting out of raising the base fare to $2.50.

A single ride ticket - typically used by tourists and non-regular riders - will rise to $2.75, up from $2.50.

The hikes go into effect in March.

Board members overwhelmingly expressed regret at hiking fares, but said they had no choice.

"What you have before you is the best of a not so great situation," said board member Andrew Albert.

Nearly all said the system must receive more funding to take the burden off of riders.

"Government seems to lack a will to find an alternative," said Charles Moerdler.

He said he'd support a tax on high incomes to fund mass transit. "Yes that tax would hit me and dammit its a good idea," he said.

The hikes will take effect in March.

The increases come one day after it was revealed that Lhota will step down on Friday in order to run on the GOP ticket for mayor. Lhota has been talked up for in recent months after the MTA performed well after Hurricane Sandy.

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Stone-crab season suffers in the Keys

Despite rocketing prices for stone-crab claws, many Florida Keys commercial fishermen have nearly given up on the season only 2 months old.

"We may see record prices but also record pain," said Gary Graves, general manager of Keys Fisheries in Marathon. "Prices don't mean anything if you can't catch anything."

Harvests since shortly after the season opening Oct. 15 have been "as bad as I can remember during my 45 years in the business," Graves said. "It's just bleak."

Keys Fisheries, one of the state's leading wholesalers for stone crabs, has laid off half of its production staff, maybe 20 people, Graves said.

"We hate to do it to our people but we're probably not finished," he said. "Right now, a big day for us is 1,000 pounds [of claws]. It should be around 15,000 pounds. We're doing nothing."

Keys Fisheries has raised its dockside prices paid to fishermen several times to encourage fishermen to keep their traps in the water.

Graves said it costs a fisherman about $1,200 in fuel, labor and other expenses to make a day's trip. The fish house's current prices are $9 per pound for medium-size claws and $17 per pound for the coveted jumbos.

"Our wholesale sales prices are higher than that and retail is through the roof," Graves said. "But we can't fill the orders we have."

A Marathon community group recently canceled the organization's annual stone crab feast for members because no claws were to be found.

The season runs until May 15.

Last season, Monroe County produced about 1.1 million pounds of legal-size claws, accounting for a large portion of Florida's total 2.67 million-pound harvest worth an estimated $23.6 million to the commercial fleet.

About 1,000 people statewide are licensed to fish traps for stone crabs. Only the claws are kept. Historically, stone-crab harvests have topped three million pounds of claws.

"The last two years were good and the recruitment looked normal," Graves said. "The first round of trap pulling was fine but it went downhill from there — like falling off a cliff."

Fishermen and researchers are baffled.

"Blame it on global warming, blame it on BP [Deepwater Horizon oil spill], blame it on Mother Nature," Graves said. "Everybody's got an idea but nobody can say why. It's probably a combination of a bunch of things."

News reports from stone-crab fleets farther up the Florida Gulf Coast suggest an octopus population explosion. Crabs are a favorite food of octopus, which are smart enough to get into traps.

"We've seen more octopus in the 6- to 8-pound range, which is abnormal," Graves said. State experts have suggested warm winters may have triggered the octopus boom.

"Things could turn around," Graves said, "but realistically the chances of it happening this season are slim."

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Miami owner of mental health chain pleads guilty to stealing millions from Medicare

Kept behind bars because of fears he might flee to Cuba, Armando “Manny” Gonzalez has pleaded guilty to stealing tens of millions of dollars from Medicare by fraudulently billing the taxpayer-funded program through a mental health chain in Miami and North Carolina.

Gonzalez, 50, a convicted cocaine trafficker who joined the Medicare rackets in the mid-2000 era, had opened a pair of mental health clinics in the Kendall and Cutler Bay areas. By 2008, Gonzalez suspected the feds were on to him, so the one-time Miami-Dade resident exported himself and his business to North Carolina.

Before his arrest last May, he was planning to open another psychotherapy clinic in Tennessee.

Gonzalez was indicted with others on charges of conspiring to defraud $63 million from Medicare. He was ordered held without bail after prosecutors argued that because he faces 30 years to life in prison, he could be a “flight risk” to his native Cuba.

Dozens of Cuban immigrants charged in South Florida with trying to bilk the federal healthcare program for seniors have fled to the island nation, which historically has turned a blind eye and doesn’t return the fugitives to the United States.

On Monday, Gonzalez pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering before U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga. Under the terms of his plea agreement, Gonzalez agreed to forfeit property valued at several million dollars, including $987,910 seized in July as well as a one-acre home, vehicles and other assets in Hendersonville, N.C.

According to court records, Gonzalez’s company, Health Care Solutions Network, billed both Medicare and the Florida Medicaid program for purported mental health services that patients did not need.

