Nebraska Lieutenant Governor Sheehy resigns over phone scandal

(Reuters) – Nebraska Lieutenant Governor Rick Sheehy, the leading candidate to replace the current governor in the next election, resigned on Saturday after a newspaper investigation raised questions about improper cell phone calls made to women.

The Omaha World-Herald investigation found that the 53-year-old Republican made about 2,000 late-night calls to four women, other than his wife, on his state-issued cell phone over four years. The newspaper plans to publish results of the investigation on Sunday.

Colleen Sheehy, his wife of 28 years, filed for divorce in July 2012, according to the newspaper.

Governor Dave Heineman announced the resignation of Sheehy, a rising star in state politics, at a news conference. The governor said he was “deeply disappointed” and that Sheehy had done good work, but “trust was broken.”

“Public officials are rightly held to a higher standard,” Heineman said at the news conference, provided on the Omaha World-Herald website.

Heineman will leave office in 2015 and Sheehy had announced that he would run for governor. He was considered a leading candidate. Heineman selected Sheehy as lieutenant governor in 2005 after moving into the governor’s office to replace Mike Johanns, who was tapped as U.S. agriculture secretary.

Heineman and Sheehy were elected to their first full term in 2006 and re-elected to a second term in 2010.

(Reporting by Mary Wisniewski; editing by Gunna Dickson)

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Buzzmakers: SAG Winners Pics and Nicole Kidman Explains Jimmy Kimmel Lap Dance

What had ET readers buzzing this week?

1. PICS: SAG Winners with their Statues!

Some of Hollywood's biggest stars gathered Sunday night to honor acting achievements at the 2013 Screen Actors Guild Awards. Anne Hathaway -- winner of the award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role for Les Misérables -- kicks off our gallery of the stars accepting their handsome statuettes!

Click here for all the pics!

2. Nicole Kidman on Her Lap Dance for Jimmy Kimmel

Nicole Kidman raised eyebrows during Matt Damon's Jimmy Kimmel Live! takeover when she greeted Kimmel -- who was strapped to a chair -- with a lap dance. On the SAG Awards red carpet, the Oscar winner explained the move to Nancy O'Dell.

Kidman described the dance as "impromptu," saying that she was just following the lead of another one of the night's guests.

"Robin Williams had done it before, so I thought, 'Well, why not?'" Kidman explained.

For years Kimmel has had a running joke where he ends every episode by apologizing to Matt Damon for running out of time for him. On last week's special episode of the late-night show -- nine years in the making -- Damon recruited some friends (which included Andy Garcia, Sheryl Crow, Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez, Robert DeNiro, Sarah Silverman, Demi Moore and Oprah Winfrey.

3. Top-Earning 'American Idol' Alums

American Idol is in the business of making music stars, and in turn, has made lots of money for some of their contestants. Forbes released their list of the top-earning Idol alums of 2012 a few names on this list are sure to surprise you.

Click here for the entire list!

4. Jennifer Lawrence Suffers Wardrobe Malfunction

It seemed like disaster for Jennifer Lawrence when her dress came apart just as she was called up to accept the award for Best Actress during the 2013 SAG Awards.

The Silver Linings Playbook star's apparent wardrobe malfunction caught the eye of both Marion Cotillard and Nicole Kidman, whose reaction to the getup coming apart at the seams was caught on camera. No disaster, here, though -- it turns out the dress was designed that way! A source close to designer Dior told ET that the dress did not rip -- that it was made with different layers of tulle and satin.

This minor outfit hitch comes after it was announced that Lawrence, 22, has walking pneumonia, making this one of the best and worst weeks for the award-winning actress.

5. Kris Jenner Lands Talk Show

Are you ready for a daily dose of Kris Jenner?

The TV personality will test the talk show waters this summer when Fox premieres a preview episode of Kris, a one-hour entertainment talk show. "This is something I have wanted to do all my life so it's definitely a dream come true," Jenner said in a statement! "I can't wait for this new adventure to begin and look forward to working alongside Twentieth Television and the Fox Television Stations."

Kris will be rolled out in a similar fashion to how Bethenny Frankel's talk show was last summer, with the network testing the waters to see if there's an audience appetite for more of this famous family. According to a press release, the show will "offer daytime viewers a daily jolt of celebrity guests, fashion & beauty trends; plus a mix of lifestyle topics -- all through the distinctive and unpredictable perspective of Kris Jenner. Filmed in Los Angeles, CA, the pop culture driven talk show will bring a cool blast of fun and high energy to summer television."

