America’s Next Top Model brings its fierce style to Lauderdale

South Florida’s fiercest braved the rain Saturday for a chance to become America’s Next Top Model.

The CW network reality TV show hosted auditions at the Fort Lauderdale Art Institute, and for the first time welcomed male models to try out.

Miami Gardens resident Gregory Boudreaux, 24, was there with his best asset: his hair. His 6-inch afro sticks straight up into pointy peaks.

“I usually get casted because of my hair,” said Boudreaux, who works in a retail store setting up displays and has walked in some Miami Beach fashion shows.

Even the makeup artist took notice of his ‘do as she dabbed foundation under Boudreaux’s eyes.

“Your hair, oh my God,” said makeup artist Jude Andam. “It’s so angular. It looks... not real.”

More than 300 gorgeous guys and gals auditioned in Fort Lauderdale with the goal to land a spot on the show, created and hosted by supermodel Tyra Banks. On the show, in its 20th cycle, supermodel wanna-bes live together and compete through photo shoots in exotic locations. Past contestants have lived in New York and Los Angeles, and have traveled as far as China, Brazil and Italy for photo shoots.

One by one, models get booted off the show while the rest move closer to top prize: a modeling feature, $100,000 and partnerships with fashion companies to help launch a top-notch modeling career.

Judges on Saturday were looking for models between the ages 18 to 27. Women under 5’7” and men under 5’10” were cautioned to not apply.

A panel of industry experts will pick their local favorites and recommend them to the casting director. Viewers can also pick their favorite by voting online starting Jan. 7-14. The judges’ and viewers’ picks will be revealed in a spot inside the premiere of TV show Carrie Diaries 8 p.m. on Jan. 14 on SFL-TV, The CW.

Jeslie Mergal got her picture snapped for the viewer’s choice contest. Her nerves began to bubble up as she got closer to her short appearance in front of judges.

“Standing in line, it’s not that bad. But as you get closer, it gets worse and worse,” she admitted.

Mergal grew up in Hialeah but moved to Orlando in elementary school. She made the drive down to Fort Lauderdale with her father for two reasons: to audition for the show, and to celebrate her birthday with her grandmother in Hialeah Gardens. The nursing student turned 21 the same day.

The only thing standing in the way of a carefree birthday lunch with her family was a nerve-wracking stint in front of the judges.

Mergal took to the short, wooden platform that served as a catwalk, and introduced herself.

“Why do you want to be on America’s Next Top Model?” a judge asked.

It’s the same question every contestant gets — Mergal knew that. But up until moment before, she admitted she wasn’t sure how’d she answer.

“I know if you put me on the show, I’m going to win,” she answered to the judges. “I will make it: whether it’s here or somewhere else.”

Then she strutted up and down the short catwalk, and ended with a smile and her hands on her hips.

The whole ordeal — from signing up, to orientation, to hair and makeup, and finally, the audition — took about two hours.

“I can’t wait to get my callback,” Mergal said.

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We Salute the First Baby Senator

We realize there’s only so much time one can spend in a day watching new trailers, viral video clips, and shaky cell phone footage of people arguing on live television. This is why every day The Atlantic Wire highlights the videos that truly earn your five minutes (or less) of attention. Today:

RELATED: Claire McCaskill and How to Attack the Opponent You’re Rooting For

Here’s our suggestion to improve the (already pretty hilarious) swearing-in process for U.S. Senators: Each new member of Congress must bring a cute baby.

RELATED: Rand Paul Doesn’t Want You to Go to Jail for Smoking Pot

RELATED: Larry David’s Two-Minute Guide to Etiquette

Apparently the BBC has decided to market a line of lunch boxes specifically made for hungry polar bears. They are still working out the kinks: 

RELATED: Homer Simpson, Fox News Pundit; Books After Dark

RELATED: Bo Obama Stays On Message; Sarah Palin Can See HBO in Her House

The Golden Globes will be bittersweet this year. Don’t get us wrong — we’re really excited to watch Amy Poehler and Tina Fey entertain us. But we’ll also be also really sad when this thing is over because it means the end of these promos:

And finally, it’s Friday. And it’s time to dance. Enjoy your weekend. 

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Cher Signs Development Deal with Logo

Logo just announced at The Television Critics Association in Pasadena, CA that the network has signed a development deal with the ultimate gay icon, Cher.

AUDIO - Listen to Cher's New Song

The show, which is in its earliest stages of development, would mark Cher's first regular TV gig since The Sonny and Cher Show ended in 1977.

