After rough year, Carnival hopes for calmer waters

After boarding the latest addition to the Carnival Cruise Lines family, Josh Beaver sampled lasagna at the new onboard Italian restaurant, downed some drinks with his traveling companions and hit the water slides while the afternoon was still young.

“So far, from what I’ve seen, there’s lots to do,” said Beaver, 33, of Holden Beach, N.C.

The Carnival Breeze hadn’t even left PortMiami yet on a recent Saturday, and already it buzzed with vacationers exploring all there was to do: nosh on a Pig Patty from the new Guy’s Burger Bar, make friends with bartenders at the new RedFrog Pub or check out a novel and a glass of the grape at the new Library Bar.

Here aboard one of the largest ships in the biggest brand of the Number One cruise ship company in the world, there was little hint that the last year was one of the toughest in the 41-year history of parent company Carnival Corp. & plc.

Last year got off to a catastrophic start when Costa Concordia, owned by Carnival unit Costa Cruises, struck rocks in Italian waters as the captain steered the ship on an unauthorized route. The massive liner listed to one side, and 32 people died in the chaos that followed.

“When you lose lives, it’s heartbreaking,” said Carnival Corp. Vice Chairman and COO Howard Frank, who devoted much of his time last winter handling the aftermath with Costa leaders. “And so I think in terms of our emotional reaction to it, it’s been the toughest year we’ve had.”

Carnival Corp. Chairman and CEO Micky Arison took criticism for not going to Italy following the wreck, but said he believes the company did the right thing and doesn’t second-guess his actions.

Financially, the company took a hit as well, starting with discounts that were necessary to drum up business after the accident. Costa’s future bookings plunged, but picked up after the operator slashed prices. As of mid-December, prices at Costa remained lower than they were a year earlier, though the company expects that to change once the anniversary of the accident passes.

“I think we’ve been consistent in saying the recovery at Costa is not a one-year issue,” Arison said during the December earnings call with analysts. “It’s going to be multiple years, and we are forecasting a recovery of about half the yield deterioration.”

The ship remains on its side off the island of Giglio; it’s expected to be removed by the end of summer.

A flurry of civil lawsuits have been filed, but none have reached trial yet; the company has reached compensation agreements with 70 percent of the more than 3,000 passengers who were not physically injured and 60 percent of injured passengers and families of those who died.

As the company and broader industry focused anew on safety, the summer months presented a fresh set of problems when the European economy weakened just as cruise lines were stationing more ships in the Mediterranean. While North America was immune to those concerns, the run-up to the Presidential election and the fiscal cliff debates prompted Carnival to worry about a slowdown in business at home.

Last month, Carnival forecast 2013 earnings that were lower than expectations and said advance bookings for the year were behind what they were a year earlier at lower prices. Many analysts believe the projections were conservative, though, and executives said they were hopeful that January would bring more robust business.

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Family of four killed on I-95 crash laid to rest

Four caskets sat in a row at the front of Fort Lauderdale Baptist Church; mother, daughter, step sister and nephew.

The four family members who died last week after their car plunged into a Deerfield Beach lake were eulogized together at a four-hour funeral service Saturday in front of more than 1,000 family members, friends and classmates.

“They are not dead. They are living in the eternal life,” Yolette Fabre, a pastor at Christian Life Restoration Center, where the family attended church. “Let us stand strong, firm together.”

Remembered Saturday were: Nadege Theodore, 37, her daughter Lyne Theodore, 15; step sister Standalie Jean-Baptiste, 20; and nephew Guivens Daverman, 16.

The family had been heading home from a shopping trip at Town Center at Boca Raton Mall the night of Jan. 2 when the Lexus sports utility vehicle they were riding in was involved in a three car crash. The silver SUV careened off the side of Interstate 95 and ended up in a lake. The others involved in the accident were not injured.

Daverman, Nadege Theodore and Jean-Baptiste were pulled out immediately. Lyne Theodore’s body was not pulled out until the following morning, after police notifying next of kin learned she had been in the vehicle as well. Nadege Theodore and Daverman were pronounced dead at the hospital. Jean-Baptiste died Jan. 6.

The funeral service — which was mostly in Haitian Creole and French — was not only a way to remember the four family members, but many hoped it would serve as lesson to all of the young people who attended.