The trial run of Kris will launch this summer, with the program available on select Fox-owned stations in markets, including New York and Los Angeles.

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America's hunger games

For all the talk about our slow climb out of the worst recession since the Great Depression, this past week brought some alarming news: The unemployment rate climbed to 7.9 percent, and in the fourth quarter of 2012 the US economy shrunk again.

Most distressing is the years-long trend that shows no sign of reversing: The middle class is disappearing. A 2012 study by economists at Duke University and the University of British Columbia found that nine out of every 10 jobs lost during the recession were mid-level and mid-paying — positions often eliminated due to technology.

Contestants on “The Job” beg for work at The Palm. Ryan is in the middle, Jann second from right.

Of the 3.5 million jobs that have been added since June 2009 — the official end of the Great Recession — only 2% were middle-class positions. By contrast, 70% of jobs added were in low-paying sectors and 28% were in high-level ones.

“The jobs that are going away,” MIT’s Andrew McAfee has said, “aren’t coming back.”

Into this tragic, intractable economy comes a new CBS reality show called “The Job.” Premiering Friday, it’s billed as a feel-good program, a show that seeks to match middle-class job seekers of varying desperation with some of America’s most prestigious corporations.

But for all of the exploitations reality TV has to offer — from on-camera sex to drunken hillbillies — “The Job” may be the most offensive in television history.

We live in a time when a having a middle-class job has mutated from the American Dream to a luxury, when even those lucky enough to still have one live in perpetual fear that they’ll be fired next.

“The Job” turns this massive human toll into spectacle, dangling the prospect of an unspecified mid-level position in front of desperate contestants, who degrade themselves by telling their most pathetic personal histories in the paradoxical quest to regain some dignity.

Yet its creators believe they are doing middle-class America a great service.

“I’ve grown very tired of reality TV that is exploitative,” says Michael Davies, co-producer of “The Job.” “Yes, I’ve got to deliver an hour of entertainment, no doubt. But I don’t think this is gladiatorial.”

As much as the reality TV genre reflects — and contributes to — an intractable chipping-away of our national character, it’s usually easy to consign most shows to the bin of frivolity: sozzled, emotionally stunted housewives with status anxiety; proudly uneducated young adults aggressively making poor life decisions; weekend warriors willing to ingest bugs and risk tropical diseases in pursuit of money and fame; the aspirant looking to become America’s next top pop singer, designer, model, chef, comic, etc.

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

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Healthcare experts see bumpy road ahead: “Shift happens”

The healthcare industry in South Florida, like the rest of the country, faces huge challenges in the year ahead as major federal reforms kick in, experts told about 700 people at a University of Miami conference on Friday.

“We are at a critical time in health policy,” said Mark McClellan, former head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. “There are going to be some bumps along the way,” especially starting in 11 months, when the biggest changes in the Affordable Care Act kick in.

“Bumps may be understating what we may go through,” said Patrick Geraghty, chief executive of Florida Blue, the state’s largest health insurer.

They spoke at the conference on the Business of Healthcare Post-Election. The speakers accepted the federal reforms — often referred to as Obamacare — as not only inevitable but necessary. As Tom Daschele, a former Democratic U.S. senator from South Dakota, put it, “having 50 million uninsured is just unacceptable.”

But the reform act, signed into law in 2010, contains more than 2,000 pages, plus thousands of pages more of enabling regulations — details that will have major, and perhaps unexpected, impacts on the healthcare industry, which now makes up almost 20 percent of the nation’s economy.

In October, insurance exchanges will open for enrollment — groups that will allow individuals and small businesses to purchase policies with no exclusions for pre-existing conditions. Starting next January, virtually everyone will be required to have insurance, Medicaid will expand in many states, and businesses with more than 50 full-time equivalent employees will be required to provide insurance or pay fines.

“Jan. 1 is a very significant date,” said Steven Ullmann, director of health policy at the UM business school. He called reforms “a process” that will change over time.

“The one thing we know is that healthcare reform will be reformed,” said Chris Jennings, a Washington health policy advisor for the Clinton administration and three senators.

Karen Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, the insurers’ trade group, said she had strong ideas about tweaks that could minimize disruption. One arcane, but crucial provision of the law requires that an older person’s policy can be no more than three times as expensive as a young person’s.

The provision will mean huge increases in the policies of younger persons, to pay for the much higher costs of their elders. Insurers are asking for that policy to be postponed for two years, retaining the present maximum spread of about five to one, so that younger people could sign up for insurance without huge sticker shock.