While this could change before the show hits the air (if it actually does), Cher's Logo show is set to revolve around Hollywood in the 1960s.

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Man hit, killed by car in Bronx

A man was killed today crossing a busy Bronx street when he was struck by a car.

The unidentified 55-year-old man was crossing East Tremont Avenue near Mapes Avenue at around 1 p.m. when a 1995 Honda Accord hit the man. He was pronounced dead a short time later at St. Barnabus Hospital.

The 31-year-old driver remained at the scene and was also taken to St. Barnabus Hospital with a minor head wound.

Police are still investigating but said they do not suspect any criminality at this time.

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Needle reaches the inner groove for Spec’s

In the end, even the almighty Adele and Taylor Swift could not hold back the inevitable.

Spec’s, one of the last great record stores, will close its flagship location in Coral Gables on U.S.1, thus joining once-favored chains like Virgin, Tower and Peaches, locally and abroad, that have withered from Internet shopping.

With the closing, sometime in January after the merchandise is liquidated, 64 years of history becomes memory for countless people who discovered a love of music in the home Martin “Mike” Spector built in 1948 when U.S.1 was but a two-lane road.

The original store, which sold cameras alongside 78-rpm records, was a few blocks south on the highway in South Miami and is now an Einstein’s bagel spot. The present location, opened in 1953 in Coral Gables, lived through the bobby sox era, Beatlemania, disco, punk, hip hop/rap, grunge, electronic dance music and all the format changes including 12-inch vinyl, 45-rpm, reel to reel, 8-track, cassette, compact disc and mp3.

After the first music industry recession in the late 1970s, Spec’s still managed to double in size by breaking through the walls of two restaurants in 1980 on its north side. The original room on the south side of the building would house, first, Spec’s’ VHS movie rentals and sales — Saturday Night at Spec’s! — and, later, one of the most expansive collections of classical music in town.

“It’s the soundtrack of our lives,” said store manager Lennie Rohrbacher, who spent 23 years of his life working at Spec’s, from Clearwater to Coral Gables

Music sales

At its peak, the Spec’s chain grew to some 80 stores in Florida and Puerto Rico. In 1993, annual sales exceeded $70 million. Spec’s went public in 1985 and, in 1998, the Spectors sold to Camelot Music Group, which was acquired by Trans World Entertainment Corp.

Trans World, which did not return several telephone messages, shrewdly kept the Spec’s name attached to the flagship store as goodwill even though, technically, it operated under the company’s retail subsidiary, F.Y.E. (For Your Entertainment).

But those are the cold, hard business facts.

Spec’s was “not like another Eckerd’s,” a drug store chain that also slipped into oblivion amid changing times, said Rohrbacher. “This was part of the community, part of my life. It’s not another store going under.”

Indeed, Spec’s was, first and foremost, a community gathering spot to share a love of music. In the ‘70s and ‘80s Spec’s resembled a makeshift camp site where people would sleep overnight in the parking lot to get the best shot at concert tickets in a pre-Internet world. Spec’s, a hop-skip from the University of Miami’s music school, served as its own music education outlet thanks to a knowledgeable sales staff.

Music education

“The proximity to the UM is prime real estate. Not to have it there will really be different. Even if they didn’t have what I was looking for, the staff was knowledgeable and you were sort of tapping into this knowledge base of people who could turn you on to new music. That’s what I’ll miss about it and the community around the store,” said Margot Winick, an employee at the Coral Gables Spec’s in the mid-1980s when she was a freshman at the UM.

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Lamberti praises agency’s work to reduce hate crimes in last news conference as Broward sheriff

In his last news conference as Broward’s top cop, Sheriff Al Lamberti praised his agency’s efforts to reduce hate crimes in the county — a finding reflected in the 2011 Hate Crimes in Florida report issued by the state attorney general’s office this week.

But Lamberti, one of the most visible Republican elected officials in Broward, declined to say if he would ever run for office again, or to divulge many details about his plans once he steps down next week.

“Effective Tuesday, I’m going to be back where I was when I started: a citizen of Broward County,’’ said Lamberti, who was first elected sheriff in 2008 but lost to Democratic challenger Scott Israel by about 45,000 votes in November’s general election.

“I sacrificed ... a lot of time with my wife and my son,’’ he said. “So, I’m looking forward to catching up on lost time.’’

