From Annie Hall to Morning Glory, Diane Keaton has fascinated fans for decades with her quirky, wonderful characters. Off screen, the 66-year-old legend elicits her charms with a revolutionary style all her own.
Pics: Worn Out? Stars Step Out in Same Style
Join us as we look back at Diane's best and most iconic looks over the years!
At 7:32 p.m., a lieutenant and three police officers assigned to Transit District 34 were in plainclothes on patrol in two separate cars of a Manhattan-bound ‘N’ train here in Brooklyn. Officers Michael Levay and Lukasz Kozicki observed an individual moving from the second car to the third in violation of transit regulations.
As the train approached the Fort Hamilton Parkway station at 62nd Street, the subject sat down toward the front of the third car. The officers approached, and asked him for identification with the intention of removing him from the train as it came to a stop. The male stood up as if to comply with the officers, and appeared to reach for his wallet.
Paul Martinka
NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly responds after three officers were injured Thursday.
Instead, he pulled a 9-millimeter Taurus handgun from his waistband and opened fire. Officer Kozicki, 32, was struck three times; once in each of his upper thighs and once in the groin.
A witness said that the gunman appeared to notice the officer’s bullet-resistant vest, and, as a result, aimed low before he fired.
Although shot in the lower back protected by his vest, Officer Levay, 27, returned fire, striking his assailant, killing him.
A passenger on the same car sustained a graze wound to the leg during the gun fight.
Fortunately no one else was injured, as passengers ran onto the platform when the gunfire erupted.
An hour earlier in the Bronx, as the Mayor said, at 6:30 p.m., Police Officer Juan Pichardo was working off-duty at his family’s car dealership when two men, one of them armed with a Bryco .380 handgun, entered the location. Two accomplices waited outside in a getaway car.
After the two feigned interest in buying a red Altima that was parked near the dealership office, one of them produced the gun and forced Officer Pichardo and a second dealership employee on to the floor in the small back office. They began to ransack the office, looking for cash and the safe, all the while brandishing the weapon in Officer Pichardo’s face.
A few minutes after the robbery, Officer Pichardo stood up and grabbed the gunman, who fired, striking the officer in the right thigh. Despite being wounded, Officer Pichardo and the other employee wrestled the gunman to the ground and disarmed him. The gunman’s accomplice fled with the two others in the getaway car, a white Impala with Oregon license plates.
Officer Pichardo held the gunman for responding officers, who recognized the gunman as a member of a Bronx robbery crew who they had been looking for. A short distance away, at 183rd Street and Katonah Avenue, police stopped the getaway car and its three occupants, placing them under arrest.
As both of these incidents illustrate, the historic crime reductions that New Yorkers enjoy come at a price. As the Mayor said, a dozen police officers were shot last year. And now three more, in the first three days of the new year. So thank God, that the doctors at Lutheran and Jacobi did their usual work, and all of these officers will recover.
The cranes are coming back to Miami.
The battered construction industry is going higher in the new year after showing strong signs of life in 2012. Will Miami feel more like Manhattan in a few years? It just might.
So far, there has been more talk than action, fewer shovels in the ground than grand announcements. Even so, construction is underway on a dozen new condominiums in Miami-Dade County — something that seemed beyond the realm of possibility not so long ago.
Commercial building is picking up, too, particularly in Miami’s hot new urban core.
The construction sector, which posted 62 consecutive months of job losses in Miami-Dade as of November 2012, is expected to finally begin adding jobs in 2013.
By far the centerpiece project to date is Brickell CityCentre, a $1.05 billion shopping and mixed-use project that broke ground in June 2012 and will span three blocks just west of Brickell Avenue to the south of the Miami River.
The 5-million-square-foot mega-project by developer Swire Properties will include a department store, luxury shops, restaurants, a hotel, office towers and condominiums. It is expected to be connected with bridges and covered walkways and to cement downtown Miami’s emerging image as a trendy place to work, live and play.
In Brickell alone, three new condominium projects already are under construction: Jorge Perez’s Related Group is building Millecento, a 42-story tower with 382 units, and MyBrickell, a smaller project with 28 stories and 192 units shoehorned onto a 0.4-acre site. Newgard Development Group is building BrickellHouse, a 46-story, 374-unit project.
More building, much more, is coming.
“We’re going to see a lot of cranes popping up in the first and second quarter, and a year from now, we’re going to see cranes all over the skyline,” said Tom Murphy Jr., chairman and CEO of Coastal Construction, a large Miami builder that is involved in various projects, from hotels to condominiums. “I believe we as a community — South Florida, especially Miami — will build more in the next 10 years than we did in the last 15.”
