Katy Perry Turns '70s Game Show Host

A mustachioed Katy Perry helps celebrate Ellen DeGeneres' 55th birthday during tomorrow's episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

RELATED: Candid Star Sightings

The comedienne's birthday is Saturday, but instead of receiving gifts she decided to dish them out, allowing Perry to live her dream of being a game show host.

In the clip, Perry enters in '70s TV garb complete with a plaid three-quarter-length suit jacket, bow tie and mustache.

RELATED: Ellen DeGeneres Slams One Million Moms

"I asked for the Anne Hathaway, obviously," Perry joked, referencing her cropped hairdo.

Click the video to see the pop star introduce "everyone's favorite party game" Grab Ellen's Bust. You can watch the entire birthday episode on Friday. Check your local listings.

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Fly in the ointment

President Obama is riding high in the afterglow of his second Inauguration — but the signs of trouble ahead are already becoming clear.

First off, it now looks like the US economy peaked in the third quarter last year — growing at 3.1 percent, a huge leap from 1.3 percent in the second quarter and 2 percent in the first.

That was perfect timing for his re-election, bringing unemployment below 8 percent for the first time since Obama took office and robbing Mitt Romney of one of his top talking points.

But top economists believe things slowed in the fourth quarter and again this year. Many are openly predicting that fourth-quarter growth will come in at between 1 and 1.5 percent, and growth is unlikely to top that rate in the near future.

Reuters

Not as planned: Obama, yesterday, dealing with a fly as he speaks in the White House State Dining Room.

We’re already seeing the signs of an economy far from recovery. Retail sales in December, the most important shopping month of the year, were a flop. Holiday-related sales rose just 0.7 percent from Oct. 28 to Dec. 24, compared with a 2 percent rise the year before.

And according to a Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan report, consumer confidence is at its lowest point since December 2011.

The president may continue to claim that the economy’s woes just aren’t his fault, but in his fifth year in office, those excuses are wearing exceedingly thin. It won’t help that his Inaugural Address included barely a mention of jobs or economic growth: He’s made his real priorities clear.

Meanwhile, he’s dealt himself another problem that will frustrate all his efforts to deal with the economy.

A year ago, Democratic pollsters Doug Schoen and Pat Caddell warned in an oped column that Obama could only win re-election by running “the most negative campaign in history,” and that the political damage from such a campaign would leave him unable to govern in a second term.

It was one of the boldest predictions of the election season — and it was right.

No sooner had Romney secured the GOP nomination than Team Obama hit him with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of negative ads, casting him as, in Haley Barbour’s words, a “wealthy plutocrat married to a known equestrian.”

The Obama blitzkrieg defined Mitt Romney before he could define himself. And despite an inspired first debate performance, he never recovered.

Nor did the president let up after Election Day. In his inaugural address, his usual lofty rhetoric thinly veiled the same partisan attack lines he used in his campaign, complete with references to “the shrinking few who do very well” and those who believe in “happiness for the few.”

Even after the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln was willing and able to strike a conciliatory tone with his political opposition. Not Obama.

The start of Obama’s second term looks a lot more like the beginning of FDR’s second term in 1937, when he launched his Supreme Court-packing plan — and wound up losing 81 seats to the Republicans in the 1938 midterms.

Like Roosevelt, Obama is overplaying his hand. His favorability rating has dropped sharply, from 55 percent immediately after his re-election to 48 percent today. He is now the only president in history to be elected to a second term with fewer popular votes than he won for his first term.

But none of this is good for the country.

After all, he won re-election despite a vastly unpopular domestic-policy record, with no plan for a second term and an electorate that believes the country is on the wrong track.

If the president continues to treat Republicans — who control the House and a strong minority in the Senate — with such contempt, it will be almost impossible to legislate much of anything.

Yet the country needs Washington to actually resolve at least a few issues — to find some grounds for principled compromise. The current standoff produces massive uncertainty. What will future tax rates be? Which government programs will be cut or expanded? What parts of the government might wind up shut down for extended periods while the two sides fight?

And uncertainty leaves businesses and others afraid to invest — afraid to take risks when the rules are too likely to change, and maybe change again within the year. Not enough people will risk putting money into long-term ventures when the future is so cloudy.