“I ask the friends of those individuals that they carry out their dreams,” said Karlton O. Johnson, the principal of Blanche Ely High School, where both Lyne Theodore and Daverman were sophomores.

Johnson remembered Lyne as a great student and Daverman, he said, “was the life of the party.”

Many of those in attendance were friends, classmates, teacher and faculty from the Pompano Beach high school. Many donned the school’s orange and green colors.

Throughout the emotional ceremony, the prayers on stage were drowned out by sobbing and wailing from mourners.

There were three white steel caskets adorned with pink and white flower bouquets for the three females. Daverman was laid to rest in a black casket.

Pictures of each of them sat next to their casket.

Throughout the service, a slide show flashed on a large screen, telling the story of their lives through pictures:

Nadege as an adult with a red flower in her and a red dress, and one of her with her daughter. Lyne Theodore in a pink tank top and jeans, posing for the camera. Guivens posing with the number 4 on his fourth birthday, and later as a teenager sporting a black baseball cap with “Jesus” embroidered on it. Standalie as a child making a sassy pose, and later grown up wearing a business suit.

Nadege Theodore was born Jan. 23, 1975, in Cap-Haitien, Haiti. In 1999, she moved to South Florida with her daughter. She later had a son, who survives her, named Deemily Charles. He is now 8. She worked as a nurse’s assistant.

At 15, Lyne Theodore was the youngest in the car. She was born in Cap-Haitian, Haiti on Feb. 11, 1997. She was in the medical magnet program in her school and wanted to become a nurse.

Jean-Baptiste was born Nov. 18, 1992 in l’Artibonite, Haiti. She came to South Florida in 2005. She attended Lyons Middle School in Coconut Creek and then Deerfield Beach High. She graduated from Broward College in 2012 and dreamed of becoming an anthropologist.

Guivens Daverman was born Sept. 9, 1996 in Fort Lauderdale, the son of Theodore’s sister Myrlande Theodore. He was known as Papi, and loved to help others. He was on the football team and ran track.

A composed 10-year-old Princeley Dorvil took the podium to talk about his brother and his other family members.

““My brother was a very cool brother, he taught me a lot of things in life,” said Princeley, fighting back tears. “My brother was a very cool brother, he taught me a lot of things in life. He taught me how to respect others. He taught me how to use my manners. He taught me how to be well dressed.”

Daverman’s coach at Blanche Ely gave the family the boy’s football jersey and a team photo.

Before the final prayer, teammates of Daverman donned white gloves and blue ribbons with Daverman’s picture and a poem, and helped remove all the flower bouquets as condolences were read aloud.

When the ceremony was over, the pall bearers carried each of the four caskets into the hearses as family and friends gathered around.

A cousin of Daverman, sobbing and in tears, put his hands on the outside of the black hearse as it slowly drove away.

The four family members were laid to rest at Forest Lawn North Memorial Gardens.

Miami Herald staff reporter Nadege Green and photographer Marsha Halper contributed to this report.

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December video game retail sales drop 22 percent

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. retail sales of video games and gaming systems fell 22 percent in December, capping a year of declining sales for the industry.

Research firm NPD Group said Thursday that overall sales fell to $ 3.21 billion from $ 4.1 billion in December 2011. NPD estimates that sales of new game hardware, software and accessories account for about half of what consumers spend on gaming.

Sales of video games themselves, excluding PC titles, tumbled 26 percent to $ 1.54 billion. Sales of hardware — gaming systems such as the Xbox 360 and the Wii U — fell 20 percent to $ 1.07 billion.

“Call of Duty: Black Ops II” from Activision Blizzard Inc. was December’s top game.

For all of 2012, total game sales dropped 22 percent to $ 13.26 billion.

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Olivia Wilde and Jason Sudeikis Engaged

Olivia Wilde, 28, and Saturday Night Live star Jason Sudeikis, 38, are engaged, ET can confirm.

The pair, who went public in December of 2011, moved in together last year and have been seemingly inseparable since.

Related: Olivia Wilde Divorces Italian Royal

According to People, Sudeikis proposed to the Tron: Legacy star shortly after the holidays.

"They are so excited," says a source. "And very, very happy."

No word yet on a wedding date.

Video: Olivia Wilde Steams Up the Screen

This will be the second wedding for Wilde, whose divorce to Italian royal Tao Ruspoli was finalized in late September of 2011.