For example, if a 25-year-old now pays $100 and a 60-year-old pays $500, the new rule would hike the younger person’s premium to $150 and cut the older person’s premium to $550 — a 50 percent increase for one and a 10 percent decrease for the other.

The thinking of lawmakers was that by lowering ratio, the costs of healthcare would be spread out and shared more equally by the population.

Anne Phelps, a healthcare principal with Ernst & Young, said she favored another change in the law, which now requires that next year a company with the equivalent of 50 employees to provide insurance for anyone working more than 30 hours a week or pay a fine. She thought the threshold should be raised to 32 or 34 hours.

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At University of Miami, Justice Sonia Sotomayor gets real

From her days as a young girl in the Bronx being raised by her mother after the death of her father to becoming the first Hispanic on the highest judicial body in the country, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor told the story of her journey before a captivated audience at the University of Miami on Friday night.

Sotomayor spoke with University of Miami President Donna E. Shalala at the BankUnited Center to University of Miami students, Coral Gables residents and perhaps a future Supreme Court justice about the inspiration behind her recently published memoir My Beloved World.

“Love and passion, that is the only way you do something well,” Sotomayor said. “Do a few things, but do them well.”

Sotomayor, 58, spoke of the many things that inspired her to share her story with the world, one of which was in responses to questions she hadn’t expected during her confirmation process, such as how children cope when a parent dies, especially if they don’t have a mother like hers.

“I began to understand that I couldn’t talk to every child in the country,” Sotomayor said. “I could give them the answers in a book.”

One child she did embrace and speak with on Friday evening was a young girl in the audience named Madeline. Madeline, who was introduced by Shalala, and Sotomayor turned out to have one thing in common: a love for Nancy Drew.

Sotomayor credits the lessons she learned from the fictional tales of a young girl detective as one of the motivations for her successful career.

“When she [Nancy Drew] was trying to solve people’s problems,” Sotomayor told Madeline, “she was trying to help people.”

“I think too many young lawyers forget that the law is the noblest profession you can enter,” Sotomayor said. “What you do is helping people.”

When asked what other profession she would have ever considered going into, Sotomayor said there was not one. “This fish found her pond, and she ain’t changing it,” Sotomayor said.

Shalala questioned Sotomayor about her life as a diabetic, which her memoir speaks of at great length.

“If you have diabetes and want to live a full life, you figure out how to have both things,” Sotomayor said.

She was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes at 8 and she credits living with the chronic illness with teaching her discipline. “Every moment of every day I am self-monitoring inside,” Sotomayor said.

That constant discipline, she said, teaches you to do things like monitoring diet, something she feels everybody should do.

With many students in the audience, she was asked about her scariest experience in law school.

“Being there,” Sotomayor chuckled. “If you think you are smart in college, you realize how dumb you are.”

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BlackBerry chooses more traditional route to drum up buzz over Super Bowl ad

TORONTO – After a week of massive hype for its new smartphones, BlackBerry has decided to remain secretive about its Super Bowl commercial in an effort to squeeze every bit of juice out of the pricey advertising campaign.

The Waterloo, Ont.-based company, formerly known as Research In Motion (TSX:RIM), released a single frame of the 30-second TV spot on Friday, without any explanation of what it was, or what it meant.

The move goes against the trend of unleashing Super Bowl ads on the Internet ahead of the big game in an effort to generate extra hype.

This year, smartphone competitor Samsung chose to release its commercial starring comedians Seth Rogan and Paul Rudd on Thursday. Other major companies like Mercedes and Coke have also put their ads online.

Recent statistics have shown that advertisers gain more traction from their Super Bowl TV spots if they’re released online before the event, which takes place on Sunday.

Last year, the Super Bowl ads uploaded to YouTube before the game were viewed 600 per cent more times, an average of 9.1 million views, compared to the ones that were put online after the game, according to the streaming video service owned by Google.

Going against the trend, the BlackBerry maker will keep smartphone users guessing about what their advertisement is about and who it might feature. Certainly the company’s publicity team carefully chose which frame to release as its sneak preview.

The frame shows an early 1980s Honda Accord is parked alongside a meter. Behind it, there’s a colourful explosion of powder in front of stairs leading up to apartment No. 437.

The clues would suggest harkening back to the birth of the IBM personal computer, introduced to the market in 1981 using the coding 437 as its original character set, or more simply, the appearance of its font on screen.

