Arnold Schwarzenegger's The Last Stand came in last place on the box office Top 10 list over the weekend.
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The action flick struggled through its debut, pulling in $6.3 million, as audiences couldn't get enough of Jessica Chastain -- the star of Mama and Zero Dark Thirty.
Jessica's films came in at first and second as Mama garnered $28.1 million and Zero Dark Thirty $17.6 million.
Silver Linings Playbook landed in third with $11.4 million.
Nicole Gelinas
How long should New Yorkers put up with the school-bus strike? Last week, the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1181 was in charge of the schedule. Mayor Bloomberg should make clear that the city will get kids to school on time and safely — by making it clear that striking workers are risking their jobs.
As temperatures fell below freezing late last week, barely a third of the private yellow school buses that take 152,000 New York kids to school were on duty. That was a drop from Wednesday, the first strike day. Picketers intimidated replacement drivers and blocked buses.
Tomas E. Gaston
Bloomberg can get tougher: NYPD officers keep protesters away as a bus crosses a picket line in The Bronx last week. The mayor should hire new bus companies now.
The last time the union went out on strike, in 1979, it stayed out 13 weeks.
And the city caved in, giving the workers the civil-servant-style job protections that they want to keep now, no matter which private company employs them. (The city’s drive to do away with those protections after 34 years has pushed the union out this time.)
So without decisive action from Bloomberg, New York parents could be looking at chaos till summer — or longer. Your kid may not get to school until the bus drivers run out of money.
But the mayor can take action — by moving to terminate the bus companies’ contracts for nonperformance.
Whatever the city does, it’ll end up in court. Its contracts with bus companies are not well written. Unlike solid contracts that outline who does what in the event of everything from war to earthquakes, the contracts are vague on who — the company or the city — is responsible in a strike. The contracts require that bus companies make “good faith” efforts — and the mayor hasn’t said what he thinks that means.
But the contracts do define what is a violation of the contract. “Failure to conform to and maintain the route,” “exclusion of any rider from a run,” “failure to provide service to a school,” “failure to dispatch the kind of bus specified” and “failure to have the minimum number of spare vehicles” are among violations, with no excuses.
The city can issue fines of $2,800 a day, in some cases per bus route or per child, which could add up to tens of thousands of dollars (or more) a day.
Since contractors aren’t getting paid by the city while their buses are idle, such fines could put them out of business.
In the meanwhile, the city could move up its call for bids for new contractors to now, instead of next fall, signing emergency short-term deals with new bus fleets.
New drivers and matrons, like the old, would have to meet safety qualifications and criminal-background checks, just as the city plans for next year’s contracts.
Killing existing contracts means killing the drivers’ jobs — a threat Bloomberg hasn’t wielded yet.
It works. In 1994, Legal Aid lawyers who worked for a private firm under a city contract, similar to the bus drivers today, went out on strike for a raise. Then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani immediately moved to terminate the contract. Just as immediately, the lawyers went back to work — on the city’s terms.
The mayor should be clear that striking workers are risking their jobs. Union leaders don’t necessarily have workers’ interests at heart — just as they didn’t in the recent past. When bus companies must make extortion payoffs to the union’s leader, as they did under former chief Sal “Hotdogs” Battaglia, now a felon, that means less money for drivers.
And new bidders are not going to hire minimum-wage workers. All companies need experienced drivers and matrons who won’t walk off the job in a few months’ time for a better opportunity.
Commercial drivers’ licenses and clean records are worth something. If that weren’t true, the bus companies would’ve ditched the union years ago.
The mayor’s duty is to taxpayers, parents and kids. There’s a lot at stake.
The members of a different union, the Transport Workers Union, who staff the subway and bus system, struck in 2005 (illegally, because they, unlike the school-bus workers, are public workers).
The TWU has been without a contract for a year now — and it’s been gingerly testing its power again in recent weeks.
Union members have given out fliers to riders suggesting that the MTA makes subway motormen enter stations too fast for safety — and is reminding the drivers and conductors to “use caution.”
