Lauderhill police Monday night were investigating an apparent homicide.
Details were sketchy, but police said just before 9 p.m. a woman was shot and killed on the 2800 block of Northwest 55th Avenue.
The victim was dead at the scene.
K-9 units were in the area searching for a possible suspect and a public information officer is now at the scene.
This story will be updated as more details are available.
Scott Brown got a little carried away responding to critics on Twitter over the weekend, which shouldn’t be a big deal, but apparently it is when you’re expected to run for a vacant Senate seat and now everyone is taking his “whatevers” so very, very seriously.
RELATED: Paging Senator Warren: The Case for Her Campaign
After watching his daughter perform on Friday evening, now former Senator Brown sent out a few tweets that might suggest he’d had a few glasses of wine — the late delivery time, the content, and the subsequent deletion seem to have offered some credence to those theories. The Internet grabbed on to Brown’s “Bqhatevwr” tweet, which spawned a trending hashtag and two different parody accounts, because it is clearly hilarious.
RELATED: Scott Brown Backs Out of Final Debate With Elizabeth Warren
But the Internet won’t let a series of tweets from a recently unemployed man go unnoticed, and now pundits continue to go over them with a fine-tooth comb to see what they can glean about Brown’s political future (will it be a run for Senate or Governor?) as we wait to see what shakes out in Massachusetts. Here are your two camps of over-analysis:
RELATED: Update: Scott Brown Made the Debate!
These Tweets Are Serious Business
RELATED: So Who’s Going to Replace John Kerry for Massachusetts Senate?
The Washington Post‘s The Fix writer Aaron Blake thinks these tweets should be taken very seriously, and that Brown “needs to say something — and the sooner the better.” Brown’s silence is only feeding the beast, Blake insists, and because Brown won’t talk about it, everyone is going to keep talking about it. “By deleting the tweets and not saying anything, though, Brown only feeds the robust rumor mill that is Twitter,” Blake writes. “Quite frankly, Twitter matters in the broader political discussion, since what is big on Twitter almost always penetrates into the political dialogue.” Blake seems to argue that the story will die as soon as Brown comes out with a public oops, and that the silence only raises more questions than necessary. Which might be asking more questions than necessary in the first place, but we digress.
RELATED: New Tactic: Blame Elizabeth Warren for Her Ancestors’ Crimes
Scott Brown Is Human Because He Regrets Things He Tweets, Too
The Boston Herald was on this beat before Brown tweeted the now controversial tweets. The former Senator has basically avoided mentioning politics at all on Twitter since losing his seat to Elizabeth Warren last year. Instead, he’s opted to talk about the Patriots’ disappointing playoff performance, his excitement for the Bruins and the Celtics, and that time he went to see Silver Linings Playbook. Talking Points Memo’s Igor Bobic says Brown’s tweeting proves he’s “just like us.” His recent performances have made him “a sort of Twitter celebrity extraordinaire recently,” especially after his escapade on Friday. Bobic even compared him to the infamous Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley. And it was Brown’s regular-guy-in-a-barn-coat image that made helped him win his Senate seat in the first place, so what harm can really come of some silly late-night tweeting? Unless by harm you mean excellent poll numbers.
Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News
The competition for Bachelor Sean Lowe's heart is heating up!
Thirteen girls are left to vie for Sean's affections this week, and it's no surprise announcements of the coveted one-on-ones are making everyone a bit antsy. To the dismay of the other women (especially Leslie H., who breaks out in tears from frustration), Selma is chosen for the first whirlwind date.
Despite Selma's distaste for athletics and the heat, Sean's rough-and-tumble rock climbing date in the desert turns out to be a hit. The self-proclaimed girly girl escalates the 100-ft rock with relative ease and earns a few points from Sean in the process. As a reward for being a good sport, the two cap off the night with a romantically eclectic dinner in a converted trailer park. Struck by the urge to kiss his date, Sean asks permission to make a move but is denied by Selma out of fear her strict parents will be upset by their nationally broadcast exchange of lust. Respectfully, Sean backs off, but Selma's modesty doesn't deter him from bestowing a rose to his date.
Pics: Meet Sean Lowe's Lucky Ladies!