Gonzalez’s three clinics — accused of entertaining patients with TV and movies instead of providing actual group psychotherapy sessions — collected $28 million in Medicare payments from 2004 to 2011. Justice Department lawyers said in court papers that the “vast majority" of the money “disappeared” with a “substantial portion ... laundered through shell corporations.”

Gonzalez was initially indicted along with eight codefendants, including a registered nurse, John Thoen, and other employees of his shuttered company, Health Care Solutions Network.

Thoen has pleaded guilty to healthcare fraud, and so have three other employees, Alexandra Haynes, Serena Joslin and Sarah Da Silva Keller.

Also charged in the scheme: Daniel Martinez, Raymond Rivero, Ivon Perez and Alba Serrano, operators of three assisted-living facilities in the Homestead area called Mi Renacer, God Is First and Kayleen and Denis Care.

The ALF operators were accused of taking bribes from Gonzalez in exchange for supplying a steady stream of patients, many of whom suffered from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. They could not have benefitted from the therapy, prosecutors said.

All four defendants have pleaded guilty to health care fraud and related charges for their roles in the scheme.

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Smurfs 2 Trailer

The Smurfs are back and this time, Smurfette is getting into a bit of trouble.

Kidnapped by Vladamir (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) after he learns she has a secret spell that can turn the evil sorcerer's newest creation, the Naughties, into real Smurfs, Smurfette (Katy Perry) is coerced into becoming bad. It's up to her Smurf and human friends to rescue her before it's too late.

Also starring Neil Patrick Harris and Sofia Vergara, Smurfs 2 hits theaters July 31, 2013. Check out the trailer and let us know what you think of the family film.

Is the Smurf movie franchise better than the cartoon?

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Woman shot dead while calling 911 in apparent Colorado murder-suicide

DENVER — Four people were found dead Tuesday in Colorado after a woman called police to report a shooting and was apparently shot to death while she was on the phone.

Weld County sheriff's spokesman Tim Schwartz says dispatchers heard the woman who called 911 scream "No, no, no," and then heard a gunshot. Schwartz says a man grabbed the phone and said he was going to kill himself, and dispatchers heard another shot.

The bodies were found in a home in a subdivision east of Longmont, which is about 35 miles north of Denver.

The dead included two men and two women, including one who appeared to be in her late teens or early 20s.

Schwartz says investigators have a possible motive for the shootings, but he refused to release details.

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Dick's stores suspend sales of certain rifles

PITTSBURGH (AP) – A sporting goods chain says it's suspending sales of modern rifles nationwide because of the school shooting in Connecticut.

Dick's Sporting Goods also says it's removing all guns from display at its store closest to Newtown, where the massacre took place.

Authorities say a gunman killed 26 people, mostly children, with a military-style rifle at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday after killing his mother. He then killed himself.

A statement posted on Dick's corporate website expresses sympathy for the victims' families. It says sales of modern sporting rifles will be suspended during “this time of national mourning.”

It's not clear how long the suspension will last. A spokesman for Dick's did not immediately return a call for comment on Tuesday.

Pittsburgh-based Dick's Sporting Goods Inc. has more than 500 stores in 44 states.

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Rilya Wilson legal guardian testifying in murder trial

The lover of the woman charged in the murder of foster child Rilya Wilson is on the stand Monday morning.

Pamela Graham, who was also the child’s legal guardian, is so far the most high-profile witness to appear in the 4-week-old murder trial of Geralyn Graham. The two are not related.

Geralyn Graham, 66, is on trial for the death of the 5-year-old foster child whose disappearance a decade ago roiled the state’s child welfare agency and led to a series of reforms. Rilya’s body has never been found.

Charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping and aggravated child abuse, Geralyn Graham faces life in prison if convicted.

Born to a drug-addicted woman, Rilya was under the supervision of the Florida Department of Children and Families nearly her entire life. In 2000, the agency placed her in the home of Pamela and Geralyn Graham, who were already caring for Rilya’s little sister.

Because a case worker failed to properly supervise the child for more than a year, DCF did not realize Rilya was missing until April 2002. Geralyn Graham has long insisted that a DCF employee, in January 2001, whisked Rilya away for mental health treatment, never to return.

Graham was not indicted for murder until 2005 after she allegedly confessed to a cellmate that she smothered the girl and dumped her body in a South Miami-Dade waterway. The cellmate, Robin Lunceford, may testify this week.

With no body, eyewitnesses to the slaying or confession, Miami-Dade prosecutors have spent weeks weaving a circumstantial case portraying Geralyn Graham as a lying, manipulative caregiver who gave multiple stories of how Rilya disappeared and appeared unconcerned that DCF supposedly took the child and never returned her.

Defense lawyers have laid blame on the DCF case worker who failed to properly supervise the child, and pointed to a lack of forensic evidence and questioned whether the child is even dead.

