Shootings hit close to home for some Miami-Dade teens

Juan Videa was supposed to be in class Monday at Booker T Washington Senior High, but he never made it to school.

Juan, 17, was walking to his bus stop in Bay Vista Park when someone fired more than 20 bullets, police said. Wounded, Juan was rushed to Ryder Trauma Center.

His shooting — following a weekend in which two other teens were shot and killed — feeds a growing movement to curb youth violence and gunplay that started nationally in December after the Newtown, Conn., massacre and locally after the apparently random shooting of Booker T freshman Aaron Willis.

“How do we get away from this culture of violence?” asked Booker T. Principal William Aristide, who says he learns “once or twice” a year that one of his students has been shot.

In Miami-Dade County, the threat of being gunned down is very real to those 18 and younger. Between the beginning of 2009 and the end of 2012, 99 kids were homicide victims in Miami-Dade, according to records compiled by the county’s Medical Examiner. That’s exactly triple the number reported by the Broward Medical Examiner.

Of the 99 Miami-Dade cases, 81 were the result of shootings. And close to half were students of Miami-Dade County public schools, according to Superintendent Alberto Carvalho, who began campaigning against youth violence after Aaron was shot Dec. 19 while riding his bike from a friend’s house in Wynwood at 9 p.m.

“I made a promise when I became superintendent that I would attend the funeral, a viewing, a burial for every single child who would die a violent death in Miami. I am tired,” Carvalho, superintendent since late 2008, said during a news conference on the first day back from winter break. “We’ve covered this one time too many. I’ve attended over 40 such events, and it’s time to stop.”

Carvalho, who days earlier had canvassed Allapattah with the family of Bryan Herrera, a Miami Jackson sophomore shot dead on his bicycle Dec. 22, worried that the issue would “die out as a result of time simply passing.”

That hasn’t happened, in part because kids keep getting shot.

Ten days later, Landon Kinsey, a sophomore at Miami Carol City, was shot dead in Miami Gardens. Then on Feb. 13, Orlando Gonzalez, 13, was shot in his home in Kendall and transported to Miami Children’s Hospital in critical condition.

Last weekend, Marquise Brunson, identified by WFOR-CBS4 as an Ace Academy student, and Dante Vilet, both 16, were shot and killed just days after Carlos Zuniga shot his son and daughter, ages 11 and 14.

And then Juan was shot at his bus stop, bringing attention back to Booker T High, one of several schools to mourn the murder of multiple students in the past few years. In that time, Booker T has lost at least two students: senior Alex Tillman, whose charred body was found near the FEC railroad tracks, and Anthony Smith, a Tornadoes linebacker fatally wounded during a 2009 mass shooting at an Overtown birthday bash.

As shootings have continued — more than 500 last year in Miami-Dade, according to WFOR — media attention has increased, as has uproar from communities damaged by gun violence. Pastors around Miami-Dade held news conferences, offered rewards for information and met with Miami Police, who announced in what they said was an unrelated move that they would enforce a rarely heeded county curfew for kids under 17.

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Modern Family Stars Get Stuck in Crowded Elevator

No good deed goes unpunished.

PICS: Candid Celeb Sightings

While on their way to a fundraiser for the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Kansas City on Friday night, three stars of ABC's hit sitcom Modern Family were trapped in a crowded elevator for almost an hour, ABC News reports.

Julie Bowen, Eric Stonestreet and Jesse Tyler Ferguson took pictures together during the ordeal, which Ferguson posted to his Twitter account.

"This is us right now. 45 minutes stuck in this elevator," Ferguson wrote, captioning the snapshot from the Sheraton Kansas City Hotel's third floor.

The actors were an hour late to the event after the Kansas City Fire Department rescued them, but they maintained a good sense of humor about their plight, reportedly joking about the ordeal on stage.