As if the house wasn't competitive enough, Lindsay, Robyn, Jackie, Catherine, Amanda, AshLee, Sarah and Tierra are pitted against eachother for a spirited roller derby group date. While the festivities begin with fervor, it doesn't take long before Sean decides to change the rules and make the date a friendly one. Amanda, who came into the ring with confidence, suffers a violent spill which sends her to the hospital. Sarah experiences extreme difficulty maintaining her balance with one arm, and nearly leaves the rink for good out of sheer disappointment. In an attempt to assuage the girls' anxieties, Sean opts to forgo the competition and free skate instead.
Back at the house, Tierra grows frustrated as the group date leaves her with little time to spend with the bachelor. This prompts her to spontaneously announce her tearful exit from the competition in the middle of Sean's sexy date. After some reassurance from Sean, Tierra is talked off her ledge and given a rose to the horror of the remaining women.
The second one-on-one went to Leslie H. and Sean goes to extreme lengths to make the outing the most romantic date he can manage. A la Pretty Woman, Leslie was bestowed with diamond earrings before being treated to a day of shopping on Rodeo Dr. and dinner. Despite all the right circumstances, Sean is upset that he isn't feeling a "romantic connection" with Leslie, and opts to send her home.
Recap: 'Bachelor' Sean Sets World Record, Dumps a Fave
"Blindsided," Leslie takes the rejection well. Climbing into her waiting car, she warns Sean to be careful of the ladies who aren't in the competition for the right reasons.
When it came time down to the final rose ceremony, Sean gives Amanda the final boot.
"Sean has everything that I'm looking for," weeps a teary Amanda. "I feel really rejected, and it hurts."
Tune in next week for a special two-night extravaganza of Bachelor madness. Brand-new episodes will air both Monday and Tuesday night on ABC.
The former principal of the high-performing NYCiSchool improperly allowed one of her teachers to re-grade and raise scores on high school Regents exams, school investigators found.
She was among nearly 100 educators — including 17 principals, 61 teachers, seven assistant principals and nine other staffers — who have been implicated in cheating probes by the city Department of Education since 2006, according to documents obtained under a Freedom of Information Act filing.
It took the Department of Education nearly 18 months to comply with The Post’s request for cheating cases confirmed by its internal investigative arm, the Office of Special Investigations — in violation of the rules governing public access to documents.
Among the recent cases, NYCiSchool principal Alisa Berger let teacher Susan Herzog re-grade the June 2010 Living Environment Regents exam by herself after they had already been graded.
Herzog said she raised the scores given to students for certain questions after clarifying proper procedures with the State Education Department.
Berger told The Post that student scores were both raised and lowered, but that no students’ grade was changed from failing to passing.
“Did I make a procedural mistake? I did. Was it cheating? Absolutely not,” said Berger, who unrelatedly left the downtown school last year.
Among the biggest cases of cheating, teachers at Hillcrest HS in Queens were found to have bumped up the scores of 255 students on the English Regents exams back in 2006.
The case was never made public and no teachers were punished because the re-scoring practice, known as “scrubbing,” wasn’t technically prohibited.
In another case, Manhattan teacher Iris Ventura helped several classrooms of 8th graders with the state’s high-stakes math exams — at the request of MS 322 principal Erica Zigelman, investigators found.
Despite the DOE’s stated no tolerance policy for cheating, they were both let off with letters of reprimand.
In 2011, Ventura was caught cheating again — this time telling four 7th graders to check their answers on the state math exams, probers found.
She was again let off with a letter in her file, and has since resigned, according to the DOE.
Entrepreneurs, please don’t let the name of our contest scare you.
As we launch our 15th annual Miami Herald Business Plan Challenge today, we are putting out our annual call for entries. But we aren’t looking for long, laboriously detailed business plans. Quite the contrary.
More and more, today’s investors in very early stage companies want to see a succinct presentation of your concept and how you plan to turn it into a success. We do, too.
If you have a business idea or an operating startup that is less than two years old, you can enter the Challenge, our annual celebration of South Florida entrepreneurship. Sponsored by the Pino Global Entrepreneurship Center at Florida International University, our contest has three tracks — a Community Track, open to all South Floridians; an FIU Track, open to students and alumni of that university; and a High School Track, co-sponsored by the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship.
