SunPass coming to Rickenbacker, Venetian causeways in 2014

The introduction of SunPass on two Miami-Dade causeways is the latest in a series of initiatives to expand use of Florida’s electronic toll-collection system beyond state highways.

“We are hoping that a year from now, in 2014, the new system will be in place on both the Rickenbacker and then the Venetian Causeway,” said Michael R. Bauman, chief of the Miami-Dade public works and waste management department’s causeways division.

Originally, the county had planned to activate SunPass on the causeways in 2012, but the project was delayed because of contractor issues and efforts by all Florida tolling agencies to centralize back-office operations that include billing and other customer services, Bauman said.

Conversion of causeways’ C-Pass system to SunPass transponders will be one of the most significant changes in the history of the storied roads that carry tens of thousands of commuters every day to and from the mainland.

The 5.4-mile Rickenbacker, the longer of the two causeways, is also the newest. It opened in 1947. The 2.8-mile Venetian opened in 1925.

Tolls have been charged on both causeways for decades. The Rickenbacker was the first to adopt electronic tolling in 1997 with the C-Pass system, followed by the Venetian shortly after.

Both causeways still take cash at some toll plaza lanes.

While the plan is to eliminate cash tolls, Bauman said details are more advanced for the Rickenbacker than for the Venetian.

As a result, he said in an interview, details of how SunPass will operate on the Venetian remain undecided.

On the Rickenbacker, however, he said the toll plaza will be removed and its eight lanes will be reconfigured into four lanes with electronic gantries. Cash will no longer be accepted.

In both cases, said Bauman, lower annual tolls paid by residents and commuters served by the Rickenbacker and Venetian will be preserved under the SunPass arrangement.

The vehicles of residents and commuters already registered with causeway systems will be recognized by SunPass, and no additional toll charges will be made, Bauman said.

The current cash toll price on both causeways is $1.50. Whether that rate will remain once SunPass kicks in is still under discussion, Bauman said.

On the Rickenbacker and Venetian, residents with C-Pass transponders pay a flat $24 per year. Nonresidents who drive the Rickenbacker pay $60 per year and Venetian commuters pay $90.

Registration will continue, but it will be done online.

Drivers who don’t have SunPass will still be allowed to use the causeways. They will be billed later via Toll-by-Plate, Bauman said.

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Iowa man, sister reunite thanks to Facebook, boy

DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa man has been reunited with his sister 65 years after the siblings were separated in foster care thanks to a 7-year-old friend who searched Facebook.

Clifford Boyson of Davenport met his sister, Betty Billadeau, in person on Saturday. Billadeau drove up from her home in Florissant, Mo., with her daughter and granddaughter for the reunion at a hotel in Davenport.

Boyson, 66, and Billadeau, 70, both tried to find each other for years without success. They were placed in different foster homes in Chicago when they were children.

Then 7-year-old Eddie Hanzelin, who is the son of Boyson‘s landlord, got involved.

Eddie managed to find Billadeau by searching his mom’s Facebook account with Billadeau’s maiden name. He recognized the family resemblance when he saw her picture.

“Oh, my God,” Boyson said when he saw and hugged Billadeau.

“You do have a sister,” Billadeau said.

“You’re about the same height Mom was,” Boyson said.

Billadeau’s daughter, Sarah Billadeau, 42, and granddaughter, Megan Billadeau, 27, both wiped away tears and smiled during the reunion.

“He didn’t have any women in his life,” Sarah said. “We’re going to get that straightened out real fast.”

Boyson said he’s looking forward to visiting Billadeau near St. Louis and meeting more family.

“I’m hoping I can go and spend a week or two,” he said. “I want to meet the whole congregation. I never knew I had a big family.”

Eddie, who enjoys messing around with his family’s iPad, said he’s glad he was able to assist in making the reunion happen and that he learned about helping others at school.

“Clifford did not have any family, and family’s important,” the boy said.