All of which will make it nearly impossible to get the economy truly moving again, creating massive numbers of jobs to bring unemployment down below 5 percent, where it should be.

As Americans, we are dismayed at the pain the president is imposing on the country, but as Republicans with solutions, our future as a party is bright.

Ed Cox is the chairman and David Laska the communications director of the New York State Republican Party.

Have a comment on this PostOpinion column? Send it in to LETTERS@NYPOST.COM!

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Miami Dolphins slam Norman Braman, Marlins Park deal

The Miami Dolphins ramped up their public campaign for a tax-funded stadium renovation this week, buying full-page ads against their top critic and trying to distance the plan from the unpopular Marlins deal.

The team bought an ad in Tuesday’s Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald knocking auto magnate Norman Braman’s criticism of the Sun Life Stadium deal, which would have Florida and Miami-Dade split the costs with owner Stephen Ross for a $400 million renovation. The Dolphins would pay at least $201 million, with taxpayers using state funds and a higher Miami-Dade hotel tax to pay $199 million.

In a fact sheet sent to media Tuesday morning, the Dolphins listed ways their deal differs from the 2009 Marlins deal. First: Ross, a billionaire real estate developer, would use private dollars to fund at least 51 percent of the Sun Life effort, compared to less than 25 percent from Marlins owner Jeff Loria. Second, Sun Life helps the economy more than the Marlins park does.

“Just because the Marlins did a bad deal doesn’t mean we should oppose a good deal where at least a majority of the cost is paid from private sources and more than 4,000 local jobs are created during construction alone,” the fact sheet states. And while the Dolphins’ Miami Gardens stadium has hosted two Super Bowls since 2007 and is in the running for the 2016 game, “Marlins Stadium does not generate the ability to attract world-class sports events -- other than a World Series from time to time depending on the success of the team.”

NFL teams play eight home games a year if they don’t make the playoffs, while baseball teams have 81.

Miami and Miami-Dade built the Marlins a $640 million stadium at the site of the Dolphins’ old home at the Orange Bowl in Little Havana. The Marlins contributed about $120 million and agreed to pay between $2.5 million and $4.9 million a year for 35 years to pay back $35 million of debt the county borrowed for the stadium. As a publicly owned stadium, the Marlins ballpark pays no property taxes. Most of the public money came from Miami-Dade hotel taxes, along with $50 million of debt tied to the county’s general fund.

Sun Life is privately owned and pays $3 million a year in property taxes to Miami-Dade. It currently receives $2 million a year from Florida’ s stadium program, a subsidy tied to converting the football venue to baseball in the 1990s when the Marlins played there. The Dolphins also paid for a second full-page ad with quotes from leading hoteliers in Miami-Dade endorsing the stadium plan. Among them: Donald Trump, whose company recently purchased the Doral golf resort. “Steve Ross’ commitment to modernize Sun Life Stadium -- while covering most of the construction costs -- is the right thing for Miami-Dade,’’ the ad quotes Trump as saying.

Also on Tuesday, Ross and team CEO Mike Dee sent a letter to Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez and county commissioners requesting negotiations over the stadium deal. The letter said the deal Ross unveiled last week is a “baseline for debate” and asked for talks. The letter also urged the commission to adopt a resolution proposed by Commissioner Barbara Jordan endorsing the state bill that would allow taxes for Sun Life. The resolution is on the agenda for Wednesday’s commission meeting.

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Miami conclave to help map the next 50 years for Southeast Florida

On a Google map, the long stretch of Florida coastline from deep South Miami-Dade County to Sebastian Inlet appears a seamless mass of urban development jammed between a thin border of sand on one side and wetlands and farmland on the other.

But zoom in and it’s soon sliced up by lines both real and imaginary: roadways, highways, railways, waterways and the boundaries of numerous, and often overlapping, governmental jurisdictions.

Now this vast area, at once connected and disconnected, is the subject of one of the most ambitious planning efforts ever undertaken in Florida. Called Seven50, it aims to chart a coordinated, integrated future for the development of Southeast Florida’s seven counties for a couple of generations, through the year 2060.

On Thursday, the big moveable feast of thinkers, planners, economists, government officials and business leaders that is Seven50 will convene in downtown Miami for the effort’s second public summit since its launch in Delray Beach last June.