Your entry may be up to three pages and you may attach one additional page for a photo, rendering, diagram or spreadsheet if you wish. Think of it as a meaty executive summary. Experts in all aspects of entrepreneurship — serial entrepreneurs, executives, investors, advisors and finance specialists (see judge bios on MiamiHerald.com/challenge) — will judge your short plan. In doing so, they will be looking at your product or service’s value to the customer, market opportunity, business model, management team and your marketing and financial strategies. See the rules on page 22, which also include tips on preparing your entry.
Your entry is due by 11:59 p.m. March 11. Entries should be sent to challenge@miamiherald.com, fiuchallenge@miamiherald.com or highschoolchallenge@miamiherald.com.
Don’t worry, we’re here to help!
“Frame your business from your customer’s perspective and not yours. Rather than diving into a detailed explanation of your product or service, a more compelling way to tell your business story is to clearly share the problem that you are solving for your customers and how your business is different, better, faster, cooler, cheaper, smarter,” says Melissa Krinzman, managing director of Venture Architects and a veteran Challenge judge.
On Feb 26 at 6:30 p.m. at Miami Dade College, we’ll host a free Business Plan Bootcamp, where you can bring your working plan with you for advice from experts, including Krinzman. Find the sign-up link on MiamiHerald.com/challenge.
And each week in Business Monday and on MiamiHerald.com/challenge, we’ll be bringing you advice and answering your questions. You can post your questions on the Q&A on MiamiHerald.com/challenge or email your questions to me at ndahlberg@miamiherald.com. Follow @ndahlberg on Twitter.
The top six finalists in the Community and FIU Tracks will present their 90-second elevator pitches for our popular video contest. Last year our People’s Pick contest drew more than 18,000 votes.
On May 6, in a special section of Business Monday, we will profile the winners — the judges’ top three selections in each track plus the People’s Pick winners. Along the way, we will unveil semifinalists and finalists to keep the suspense building.
Today, though, we are looking back on the entrepreneurial journeys of our 2012 winners. Funding was a nearly universal challenge, and many faced setbacks in developing their platforms. Throughout the entry period, we’ll also look back on other winners from the past 14 years.
Show us what you’ve got. Let’s make this the best Challenge yet.
TALLAHASSEE --
The Department of Economic Opportunity is one of the most critical agencies in Gov. Rick Scott’s administration, and it has run through four directors — two permanent, two interim — since it launched 16 months ago.
After the fleeting tenures of three bureaucrats and a banker, Scott’s handpicked director, Jesse Panuccio, began his term as the agency’s fifth director three weeks ago.
Panuccio, a 32-year-old attorney, is an outside-the-box choice for jobs chief. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 2006 and has been on Scott’s legal team since 2011, becoming the governor’s chief litigant last year.
After defending some of Scott’s most controversial laws in the courtroom, Panuccio faces the crucial task of executing the governor’s job-creation strategy from the state’s official boardroom.
“I chose Jesse for three reasons,” Scott said in a statement. “He is a problem solver, he is a skilled manager of people and he is experienced at holding people and organizations accountable.”
After graduating from Harvard Law, Panuccio clerked for a federal judge and then joined a boutique law firm in Washington, D.C. The New Jersey native said he took the Florida Bar Exam after spending much of his childhood vacationing in the Sunshine State, and was drawn to Scott’s campaign message in 2010. He left Washington and joined the governor’s transition team as deputy general counsel in January 2011.
Throughout Panuccio’s brief professional career, he has fought legal battles in support of conservative causes ranging from gun rights to traditional marriage to state’s rights. His new position will require a full embrace of Scott’s conservative job-creation agenda: less regulation, taxation and litigation.
“My overall view is that the economy, the free market flourishes when government gets out of the way,” he said.
The Department of Economic Opportunity, or DEO, is 1,600-person agency responsible for overseeing many of the state’s economic development initiatives. Created by Scott in 2011, DEO runs Florida’s unemployment compensation system, collaborates job training efforts with regional workforce boards and oversees business incentives programs. As the $140,000-a-year director, Panuccio leads efforts to coordinate local and regional job-creation efforts, and implement an overarching economic development vision for the future.
He shares Scott’s small-government approach to creating jobs, and embraces using taxpayer incentives to draw companies to Florida.
“I do think incentives, especially in a recessionary period like this, are a targeted way of reducing taxation and enhancing the business climate for competitive projects,” he said. “It is a reality right now that we’re competing with other states and other countries for these companies.”