Near the end of their tearful reunion Boyson and Billadeau presented Eddie with a $ 125 check in appreciation of his detective work.

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Jennifer Lawrence on Bradley Cooper Romance Rumors

Silver Linings Playbook stars Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper arrived separately at the Golden Globes red carpet on Sunday amid gossip that they might be romantically involved -- rumors that they both claimed to ET's Nancy O'Dell are completely false.

RELATED: 2013 Golden Globes Winners

"We've done two movies together," said Bradley, who also stars alongside J.Law in the upcoming film Serena. "If it didn't happen by now, it's not going to happen."

"I concur," said Jennifer, who appeared at the awards show despite her 100-degree fever.

"I'm fine," Jennifer said, going on to explain, "It's the flu ... I had the doctor come over and give me a shot of something in my butt today and tell me I had the flu."

Silver Linings racked up four nominations on the night, while individually Bradley was nominated for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy, and Jennifer has already won for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy.

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Go to Greg

I’m 28, single and work at a small company. One of my bosses is lazy, holds grudges and can be vengeful — and he just crossed the line: He asked me last week if I would do him a favor and have first-time sex with his 16-year-old son. The way I handled it was a laugh and quick, ‘Sorry, I can’t.’ If I report him to our parent company, I’ll get fired, and I can’t lose my job. If I engage a lawyer, I probably could get a settlement, but then nobody in the industry will hire me. Do I just forget it, and move on?

How can you forget working for a crass, offensive jerk? Those in positions of authority at work need to be held accountable for such blatant, flagrant violations of decency, ethics and morals. If you and your boss had a good, close working relationship, and he was a decent guy in every respect and jokingly suggested the scenario you described, I can see forgiving the transgression. But based on your description, the guy is a jerk — so nail the sucker. If you get fired for doing so, then your case just got stronger — because it’s classic retaliation, and courts don’t take kindly to employers who do that. Tell your other boss what happened, and make it the employer’s problem to solve it.

I’m over 50 and have been unemployed for more than a year. I think my age is a factor. I’m working with an outplacement counselor who has advised I get a makeover. I’m not a woman, and I’m not going to dress like a 20-something. Isn’t this enabling age-discrimination?

If you’ve ever been to a gym, you’ve seen guys primping themselves in front of a mirror as much as any woman — so your response suggests you’re a bit “old-fashioned.” I don’t think your counselor is suggesting dressing age-inappropriately or getting a funky ‘do. I’m not saying age isn’t a factor in some decisions regardless of the law — in reality, age is more about how one presents oneself. The workplace is full of 60-somethings for whom age isn’t even a consideration because they’re smart, professional, etc. If your counselor is saying you need a make-over, it’s not an insult, and it may not be just about what you project from the outside.

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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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Miami International Airport hotel operator under criminal investigation

The company that runs the hotel at Miami International Airport is under criminal investigation by the Miami-Dade state attorney’s office and the Office of the Inspector General for allegedly fraudulently billing the county.

In a Jan. 2 memo outlining the joint investigation to Jose Abreu, director of the county’s aviation department, Inspector General Christopher Mazzella wrote that he could provide only general contours of the ongoing probe because of potential, forthcoming criminal charges against the hotel operator, H.I. Development.

The unusual memo was prompted by an earlier letter from H.I. Development defending the company’s performance after harsh public criticism from Abreu. The county is going out to bid for a new hotel management contract, and Abreu has said that he would not recommend H.I. Development if it were to bid.

“Let me be clear that the criminal investigation under way, which is being conducted jointly by the OIG and the State Attorney’s Office, is very serious,” Mazzella wrote. “Indeed, it is expected that criminal charges will be filed in the near future.”

In his Dec. 12 letter, sent to Abreu and commissioners on a transportation committee, H.I. Development President Andre P. Callen addressed some of the complaints on a laundry list Abreu had aired against the company, including an allegation that five administrators were dismissed as a result of the billing probe. Callen wrote that the company had not dismissed anyone of its own accord, and added that no senior company personnel have been arrested or charged.

