Sign up for Feb. 21 Miami Herald Small Business Forum

Prepare your best pitch for the Miami Herald’s Small Business Forum, Feb. 21 at the south campus of our sponsor, Florida International University.

In addition to how-to panels and inspirational stories from successful entrepreneurs, our annual small business forum will include interactive opportunities with experts to learn about financing options and polish your personal and business brands.

During our finance panel, audience volunteers will be invited to explain their financing needs to the group. During our box-lunch session, they will be invited to pitch their business or personal brand to our coaches.

Those who prefer just to listen will be treated to a keynote address by Alberto Perlman, co-founder of the global fitness craze Zumba. Panels include success stories from the local entrepreneurs who founded Sedano’s, Jennifer’s Homemade and ReStockIt.com; finance tips from experts in small business loans, venture capital, angel investments and traditional bank loans; and insiders in the burgeoning South Florida tech start-up scene.

Plus, it’s a real bargain. $25 includes the half-day seminar, continental breakfast and a box lunch.

Register here.

Program

8 a.m.

Registration and continental breakfast, provided by Bill Hansen Catering

8:30 a.m. Welcome

Host: David Suarez, president and CEO, Interactive Training Solutions, LLC

•  Jerry Haar, PhD, associate dean & director, FIU Eugenio Pino and Family Global

Entrepreneurship Center

•  Alice Horn, executive director, Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE South Florida)

•  Jane Wooldridge, Business editor, The Miami Herald

Miami Herald Business Plan Challenge Overview:

•  Nancy Dahlberg, Business Plan Challenge coordinator, The Miami Herald

8:45 a.m. Session I – Success Stories

Moderator: Jerry Haar, PhD, associate dean & director, FIU Eugenio Pino and Family Global

Entrepreneurship Center

Speakers:

•  Jennifer Behar, founder, Jennifer’s Homemade

•  Matt Kuttler, co-president of ReStockIt.com

•  Javier Herrán, chief marketing officer, Sedano’s Supermarkets

10 a.m. Session II – All about Tech

Moderator: Jane Wooldridge, Business editor, The Miami Herald

Speakers

•  Susan Amat, founder, Launch Pad Tech

•  Nancy Borkowski, executive director, Health Management Programs, Chapman Graduate School of

Business, Florida International University

•  Chris Fleck, vice president of mobility solutions at Citrix and a director of the South Florida Tech Alliance

•  Charles Irizarry, co-founder and director of product architecture, Rokk3r Labs

11:15 a.m. Keynote

Speaker: Alberto Perlman, CEO and co-founder of Zumba® Fitness

Introduction: Jane Wooldridge, business editor, The Miami Herald

11:45 a.m. Session III – Show me the money: Financing your small business

An interactive session featuring audience volunteers who will be invited to make a short investment pitch before a panel, including experts in microlending, SBA loans, traditional bank loans, venture capital and angel investing. Audience volunteers should come prepared with a two-minute presentation that includes details about current backing, how much money they are seeking and a brief synosis of ow that money would be used.

Read More..

‘Alarmed’ by missing cash from Hollywood evidence room, city official calls for a full review

Saying he was “alarmed” to learn that as much as $175,000 in cash could be missing from the police department’s evidence vault, Hollywood Assistant City Manager Frank Fernandez asked Friday for a full review and meeting with anyone who was aware of problems there.

Fernandez, who was hired in August, said although he had been briefed by outgoing Police Chief Chad Wagner, he was not aware of the extent of the problems in the evidence locker until he read The Miami Herald’s story about the missing money Friday.

“I think anybody would be alarmed with any amount missing — let alone that much,” said Fernandez, who oversees public safety for the city. “But there has been no confirmation,” he added.

The Broward State Attorney’s Office and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement have launched a criminal investigation into cash — estimates range from $125,000 to $175,000 — that went missing, although it’s not clear when. The FDLE investigation is focusing on a retired police sergeant who supervised the vault from 2006 until his retirement in April 2011.