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Chad says its troops killed Algeria attack mastermind Belmoktar in Mali, but doubt is cast on claim

REUTERS

Chadian soldiers hold up their weapons as they cheer next to tanks and army vehicles ahead of their deployment in Mali. The African country said its troops killed Moktar Belmoktar, the terrorist behind the deadly attack on a natural gas plant in Algeria.

N'DJAMENA, Chad — Chad's military chief announced late Saturday that his troops deployed in northern Mali had killed Moktar Belmoktar, the terrorist who orchestrated the attack on a natural gas plant in Algeria that left 36 foreigners dead.

The French military, which is leading the offensive against al-Qaida-linked rebels in Mali, said they could not immediately confirm the information.

AP

This is believed to be terror big Moktar Belmoktar, who Chadian army officials say was killed by troops in Mali.

Local officials in Kidal, the northern town that is being used as the base for the military operation, cast doubt on the assertion, saying Chadian officials are attempting to score a PR victory to make up for the significant losses they have suffered in recent days.

Known as the "one-eyed," Belmoktar's profile soared after the mid-January attack and mass hostage-taking on a huge Algerian gas plant. His purported death comes a day after Chad's president said his troops had killed Abou Zeid, the other main al-Qaida commander operating in northern Mali.

If both deaths are confirmed, it would mean that the international intervention in Mali had succeeded in decapitating two of the pillars of al-Qaida in the Sahara.

"Chad's armed forces in Mali have completely destroyed a base used by jihadists and narcotraffickers in the Adrar and Ifoghas mountains" of northern Mali, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Zakaria Ngobongue said in a televised statement on state-owned National Chadian Television. "The provisional toll is as follows: Several terrorists killed, including Moktar Belmoktar."

The French military moved into Mali on Jan. 11 to push back militants linked to Belmoktar and Abou Zeid and other extremist groups who had imposed harsh Islamic rule in the north of the vast country and who were seen as an international terrorist threat.

France is trying to rally other African troops to help in the military campaign, since Mali's military is weak and poor. Chadian troops have offered the most robust reinforcement.

In Paris, French military spokesman Col. Thierry Burkhard said that he had "no information" on the possibility that Belmoktar was dead. The Foreign Ministry refused to confirm or deny the report.

A spokesman for Chad's presidential palace did not immediately return a request for comment.

In Kidal in northern Mali, an elected official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said that he did not believe that Belmoktar was dead and waved off the claim as an attempt by Chad to explain the loss of dozens of their troops to a grieving nation.

"These last few weeks, the Chadians have lost a significant number of soldiers in combat. (Claiming that they killed Belmoktar) is a way to give some importance to their intervention in Mali," said the official, who keeps in close contact with both French and Malian commanders in the field.

Belmoktar, an Algerian, is believed to be in his 40s, and like his sometimes partner and sometimes rival, Abou Zeid, he began on the path to terrorism after Algeria's secular government voided the 1991 election won by an Islamic party.

Both men joined the Armed Islamic Group, or GIA, and later its offshoot, the GSPC, a group that carried out suicide bombings on Algerian government targets.

Around 2003, both men crossed into Mali, where they began a lucrative kidnapping business, snatching European tourists, aid workers, government employees and even diplomats and holding them for multimillion-dollar ransoms.

The Algerian terror cell amassed a significant war chest, and joined the al-Qaida fold in 2006, renaming itself al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb.

Belmoktar claims he trained in Afghanistan in the 1990s, including in one of Osama Bin Laden's camps. It was there that he reportedly lost an eye, earning him the nickname "Laaouar," Arabic for "one-eyed."

Until last December, Belmoktar and Abou Zeid headed separate brigades under the flag of al-Qaida's chapter in the Sahara. But after months of reports of infighting between the two, Belmoktar peeled off, announcing the creation of his own terror unit, still loyal to the al-Qaida ideology but separate from al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb.

It was this group that launched the fatal attack on a BP-operated natural gas plant in southeastern Algeria in retaliation for the French-led military intervention in Mali.