A 35-year veteran of the Broward Sheriff’s Office who began his law enforcement career working in the county jail, Lamberti rose through the ranks to be appointed sheriff by then-Gov. Charlie Crist in September 2007.

Broward voters elected Lamberti for an additional four years in 2008, choosing him over Israel, who is a former Fort Lauderdale police officer and North Bay Village police chief.

Lamberti took office at a time when the agency was in desperate need of stability after former Sheriff Ken Jenne went to prison on charges of fraud and tax evasion.

“I think we steadied the ship and got it going in the right direction,’’ Lamberti said, “and we accomplished a lot.’’

During Lamberti’s tenure, the sheriff took on Broward’s rampant pill mills and pushed to have lawmakers make attacking the homeless a hate crime — an accomplishment for which Lamberti expressed particular pride.

Flanked by local representatives of organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League, the Pride Center and the Broward Coalition for the Homeless, Lamberti spoke Friday of the potent partnerships his agency forged with these groups and elected officials such as former Florida Rep. Ari Porth — who also was in attendance — to enact legislation in 2010 that made attacking the homeless a hate crime.

Lamberti said one of the first things he did as sheriff was to create a Hate Crimes Task Force, in response to annual state reports that found Broward led all Florida counties in hate crimes for several years.

“It has worked wonders,’’ Lamberti said of the task force, which is led by Capt. Richard Wierzbicki, who will be leaving the agency as well.

Ron Gunzburger, who has been named general counsel and senior advisor to the sheriff-elect, said BSO will continue to make it a priority to fight hate crimes.

“Sheriff Israel intends to keep the task force,’’ Gunzburger wrote in an email. “The sheriff sees hate crimes as serious incidents requiring prompt arrests and appropriate prosecutions.’’

Holding copies of Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi’s latest hate crimes report, and another issued by the National Coalition for the Homeless citing Broward as a national leader in preventing hate crimes against the homeless, Lamberti presented them as evidence of the task force’s effectiveness.

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How BuzzFeed Is Betting on Hollywood, Long-Form Writing to Grow

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Last January, BuzzFeed, then an aggregator of memes and cat videos, secured a $ 15.5 million round of venture capital to beef up a craft that most traditional media was downsizing: journalism.

It hired dozens of reporters and editors, opened bureaus in Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles and became a must-read for political junkies during the 2012 presidential election.

On Thursday, the company took another step.

It added adding a fourth round of capital investment – this time worth $ 19.3 million. And it plans to expand in two major ways: literary, long-form journalism like the kind practiced by New York magazine and the New Yorker, and – with two former Los Angeles Times staffers newly on board – its Hollywood coverage.

BuzzFeed’s been on a roll. According to the privately held company‘s internal traffic numbers, the 8 million unique monthly visitors it drew in 2008 has swelled to 40 million, and revenue for 2012 may triple that of 2011, a spokeswoman for BuzzFeed told TheWrap.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal on Friday, Tom Gara reported that some analysts place the company’s valuation at $ 200 million and say that revenues may reach $ 40 million this year.

Most of BuzzFeed’s traffic currently comes from its odd mix of news and eccentricity on the homepage. Friday morning, spotlighted stories ranged from J.J. Abrams screening his new “Star Trek” for a dying fan and Sen. Tammy Baldwin talking about breaking the glass ceiling to: “How to Murder Your Friend’s Facebook Page” and “Here Are Some Elephants Eating Christmas Trees.”

But there’s no question things are changing.

The first thing CEO Jonah Peretti did with his 2012 investment cash was hire Ben Smith, a Politico veteran, as the site’s first editor-in-chief. Smith then kicked off a hiring spree of reporters and got to work. Already BuzzFeed is beginning to break stories and get quoted by aggregators.

McKay Coppins, the site’s political editor, embedded with Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s campaign. John Stanton, a veteran reporter in Washington, was named BuzzFeed’s first D.C. bureau chief. Michael Hastings, the dogged journalist whose Rolling Stone exposé of Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s private disagreements with President Obama over Afghanistan led to his resignation, joined the team.

Then, less than a year into its political foray, the site hired former Spin magazine chief Steve Kandell to make the push for longform journalism.

It began with an experiment – a 7,118-word post from last October titled “Can You Die From a Nightmare?” that garnered more than 115,000 hits. Another in October titled “Making Mitt: The Myth of George Romney” drew nearly 130,000 views. This convinced Smith and his team that literary journalism had a niche in the viral news market.

Despite the internet school of thought that briefer is better, Kandell said he has no plans to restrict stories’ word counts.