Since work slowdowns are illegal, the TWU has been careful to not tell drivers to slow down.
But TWU leaders not only support the striking school-bus drivers; they’re watching closely.
Nicole Gelinas is a contributing editor to the Manhattan Institute’s
City Journal.
Twitter: @nicolegelinas
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He still remembers that moment, even as the chaos of his life swirled about him two decades ago. On the upside of his epic hit, Ice Ice Baby, Robert Van Winkle surveyed what his soaring career had afforded — the cars, the parties, the good times and this modern pad on Star Island. It was a professionally designed showcase of flash, but deeply bereft of soul.
“I felt like I was living in a nightclub,” said Van Winkle, the rapper who commanded the stage as Vanilla Ice. “It never felt like home.’’
Van Winkle, 45, who has spent more than half of his life in South Florida, re-imagined his space in warm earth tones. For Van Winkle, it was about so much more than decorating, but rather the beginning of the next chapter after a rap career that had been so promising, then careened into pop culture obscurity.
Many turns later, Van Winkle emerged from the wreckage as a successful, self-taught real estate investor, renovation whiz and a popular reality television home star, the seeds first planted that moment on Star Island when his house wasn’t a home.
Van Winkle’s third season of the DIY Network’s Vanilla Ice Project premiers next Sunday in which the rapper — who still tours performs concerts — buys, guts and makes pretty upscale homes. With his easy personality and hearty laugh still intact, plus a newfound Zen after a troubled past, Van Winkle mines South Florida’s rich housing landscapes for homes that can be grabbed, renovated and returned to the market for a profit. He is also the star of a DIY special called Ice My House, airing this Sunday at 11 p.m., and has a new lighting collection called, you guessed it: Vanilla Ice Lighting.
“With the recession, people have been feeling so miserable for so long. People don’t want to put money in an upside-down house,’’ said Van Winkle who lives with his wife and two daughters in a Wellington community. “I wanted a show that motivated people to want to invest in their homes, to get that kitchen they always wanted. I want people to enjoy their homes.’’
The show is just the latest stop in Van Winkle’s transformation, and his leveraging of his monster single.
“Vanilla Ice is one of those figures in pop music who was able to successfully reinvent himself,’’ said Matt Donahue, of Bowling Green State University’s Department of Popular Culture. “ Ice Ice Baby is his signature phrase and he has been able to take it all the way to the bank.’’
The Vanilla Ice Project’s 13-episode season follows Van Winkle and a crew of contractors as they transform a 6,000-square-foot house in a Lake Worth subdivision. “This place was rotten, we had to take down every piece of drywall, gut it down to the cinderblocks,’’ he said. “Everything in here now is custom, with state-of-art in-home technology and made with a whole lot less carbon.’’
On an especially muggy weekday, Van Winkle is taking a break from filming. Tattooed arms outstretched, he is animated as he talks about the plans to make this home a showpiece, a lifetime away from his early days as a rising rapper.
Van Winkle, who grew up in Dallas, exploded on the music scene in the early 1990s — just as rap was settling into its second decade — and sold 15 million To the Extreme albums worldwide on the popularity of Ice Ice Baby, the smash that started as a B-side song. The catchy song — along with Vanilla Ice’s high-stepping in parachute pants — became the first rap single in history to top the Billboard charts.
AUCKLAND (Reuters) – Here are the milestones in the past year for Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom. Dotcom plans to launch on January 20 a new online file storage system, known as Mega.
January 20, 2012 – Seventy armed New Zealand police raid Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom’s mansion outside Auckland, acting on a request from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Dotcom and his colleagues Finn Batato, Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk are served extradition and search warrants, arrested, and taken into custody. As operators of the website, they are charged with online piracy, fraud and money laundering, and their computers and files are seized. Megaupload is closed down. The raid occurs on the same day U.S. lawmakers axe anti-piracy legislation following heavy public opposition.
February 22 – Dotcom is released on bail, but his movements are restricted and he is prohibited from leaving New Zealand. His bail conditions are eventually relaxed to allow him free movement within the country, while the millionaire is given some access to his frozen funds to pay his legal team and living costs.
