Miami startup that turns text to video receives $1 million in seed funding

Guide, a new technology startup based in Miami, announced Tuesday it has closed a $1 million round of seed funding from investors including the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Sapient Corp., MTV founder Bob Pitman, actor and producer Omar Epps, and early Google employee Steve Schimmel. The Knight Foundation is supporting Guide through its new early-stage venture...

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Judge angered after learning mentally ill Miami man was placed in assisted living facility, and escaped

After Cristobal Abreu was arrested for stabbing a Hialeah SWAT officer with a large BBQ fork in December 2009, doctors deemed his mind too ravaged by mental illness to stand trial.For years, he bounced around mental health facilities.Then a stay at a Miami Gardens assisted living facility, where funds for his medications ran out and his mental state deteriorated, ended last...

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EXCLUSIVE: BTS of Austin Mahone Flo Rida Say Your Just a Friend

The music video for Austin Mahone's smash single Say You're Just a Friend, featuring Flo Rida, is debuting Thursday, but today we're taking you behind-the-scenes of the video shoot in this exclusive clip.PICS: New Music Tuesday!In the video, Mahone goofs off with backup dancers and shows off one impressive hat trick all while giving a sneak peek of his flashy dance moves.The 16-year-old YouTube sensation...

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Upper West Side molestation trial in jury deadlock

A Manhattan jury deadlocked today in the molestation trial of an Upper West Side school aide, with only five out of 12 jurors believing the nine-year-old alleged victim's account of repeated unwanted stripping and "massaging" in the boy's room and auditorum.Gregory Atkins, 57, remains accused of on four occasions last winter bringing the boy into a bathroom...

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Miami startup that turns text to video receives $1 million in seed funding

Guide, a new technology startup based in Miami, announced Tuesday it has closed a $1 million round of seed funding from investors including the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Sapient Corp., MTV founder Bob Pitman, actor and producer Omar Epps, and early Google employee Steve Schimmel. The Knight Foundation is supporting Guide through its new early-stage venture...

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6 Miami-Dade cops fired or suspended for loafing

A Miami-Dade police sergeant and two officers have been fired, and three others have been suspended, capping a two-year investigation into accusations that they ignored emergency calls, filed false police reports and lied about calls they handled, Miami-Dade police spokeswoman Nancy Perez said Tuesday.The Miami-Dade Internal Affairs Bureau launched the investigation into...

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Jessica Chastain Reveals Her Oscars Date Will Be Her Grandmother

Who will arrive arm-in-arm with Jessica Chastain on Oscar Sunday?The 35-year-old beauty, who is nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her work in Zero Dark Thirty, tells ET she plans to bring a very special date to Hollywood's biggest night!"I'm going to take my grandmother to the Oscars," beamed Jessica at The Hollywood Reporter's award season bash at Spago in Los Angeles on Monday. "We...

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Car swiped in Bronx -- with baby in back seat

A car left idling outside a cell-phone store in The Bronx was swiped tonight — with an 8-month-old baby in the back seat, cops said.The silver Jeep was found a little over an hour later with the little girl inside unharmed, police said.The perp is still in the wind.The child’s dad told cops that he had hopped out of the 2005 Grand Cherokee — leaving it...

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Report calls Florida business incentives “corporate welfare’’

TALLAHASSEE -- A government watchdog group and a conservative advocacy group blasted Florida’s government Tuesday for the hundreds of millions of dollars it gives to corporations, blaming the state’s public-private jobs agency for “pay-to-play” cronyism and “corporate welfare.”A new report by Integrity Florida and Koch brothers-funded Americans for Prosperity highlights...

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Member of Miami-Dade marijuana growhouse ring pleads guilty

An operative in the Santiesteban family’s alleged marijuana growhouse ring pleaded guilty Monday to conspiring to kidnap a rival gang member, admitting he witnessed the man’s murder after the target stole 50 pounds of pot from the Miami-Dade clan.Juan Felipe Castaneda’s plea agreement signaled a major development in the federal government’s crackdown on one of South Florida’s...

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