“If someone has a story that has to be 10,000 words, I don’t know why that couldn’t be,” Kandell said.

“I don’t think people necessarily have a certain fatigue level when it gets to a certain length and people start trailing out.”

Kandell says he plans in the coming months to start publishing at least one long-form story a week and may even start packaging and selling the stories as Amazon Kindle singles or as audiobooks.

Kandell assembled a “Best of 2012″ post for his nascent section of the site. The stories ranged from the tale of BuzzFeed’s own political editor Coppins, a Mormon, watching attitudes toward his and Romney’s religion change throughout the campaign to an inside look at the “Dark World of Online Sugar Daddies.”

Plans are to cover more foreign policy and national security issues from a Washington-centered perspective – and to add Hollywood into the mix. The only hands-off topic, apparently, will be international news.

“We’ve played around with ways to make world news more sharable, just like every editor at every publication,” he said, noting that readers liked a roundup of Instagram photos of the civil war in Syria. “It’s really hard, it’s not something we want to jump into without really knowing what we’re doing.”

As for Hollywood, BuzzFeed hired Richard Rushfield, former entertainment editor of LATimes.com, and ex-Times television editor Kate Aurthur, also a former Daily Beast staffer, to jump-start its bureau.

Smith said he plans to forge a presence in Los Angeles second only to its flagship New York bureau. A Hollywood vertical is expected to launch on January 7.

To that end, the site is entering a crowded space – one dominated by publications like Variety, the Hollywood Reporter, TheWrap, Vulture and the Times – but Rushfield said he plans to cover entertainment through BuzzFeed’s social-web lens: If it’s irresistibly share-worthy, it’s publishable.

“We have a unique position, despite how crowded the beat is,” Rushfield told TheWrap, adding that they won’t be competing with trades over stories concerning studio executives and casting deals. “One of our advantages is that we are not going to be going after every single story that the trades are – we have more room to take the things that we think can be interesting. What BuzzFeed is about is writing news that will be of interest to the social web.”

Now the trick is to make all these editorial investments worthwhile financially.

Revenue growth from its advertising model has been climbing, chief operating officer Jon Steinberg told TheWrap.

Forgoing the usual banners and display ads, BuzzFeed offers its clients “branded content.” For example, Scope mouthwash sponsored a “listicle” on the most “courageous” mustaches.

To that end, the advertising team, which is made up of 20 people that report to Steinberg, works with brands from General Electric to Virgin Mobile to devise sharable pieces of content.

The ratio of advertorial to editorial content on the homepage is usually about one to every six or so stories,” he said.

Those branded-content headlines garner 10-20 times the click-through rates of blinking banner and display ads, Steinberg told TheWrap.

“You compare those ads in the 1950s to modern advertising, you realize how broken modern advertising is,” Steinberg said. “Most publishers and media companies say you can’t make money on modern advertising.”

But – though he declined to reveal exact numbers, as BuzzFeed is a private company – the model helped to increase revenue last year and has allowed the publication to focus solely on its advertising stream.

He said the company has no immediate plans to enter the conference business popular with online publications including the Business Insider, AllThingsD and TheWrap.

“This is our Google ad words,” Steinberg said of the innovative advertising tool that Google pioneered in the mid-2000s. “If we were Apple, this would be our manufacturing of great hardware products.”

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Michael Douglas and Matt Damon Talk Behind The Candelabra

Matt Damon has already revealed that he will reveal quite a lot of himself to play Scott Thorson in Behind the Candelabra, HBO's Liberace biopic. But Damon went more than skin deep today when he was joined by Michael Douglas in talking about the hotly anticipated project at The Television Critics Association in Pasadena, CA. A project that was over a decade in the making.

RELATED - Matt Damon Gets Naked For Liberace

Douglas admitted, "I can't believe this is true, but [director Steven Soderbergh & I] were doing Traffic 12 years ago, and somewhere early in the shoot, Steven said, 'Have you ever thought about Liberace?' That's how early the idea was going on." The project finally came together once Richard LaGravenese's screenplay came into the picture.

"You don't get this many chances to have a great script and a wonderful actor like Matt to work with," Douglas said, adding with a laugh, "We obviously worked together closely." And after watching Candelabra's trailer -- luxe looking and filled with passionate kissing, coupling and heartfelt emotions -- I can tell you that Douglas was speaking the truth.