It may sound like “wonky stuff,’’ said Seven50 lead consultant Victor Dover, a Coral Gables-based planner. But he said Seven50’s scores of participants are convinced that agreeing to coordinated plans across jurisdictional lines is critical if the region is to prosper and meet a long list of common challenges. They range from transportation logjams to the prospect of rising seas and U.S. and international competitors trying to grab our share of international investment, tourism, cargo and trade.

And that competition is serious and well-organized, Dover said. In Texas, for instance, 13 counties and 100 cities between Houston and Galveston have banded together in a similar planning alliance, and so have cities and states along the Great Lakes.

The advantage Southeast Florida has, Seven50 planners say, is that old real-estate cliche: Location, location, location.

But it risks throwing its advantage away unless it better links up its airports and seaports, installs more and better-connected mass transit, and develops strategies to improve education and retain and attract the kind of skilled, educated young people considered key to economic prosperity in today’s economy.

“Planning at this scale is profoundly American, from Jefferson to the creation of Washington, D.C., and if we don’t do it, we’re going to get blown away by the competition,’’ said Andres Duany, a renown Miami-based planner who will give the keynote address at the downtown gathering. “They’re gunning for us.’’

The free, full day of sessions at Miami Dade College’s Wolfson campus is designed to gather public input and share a still-in-development snapshot of the region as planners build what they describe as a massive data warehouse covering everything from demographics to housing, economics and transportation networks. Key discussion areas will be transportation, education and the daunting implications of climate change.

Because Southeast Florida will be among the first regions to experience rising sea levels, across-the-board planning on how to adapt will be essential. That could include difficult options like steering investment for new public infrastructure away from vulnerable areas, or protecting the region’s underground water supply from saltwater intrusion by raising freshwater levels in drainage canals, which could produce more seasonal flooding in some areas.

Some 200 public agencies, advocates, business groups and academic institutions, including the region’s principal universities, have signed up for the effort. Any resulting plans are purely voluntary, and no town or agency is obligated to adopt any ideas it doesn’t like, planners stress.

Still, the process hit a roadblock in the northernmost county, Indian River. The county commission and the Vero Beach city council voted to drop out after Tea Party-linked activists raised a public ruckus over their participation. The activists contend Seven50 is part of Agenda 21, a 20-year-old, nonbinding United Nations resolution that called for environmentally sustainable urban development, which they describe as a conspiracy to evict people from their homes and force them into dense urban housing.

Seven50 planners had to post a response on their website explaining they intend no such thing. Since then, the Stuart city council voted to join Seven50. Other Indian River agencies remain as participants.

The two-year planning effort, led by a consortium established by the South Florida Regional Planning Council and the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council, is funded by a $4.25 million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The federal agency is encouraging local governments to engage in long-range planning under the sustainability label, which covers a range of strategies to foster development of pedestrian-friendly urban zones that put jobs close to homes and save energy by providing alternatives to auto transportation.

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Apple’s iPhone disappointment fans doubt on growth

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Apple Inc missed Wall Street’s revenue forecast for the third straight quarter after iPhone sales came in below expectations, fanning fears that its dominance of the mobile industry was slipping.

Shares of the world’s largest tech company fell 10 percent to $ 463 in after-hours trade, wiping out some $ 50 billion of its market value – nearly equivalent to that of Hewlett-Packard and Dell, combined.

On Wednesday, Apple said it shipped a record 47.8 million iPhones in the December quarter, up 29 percent from the year-ago period. But that lagged the 50 million that analysts on average had projected.

Expectations heading into the results had been subdued by news of possible production cutbacks by some component suppliers in Asia, triggering fears that demand for the iPhone, which accounts for half of Apple‘s revenue, and the iPad could be slowing.

But many investors clung to hopes for a repeat of years of historical outperformance, analysts said.

“It’s going to call into question Apple‘s dominance in the space. It’s still one of the strong players, the others being Samsung and Google. It’s still a two-horse race, but Android continues to grow rapidly,” said Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu.

“If you step back a bit, it’s clear they shipped a lot of phones. But the problem is the high expectations that investors have. Apple‘s conservative guidance highlights the concerns over production cuts coming out of Asia recently.”

Apple projected revenue of $ 41 billion to $ 43 billion in the current, second fiscal quarter, lagging the average Wall Street forecast of more than $ 45 billion.