June 28 – A New Zealand court rules that search warrants used by local police to raid the Dotcom mansion were illegal, and moves by the FBI to copy data from Dotcom’s computers to take offshore were also unlawful. The court’s action is seen by many as weakening the extradition case against Megaupload.
August 16 – U.S. efforts to extradite Dotcom are dealt another blow as a New Zealand court rules that prosecutors must show evidence to support charges of internet piracy and copyright breaches. The judge in the case says withholding evidence from Dotcom would give Washington a significant advantage in the extradition hearing. She also rules that the document used to order his extradition was illegal.
September 27 – New Zealand’s Prime Minister admits that the country’s spy agency illegally carried out surveillance on Dotcom, a resident of the country, despite a law which prohibits monitoring citizens and residents.
October 10 – A U.S. federal judge rules that the U.S. government’s criminal case against Megaupload will proceed, while leaving open the option of dismissing the case at a later date on grounds including the possibility that delays in proceedings have denied Megaupload to its right to due process.
January 20, 2013 – Dotcom is due to launch his new cyberlocker, Mega.co.nz, whose encryption system is designed to offer water-tight privacy protection of user files. The launch comes as Dotcom and his colleagues await their extradition hearing, which has been delayed until August.
(Reporting by Naomi Tajitsu)
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ET's Rocsi Diaz sat down first with First Lady Michelle Obama at the Kids' Inaugural Concert to discuss a variety of topics from her new hairstyle and birthday celebration to Lance Armstrong.
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Mrs. Obama debuted her shoulder-length bob with eye-level bangs via Twitter on her birthday, Thursday, January 17, and she told Rocsi that Dr. Jill Biden may have had an influence on her.
"I've been coveting [Dr. Biden's] bangs for four years," joked Mrs. Obama, quipping that they're "the bang sisters." She also revealed that husband President Barack Obama gave her a "beautiful necklace" as a recent birthday gift.
On the topic of Lance Armstrong's interview with Oprah in which he admits to doping, Mrs. Obama said, "I didn't even get a chance to see it. It's a sad situation for everyone who's watching ... I think we have to remember all the people that have been helped and who will continue to need the help of [The Livestrong Foundation]. We should focus on making sure that cancer survivors and people dealing with the disease have the kind of support, medical and research, that they need to deal with the situation. We can't lose sight of that accomplishment."
Rocsi will present at tonight's Kids' Inaugural, which marks the latest efforts by the First Lady and Dr. Jill Biden's Joining Forces initiative to urge Americans to support our troops, and our Gold Star and Blue Star families.
The First Lady described the event in a video message, explaining that it's about "celebrating who we are as Americans and the people who make our country great -- our men and women in uniform, our military spouses, and our amazing military kids. So it's no surprise that when Jill and I decided to host this event, everyone wanted to join us -- from Katy Perry to Glee, from Nick Cannon to Usher. They know that military kids serve this country right alongside their moms and dads, and we’re really looking forward to celebrating our military families this weekend."
Shortly after the United Nations General Assembly voted in late November to upgrade the status of the Palestinians, the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that it would advance plans to establish a settlement in an area of the West Bank known as E-1, and that it would build 3,000 additional housing units in east Jerusalem and the West Bank.
The world reacted to the E-1 announcement in the usual manner: It condemned the plans as a provocation and an injustice. In the weeks after the UN vote, Obama said privately and repeatedly, “Israel doesn’t know what its own best interests are.” With each new settlement announcement, in Obama’s view, Netanyahu is moving his country down a path toward near-total isolation.
The dysfunctional relationship between Netanyahu and Obama is poised to enter a new phase. Next week, Israeli voters will probably return Netanyahu to power, this time at the head of a coalition even more intractably right-wing than the one he currently leads.
Obama, since his time in the Senate, has been consistent in his analysis of Israel’s underlying challenge: If it doesn’t disentangle itself from the lives of West Bank Palestinians, the world will one day decide it is behaving as an apartheid state.