“Five H.I. Development employees were escorted out of the airport, but only√ at the request of the Miami-Dade County Aviation Department and not√ at the request of law-enforcement personnel,” he wrote.

“It is our understanding that at least three of the five H.I. Development employees were cleared by the County’s Inspector General; nonetheless, the Aviation Department has refused to allow even those three employees to return.”

The county pays H.I. Development a flat management fee and reimburses the operator for expenses. Mazzella did not delve into how the company may have defrauded the county, or what dollar amounts might be involved.

Callen, however, referenced three hotel renovation expenses probed by the inspector general or questioned by the aviation department: a wallpaper purchase, a bathtub refinishing project and a bathroom mirror replacement project.

The inspector general could not account for the wallpaper purchase, the letter says, but an inventory of the wallpaper exists. And while the aviation department considers that there were problems with the completion and billing of the bathtub and bathroom mirror projects, both were “fully completed and properly billed,” according to the letter.

NO SPECIFICS

Mazzella did not mention specifics, saying only that the investigation began after the aviation department notified the inspector general of possible billing fraud.

“In investigating the allegation, the OIG discovered many issues and concerns with H.I. Development’s overall management of the MIA Hotel,” Mazzella wrote. “The OIG also discovered issues with [the aviation department’s] oversight of H.I. Development’s compliance with the management agreement.”

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Microsoft taps Krikorian to help run its Xbox business

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp said on Thursday it hired technology entrepreneur Blake Krikorian to help run its Interactive Entertainment Business as the world’s largest software company plans bigger things for its Xbox gaming console.

Krikorian will be corporate vice president for the Interactive Entertainment Business, reporting to Marc Whitten, chief product officer for the division, Microsoft added.

The appointment follows Microsoft’s recent acquisition of Krikorian’s company, id8 Group R2 Studios, which had developed an application that allows users to control home heating and lighting systems from smartphones.

Microsoft is trying to transform Xbox from a gaming device into a broader service that controls most aspects of home entertainment, including music, movies, TV and sports.

“We look forward to his contribution to our team as Xbox continues to evolve and transform the games and entertainment landscape,” Whitten said in a statement.

Krikorian’s Sling Media – which was sold to EchoStar Communications in 2007 – made the Slingbox device for watching TV over the Internet.

Krikorian resigned from Amazon.com Inc’s board in late December after about a year and a half as a director at the company, the Internet’s largest retailer.

(Reporting By Alistair Barr; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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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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Required reading

Mastermind

How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes

by Maria Konnikova (Viking)

In the BBC show “Sherlock,” the camera follows Holmes’ observations by filming exactly where his eyes go. Author Konnikova (a fan of the show) takes this one step further in her first book, a treatise on how the Watsons of the world can smarten up. The how-to guide gives us “brain attics,” mindful exercises, ideas culled from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original works and cutting-edge psych research to help shape our brains to think like literature’s most clever detective.

Kill Anything That Moves

The Real American War in Vietnam

by Nick Turse (Henry Holt)

In a coincidence of timing, as Turse’s attack on American conduct in the Vietnam War comes out, that war is in the news thanks to the president’s cabinet nominations of Vietnam veterans John Kerry and Chuck Hagel. Turse (“The Complex”) contends the My Lai massacre was far from the only war crime American troops committed. Based on 10 years of research in Pentagon archives and interviews with Vietnamese survivors and American vets, he paints an ugly and graphic picture of the war.

American Tropic

by Thomas Sanchez (Knopf)

The dark side of the Sunshine State? On the job, tough-talking police detective Luz Zamora must track down a voodoo assassin, corrupt developers and eco-terrorists. But that’s par for the course in “Mile Zero” author Sanchez’s Key West, Fla., adventure. On the all-female home front, her beautiful partner, Joan, and two teenage daughters keep Luz on her toes. As does a local disbarred lawyer-turned-eco-shock jock. And hurricane season isn’t over yet in this atmospheric page turner. Batten down the hatches!

Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker

by Jennifer Chiaverini (Delacorte Press )

Here’s a part of Lincoln’s life that wasn’t addressed in the the 12-time Oscar-nominated movie. In her latest novel, Chiaverini, author of the bestselling Elm Creek Quilts series, pieces together the story of First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln and Lizzie Keckley, a former slave who became Mrs. Lincoln’s seamstress and confidante. After the president’s assassination, Keckley created the Mary Todd Lincoln quilt and also a scandalous memoir. A new spin on the story.

Elimination Night

by Anonymous (New Harvest)

A scathing tell-all from a nameless author with self-described “firsthand knowledge” of a “top TV talent show” — exposes the inner-workings of a thinly veiled singing competition through the eyes of a lowly production assistant named Sasha King. King dreams of writing a novel but spends her days rigging the results and managing difficult egomaniac judges (the aging Lothario rocker and the big-bummed/small-brained diva). Any similarities to the real-life season 10 of “American Idol” and judges Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez are only in the minds of readers, since “any similarity to any persons living or dead . . . is coincidental.” Sure.

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What the week’s big mortgage moves mean for consumers

This week brought three big developments to the nation’s beleaguered mortgage landscape. For consumers, the complex moves have been mostly mystifying, but experts say they all aim at turning the page.

“There is a strong desire to put behind us all this period of time — the aftermath of the darkest period in American finance. All these things [announced this week] are intended to do that,” said John Taylor, president and CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, a Washington, D.C.-based consumer advocacy group. “There are good and bad things in it for consumers.’’

A new rule issued Thursday by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau aims to prevent lenders from making the sort of toxic mortgages that forced many unsuspecting borrowers into ruin. Yet the new “qualified mortgage” rule, according to some lenders, also could perpetuate the nation’s tight credit problem and keep many would-be homebuyers on the sidelines.

Meanwhile, two settlements unveiled Monday with big banks should resolve some lingering issues from the mortgage meltdown that have kept banks focused on past errors instead of getting back to the business of lending.

Here is a quick primer on the week’s developments and some likely implications for consumers.

OCC Settlement

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which regulates nationally chartered banks, Monday unveiled an $8.5 billion settlement with 10 giant banks that service mortgages.

As part of the controversial settlement, the OCC is scrapping its Independent Foreclosure Review, which was aimed at identifying victims of robo-signing and other improper foreclosure tactics by banks, but soon proved to be a badly flawed effort.

Instead, under the OCC’s new approach — which will be spelled out in enforcement actions in a couple of weeks — more than 3.8 million borrowers who faced foreclosure between Jan. 1, 2009 and Dec. 31, 2010 stand to get some payment regardless of whether they actually suffered any harm.

The mortgage servicing banks covered are Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, SunTrust, PNC, Sovereign, U.S. Bank, MetLife Bank and Aurora.

The agreement provides for $3.3 billion to go directly to borrowers. Another $5.2 billion is earmarked for loan modifications and the forgiveness of deficiency judgments.

The OCC said the amount that eligible borrowers get will range from a few hundred dollars up to $125,000, depending on the type of error that possibly occurred in their mortgage servicing.

“If a borrower went through foreclosure with one of those 10 lenders, they should receive a couple hundred bucks, whether they deserve it or not,” said Guy Cecala, publisher and CEO of Inside Mortgage Finance Publications in Bethesda, Md., which tracks news and statistics in the residential mortgage industry. “The odds of getting $125,000 is the odds of winning the lottery. It would have to be a false foreclosure or where they were thrown out of their house illegally.”

The OCC will look to 13 broad categories of errors outlined in the Independent Foreclosure Review launched in April 2011.

Those include a litany of bumblings and misdeeds by the mortgage servicers, ranging from foreclosing on a homeowner who was following the rules during a trial period of a loan modification, to failing to offer a loan modification as mandated under a government program, to failing to follow up with a borrower to obtain needed documents under a government program.

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