In the attack and in the subsequent rescue attempt, 37 people, all but one of them foreigners, were killed inside the complex. Belmoktar claimed responsibility for the attack within hours, immediately catapulting him into the ranks of international terrorists.

In addition to the alleged killing of Belmoktar, Ngobongue said that Chad's military had also nabbed 60 of the jihadists' cars, electronic equipment and weapons. "The raid is still ongoing," he said.

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When the latest layoff story is about you

It’s an odd feeling reading in the newspaper about losing your job. I didn’t learn about being fired in the newspaper but the story of losing my position was there. Why I lost my job (along with more than a dozen of my colleagues) was the lead story in the business section of The Miami Herald on Feb. 22. It even had a picture of me right next to the paragraph describing how we lost our jobs with the public television program Nightly Business Report.

What’s nice about sharing your employment woes with the entire community is the outpouring of support you get. I received dozens of emails from friends, fans and colleagues across the country, expressing sympathy and pledging to help any way they could. It is humbling to hear how you have impacted people’s lives, especially those you don’t know directly. The range of emotions you feel when you face a job loss can be overwhelming, but a short email or voicemail from an associate can lift your spirits, giving you the strength to press on. The medium of the messages does not matter. A tweet of support, LinkedIn endorsement or text message of sympathy fuels the encouragement to face the anxiety of joblessness.

After news of my job elimination was in the newspaper and blogosphere, there were compassionate glances from fellow parents on the sidelines of the kids’ weekend soccer games. I didn’t have to break the news — most had already read about it. A pedestrian on the sidewalk stopped me in mid-stride to express his disappointment. The inevitable questions came: What are you going to do? Will you stay? Do you have anything you’re working on?

I am lucky my employment status was on the business front page. Thousands of other people are treated as statistics. As a business journalist, I have been guilty of that. Company layoffs numbering in the dozens as ours did rarely demand attention. The cuts have to be in the thousands to have any hope of getting much media attention. Even then, it’s only a number. The names of those losing their jobs are known only to their HR departments, in order to fill out the paperwork. It’s unfortunate, but that’s the nature of job loss. Each job cut is a story that begins en masse in boardrooms and offices but plays out individually in kitchens and living rooms across America.

In January, there were more than 1,300 mass layoffs of U.S. workers. A mass layoff impacts at least 50 people from a single company. More than 134,000 individuals were involved in such action, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. My job loss and that of my colleagues won’t show up in February’s report. There were too few of us. Some of us will appear in other employment data, but we will be just statistics. Each of those statistics has groceries to buy, bills to pay and hope for a new opportunity.

In a $16 trillion economy, it’s understandable that we become statistics. The stakes are just too big to pick up the noise from any of our individual unemployment stories. The weekly and government reports I have spent my career reporting on don’t ask why. They don’t ask who. They only ask how many. It’s our friends and family and colleagues who ask, “How can I help?”

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Possible grenade empties Broward sheriff’s building

A Broward sheriff’s office building in Pembroke Park was evacuated at 2 p.m. Friday after a woman walked in with what appeared to be a grenade.

Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Dani Moschella said the woman told officers she brought the grenade to the sheriff’s office at 3201 W. Hallandale Beach Blvd. to get rid of it safely.

“We don’t know yet if it’s real,” Moschella said. “The evacuation was as a precaution.”

The woman said the grenade had belonged to a relative who died.

A bomb squad sealed off the building to determine whether the grenade is real and contains explosive material, Moschella said.

No charges have been filed against the woman.

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Tour the Dolby Theatre – Home of the Oscars

California played host to one of the most notable events of the year earlier this week – the Oscars!

Now, we’re taking you inside the hallowed hall where Jennifer Lawrence and Anne Hathaway became first time Oscar winners only days ago!

Watch the video to walk in the stars’ shoes!

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Internet bubble millionaire goes from dot.com to drug con: Jennifer Sultan gets 4 years in scheme

This dot.com millionaire has now gone from penthouse to poorhouse to Big House.

