Teen dead after Liberty City shooting




















Miami Police were investigating the murder of a male teenager in Liberty City early Saturday.

Marquis Bronson, 16, was shot near the intersection of 62nd Street and NW 11Tth Avenue, according to Miami Herald news partner CBS 4.

He was taken to Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.





This post will be updated as more information becomes available.





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Double Take Celebrity Lookalikes



Alice Eve and Brooklyn Decker







ETonline has found the lookalikes to the stars and, as it turns out,
it's their Hollywood peers. Click the pics and let us know if you think
these celebs bear a resemblance to one another.








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Third arrest in video where little girls are forced to fight








Youtube


Stills from the sick YouTube hit, which has since been taken down.



Another teen was busted for forcing a fight between two grade-school girls in the Bronx that was captured on YouTube video, authorities said.

The 14-year-old was charged as a juvenile with endangering the welfare of a child, cops said.

Sources said she may be the sister of the 6-year-old victim, but it was not immediately clear and the two had separate names.

One other older girl is still being sought in the case, authorities said.

Two other girls, 14 and 15, were previously charged with child endangerment, police said.



The disturbing video showed the two youngsters, 6 and 7, hitting each other and grabbing one another's hair at Poe Park on Jan. 3 as older girls giggle and egg them on.

The video has since been taken off of You Tube.

The fight may have stemmed from a feud between two older girls over candy, sources said.










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The faces of Florida’s Medicaid system




















The tea party governor now says he wants to expand Medicaid. The Republican Legislature isn’t as sure.

Hanging in the balance?

Access to health care for 1 million or more poor Floridians.





Billions of dollars in federal money.

The state budget, which — already — pumps $21 billion a year into care. Florida’s Medicaid system today serves more than 3 million people, about one in every six Floridians. The decision whether to expand the system by a full third will be made by men and women in suits in Tallahassee’s mural-filled chambers this spring.

But the impact is elsewhere, in children’s hospitals in Tampa and Miami, in doctors’ offices in New Port Richey and in the home of a woman who recently lost her full-time teaching job.

The Suddenly uninsured

This was not how she envisioned her 60s.

Jean Vincent dreamed of turning her five-bedroom home into a bed and breakfast. She painted murals on walls, created mosaics on floors and let her imagination guide the interior decorating. There is a “garden” room, a “bamboo” room and a “canopy” room.

In 2010, Vincent lost her full-time job teaching in Citra north of Ocala. Her mother became sick with cancer and needed around-the-clock care before dying in August. Then, doctors began prescribing Vincent costly medications to treat osteoporosis and early-onset diabetes.

“I started getting a little behind with my mortgage,” said Vincent, 61. “All of a sudden, I found out I had to have an emergency retina eye surgery.”

Today, Vincent is searching for roommates to move into her home and help pay the bills. She begs Gainesville’s Sante Fe Community College and City College to schedule her for as many classes as she can handle as an adjunct geography professor; this semester’s four is the most she’s ever had.

But her biggest worry? Not having comprehensive health care.

Vincent —who is too young for Medicare — is enrolled in CHOICES, a health services program the Alachua County government created for the uninsured. It covers preventative care like her flu shots and helps with her drug therapy. But if Vincent ever got so sick she needed to go to the hospital, she’d be on her own.

Under current Florida law, adults with no dependents are not eligible to participate in Medicaid no matter how little they make. Vincent’s four children are all grown, which means even as her income has dwindled she can’t become eligible for the health insurance program run jointly by the federal and state governments.

If Florida decides to expand the Medicaid system, people in Vincent’s position for the first time could be covered.

The expansion would allow any single adult making about $16,000 a year eligible for Medicaid.

On the matter, Vincent has become an activist. She joined with patient rights group Florida CHAIN and traveled to Tallahassee to lobby lawmakers.

“When I gave my testimony, that’s all I wanted them to do was see there were people out there that weren’t just trying to take advantage of the system,” she said.

This summer, she expects to only be assigned one class at Sante Fe. That will provide about $2,000 for her to live on for three months. Meanwhile, her retirement dreams are put on hold.





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30-slip marina opens in Hallandale Beach




















Boat owners looking to store their vessel now have a new option.

On Friday, Hallandale Beach welcomed its new $1.2 million, 30-slip marina at 101 Three Islands Blvd.

The public marina, which was paid for by the city, the Broward Boating Improvement Program and the Florida Inland Navigational District, offers 26 slips for annual rental, three for daily use and one for the Hallandale Beach Police Marine Unit.





Located midway between the Haulover Inlet and the inlet at Port Everglades, the marina is the southern-most public dockage in Broward County.

The cost for docking a boat — the marina can accommodate vessels from 20 feet to 60 feet and a maximum beam of 15 feet — is $15 per foot, per month, on an annual basis and $1.75 per foot, per day for the three transient slips. The fee includes electricity, water and Intranet Wi-Fi. A pump-out facility is available for use at an additional cost.

For more information on the Hallandale Beach City Marina, visit the Hallandale Beach Parks and Recreation Department page at www.cohb.org, or call 954-457-1653.





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ET Gears up For Academy Awards with Dunkin' Donuts

Oscar Sunday is quickly approaching, and the ET team is working around the clock to prepare for Hollywood's biggest night! 