Pamela Graham, 48, agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, pleading guilty to child neglect and child abuse with no harm.

Prosecutors say that Pamela Graham, who was the legal custodian of the child, was cowered into lying by her dominating lover.

In her sworn statement, Pamela Graham told police that Geralyn never revealed to her what happened to the child, but forced her to lie to authorities.

“We were up like all night and I just kept asking her, and I was crying because I didn’t know what to do,” she said in a statement, adding: “I kept telling her that I was responsible for this child, and, you know . . . that eventually someone was probably going to come out [to check on Rilya], and then what? That’s when she told me, you know, just tell them someone from DCF came.”

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Winona Ryder Stars in Killers Music Video Here With Me

Winona Ryder, 41, reunited with her Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands director Tim Burton for The Killers' creepy new music video for Here With Me.

In the dark pairing to the somber ballad, Submarine star Craig Roberts falls for a figure from a wax museum, who in his mind is the real-life Winona. He then takes the doll on a number of "romantic" outings, including a beach date and slow dancing in a theater.

Related: Wynona Ryder Calls Mel Gibson'Anti-Semitic' and 'Homophobic'

...But it's the ending that will really leave you speechless.

Video: Pop Culture Rewind -- Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder Are In Love

Here With Me is off The Killers' latest album Battle Born.

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Clearwire accepts slightly sweeter bid from Sprint

(Reuters) – Clearwire Corp agreed to sell roughly half of the company for $ 2.2 billion to majority shareholder Sprint Nextel Corp, which would then have full ownership of spectrum that will help it offer high-speed wireless services.

The $ 2.97-per-share deal is only 7 cents per share higher than a bid many minority shareholders said was too low days before. Clearwire shares tumbled 12.2 percent to $ 2.96 in morning trading on Monday.

Sprint already owns slightly more than half of Clearwire. The company said owners of 13 percent of Clearwire shares – Comcast Corp, Intel Corp and Bright House Networks LLC – had agreed to vote for the deal.

But it was not immediately clear whether Sprint, the No. 3 U.S. wireless carrier, could win the backing of a majority of Clearwire’s minority shareholders, which it needs to take control.

“This is not going to be popular with the minority shareholders,” said Davidson & Co analyst Donna Jaegers.

But Clearwire’s top executive told analysts on a Monday call that the company had little alternative.

“Despite our efforts we have been unable to secure new partnerships,” said Clearwire Chief Executive Officer Erik Prusch. “Our existing governance agreements prevented us from offering third parties the governance rights they desired in a partnership.”

Shareholders with more than 13 percent of Clearwire shares said last week that they were not happy with the $ 2.90-per-share offer, and some have said Sprint should offer as much as $ 5 per share.

Crest Financial, which owns more than 3 percent of Clearwire, recently filed a lawsuit to stop the company from selling itself to Sprint.

After the deal was announced on Monday, Crest said it had amended the lawsuit to make it a class action.

Another shareholder, Mount Kellett, said last week that the $ 2.90-a-share deal “grossly” undervalued Clearwire.

Clearwire, which also counts Sprint as its biggest customer, has been seeking financing for a high-speed wireless network upgrade and to keep itself afloat.

While some analysts and shareholders said Clearwire did not need to rush into a sale to Sprint, others have said that move would be its best hope for survival.

Sprint, whose shares rose 1 percent to $ 5.61 on Monday, needs Clearwire’s substantial spectrum to better arm itself against larger rivals Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc.

Reuters reported last week that Japan’s Softbank Corp, which recently struck a deal to buy 70 percent of Sprint, would not consent to a bid of more than $ 2.97 per share.

Softbank said on Monday that it supported the deal.

(Reporting by Sinead Carew in New York and Sayantani Ghosh in Bangalore; Editing by Rodney Joyce, Sriraj Kalluvila and Lisa Von Ahn)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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R train back to Brooklyn by end of week

The R train could begin operating between Brooklyn and Manhattan for the first time since Sandy by the end of the week, a top MTA official said today.

Transit workers are making repairs on the badly-damaged Montague Street Tunnel - which was heavily flooded in the super storm - round the clock, said Carmen Bianco, senior vice president of subways.

The tunnel is used by the R to go under the East River.

"We hope to get that (running) by Dec. 21," Bianco said today at the MTA's monthly transit committee meeting.

President of New York City Transit Thomas Prendergast said that the A train in the Rockaways will likely be the next piece of the system to reopen.

The R train subway station located at 86th street and 4th avenue in Brooklyn.

Its unclear when the South Ferry 1 train stop will reopen.

That Lower Manhattan station had $600 million in damages from the storm.

Prendergast said the agency is still deciding how to fix South Ferry.

It might be restored exactly like it was, or officials might construct it differently, he said.

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