A Manhattan judge wrote the latest chapter in the riches-to-rags story of pretty Jennifer Sultan today -- promising her a four-year prison sentence as she pleaded guilty to gun conspiracy and drug sales.

"Yes," Sultan, a 38-year-old recovering pain killer addict, answered sadly, when asked by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Edward McLaughlin if she'd sold felony weight oxycodone to an undercover cop last spring.

Asked if she'd joined in a conspiracy that sold loaded, operable firearms, Sultan gave a slight smile as she sat at the defense table, her waist-length brown hair hanging forward over one shoulder.

Steven Hirsch

Jennifer Sultan at court today. The dot.com millionaire got four years in gun and drug scheme.

"Yes. Reluctantly," she said.

Sultan has been held since her arrest last summer for the same Queens-based drug-and-gun-gang conspiracy that ensnared convicted NYPD gun thief Nicholas Mina.

She was caught sending text messages to the ring's leader last June saying she had a .357 Magnum "toy" -- meaning a gun -- for sale for $850, according to the indictment against her.

She was also caught on wiretaps asking about firearm prices, and talking about a prior occasion when a gun she gave the ring to sell turned out to be inoperable.

"She's come 180 degrees from when I met her," after her arrest, her lawyer, Frank Rothman, said after court.

"She was unfocused, distracted, drug addicted," he said. "And she is now alert, oriented, and ready to get back to what she does best -- holistic healing," he said of Sultan, a trained acupuncturist.

With good behavior and factoring time she's already served, Sultan could be released in under two years, he said.

When Sultan was just 25, she and a boyfriend built one of the first Internet companies to offer live event streaming on the Web, selling it for $70 million.

By two years ago, she filed for personal bankruptcy. The 6,000-foot East 17th Street loft she shared with her ex-boyfriend is for sale for $6 million; Sultan's share of any sale would not cover her debts, her lawyer has argued.

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AFFORDABLE CARE ACT DOESN’T COVER LONG-TERM CARE POLICIES

Starting next year, the Affordable Care Act will largely prohibit insurers who sell individual and small-group health policies from charging women higher premiums than men for the same coverage.

Long-term-care insurance, however, isn’t bound by that law, and the country’s largest provider of such coverage has announced it will begin setting its prices based on sex this spring.

“Gender pricing is good for insurance companies,” said Bonnie Burns, a policy specialist at California Health Advocates, a Medicare advocacy and education organization, “but it’s bad public policy and it’s bad for women.”

Genworth Financial says the new pricing reflects the fact that women receive two of every three claims dollars. The change will affect only women who buy new individual policies, or about 10 percent of all purchasers, according to the company. The new rates won’t be applied to existing policyholders or those who apply as a couple with their husbands.

“This change is being made now to reflect our actual claims experience and help stabilize pricing,” Genworth Financial spokesman Thomas Topinka said in an email.

Women’s premiums may increase by 20 to 40 percent under the new pricing policy, said Jesse Slome, executive director of the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance. The average annual premium for a 55-year-old who qualified for preferred health discounts and bought between $165,000 and $200,000 of coverage was $1,720 last year, according to the association.

Experts say they expect other long-term-care insurers will soon follow suit.

Long-term-care insurance provides protection for people who need help with basic daily tasks such as bathing and dressing. It typically pays a set amount for a certain number of years — say, $150 daily for three years — for care provided in a nursing home, assisted living facility or at home. Never a very popular product with consumers, many of whom found it unaffordable, in recent years the industry has struggled and many carriers have raised premiums by double digits or left the market.

Consumer health advocates say they aren’t surprised that women’s claims for long-term-care insurance are higher than men’s.

Because women typically live longer than men, they frequently act as caregivers when their husbands need long-term care, advocates say, thus reducing the need for nursing help that insurance might otherwise pay for. Once a woman needs care, however, there may be no one left to provide it.

“Women live longer alone than men,” Burns said. “If you don’t have a live-in caregiver when you start needing this kind of care, you’re in big trouble.”