Nancy O'Dell, Brooke Anderson, Rocsi Diaz and Rob Marciano have their work cut out for them come February 24 as some 3,000 people are expected to grace the 500-foot red carpet at L.A.'s Dolby theater.

Pics: The 15 Best Oscar Dresses of All Time

With weeks of meetings, research and fittings leading up to the big event, our talented crew is often in need of a trusty pick-me-up.

This awards season, ET's red carpet (and the reporters covering it) run on Dunkin'.

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Heat's back on Wendy's finger-in-chili liar: This time she made up story about son's shooting, cops say








SAN JOSE, Calif. — A Northern California woman convicted of planting a severed finger in a bowl of Wendy's chili has been arrested again after police say she made up another tale, this one about a shooting involving her son.

The San Jose Mercury reports that Anna Ayala, the so-called Chili Finger Lady, was arrested Thursday on suspicion of being an accessory to a felony and filing a false police report.

Authorities say she told officers that her son, Guadalupe Reyes, had been shot in the ankle by two unknown people and gave them a detailed description of the assailants. They say she later acknowledged that Reyes had shot himself.



The 26-year-old Reyes, a convicted felon, was not supposed to be in possession of a gun.

Both are scheduled to be arraigned Friday.










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South Florida hospitals could lose $368 million from sequestration




















A detailed survey shows that South Florida hospitals could lose $368 million over 10 years in federal budget cuts starting next Friday, if the sequestration program kicks in as scheduled.

The Florida Hospital Association, using data from the American Hospital Association, estimates that over the next decade, sequestration would cause Miami-Dade hospitals to lose $223.9 million and Broward facilities $144.4 million under the Congress-mandated budget cuts that hit virtually all federal programs unless Republicans and Democrats can work out a compromise.

The New York Times and other national news organizations are reporting that sequestration, unlike the New Year’s fiscal cliff, seems virtually certain to take place.





The law requires across-the-board spending cuts in domestic and defense programs, with certain exceptions. Because healthcare represents more than one in five dollars of the federal budget, it will be a huge target for cuts.

For hospitals and doctors, the major impact will be felt in Medicare cuts, which according to the budget law are limited to 2 percent of Medicare payments. Medicaid, food stamps and Social Security are exempted from cuts, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.

The FHA study calculates that over 10 years, Jackson Memorial Hospital stands to lose $30.6 million, Mount Sinai Medical Center on Miami Beach $27.3 million, Holy Cross in Fort Lauderdale $23.8 million and Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood $21.4 million.

“The problem with sequestration is that it just makes broad cuts across the board,” said Linda Quick, president of the South Florida Hospital and Healthcare Association. “The Affordable Care Act is looking at all sorts of intelligent ways to reduce costs,” including coordinated care that will stop duplicated tests and reduce hospital readmissions. “But sequestration takes an ax, and that doesn’t make any sense.”

FierceHealthcare, which produces trade publications, says sequestration cuts over the next decade will include $591 million from prescription drug benefits for seniors, $318 million from the Food and Drug Administration, $2.5 billion from the National Institutes of Health, $490 million from the Centers for Disease Control and $365 million from Indian Health Services.

The National Association of Community Health Centers estimates that 900,000 of its patients nationwide could lose care because of the cuts. The group said the cuts were “penny wise and pound foolish” because they would mean less preventive care while more and sicker patients would end up in emergency rooms.

Like the fiscal cliff, Republicans and Democrats agreed on a sequestration strategy, with the idea that the drastic measure would force the two sides to reach agreement on more deliberative budget adjustments. That hasn’t happened.

The White House reports that the law will mean that nondefense programs will be cut by 5 percent, defense programs by 8 percent. But since the first year’s cuts must be done over seven months, that means in 2013, nondefense programs need to be cut by 9 percent, defense programs by 13 percent.





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Boil water order in Miami Lakes after waterline break




















Residents of multi-family apartment buildings in Miami Lakes Thursday night were advised to boil their water until further notice.

Town officials said during a preventative maintenance on a fire hydrant earlier in the day, a water pipe ruptured in the area of Northwest 64 Avenue and Miami Lakeway North.

Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Department crews are on site to make repairs.





For now, a localized boil water order is being issued for two nearby multi-family apartment buildings.

For additional information, visit www.miamidade.gov/water.





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Wiz Khalifa and Amber Rose Welcome Baby Boy

Wiz Khalifa and fiancee Amber Rose welcomed their first child today.

PICS: Celebs and Their Kids

The proud 25-year-old papa (real name Cameron Jibril Thomaz) made the announcement via Twitter, writing, "Happy Birthday Sebastian 'The Bash' Taylor Thomaz!!! Everyone welcome this perfect young man into the world."

This news comes after yesterday's false alarm, when Amber went in for a doctor's appointment that became blown out of proportion.

"My due date isn't until Feb 24 & this is my first baby so he may come early, he may come late but either way he'll be here soon," Amber, 29, clarified on Wednesday.

The couple, who announced their engagement last year, are planning to hold off on a formal wedding ceremony until after Amber has a chance to drop the baby weight.

"If we have a daughter one day, [Amber] might wanna give the dress to our daughter, but if she's pregnant then she can't do that," Wiz explained to Hot 97's Angie Martinez in November.

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