The sergeant, John Nevins, told The Miami Herald on Friday that he never misplaced, stole or knew about a substantial amount of money missing during his tenure.

However, Nevins did say that about a year before he retired, he reported about $90 missing from a safe to his then-supervisor. He said he went to retrieve the money from the safe after it was requested in connection to a closed criminal case.

He was startled to find the cash had disappeared and asked his supervisors to conduct an audit. Sources said he and others scoured the vault but could find no evidence of the cash. To his knowledge, there was nothing else found missing before or since.

“I’m not hiding anything,’’ Nevins said.

The vault or locker, as it is sometimes called, is actually a group of several secured rooms in the station in which valuables and other evidence seized during a criminal investigation is stored. The evidence can include, guns, money and forensic information.

In addition to Nevins, a civilian employee is also under scrutiny by the FDLE because he was seen helping Nevins remove boxes from the evidence area on Dec. 16, 2011.

Surveillance cameras captured Nevins removing the boxes, sources said.

Nevins said he did take some empty boxes — but they were from the supply room — not the evidence vault. The supply room is a storage area for office supplies and is separate from the evidence or property locker which is secured.

“I have never taken anything out of the property vault,’’ he said. “I only took some empty boxes from the storage area.’’

The boxes, he said, were used to pack gifts for the needy.

Four city commissioners contacted by The Miami Herald said they were not informed about the investigation until Thursday night. City Manager Cathy Swanson-Rivenbark, Wagner and Fernandez had kept a lid on the probe so as to not jeopardize the case, they said.

“The investigation from what I understand has been going on for quite some time,” said Commissioner Linda Sherwood. “I know they are doing a very thorough investigation. I have confidence they will find the truth.”

Mayor Peter Bober, however, said he was aware of the probe before Thursday.

Read More..

Miley Cyrus Talks Liam Hemsworth and Cosmopolitan Cover

Liam Hemsworth is one lucky man, and he knows it.

Miley Cyrus recently made a big hoopla about how gorgeous she finds her soon-to-be hubby Liam in the pages of Cosmopolitan magazine, and who can blame her? At Cosmo's big bash in NYC, celebrating the issue's launch, Miley tells ET that her fiancé can't get enough of her sexy compliments.

Pics: Miley Cyrus & Liam Hemsworth Through the Years

"I'm the only fiancee that pimps her fiancé out," Miley laughs, clarifying that by "pimps" she means "talks about how hot" her beau is.

"All these women are reading about sex in Cosmo, and then it's like Liam naked in the pool. So he loves it, I'm sure."

And speaking of sexy, Miley touched upon her daring topless cover shoot for the mag. When asked if it way her idea to strip down for the issue, the singer took responsibility for her skin-baring stunt.

Related: I'll Never Have Long Hair Again, Says Miley Cyrus

With a sigh she says, "I guess it's always all my fault."

For Miley's hot interview with Cosmopolitan, pick up the mag's March issue which is on stands now.

Read More..

Brian Cashman's accused extorter wants daughter ban lifted

Her daughter doesn't want to see her, Manhattan prosecutors say.

Still, Louise Meanwell -- the accused extorting ex-mistress of Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman -- is asking a Manhattan judge to lift the order of protection barring her from any contact with the Rensselaer County teenager.

The 15-year-old girl is neither a victim nor a witness in the extortion case, her lawyer, Lawrence LaBrew, argues in papers asking that the new Cashman extortion case judge, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Daniel FitzGerald, hear arguments on the matter next week.

Meanwell, 37, was in tears when she signed the protection order last summer, as a condition of bail.

"I had direct contact today with the defendant's daughter," assistant district attorney Kenn Kern had said in July. "Sadly, she wants no contact with the defendant."

The teen is Meanwell's daughter by former husband Jason Bump, who is raising her upstate with his new wife.

Prosecutors have argued that Bump has maintained sole legal and physical custody of the girl since September of '03, though judges in 2006 and 2008 have granted Meanwell limited visits.

Read More..