Fiscal first quarter revenue rose 18 percent to $ 54.5 billion, below the average analyst estimate of $ 54.73 billion, though earnings per share of $ 13.81 beat the Street forecast of $ 13.47, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Apple also undershot revenue targets in the previous two quarters, and these results will prompt more questions on what Apple has in its product pipeline, and what it can do to attract new sales and maintain its growth trajectory, analysts said.

Net income of $ 13.07 billion was virtually flat with $ 13.06 billion a year earlier on higher manufacturing costs. The year-ago quarter also had an extra week compared to this year.

Gross margins consequently slid to 38.6 percent, from 44.7 percent previously.

“You can’t just keep rolling out iPhones and iPads and think that everybody needs a new one,” said Jeffrey Gundlach, who runs DoubleLine Capital LP, the $ 53 billion bond firm. “The mini? What is that all about? It is a slightly smaller iPad — so what? So that is our new definition of innovation?”

“There are plenty of competitors like Samsung and other legitimate competitors like them,” added Gundlach, one of the highest-profile Apple bears. He maintains a $ 425 price target.

Shares of several of Apple‘s suppliers crumbled. Chip suppliers Skyworks and Cirrus Logic both fell more than 6 percent. Qualcomm Inc slipped 1.8 percent.

CHINA IS NEXT BIG GROWTH DRIVER

Apple shares are down nearly 30 percent from a record high in September, in part on worries that its days of hyper growth are over and its mobile devices are no longer as popular.

Intense competition from Samsung‘s cheaper phones – powered by Google’s Android software – and signs that the premium smartphone market may be close to saturation in developed markets have also caused a lot of investor anxiety.

Meanwhile, sales of the iPad came in at 22.9 million in the fiscal first quarter, roughly in line with forecasts.

On the brighter side, Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer told Reuters that iPhone sales more than doubled in greater China – a region that Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook has vowed to focus on as its next big growth driver.

The company will begin detailing results from that country going forward. Revenue from the region totaled $ 7.3 billion, up 60 percent from the year-ago December quarter.

“These results were OK, but they definitely raised a few questions,” said Shannon Cross, analyst with Cross Research. “Gross margin trajectory looks fine so that’s a positive and cash continues to grow. But I think investors are going to want to know what Apple plans to do with growing cash balance.”

“And other questions are going to be around innovation and where the next products are coming from and what does Tim Cook see in the next 12 to 18 months.”

ADDRESSING PRODUCTION RUMORS

In an unusual move for Apple, which typically does not respond to speculation, Cook addressed the production cutback rumors at length on the conference call and questioned the accuracy of rumors about its plans.

Media reports earlier this month said the company is slashing orders for iPhone 5 and iPad screens and other components from its Asian suppliers.

“Even if a particular data point were factual, it would be impossible to accurately interpret the data point as to what it meant for our overall business, because the supply chain is very complex,” he said, adding that Apple has multiple sources for components.

“Yields might vary. Supplier performance can vary. The beginning inventory positions can vary. There’s just an inordinately long list of things that would make any single data point not a great proxy for what’s going on,” he said.

Apple‘s initial iPhone and iPad mini sales were hurt by supply constraints, but Cook expects supply to balance demand for the iPad mini this quarter. He also acknowledged that iPad was cannibalizing its high-margin Macintosh computers, but said it was a huge opportunity for the company.

“On iPad in particular, we have the mother of all opportunities here, because the Windows market is much, much larger than the Mac market is,” he said. And I think it is clear that it’s already cannibalizing some.”

In another departure from tradition, Apple intends to tweak the way it both reports results and publishes forecasts.

Apart from breaking out results from China, the company also will no longer provide a single revenue or gross margin outlook. From Wednesday, it began providing the range it expects to hit, rather than the often-ludicrously conservative estimates that Apple was once notorious for.

The new policy took many by surprise.

“Before people could always ignore the guidance,” said Dan Niles, Chief Investment Officer of AlphaOne Capital Partners, LLC. “Apple is telling investors that they need to pay attention to the guidance and you can’t ignore it, which is basically what we all did in the past.”