So far, Scott’s approach on jobs has had mixed results. Florida’s economy has improved in the last two years with a rapid decline in unemployment, but job growth is considerably slower than the national pace and wages continue to lag.
Meanwhile, DEO has come under fire — and a federal probe — for restricting access to unemployment compensation benefits, making Florida one of the least generous states in the nation for those who are eligible for aid.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Sarah Bertness slipped into her seat at a recent staging of the musical “Million Dollar Quartet” and, when the lights dimmed, started doing something that’s long been taboo inside theaters: typing away at her iPhone.
The 26-year-old freelance writer from Providence wasn’t being rude. She had a spot in the “tweet seat” section at the Providence Performing Arts Center.
The downtown theater is now setting aside a small number of seats — in the back — for those who promise to live-tweet from the performance using a special hash tag. They might offer impressions of the set, music or costumes, lines of dialogue that resonate with them or anything else that strikes them, really.
At “Million Dollar Quartet,” based on the true story of a 1956 recording session that united music greats Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins, PPAC for the first time had cast members tweeting from backstage, too.
A growing number of theaters, including some on Broadway, have been experimenting in recent years with tweet seats and other real-time uses of social media as they try to figure out the relationship between the stage and the smartphone.
Some insist the theater should remain a sacred, technology-free place and that allowing the use of phones during a show — even discreetly — only serves as a potential distraction for other patrons. But others say theaters can’t afford not to engage the digital generation, and that the way performances were once enjoyed, in a vacuum, doesn’t hold up anymore.
“I think that it’s important that PPAC and cultural institutions in general kind of jump on the social media bandwagon and learn to engage a broader audience,” said Bertness, who runs the blog The Rhode Islander and is such a big Johnny Cash fan that she showed up to the performance wearing all black. “I think it’s such a valuable tool.”
Scott Moreau, an understudy for Johnny Cash, hadn’t ever tweeted from backstage during a performance. He tried to provide a glimpse of what life’s like on the tour, which he likened to the special features on a DVD. He said he enjoyed getting instant feedback from the tweeters — feedback he shared with other cast members.
“It makes it feel a lot more personal,” Moreau said.
A picture of Moreau that was tweeted out from backstage — he was tweeting in it himself — prompted someone in the tweet seats to declare that’s what the Man in Black would have looked like, with an iPhone.
Other theaters are also trying different digital ways to engage with patrons. In Boston, the Huntington Theater plans to introduce a “Twittermission” where an artist affiliated with the production, or someone from the theater’s staff, answers questions about the show on Twitter during intermissions. The tweets will also be projected on screens in the theater lobby, according to spokeswoman Rebecca Curtiss.
The theater won’t be introducing tweet seats, though.
“We feel strongly that the experience that an audience member has in our theater should be limited to what they are seeing on the stage,” Curtiss said. “When the lights go down and the show begins, we want the art on stage to speak for itself.”
PPAC isn’t sure yet whether any social media buzz generated by those in the tweet seats will have a measurable effect at the box office. But spokeswoman P.J. Prokop said the theater intends to keep the program through the end of the year, and then evaluate it. Those who sit in the tweet seats get their tickets for free.
Kirsten DiChiappari, who has tweeted three shows there to her nearly 1,400 followers, grew up in New Jersey going to Broadway musicals, plays and the opera. The 41-year-old social media consultant from Bristol sees her live-tweeting as a way to lure people from their living rooms, where many are glued to “horrible reality television.”
“It’s kind of a way to tease people back to support the live arts, the real arts, the original arts,” she said. “I feel like once they go, they’ll go again.”
Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News
While fans seem eager to see Bradley Cooper suit up in bike shorts to play former cyclist Lance Armstrong, Cooper tells ET's Nancy O'Dell that he's still a long way from making a deal for the role.
PICS: Sexy SAG Gowns
J.J. Abrams confirmed to ET at the Producers Guild Awards that he is working on a Lance Armstrong script, and might be considering Cooper for the lead.
"[Bradley Cooper] sent me an email and we've been talking," Abrams said on Saturday.
According to Cooper, the talks have been very informal.
"[Abrams] and I email all the time, but we didn't say anything specific," Bradley said at Sunday's SAG Awards. "I didn't even know that he had the rights to it ... that's how out of the loop I am."