Credit reports still not error-free

Lucky you if you’re one of the many consumers who recognize an error in your credit file and are able to successfully dispute it, get it removed and receive the credit rating you deserve.

But woe to those who find errors and still have trouble getting corrections from any of the three major credit bureaus — Equifax, Experian or TransUnion.

That’s the conclusion of a long-awaited study by the Federal Trade Commission on credit report accuracy.

Each credit bureau maintains files on more than 200 million consumers, which are used to create credit histories. The information is then used to create credit scores, which can affect consumers’ ability to get a credit card, a home loan, an apartment or even a job. The most widely used credit scoring system is FICO, which ranges from 300 to 850. The higher your FICO score, the better.

The FTC found that 26 percent of the 1,001 participants surveyed identified at least one potentially material error, such as a late or missed payment. When information was successfully disputed and modified, 13 percent of participants saw a change in their credit score.

Not all the errors resulted in a significant increase in a consumer’s credit score. But for 5.2 percent of participants, the errors were serious enough that it made them appear more risky and thus resulted in them having to pay more for products such as auto loans and insurance, the FTC said.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act gives consumers certain rights to dispute and challenge inaccurate information in their credit files. But if true errors remain on people’s reports even after they have challenged the information, the current dispute process is not serving consumers well, the FTC said in its report.

As often happens with such studies, people see what they want to see.

The Consumer Data Industry Association, a trade organization, said the FTC’s study proves that the vast majority of credit reports are error-free.

“The FTC’s research determined that 2.2 percent of all credit reports have an error that would increase the price a consumer would pay in the marketplace and that fully 88 percent of errors were the result of inaccurate information reported by lenders and other data sources to nationwide credit bureaus,” the association said in a statement.

The association is right. But when you talk about the millions of files being kept, there are still quite a number of people with incorrect information in their reports. The FTC concluded that the impact of errors on credit scores is generally modest (an average of an 11.8-point increase in score), but for some consumers, it can be large.

“Roughly 1 percent of the reports in the sample experienced a credit score increase of more than 50 points,” the report said.

Several consumer advocacy groups feel that this conclusion confirms their long-held concerns about the accuracy of credit reports.

Because the credit bureaus have become powerful gatekeepers, you ought to care about this issue even if you haven’t found errors in your report, said Edmund Mierzwinski, consumer program director for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

“If 5 percent of consumers overall have serious errors, that’s about 10 million adults. Sooner or later, it will happen to you,” he said.

Everyone with a stake in this issue urges consumers to take action by pulling their reports every year. Only about 44 million consumers per year, or about one in five, obtain copies of their files, according to another recent report. You have the right to get a free copy of each of your credit files once every 12 months. Just go to www.annuacreditreport.com, the only official site, to get them.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: The federal government needs to do more to monitor the systems the bureaus have in place to investigate a consumer’s complaint about an error. Far too often the furnishers of the data will just resend the incorrect information back to the bureaus.

Evan Hendricks, author of Credit Scores and Credit Reports: How The System Really Works, What You Can Do, has frequently testified in court cases and before Congress about the struggles people have in correcting their reports. Responding to the FTC survey, he said, “With FTC’s confirmation that credit report errors are all too common and harmful to consumers, it’s high time that credit reporting agencies overhaul their operations so they actually comply with the law and investigate consumers’ disputes, with actual human beings as investigators.”

Since consumers don’t control the flow of the data about them and yet this information is so vital to their credit lives, even the small percentage error rate the FTC found is unacceptable.

Read More..

Body found floating in a Doral lake

Miami-Dade police are investigating the discovery of a body floating in a lake in Doral.

The body was found Thursday afternoon in a lake at Northwest 25th Street and 95th Avenue, police said.

It’s unknown how long the body had been in the water, or if the death is a homicide.

Investigators will now try to identify the victim.

An autopsy will help determine the exact cause of death.

Read More..

Jessica Chastain's Retro-Modern Style

ET caught up with Zero Dark Thirty star Jessica Chastain at the Calvin Klein Collection fashion show in New York City on Thursday, getting the Academy Award nominee to dish on her red carpet style and what she might be wearing to the Oscars.