(Additional reporting by Alistair Barr and Alexei Oreskovic in San Francisco and Jennifer Ablan in New York; Editing by Bernard Orr and Edwin Chan)

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Shakira's Boyfriend Gerard Pique Posts First Baby Pic

Shakira and Gerard Pique welcomed their first child, Milan Pique Mebarak, yesterday and he's already jumping into the world with both feet.

RELATED: Extravagant Celebrity Baby Names

"Milan's feet," Pique wrote, captioning a WhoSay photo on Wednesday. In the picture below, the baby is sporting a pair of clean white Nikes with his name on them.

Mother and child were said to be in "excellent health" after the birth yesterday in Barcelona, Spain.

Before going into labor, Shakira tweeted fans, asking that they "accompany [her] in [their] prayers on this very important day of [her] life."

Gerard Pique on WhoSay

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Exit another fighting gen.

Michael A. Walsh

Lost in the inaugural hullabaloo was Tuesday’s news that President Obama has relieved Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis, the colorful and highly decorated Marine who’s been in charge of the crucial US Central Command, which oversees the various wars in the Middle East, since 2010.

Mattis is famous for his blunt style and blistering aphorisms — “be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet” was his clear-headed advice to the Marines he led during the treacherous Iraq War. He’ll retire from both CentCom and the Corps in March, several months short of his expected tour of duty.

ZUMA Press

A rising star — until now: Gen. Mattis greeting a friend while assuming a new command in 2006.

But why? Could it be that, as Obama prepares to cede Afghanistan back to the Taliban, the last thing he needs is an obstreperous general gumming up the surrender?

For an administration whose relationship with the military is, to put it mildly, fraught with tension, Mattis is yet another wall trophy, to go alongside the heads of Gen. Stanley McChrystal (fired in 2010 as the commander of the US forces in Afghanistan) and David Petraeus, who left CentCom to be buried alive at the CIA (and later resigned over the Paula Broadwell sex scandal).

Officially, the administration offers a nothing-to-see-here explanation for Mattis’ departure, noting that his tenure in the crucial job was about average for the post.

Maybe. But politics is at play here as well. The brusque Mattis apparently fell afoul of National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, an Obama apparatchik. Why? Because Mattis says things the Obama team doesn’t want to hear, especially about what might well become the next theater of operations — Iran.

Thinking two or three moves down the line, the hard-line Mattis was known for peppering his civilian superiors with uncomfortable questions: What happens in Iran when and if the nuclear threat is neutralized? What if we have to fight a conventional war with the mullahs? Then what?

The line between frank outspokenness and open insubordination is a narrow one, and under our system, even top-level officers must cede to civilian authority. President Harry Truman famously fired the Army’s top general, Douglas MacArthur, during the Korean War for trying to go over his head to Congress in his quest for total victory on the Korean peninsula.

But officers must be prepared to tell the politicians what they need to hear, not what they want to hear. Choking off discussion to satisfy policy preferences — as the Bush administration arguably did in the runup to the Iraq War — can only lead to disaster.

Similarly, generals should not be politicians. Even after winning World War II, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower agonized about going into politics (for a long time, no one even knew which party he supported), and it’s long been a tradition in certain branches of the armed forces for officers to refrain from voting, lest they become politically invested.

But since the Clinton administration, there’s been a political tug-of-war between the generals and the politicians (think of the fight over gays in the military), which only got worse in the Bush years, when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld openly bullied his commanders in the field, and Gen. Colin Powell traded in his uniform for a politician’s suit.

Things have only gotten worse under Obama. We’ve had a dispiriting merry-go-round when it comes to command in the Afghanistan-Pakistan theater; such instability at the top threatens the hard-won gains of our fighting forces.

And with at least three of our most effective fighting generals now cashiered or forced into retirement, the president is sending a clear message to the rest of the world.

That message is: Sound the retreat.

Have a comment on this PostOpinion column? Send it in to LETTERS@NYPOST.COM!

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Miami Dolphins slam Norman Braman, Marlins Park deal

The Miami Dolphins ramped up their public campaign for a tax-funded stadium renovation this week, buying full-page ads against their top critic and trying to distance the plan from the unpopular Marlins deal.

The team bought an ad in Tuesday’s Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald knocking auto magnate Norman Braman’s criticism of the Sun Life Stadium deal, which would have Florida and Miami-Dade split the costs with owner Stephen Ross for a $400 million renovation. The Dolphins would pay at least $201 million, with taxpayers using state funds and a higher Miami-Dade hotel tax to pay $199 million.