Paramount Pictures and Bad Robot (J.J. Abram's production company) secured the rights to Cycle of Lies: The Fall of Lance Armstrong, a book proposal penned by Juliet Macur, in mid-January just after Armstrong admitted publicly to doping during all seven Tour de France wins. The author, a sports reporter from The New York Times, has covered the athlete over the span of a decade throughout Armstrong's struggle with cancer, years of doping allegations and ensuing lawsuits.
VIDEO: J.J. Abrams Eyes Bradley Cooper for Armstrong Biopic
In the event that talks do turn serious, Cooper admitted that he "would entertain that in a heartbeat."
In the meantime, fans can catch Cooper in The Hangover III, due out May 24.
When all else fails, call Daddy for help.
Ex-beauty queen Sheena Monnin’s father has come to her aid in a bid to keep her from having to pay $5 million in damages for falsely alleging that the Miss USA pageant is rigged.
In a letter to the Manhattan federal judge who’s been asked to sign off on an arbitrator’s ruling, Philip Monnin said the hefty award against the former Miss Pennsylvania isn’t “just.”
“I am making this appeal directly to you,” he wrote on his 27-year-old little girl’s behalf.
He also said it’s “questionable” whether the pageant would have suffered the loss of a $5 million sponsorship if officials — including part-owner Donald Trump — hadn’t “blown the entire story up with their persistent media appearances.”
Entrepreneurs, please don’t let the name of our contest scare you.
As we launch our 15th annual Miami Herald Business Plan Challenge today, we are putting out our annual call for entries. But we aren’t looking for long, laboriously detailed business plans. Quite the contrary.
More and more, today’s investors in very early stage companies want to see a succinct presentation of your concept and how you plan to turn it into a success. We do, too.
If you have a business idea or an operating startup that is less than two years old, you can enter the Challenge, our annual celebration of South Florida entrepreneurship. Sponsored by the Pino Global Entrepreneurship Center at Florida International University, our contest has three tracks — a Community Track, open to all South Floridians; an FIU Track, open to students and alumni of that university; and a High School Track, co-sponsored by the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship.
Your entry may be up to three pages and you may attach one additional page for a photo, rendering, diagram or spreadsheet if you wish. Think of it as a meaty executive summary. Experts in all aspects of entrepreneurship — serial entrepreneurs, executives, investors, advisors and finance specialists (see judge bios on MiamiHerald.com/challenge) — will judge your short plan. In doing so, they will be looking at your product or service’s value to the customer, market opportunity, business model, management team and your marketing and financial strategies. See the rules on page 22, which also include tips on preparing your entry.
Your entry is due by 11:59 p.m. March 11. Entries should be sent to challenge@miamiherald.com, fiuchallenge@miamiherald.com or highschoolchallenge@miamiherald.com.
Don’t worry, we’re here to help!
“Frame your business from your customer’s perspective and not yours. Rather than diving into a detailed explanation of your product or service, a more compelling way to tell your business story is to clearly share the problem that you are solving for your customers and how your business is different, better, faster, cooler, cheaper, smarter,” says Melissa Krinzman, managing director of Venture Architects and a veteran Challenge judge.
On Feb 26 at 6:30 p.m. at Miami Dade College, we’ll host a free Business Plan Bootcamp, where you can bring your working plan with you for advice from experts, including Krinzman. Find the sign-up link on MiamiHerald.com/challenge.
And each week in Business Monday and on MiamiHerald.com/challenge, we’ll be bringing you advice and answering your questions. You can post your questions on the Q&A on MiamiHerald.com/challenge or email your questions to me at ndahlberg@miamiherald.com. Follow @ndahlberg on Twitter.
The top six finalists in the Community and FIU Tracks will present their 90-second elevator pitches for our popular video contest. Last year our People’s Pick contest drew more than 18,000 votes.
On May 6, in a special section of Business Monday, we will profile the winners — the judges’ top three selections in each track plus the People’s Pick winners. Along the way, we will unveil semifinalists and finalists to keep the suspense building.
Today, though, we are looking back on the entrepreneurial journeys of our 2012 winners. Funding was a nearly universal challenge, and many faced setbacks in developing their platforms. Throughout the entry period, we’ll also look back on other winners from the past 14 years.
Show us what you’ve got. Let’s make this the best Challenge yet.
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