PICS: Stars at New York Fashion Week

"I think my sense of style is all about embracing silhouettes from the past, especially feminine silhouettes, and making it modern," the actress said. "I love the actresses of the 1940s and '50s and '60s, and I think Calvin Klein does do that."

This style inspired the dress that Chastain wore to the Golden Globes, where she took home the statuette for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama.

"[Women's Creative Director of Calvin Klein] Francisco [Costa] designed my Golden Globes dress and I really felt it was like Rita Hayworth -- the silhouette -- but he made it very modern and striking and interesting," said Chastain.

Olivia Wilde voiced a similar perspective, saying, "Francisco always comes up with something really modern and really cool while maintaining that chic simplicity ... It's not over-the-top and that's why it's always timeless."

As for what Chastain has in mind for the Oscar red carpet, she told us, "I'll probably wear color. I won't be the wallflower at the Oscars -- that's for sure."

Watch the video for more.

Read More..

Brothers of murdered man confront Bonanno wiseguy outside court

Two brothers of a man murdered during a Mafia-engineered home invasion robbery angrily confronted a Bonanno wiseguy outside a courthouse today and FBI agents intervened to prevent them from assaulting the mobster.

The incident came minutes after Bonanno crime-family associate Neil Messina pleaded guilty in Brooklyn federal court to mob racketeering charges for conspiring to commit the home-invasion robbery back in August 1992.

Joseph Pistone was murdered when the robbery went bad, as mobsters hunted for a haul of cash they believed was stashed inside the house.

After the court hearing, Pistone's brothers approached Messina and his fiance outside the federal courthouse, shouted insults, and threatened Messina, several sources told The Post.

One of the brothers yelled at Messina - asking him who was responsible for telling the wiseguys they would find a sizable amount of cash during the residential robbery, sources said.

As the sidewalk confrontation escalated, agents from the New York FBI office's Bonanno-Colombo squad pushed Pistone's brothers back and held them - as US Marshals' security officers sprinted towards the heated clash.

No one was injured in the incident.

At the earlier court hearing - which Pistone's brothers attended - Messina admitted to helping plan the home invasion robbery and knowing that a gun would be used in the heist - but he steadfastly denied being present at the robbery.

A dog was also killed during the aborted home-invasion heist, records show.

When he is eventually sentenced on the mob racketeering charges, Messina could get up to 20 years in prison. But prosecutors say they plan to ask the judge for a 10-year prison stint.

mmaddux@nypost.com

Read More..

American Airlines, US Airways announce merger

After a nearly yearlong courtship, the union became official Thursday: American Airlines and US Airways have formally announced plans to merge.

An early morning announcement by the airlines confirmed reports widely circulated after boards of both companies approved the merger late Wednesday.

The move brings stability to one of Miami-Dade County’s largest private employers more than a year after the airline and its parent company filed for bankruptcy protection, leaving the fate of thousands of employees — and the largest carrier at Miami International Airport — in question.

According to the Thursday announcement, the deal was approved unanimously by the boards of both companies, creating the world’s biggest airline with implied market value of nearly $11 billion, based on the Wednesday closing price of US Airways stock. The airline will have close to 100,000 employees, 1,500 aircraft, $38.7 billion in combined revenue.

The deal must be approved by American’s bankruptcy judge and antitrust regulators, but no major hurdles are expected. The process is expected to take about six months, according to a letter sent to employees Thursday by American CEO Tom Horton.

Travelers won’t notice immediate changes. The new airline will be called American Airlines. It likely will be months before the frequent-flier programs are merged, and possibly years before the two airlines are fully combined. The new airline will be a member of the oneWorld airlines frequent flier alliance.

And for Miami travelers, it’s unlikely that much will change at any point. American and regional carrier American Eagle handled 68 percent of traffic at the airport last year, while US Airways accounted for just 2 percent. American boasts 328 flights to 114 destinations from Miami.