During November’s vote on Palestine’s status, the US supported Israel and asked its allies to do the same. In the end, they were joined by a total of seven other countries.
When such an issue arises again, Israel may find itself even lonelier. It wouldn’t surprise me if the US failed to whip votes the next time, or if the US actually abstained. I wouldn’t be particularly surprised, either, if Obama eventually offered a public vision of what a state of Palestine should look like, and affirmed that it should have its capital in East Jerusalem.
Bloomberg View
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Miami-based Norwegian Cruise Line joined its larger local competitors on Wall Street Friday in a strong debut.
Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. raised nearly $447 million in an initial public offering of about 23.5 million shares and saw stocks sail 30 percent in trading.
Shares closed Friday afternoon at $24.79, up $5.79 from the $19 offering price set late Thursday night. That was above the range of $16-$18 that the company had expected.
“I think this was a classically beautiful IPO, albeit relatively small in terms of total dollars,” said Roderick McLeod, partner in the management consulting practice McLeod.Applebaum & Partners and a former cruise executive.
In regulatory filings, the company has said it plans to use proceeds from the IPO to reduce debt and pay expenses related to the offering. Norwegian is giving the underwriters a 30-day option to buy up to an additional 3.5 million shares.
Previously, the company was privately held in a partnership of Genting Hong Kong, with 50 percent of the cruise line, and private equity firms Apollo Management and TPG. Genting Hong Kong is a subsidiary of gambling and resort conglomerate Genting Group, which purchased the land currently occupied by The Miami Herald in 2011 for $236 million.
After the IPO, the three groups own a total of about 88 percent of the company’s ordinary shares.
Norwegian, with a fleet of 11 ships and three more on the way by the fall of 2015, has made its name by emphasizing a “freestyle” type of cruising that allows guests to choose from a variety of dining, entertainment and rooming options.
In an interview Friday morning, Norwegian Cruise Line President and CEO Kevin Sheehan said that the timing was right for the offering.
“It just seemed like a very logical time: We’re into 2013, we’ve got these beautiful new ships coming out soon and the marketplace is very excited about them,” he said. “The locomotive is moving and we’re at the tipping point with the brand.”
As the industry grows by just about 2.5 percent over the next five years, Sheehan said, Norwegian will grow capacity by more than 10 percent.
“It’s the double whammy,” he said. “Lower growth in the future with a phenomenal set of assets.”
He said the benefits of going public include raising capital, allowing the company to strengthen its balance sheet and putting it in the same playing field as its competitors. Carnival Corp., the world’s largest cruise ship company, and rival Royal Caribbean Cruises are both publicly traded. Carnival closed up about a percent at $38.58 Friday, while Royal Caribbean dropped just over a percent to $36.90.
“Now we’re out there and people can look at our results and the analysts can talk about us freely,” he said.
The launch capped years of attempts by Norwegian to go public, all abandoned for economic reasons.
Miami cruise expert Stewart Chiron, CEO of CruiseGuy.com, said the timing was good, with an industry performing well and a vastly improved company.
“I’m glad they finally got it done,” he said. “This was by far one of the important milestones that they wanted to cross.”
McLeod remembers an effort when he was president and chief operating officer at Norwegian that coincided with the stock market crash in October of 1987. He has also worked in senior positions at Royal Caribbean Cruises and Carnival Corp.
“I think we’ve all kind of known this was coming eventually and some of us have known it’s coming for 25 years,” McLeod said. “It’s never too late to do the right thing; this is the right thing for them to do.”
The move is smart, McLeod said, for several reasons.
“In addition to improving their leverage, reducing their debt, this expands their strategic options,” he said. “This is a currency, and that can work for them in lots of different ways.”
This report was supplemented with information from the Associated Press.
The past few days have kept the eldest son of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. busy. He’s been to at least three states to carry on his father’s message: ending violence and learning from historical wrongs.
In a Fort Lauderdale Baptist church early Friday, he delivered another directive:
“A nation is judged on how we treat our most prized possession,” Martin Luther King III said. “And our most precious resource, I think, is our children.”