It may be a clue because BlackBerry chief executive Thorsten Heins has touted the launch of the new smartphones this week as a new era in mobile computing because the devices have nearly the same amount of processing power as a personal computer.

All of that won’t be proven true or false until the game on Sunday evening where the BlackBerry ad will air sometime after the third quarter, the company said.

The Super Bowl is the most-watched television event of the year, drawing 111.3 million U.S. viewers in 2012.

In Canada, last year’s broadcast drew a record 8.1 million viewers.

The event is also the most expensive event for advertisers, costing an average of $ 3.4 million for a 30-second spot on NBC last year, according to ratings firm Nielsen.

This year, estimates for how much CBS is charging for a 30-second spot vary wildly from between $ 3.6 million to $ 4 million. CTV declined to say how much it charges for Canadian airtime.

Also slated in the Super Bowl commercial lineup are advertisements from the Bank of Montreal (TSX:BMO), with different versions airing on both sides of the border.

In the U.S., the company has purchased airtime in the midwest where its banks have a strong presence under the BMO Harris Bank brand. In the commercial, dubbed “Dream Home,” a young couple ponders the possibilities of buying a home, before they’re surprised when a real estate agent throws up a “For Sale” sign right in front of them.

BMO has also bought airtime in Canada, though it will be showing a commercial that has already aired during prime time.

Last year, a Harris-Decima Canadian Press poll found that more Canadians planned to watch the Super Bowl ads than the football game itself.

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Brandi Glanville Talks Plastic Surgery and Says She's Done Talking About Eddie Cibrian and LeAnn Rimes

Brandi Glanville's new tell-all, Drinking and Tweeting: And Other Brandi Blunders, is chock-full of juicy stories about her ex husband Eddie Cibrian, but The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star says that after promotion wraps on the book, she will no longer speak out about the actor and his wife LeAnn Rimes.

Pics: LeAnn Rimes Defends Self with Teeny Weeny Bikini Photos

"As soon the book tour is over, I'm done. I'm not gonna be talking about them publicly," vows Brandi of the topic that has gotten her into a bit of trouble in the past. "I won't be answering questions about them publicly, this is my final chapter. This is all my side of the story is in the book and then I'm done."

As Brandi's book tour has yet to conclude, Eddie is still fair game.

In Drinking and Tweeting, out February 12, Brandi reveals that she took revenge on her ex by sticking him with a $12,000 credit card bill for vaginal rejuvenation surgery after finding out about his extra-marital affair with LeAnn.

Related: LeAnn Rimes On Twitter War with Brandi Glanville

Now swearing off invasive surgeries, Brandi has found more inventive ways to look young. Instead, the RHOBH star has opted for a visit to Beverly Hills dermatologist Dr. Simon Ourian to get cosmetic fillers injected into her hands, which she says are starting to look "old."

Watch the video to follow Brandi during the procedure!

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9-year-old falls three stories in Bronx

A nine year-old child fell three stories from an apartment window on Featherbed Lane and Nelson Avenue at 6:30 p.m., cops said.

"He was laying on the floor without a t-shirt on. He wasn't moving but he was crying for his mommy. He was crying 'mommy! mommy!' He was bleeding from the chest and he was almost naked,” Wanda Simonetti,59, a neighbor on the second floor said.

The boy who lives with his mom, grandparents and two year-old sister, is known to run rampant around the building, a neighbor said.

"Sometimes they see him on the roof. He has no supervision. The mom was at work and nobody watches the kid. His grandparents are too old. He's always running around,” a concerned second floor resident, Gina Ortiz said.

The young boy suffered an arm injury and other possible trauma but is expected to survive, EMS officials said.

It wasn’t immediately clear if the child was pushed, fell or jumped out the window, cops said.

The investigation is ongoing, cops said.

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Mompreneur jumps into the ‘Shark Tank’

It all started with a 4 a.m. email nearly a year ago: “Do you think a baby bib could change the world? I do...”

Then Susie Taylor included a link to her website, bibbitec.com, and off it went to Shark Tank, the popular ABC television show where entrepreneurs pitch their companies to investors on the show — and by extension, 7 million viewers.

Four months later, as the “mompreneur” was leaving her Biscayne Park home to pick up her kids from school, she got a call from the show asking her to pitch on the spot. Driving with her phone on her shoulder, she told the Bibbitec story.

Shark Tank bit. After a few more back and forths, her segment was filmed last summer.