“We don’t expect any substantial changes at MIA if the merger occurs because our traffic is largely driven by the strength of the Miami market and not the airlines serving it,” said airport spokesman Greg Chin.

American has said for more than a year that its long-term plan calls for increasing departures at key hubs, including Miami, by 20 percent. That pledge has already started to materialize; in recent months, the airline has added new service to Asuncion, Paraguay and Roatán, Honduras.

During its bankruptcy restructuring, about 400 American employees lost jobs, leaving American and its regional carrier, American Eagle, with 9,894 employees in Miami-Dade County and 43 in Fort Lauderdale. US Airways has few employees in the area.

“It really isn’t going to affect Miami in a very major way anytime soon,” said Michael Boyd, an aviation consultant in Evergreen, Colo. “Only because US Airways isn’t a big player in South Florida.”

At Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, American and US Airways combined would still only be the fifth-largest airline after Southwest, Spirit, JetBlue and Delta, a spokesman said. The two airlines have little overlap in routes from Fort Lauderdale.

Despite the lack of major changes, Boyd said the merger would be a good development for Miami.

“It should be positive for the employees and it should be positive for the communities that the airlines serve,” he said.

Robert Herbst, an independent airline analyst and consultant, said US Airways will add a “significant amount” of destinations in the Northeast, including Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.

Read More..

Come 2016, Sen. Rand Paul could be the anti-Rubio choice for tea party faithful

WASHINGTON Sens. Marco Rubio’s and Rand Paul’s delivery of back-to-back rebuttals of President Barack Obama’s speech to Congress — Rubio as the Republican response, Paul as the tea party rejoinder — raises some tantalizing questions:

With Rubio being stamped as the early favorite in the 2016 Republican White House race, is Paul emerging as a leading alternative among tea party faithful and other hard-line conservative activists?

If so, does he risk further fracturing a Republican Party that’s trying to move toward the center and soften its rough edges in the wake of Obama’s decisive re-election three months ago?

Paul, who joined Congress at the same time as Rubio in January 2011, acknowledged Wednesday that he is weighing a presidential run.

“I’m thinking about it, but I haven’t made my mind up and won’t until 2014,” Paul said in an interview. “I’m mostly concerned with trying to do my job as a United States senator from Kentucky, and making sure I’m paying attention to problems in Kentucky and to the national problems we can deal with. Being part of the national debate and doing my job as a Kentucky senator sort of overlap.”

While some analysts contrasted Paul’s hard-edged remarks Tuesday night — he rejected bipartisanship and urged voters to “send them home” if lawmakers don’t drastically cut federal spending — with Rubio’s more nuanced comments, the junior senator from Kentucky downplayed a potential competition with the charismatic Cuban-American from Florida.

“I see our responses last night as complimentary and not necessarily (indicative of) any kind of rivalry,” Paul said. “I don’t think it’s my job to characterize other senators or their voting patterns. I’ve got enough work trying to set an agenda for the direction I think the country needs to take. That’s more important than any differences or similarities with any other senator.”

A poll released last week by Public Policy Polling, a Democratic firm in Raleigh, N.C., placed Rubio in the lead for 2016 among Republicans at 22 percent.

He was followed by Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the 2012 vice presidential nominee; former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush; New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. Paul placed sixth with 10 percent support among those surveyed.

Such polls, though, have little concrete meaning at this stage: Four years ago, former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania had single-digit support, yet he was the next to last man standing in the hard-fought 2012 Republican primary contest won by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

Whether Paul runs for president, many view him as the natural successor to former Sen. Jim DeMint, the South Carolina Republican who reveled in his nickname, Senator Tea Party, and became a hero among conservative activists nationally for his unyielding opposition to all manner of federal spending.

DeMint, who retired last year, endorsed both Rubio and Paul in their 2010 Senate campaigns. He contributed millions of dollars to them and other conservative candidates who challenged Republican establishment choices in contentious primaries that highlighted the party’s internal splits.

But while Paul remains an unapologetic tea party booster, leading the movement’s charge within Congress could prove as much a hindrance as a help to his political ambitions.

Read More..