In a fact sheet sent to media Tuesday morning, the Dolphins listed ways their deal differs from the 2009 Marlins deal. First: Ross, a billionaire real estate developer, would use private dollars to fund at least 51 percent of the Sun Life effort, compared to less than 25 percent from Marlins owner Jeff Loria. Second, Sun Life helps the economy more than the Marlins park does.

“Just because the Marlins did a bad deal doesn’t mean we should oppose a good deal where at least a majority of the cost is paid from private sources and more than 4,000 local jobs are created during construction alone,” the fact sheet states. And while the Dolphins’ Miami Gardens stadium has hosted two Super Bowls since 2007 and is in the running for the 2016 game, “Marlins Stadium does not generate the ability to attract world-class sports events -- other than a World Series from time to time depending on the success of the team.”

NFL teams play eight home games a year if they don’t make the playoffs, while baseball teams have 81.

Miami and Miami-Dade built the Marlins a $640 million stadium at the site of the Dolphins’ old home at the Orange Bowl in Little Havana. The Marlins contributed about $120 million and agreed to pay between $2.5 million and $4.9 million a year for 35 years to pay back $35 million of debt the county borrowed for the stadium. As a publicly owned stadium, the Marlins ballpark pays no property taxes. Most of the public money came from Miami-Dade hotel taxes, along with $50 million of debt tied to the county’s general fund.

Sun Life is privately owned and pays $3 million a year in property taxes to Miami-Dade. It currently receives $2 million a year from Florida’ s stadium program, a subsidy tied to converting the football venue to baseball in the 1990s when the Marlins played there. The Dolphins also paid for a second full-page ad with quotes from leading hoteliers in Miami-Dade endorsing the stadium plan. Among them: Donald Trump, whose company recently purchased the Doral golf resort. “Steve Ross’ commitment to modernize Sun Life Stadium -- while covering most of the construction costs -- is the right thing for Miami-Dade,’’ the ad quotes Trump as saying.

Also on Tuesday, Ross and team CEO Mike Dee sent a letter to Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez and county commissioners requesting negotiations over the stadium deal. The letter said the deal Ross unveiled last week is a “baseline for debate” and asked for talks. The letter also urged the commission to adopt a resolution proposed by Commissioner Barbara Jordan endorsing the state bill that would allow taxes for Sun Life. The resolution is on the agenda for Wednesday’s commission meeting.

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Miami police: Fight over child ends in fatal crash

A fatal car crash in Allapattah began, Miami police said Tuesday, as a fight between two women over a child, with one woman grabbing the child and jumping into the speeding vehicle that might have caused the collision.

The night began with a 15-month-old girl, who was living with her father and his girlfriend, neither of whom police identified.

The mother of the child, Mylife Rivera-Vasquez, 20, of Homestead, persuaded the girlfriend on Monday to meet her at Northwest 17th Avenue and 28th Street so she could see her daughter, Miami police said.

As the girlfriend waited in that area with the girl about 8 p.m., Rivera-Vasquez and several other people arrived, police said, and punched the girlfriend several times.

During the melee, Rivera-Vasquez grabbed her daughter and got into a Lincoln Town Car that drove away.

The Town Car sped south on Northwest 21st Avenue, police said, and the girlfriend appeared to have followed in another car.

But as it approached Northwest 20th Street, the Town Car crashed into a Chevrolet Tahoe.

The Tahoe had been westbound on Northwest 20th Street. Police said the Town Car failed to yield the right of way.

Two of the three people in the Town Car — the driver and the 15-month-old — were thrown from the vehicle, police said. All three were taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center.

The driver, Kristofer Daniel Astorga, 22, died shortly after arriving at the hospital, police said.

Rivera-Vasquez and her child, Juliet Rivera, were both in critical condition, police said.

Lt. Ignatius Carroll, spokesman for Miami Fire-Rescue, told Miami Herald news partner WFOR CBS 4 that the little girl hadn’t been secured in a child car seat.

The Tahoe’s driver was in good condition at Jackson, and a passenger in that car was treated at the scene for minor injuries. Neither was identified Tuesday.