Friday night, Taylor is scheduled to be on the show pitching Bibbitec’s main product, “The Ultimate Bib,” a patented generously sized, stain-resistant and fast-drying child’s bib made in the USA — Hialeah, to be exact. Bibbitec’s $30 bib can be a burp cloth, changing pad, breast feeding shield, full body bib, place mat, art smock and more, Taylor says.

We won’t be getting any details on what happens Friday night when she and her husband, Stephen Taylor, get into the tank with Daymond John, Mark Cuban and the other celebrity sharks; Taylor has been contractually sworn to secrecy. But whatever the outcome, she believes it will be worth it for the marketing pop.

Taylor was inspired to create her bib after a long and very messy plane ride with her two young sons and started Bibbitec in 2008. She and her team — her husband is CFO, her sister, Heather McCabe, handles sales and marketing, her uncle, Richard Page, is in charge of production, and her aunt, Marcia Kreitman, advises on design — have expanded the line to include The Ultimate Smock for older children and the Ultimate Mini for babies. Coming soon: a smock for adults.

Taylor already got a taste of what a national TV show appearance can do for sales. In September, Bibbitec’s sales jumped 40 percent after she was on an ABC World News "Made in America" segment. “Within 30 seconds, we started getting sales from all over the country and they didn’t even mention our name on the air,” Taylor says. She said that confirmed her belief that a Shark Tank appearance would be worth it.

Plus, Taylor has been hooked on Shark Tank since the first time she watched it in 2008 as she was developing her product. Trained in theater, she admits she didn’t know much about business and learned from the show. She would practice how she would answer the questions.

“I’m all about empowering women who are sitting on the couch watching, because that’s what I was four years ago,” says Taylor. “All I wanted to do was to be on Shark Tank because I believed if I got on Shark Tank the world will see what I am trying to do and that’s all I need. I know it’s a great product.”

Will that theater training come in handy Friday night? Stay tuned. Shark Tank airs at 9 p.m. on ABC and Taylor hopes viewers will join in on Twitter using the hashtag #sharkbib.

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Under fire, Miami-Dade nursing home closing its pediatric unit

A Miami Gardens nursing home linked to the deaths of two youngsters is closing its 60-bed children’s unit, the epicenter of a bitter dispute over Florida’s system of care for profoundly sick and disabled children.

About a week ago, Golden Glades Nursing & Rehabilitation Center informed state health administrators of its plan to shut down the harshly criticized pediatric unit. The facility was housing about 30 children late last year, although the number had since dropped to 19, said Lori Weems, a lawyer for Golden Glades’ owners.

“We have been aware of the facility’s plan to close the pediatric wing for a few weeks. Various staff from the agency have been assisting them and our nurse care coordinators are working with families,” said Michelle Dahnke, spokeswoman for the state’s Agency for Health Care Administration (ACHA). “Ultimately the transition location for the child will be determined by the parent and we want to ensure they are fully informed.”

Florida’s decision to house hundreds of profoundly disabled children in institutions designed for elders has drawn fire of late, both from children’s advocates and the U.S. Justice Department, which has accused the state of cutting in-home care for frail children so deeply that parents often have no choice but to institutionalize their loved ones.

Golden Glades is one of six nursing homes in the state licensed to care for children. Its problems, highlighted in a series of Miami Herald stories, included two deaths and a series of state and federal fines totaling over $300,000.

The home, which changed ownership last June, has sought to streamline the transfer of children by donating a special bed with protective netting to the family of one child, allowing the boy to return home to his parents. The child, who suffered from frequent spasms and movements, requires the netting to prevent him from falling out of bed or injuring himself against metal railing.

“That child,” Weems said, “is getting to go home.”

The nursing home also is “raising private funds to construct a wheelchair ramp” — which was, like the special bed, not covered by Medicaid — “so that a wheelchair-bound child whose parents very much want to care for him can go home,” Weems said. Medicaid is the state’s insurer for needy and disabled people.

For several days, Weems said, social workers and administrators at the home have been working with ACHA to provide options to the parents or other caregivers of the children who had been living there. They arranged tours of group homes, medical foster homes and other nursing homes, and offered to help find services for families that wanted to bring their children home.

The state Department of Children & Families had several foster kids who were living at the nursing home, said Joe Follick, a spokesman for the agency. As of Monday, three of the DCF kids remained at Golden Glades; one was moved to a medical foster home Wednesday, another is scheduled to move to a medical foster home “shortly,” and a third will be moved under the oversight of a sister department, the Agency for Persons with Disabilities.

“We have been diligently working to find a different home for them, and every child in a skilled nursing facility,” Follick said.

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