PHOTOS - Matt & Michael Go Behind Liberace's Legacy

Getting to the truth of Liberace was of utmost importance to Douglas, who had only met the performer in passing. "I met him briefly two or three times when my father had a house in Palm Springs and Liberace had a house nearby. You couldn't miss his car. I never had an evening with him, but heard ... that he was an extraordinarily gracious guy."

Candelabra co-star Debbie Reynolds, however, had spent quite a lot of time with Liberace back in the day. Although Douglas wouldn't reveal the stories she shared with the room. "Most of Debbie's stories I really can't tell," he laughed. "She had some very spicy stuff to say.

VIDEO - Who Is Scott Thorson?

Aside from personal anecdotes, Douglas also worked from the tremendous amount of clips available of Liberace. "Those certainly give you a sense and idea [of who he was]," he said, adding that the key to his performance is repetition. "

"It's basically ... finding the balance between knowing you're not an impersonator and [finding] what makes you comfortable and [finding what] makes me attractive to Matt." Damon was quick to add he found Michael "very, very attractive" as Liberace.

Behind the Candelabra premieres later this year on HBO.

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Cops shoot B'klyn man toting gun

Cops shot a gun-toting man tonight in Brooklyn, police sources said.

The incident occurred at the Cypress Hills housing project in East New York at about 7 p.m., sources added.

The man was struck in the buttocks, the sources said.

The man was taken to Brookdale Hospital and is expected to live, the sources added.

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College championship won’t be easy money again

South Florida hotels should count their blessings from this weekend’s football bookings. The championship crowds won’t come this easily again.

With Notre Dame playing for its first national title in more than 20 years, demand is unusually high for both hotel rooms and tickets for Monday’s championship game against Alabama. The teams have two of the largest fan bases in the country, making this BCS game the biggest sports draw since the 2010 Super Bowl was held in Miami Gardens.

But if this game means an enviable match-up for the tourism industry, it also marks the end of South Florida’s automatic dibs on the championship every four years.

Next year will be the last time that college’s football championship rotates among the four cities that host major bowl games. In its place, college conferences will open up hosting duties to any community willing to bid on the championship game — a process bound to pit South Florida against larger subsidies and better stadiums offered by hungry rivals

“There are a lot of communities in the country that would love to host this event, like the Final Four and like the Super Bowl, ” said Michael Saks, COO of the Orange Bowl Committee, which organizes the BCS game when it comes to Miami Gardens.

This weekend’s BCS turnout should offer a tempting target for cities eager to wrest the game from its rotation among Pasadena, Calif. ( home to the Rose Bowl); Scottsdale, Arizona (Fiesta Bowl); New Orleans (Sugar Bowl); and Miami Gardens.

Turnout for Notre Dame alumni is so strong that organizers have set up a special hospitality tent off South Beach’s Ocean Drive. Notre Dame boosters have about 85 busses ready to bring in fans from as far away as Boca Raton for a 7 p.m. pep rally. “They’re thinking it could be 50,000 people,’’ said Graham Winick, of Miami Beach’s special-events division. “We’ve had multiple phone conversations.”

Alabama has its own pep rally at 4 p.m., but Winick wasn’t worried about that event. With Alabama playing for its third championship in four years, organizers are expecting a strong turn-out from the Crimson Tide but not a swarm.

Tickets for Monday’s game start at about $1,000, but sitting on the Notre Dame side of Sun Life Stadium costs about $500 more, said Michael Lipman, owner of the Tickets of America brokerage in Miami.

“The least expensive seats are being bought up by Alabama,’’ he said. “The lower bowl is going to have more Notre Dame fans, and the upper bowl is going to have more Alabama fans.”

Stubhub.com, the top ticket reselling site, said the BCS game is its best-selling event ever in terms of total sales volume. The average BCS ticket was going for $1,800 on the site midweek, up from the $1,200 price tag for the last two BCS games in 2012 and 2011, spokeswoman Shannon Barbara said.

At the Loews hotel in Miami Beach, all but a few of the 790 rooms are booked this weekend. The hotel’s eight poolside cabanas were also booked up at about $600 a day, giving guests access to the two-story apartments with showers, televisions and the option to order some fan-themed indulgences.

Fighting Irish supporters can drink a Pickled Irishman (Jameson’s Irish whisky and pickle juice) and eat Irish Nachos (waffle fries topped with Guinness-braised short ribs.) Fans of the Crimson Tide can order an Alabama Slammer (Southern Comfort, peach schnapps and sour mix) and Roll Tide ribs (soaked in “moonshine sauce.”)

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