King served as the keynote speaker at the ninth annual Martin Luther King Jr. inspirational breakfast hosted by the YMCA of Broward County.
More than 500 gathered inside the First Baptist Church on Broward Boulevard, selling out the $2,500 per table event, to honor King’s legacy.
“My concern was that it would not be reduced to a day of relaxation,” said King III. “We have to look at this as a day on — not a day off.”
The Rev. King, a prominent civil rights leader, was born this week 84 years ago. He lead peaceful protests and bus strikes working for racial equality until his 1968 assassination.
The younger King told the South Florida audience about spending his youth at the local YMCA in Birmingham, learning to swim and working out with his dad.
“Those were wonderful experiences, experiences that I will never forget,” he said.
Like his father, King III has been a fighter for human rights, justice and non-violence in the United States and abroad. He also served as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s president, a position his father once held.
During his 2009 inauguration, President Barack Obama declared the holiday honoring King should be spent as a national day of service.
At Friday’s event, 15 youngsters from the Lauderhill YMCA were honored for their service to the community. The young friends managed to clean up a popular overpass and get rid of gangs who were harassing children.
They called their project “Own the Overpath.” The idea started when 14-year-old Kervens Jean-Louis was attacked by a gang on a fenced in walkway that spans the Florida Turnpike while coming from the YMCA, based at Boyd Anderson High School. But Jean-Louis didn’t back down.
He and other students mobilized and launched a campaign to clean-up the area surrounding the “overpath.” The youngsters made a formal presentation to the Lauderhill City Commission and Florida Department of Transportation officials.
Now, there is a $400,000 project in the works to install more lights on the bridge to increase visibility. The city broke ground in November.
“I learned that when you speak out loud it makes a difference,” said Jean-Louis.
For Jean-Louis, speaking loud meant going back to the bridge to warn others of the dangers of traveling across it at night.
He will spend this upcoming Saturday as a volunteer, painting and cleaning up a garden.
“Now I tell others what’s going on and how they can help out,” he said, much like the man they had all come to honor.
After the youngsters were honored, King III left the crowd to ponder a final thought: “We can either be a thermometer or a thermostat.”
A thermometer, he explained, takes the temperature while a thermostat regulates the temperature.
Despite the progress his father saw in his lifetime, and the decades since his death, there is still much work to be done, King III said.
“I always come with a heavy heart in January,” he said. “Because we have not fully realized the dream.”
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Evan Williams and Biz Stone, the co-founders of Twitter, have leased three sprawling floors in a historic downtown San Francisco tower for their low-profile start-up incubator, The Obvious Corporation.
Obvious said Friday it leased 75,000 square feet at the busy 760 Market Street location – known as the Phelan Building – in one of the city’s larger commercial real estate deals in recent months.
The downtown space will be able to hold roughly 500 employees and signals ambitions at Obvious, which was re-constituted when Williams and Stone both left Twitter in 2011.
The incubator, with no more than two dozen employees, has mostly stayed out of the press except when it unveiled two new blogging platforms called Medium and Branch last September.
Although still thinly staffed, Obvious’s new space is larger than start-up Pinterest’s recently inked lease in the city.
“We need the right space from which to grow the Medium team and position Obvious to focus on bringing our new ideas to life,” Obvious CEO Williams said in a statement Friday about the new lease.
The company will occupy the seventh, eighth and ninth floors of the triangular building, which wraps around a central courtyard, said Jenny Haeg, a real estate agent who has brokered leases for Square Inc, Dropbox, Airbnb and other large tech startups.
(Reporting by Gerry Shih; Editing by Bob Burgdorfer)
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Drew Barrymore opens up about her complicated childhood and the lessons she's learned when it comes to being a new mother on Oprah's Next Chapter, and we have a sneak peek!
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Marking the first time cameras have ever been allowed inside her home, Drew also talks to Oprah about her new marriage to Will Kopelman, shares details about their newborn baby Olive, and reveals the story behind why her mother did not attend her wedding.
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Oprah's Next Chapter with Drew Barrymore airs Sunday at 9 pm ET/PT on OWN.
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