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Everybody off! City school bus strike is likely to happen Wednesday

A school bus strike that threatens to strand 150,000 children is likely to begin on Wednesday and could be announced as early as tomorrow, sources told The Post.

The Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1181 has already printed strike posters, assigned members to future picket lines at bus yards across the city, and distributed a list of “do’s and don’ts” for conduct during a strike, sources said.

Members will not have to take any additional action this week to initiate a strike because a May vote pre-authorized it.

The city has been anticipating the strike, and has announced contingency plans that include handing out MetroCards to students and parents. Where public transit is not available, private drivers and taxi or car service would be reimbursed. All field trips will be cancelled, but after-school programs would remain open.

Some predict chaos will ensue outside schools as many parents idle and jockey for parking during arrival and dismissal times.

“We are still taking the threat of a strike seriously and communicating our contingency plans to families,” so that they are prepared in the event of a strike,” Department of Education spokeswoman Erin Hughes said.

The union, comprised of 9,000 drivers, mechanics and escorts, is battling the city to retain employee protection provisions in case a yellow-bus company they work for loses its contract with the city.

Those protections — in place since 1979 but ruled illegal in a 2011 court decision — enabled senior people at a jilted bus company to get hired by the winning bidder.

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Miami Beach builder Robert Turchin looks back — and ahead

If former Miami Beach vice mayor Robert Turchin had been a Miami decision maker during the recent vote that decided the fate of The Miami Herald building, he would probably have voted with the ‘nays’ allowing its demolition.

“There’s nothing special about it,” says the 90-year-old Turchin as he cruises Collins Avenue between 63rd and 48th streets, a strip dense with buildings from the same period as the Herald’s — specimens of post-war Miami Modern (MiMo) architecture that he constructed.

It is no exaggeration to say that Turchin built much of post-war Miami Beach, collaborating with Melvin Grossman, Morris Lapidus and other MiMo period architects. From 1945 to 1985, his firm was the busiest in the building trade. Royal York, Montmartre, Moulin Rouge, King Cole, Charter Club, Four Ambassadors — the list goes on, numbering upward of 100 buildings.

“I grew up when Miami Beach was a small town. It was 1945, and the hotels would close during the summer for renovations because they had no air conditioning. I couldn’t wait for summers, when I would return from school and work on the construction sites,” Turchin says.

In an era when hotel signs sometimes read “No Jews or dogs,” Turchin’s father was a successful builder who hoped his son would be a diplomat. It was not to be. After serving in World War II, for which he recently received a French Legion of Honor medal, he started his first project. Like subsequent ones, it broke the mold.

“The GI Bill made housing affordable for veterans, but it was single-family housing. I wanted to build a four-family unit under the bill,” Turchin says. It was an unprecedented proposal that went from city to state to federal agencies before it was approved. The multi-unit buildings launched the concept of condominiums.

As did other builders, he began to experiment with air conditioning. “Once we were able to air condition them, the hotels stayed open year-round. The beach boomed then,” he says.

Buildings came down to make way for new ones. Turchin’s Morton Towers went up where Carl Fisher’s circa 1920 Flamingo Hotel stood on 15 acres. “The land had become more valuable than the building,” he explains.

Turchin became known as “the builder’s builder” for riding to the top floor of construction sites on the hook of a crane, and walking the beams to inspect the work. His view of the built landscape was daring, pragmatic, and often at odds with those of preservationists like Nancy Liebman, a Miami Beach city commissioner from 1993 to 2001 who served with Turchin on the city’s first historic preservation board.

“A lot of the beautiful mansions on the bay and beach were lost to that kind of development,” laments Liebman. “It was the typical mentality of throw it away and build something new.”

But Turchin was building for the next generation. To him, the Art Deco buildings of his father’s generation — Edgewater Beach, the Sands and the Sea Isle where he honeymooned with his wife — were old school.

“They made no sense. They were all building with a few trees in front. They weren’t called Deco back then. Curlicues on concrete is how we thought of them,” he says.

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Everglades activists hope to maintain progress

The last few years have been good for Everglades restoration.

After a decade of delay, there have been a string of ground-breakings and dedications, most recently Friday for a pump station in deep South Miami-Dade that will send more freshwater to both parched Everglades National Park and a too-salty swath of Florida Bay. Next month, a ribbon-cutting is scheduled for a new one-mile bridge along Tamiami Trail, which has blocked the flow of the River of Grass for a century.