On Tuesday, police said Rivera-Vasquez had been charged with two counts of simple battery.

El Nuevo Herald Staff Writer Melissa Sanchez contributed to this report.

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FTC study taking aim at online marketing of booze

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) plans this summer to recommend ways that the alcoholic beverage industry can better protect underage viewers from seeing its advertisements online.

Distillers, brewers and wineries pour millions of dollars into brand promotion on Twitter, Facebook and other social media, and industry critics contend they are not doing enough to prevent young consumers from receiving these messages.

“We’re doing a deep dive on how they’re using the Internet and social media,” said Janet Evans, a lawyer with the FTC, which is conducting a year-long study due to be released by early summer. “We’re focusing on underage exposure.”

She would not elaborate on any potential recommendations that might come out of the study, which began in April 2012.

The FTC is reviewing data from 14 big producers, Evans said, including Beam Inc, the maker of Jim Beam, Diageo Plc, home to Johnnie Walker, and Constellation Brands Inc, which makes Robert Mondavi and Ravenswood wines.

The FTC report “is something we take seriously and place at high priority,” said Karena Breslin, director for digital marketing at Constellation.

The FTC has made two requests for information since the study began, she said.

The regulatory agency has not said it intends to impose restrictions on liquor company social media advertising but it can make recommendations to the industry.

The FTC is empowered to file suit to ensure consumers are protected from deceptive marketing practices, Evans said, but she stressed that studies of this nature are meant to promote better self-regulation, not provide a basis for a case.

Industry executives say alcohol makers and distributors voluntarily adhere to the same industry-set standard for marketing to underage viewers on social media sites that the industry set for its ads on TV and other media. That requires that at least 71.6 percent of an audience consists of adults 21 and older.

“No one in their right mind would want to advertise to people who can’t legally buy their product,” said Frank Coleman, senior vice president for Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS), the trade group that sets the industry’s advertising codes.

Coleman also cited recent data showing the audiences for Facebook and Twitter are skewed heavily towards viewers who are above the legal drinking age.

“According to Nielsen’s latest data, the demographic audience for Facebook is 83.5 percent 21 years and older, and for Twitter it is 85 percent,” Coleman said.

In June 2011, DISCUS revised its code upwards to 71.6 percent from 70 percent, after the FTC recommended it review the standard to better reflect U.S. Census population data.

Industry critics, including David Jernigen, director of the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at Johns Hopkins University, and Sarah Mart, research director of the advocacy group Alcohol Justice, contend the industry didn’t go far enough and should raise the standard further.

Jernigen said it needs to be at least 85 percent to effectively protect youth, so there would be no more than 15 percent exposure to the underage drinking population.

“The industry says its self-regulating but it’s ineffective and social media opens up a whole new set of problems because their ads are everywhere,” said Mart.

Coleman said the group now requires members to install age-checking tools via instant messaging as a gateway to Twitter feeds and other branded Web platforms that ask the user for a birth date before admitting them.

In the first nine months of 2012, beer, wine and spirits manufacturers spent an estimated $ 35 million for paid Web display advertising, but industry executives estimate many millions more were spent on website creation, video production for platforms like Google’s YouTube and social media marketing efforts.

“We’ve significantly adjusted more money to digital for online video, websites, Facebook and Twitter content,” said Kevin George, global chief marketing officer for Jim Beam, which spends 30 percent of its media spend for online outlets, up from 10 percent in 2008, he said.

Many companies are expanding their digital staff. Wine maker Constellation hired Breslin three years ago to initiate digital marketing and now has a team of five reporting to her.

Many alcoholic beverage companies flocked to Facebook because it requires users to post their birth dates when signing up.

Last year Twitter partnered with Buddy Media to offer a screening tool that sends a direct message to fans who click on an alcoholic brand. The message sends the fan a link to a site that asks for date of birth.

Salesforce.com bought Buddy Media last June, which is now folding the platform into its marketing cloud portfolio.

Health advocates and industry critics are crying foul. “Facebook and other interactive platforms are poorly monitored and not well age-protected,” said Jernigen of Johns Hopkins University. “Anyone can say they’re 21 and click yes.”

(Reporting by Susan Zeidler; Editing by Ron Grover, Alden Bentley and Phil Berlowitz)

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