LuMarie Polivka-West knows the potential problems all too well. Polivka-West, 64, is the senior director of policy and program development for the Florida Health Care Association, a trade organization for nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

About 15 years ago, she bought a long-term-care policy. The company went out of business after five years, and she let her policy lapse rather than switch to another plan with higher premiums and less comprehensive coverage. But she’s reconsidering that decision. Polivka-West’s husband is four years older than she is. Her mother died of Alzheimer’s disease at age 89 after struggling with it for eight years. What if a similar fate awaits her?

Polivka-West thinks insurers shouldn’t be allowed to charge her more just because she’s a woman.

“The Affordable Care Act recognized the gender bias in health insurance,” she said. “The same (rules) should apply to long-term-care insurance.”

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Miami mothers fight cause of mental impairment

Almost from the beginning, Michele Kaplan knew something was amiss.

Her son Matthew’s childhood milestones – walking, talking – were delayed.

“We knew we had a developmental problem and after going to pediatricians and geneticists, he was finally diagnosed,’’ says Kaplan, 37, of Miami. “I don’t know what is scarier: not knowing what was wrong, or getting the diagnosis of such a rare syndrome.’’

Matthew, now 7, has Fragile X, a genetic syndrome that causes intellectual disability and is most commonly found in boys. The diagnosis sent Kaplan scrambling to seek treatment options and find other families in a similar position. She had little success. That scarcity of support and help in navigating the still-developing Fragile X world inspired Kaplan, along with another mother, to establish a foundation.

The Families for Fragile X foundation, now celebrating its fifth anniversary, has offered support for dozens of families with children diagnosed with the condition. To mark the anniversary, the non-profit foundation is hosting a fundraiser 5K trail run/walk Saturday at Virginia Key along with other activities for children.

“For parents dealing with Fragile X, it is difficult and a very long road. Often, they have already had concerns when the child is, say, 14 or 15 months, when they are already experiencing delays, but in so many cases, they are not diagnosed until they are 3 years old,’’ said Dr. Deborah Barbouth, director of the South Florida Fragile X Clinic, which currently serves about 60 families. “We know through research that early intervention can really help which is why education is so important.’’

Fragile X is the most common inherited cause of intellectual disability and the leading genetic cause of autism. An estimated 1 in 4,000 males and 1 in 8,000 females have the condition. Behaviors and characteristics include developmental delays, anxiety and hyperactivity, elongated faces and protruding ears.

So far, the foundation has raised more than $500,000 to aid in medical research and education, some of which benefits the South Florida Fragile X clinic, part of the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine. The foundation has provided 12 grants to needy families for evaluations at the clinic – each ranging from $500 to $2,500 -- one of first critical steps to addressing the condition. It has also sponsored educational conferences and pushed for early Fragile X screening.

“Fragile X is overwhelming in the sense that your world changes as you try to deal with the behavioral issues. That’s why it’s so important to have a strong support system,’’ said Kaplan, a wife and mother of three children. “We want to make it as easy as possible for families facing Fragile X.’’

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New Trailer: Aaron Eckhart in 'Erased'

Looks like Aaron Eckhart has taken a cue from Taken with his new action-thriller Erased, playing a former CIA agent who must protect his alienated teen from killers looking to have him and his family, well, erased. Watch the edge-of-your-seat trailer…

Pics: Stars Who Have Played the President

In theaters May 10 (and On Demand April 5), Erased finds Eckhart as ex-CIA operative Ben Logan who moves to Belgium with his teen daughter (played by Liana Liberato) to make a fresh start. When his workplace literally disappears and forces conspire to erase his involvement as head of security for the company, he embarks on a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse in an effort to uncover the truth behind the corporate conspiracy. Olga Kurylenko also stars as a CIA agent assigned to track Logan down, no matter what the costs.

Video: Eckhart is the Prez Under Fire in 'Olympus'

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