Florida, which fought a federal lawsuit for years, also finally agreed in June to an $880 million expansion of vast artificial marshes intended to clean up damaging farm pollution.

The challenge now: Maintain progress and, most important, the flow of money for complex and expensive projects. That was the message Friday at the annual meeting of the Everglades Coalition at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, a three-day gathering that brought together some 300 activists, state and federal agency managers and political leaders.

The tone was generally optimistic from activists and the Obama administration, which has kick-started stalled efforts with some $1.5 billion in the last four years.

“The momentum of Everglades restoration continues, even during tough times,” said Terrence “Rock” Salt, a longtime restoration manager and assistant secretary of the Army who oversees the Corps of Engineers.

But political and economic reality suggests tough slogging ahead. Deep federal budget cuts loom unless a divided Congress can cut a deal. With Florida still crawling out of an economic slump, state lawmakers and Gov. Rick Scott also have been loathe to boost the depleted budget of the South Florida Water Management District, which directs restoration for the state.

Scott, who was in Miami Thursday night, made an unscheduled stop at the coalition’s opening reception. Activists said he committed to continued funding for the historic $880 million cleanup settlement.

But environmentalists are worried that district plans to pay for the clean-up will siphon money from a host of other pending restoration projects. The district’s current $50 million Everglades budget, which the coalition wants to see doubled, calls for devoting $32 million to pollution clean-up alone.

Erik Eikenberg, chief executive office of The Everglades Foundation, said activists support the clean-up plan but remain concerned the state is putting too much of the bill on South Florida taxpayers and not enough on sugar growers and other farmers responsible for most of the pollution.

“We all have to come together and figure out how we are going to fund this in the long run,” he said.

Federal funding, and construction work, also could begin to dry up unless Congress formally authorizes a string of restoration projects lined up and ready to go — including projects that would begin to restore freshwater flows to Biscayne Bay, construct storage reservoirs in Broward County, increase water flows through the central Everglades and add another 2.5 miles of bridges on the Tamiami Trail.

Approval for such large-scale projects typically come in massive spending bills called Water Resources Development Acts. Congress hasn’t agreed to one of those since 2007.

Coalition co-chair Dawn Shirreffs was hopeful that political bickering wouldn’t undermine restoration, which has historically won bipartisan support, in part because it produces positive ripple effects, from protecting the water supply to producing thousands of jobs.

“This is not only just a feel-good legacy issue, this is a very pragmatic, human health and economic issue,’’ she said.

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Canada natives block Harper’s office, threaten unrest

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Aboriginal protesters blocked the main entrance to a building where Canada’s prime minister was preparing to meet some native leaders on Friday, highlighting a deep divide within the country’s First Nations on how to push Ottawa to heed their demands.

The noisy blockade, which lasted about an hour, ended just before Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his aides met with about 20 native chiefs, even as other leaders opted to boycott the session.

Chiefs have warned that the Idle No More aboriginal protest movement is prepared to bring the economy to its knees unless Ottawa addresses the poor living conditions and high jobless rates facing many of Canada’s 1.2 million natives.

Native groups complain that successive Canadian governments have ignored treaties aboriginals signed with British settlers and explorers hundreds of years ago, treaties they say granted them significant rights over their territory.

The meeting was hastily arranged under pressure from an Ontario chief who says she has been subsiding only on liquids for a month. It took place in the Langevin Block, a building near Parliament in central Ottawa where the prime minister and his staff work.

Outside in the freezing rain, demonstrators in traditional feathered headgear shouted, waved burning tapers, banged drums and brandished banners with slogans such as “Treaty rights not greedy whites” and “The natives are restless.”

Until midday on Friday, it was uncertain if the meeting would go ahead, with many native leaders urging a boycott and others saying it was important to talk to the government.

“Harper, if you want our lands, our native land, meaning everyone of us, over my dead body, Harper, you’re going to do this,” said Raymond Robinson, a Cree from Manitoba.

“You’ll have to come through me first. You’ll have to bury me first before you get them,” he shouted toward the prime minister’s office from the steps outside Parliament.

The aboriginal movement is deeply split over tactics and not all the chiefs invited to the meeting turned up. Some leaders wanted Governor-General David Johnston, the official representative of Queen Elizabeth, Canada’s head of state, to participate.

Johnston has declined the invitation, saying it is not his place to get involved in policy discussions. He instead was later hosting a ceremonial meeting with native leaders at his residence.

The elected leader of the natives, Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn Atleo, was one of those who attended the meeting with Harper.

He said his people wanted a fundamental transformation in their relationship with the federal government, and would press for a fair share of revenues from resource development as well as action on schools and drinking water.

BANGED ON THE DOOR

Gordon Peters, grand chief of the association of Iroquois and Allied Nations in Ontario, threatened to “block all the corridors of this province” next Wednesday unless natives’ demands were met. Ontario is Canada’s most populous province and has rich natural resources.

Peters told reporters that investors in Canada should know their money was not safe.

“Canada cannot give certainty to their investors any longer. That certainty for investors can only come from us,” he said.

Manitoba Grand Chief Derek Nepinak, who said on Thursday that aboriginal activists have the power to bring the Canadian economy to its knees, was one of the leaders of the protest at the Langevin Block.

“We’re asking him to come out here and explain why he won’t speak to the people,” said Nepinak, who banged on the door at the main entrance to Harper’s offices after choosing to boycott the meeting.

Nepinak and other Manitoba chiefs are also demanding that Ottawa rescind parts of recent budget acts that they say reduce environmental protection for lakes and rivers. The most recent budget act also makes it easier to lease lands on the reserves where many natives live, a change some natives had requested to spur development but which others regard with suspicion.

Ottawa spends around C$ 11 billion ($ 11.1 billion) a year on its aboriginal population, but living conditions for many are poor, and some reserves have high rates of poverty, addiction, joblessness and suicide.

Harper agreed to the meeting with chiefs after pressure from Ontario chief Theresa Spence, who has been surviving on water and fish broth for the last month as part of a campaign to draw attention to the community’s problems. Spence, citing Johnston’s absence, said she would not attend.

“We shared the land all these years and we never got anything from it. All the benefits are going to Canadian citizens, except for us,” Spence told reporters. “This government has been abusing us, raping the land.”

In Nova Scotia, a group of about 10 protesters blockaded a Canadian National Railway Co line near the town of Truro on Friday afternoon, CN spokesman Jim Feeny said.

A truck had been partially moved onto the tracks and was cutting off the movement of container traffic on CN’s main line between the Port of Halifax and Eastern Canada, he said. Passenger services by Via Rail had also been disrupted.

The incident was the latest in a series of rail blockades staged by protestors in recent weeks to press the demands.

($ 1=$ 0.98 Canadian)

(Additional reporting by Louise Egan in Ottawa and Nicole Mordant in Vancouver; Editing by Vicki Allen and Dan Grebler)

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'Jurassic Park 4' to Eat Audiences Summer 2014

Welcome to Jurassic Park – again! The long-in-the-works fourth entry in the blockbuster dino franchise has finally gotten the green light, with Universal Studios announcing that Jurassic Park 4 will arrive on June 13, 2014.

Video: The Lost 'Jurassic Park' Footage

Universal tweeted the news on Friday afternoon, saying: "Breaking News! Jurassic Park 4 is coming June 13, 2014! What do you hope to see in the new sequel? Follow @JurassicPark3D! #JP4#JP3D"

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Steven Spielberg is returning to produce the movie, but no director or cast members have been announced.

Of course, the film will reportedly be in 3D, capitalizing on the current Hollywood trend; the original Jurassic Park celebrates its 20-year anniversary in 2013 with a 3D theatrical and IMAX re-release on April 5.

Related: 'Terra Nova''s Most Frustrating Moments

With just a year-and-a-half before its release and Universal asking what fans would like to see, it sounds like they need to get cracking! And, for the record, please no Dino Wars with laser beams…

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Suspect in city's first 2013 murder caught in Ohio

Police have nabbed a suspect wanted for New York City's first murder this year in Ohio, law-enforcement sources said today.

Raymond Mayrant, 25, will be extradited back to New York for the murder of a Bronx school crossing guard, sources said.

Mayrant was dating her daughter, and allegedly shot them both in a confrontation at a Soundview apartment on Jan. 3.

Elzina Brown, 59, was shot in the chest, while her daughter was shot in the nose, authorities said.

It was not immediately clear why he went to Ohio after the slaying.

NYPD

Raymond Mayrant, caught in Ohio.

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