Among a long roster of projects, Coastal was tapped by developer DACRA for a major renovation project in the Design District, which in 2012 marked the arrival of luxury fashion retailers such as Cartier, Hermes, Louis Vuitton, Celine, Christian Dior and Prada, adding a new dimension to an area already known for home furnishings and restaurants.
DACRA president and CEO Craig Robins has a broader plan to bring in 40 to 50 luxury brands to the Design District by 2014. The area will have a pedestrian promenade, rooftop gardens and public plazas, in keeping with Miami’s emerging urban scene.
The focus on commercial development in Miami’s urban core, is all about providing more services to cater to the new residents who want everything within walking distance.
Spanish developer Espacio USA will break ground in 2013 on the first phase of a $412 million mixed-use project at 1400 Biscayne Boulevard. Starting with one 103,000-square foot office tower, the project will eventually include retail shops and residential units.
“It’s becoming much more of a New York lifestyle, and we’ll continue to see that,” said Ron Shuffield, president of Esslinger-Wooten-Maxwell Realtors in Coral Gables.
The new year is a great time to look back and consider how blessed you are. I try to do that every day, but often in my life I am overwhelmed at the enormous blessings the Lord has bestowed on me.
No, I didn’t get a great big financial windfall last year. And I walk with a cane, because of painful arthritis in one of my knees. Still, I am blessed. I can still walk.
A few years ago, I was told by two doctors that I was going blind. But today, I can see without eyeglasses. So, every time I pass a patch of flowering weeds along the road, I say a silent "Thank you," to the Lord for allowing me to see His beautiful handiwork. I even get excited when I see my mango tree heavy with new blossoms, signifying a bumper crop (hopefully) of mangoes this season. And when I see a momma bird caring for her young, it brings a smile to my face.
Yes, I have a lot to be thankful for as I go into this new year. And so do you. This is even more evident in a letter I received a few months ago from local gospel recording artist Pat Jackson. She briefly told her touching story of survival and blessings and wanted to know if I wanted to interview her. I did, and still do. However, Jackson’s email doesn’t seem to work and the number she enclosed in her letter was missing one digit.
Jackson said she is a survivor of thyroid cancer. Her story is so touching for this and any time of the year, that I will share with you what she shared with me in her letter.
Jackson, 50, has been plagued with serious health issues nearly all her life, that included multiple cysts, benign tumors, diverticulitis, ruptured intestines, four major surgeries, during one of which she nearly bled to death, survived six car accidents and a stray bullet that came through her sister’s home.
She never knew her biological mother or father and spent her entire childhood as a foster child. "I was very fortunate and was able to live in the same [foster] home until I became an adult," she said.
"But," she added, "Today, I am cancer-free, even though doctors doubted that I would ever be able to speak or sing again. To God be the glory, for allowing me life and a second chance," she wrote. She has an album titled, Lord, I’m Still Standing.
What’s your "I am thankful for another year" story? Tell me in a few words and I may use them in a future column.
Email them to me at: bea.hines@gmail.com, or write to me at: Bea L. Hines, c/o The Miami Herald, 2000 NW 150th Ave., Suite 1105, Pembroke Pines, FL 33028.
‘Jews of Asia and Africa’
If you want to be in the class, "Jews of Asia and Africa," to be offered at the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU, Jan. 9-April 17, you have until Jan. 9, to register.
The class will be taught by FIU research professors Nathan Katz and Tudor Parfitt, and is open to both degree-seeking FIU students and community members interested in taking the class on a auditing basis.
Community members interested in auditing the class may enroll through the Center for the Advancement of Jewish Education at 305-576-4030, ext. 128, or carlaspector@cajemiami.org. The cost is $295. Students seeking credit may enroll in course REL 4312 through FIU.
The 12-week course will look at the Jewish experience beyond Florida, which has been the traditional focus of the museum. The class will also feature guest speakers to include a visiting member of Zimbabwe’s Lemba Jewish community, and will employ different methodologies, from genetic anthropology to participant/observation findings.
For more information, contact Katz at nathan.katz@fiu.edu.
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AP
Relatives of the victims in July's movie theater shooting are offended by an invitation to attend the theater's reopening.
DENVER — Relatives of those killed at a Colorado movie theater rejected an invitation Wednesday to attend its planned reopening, calling it a "disgusting offer" that came at a terrible time — right after the first Christmas without their loved ones.
The parents, grandparents, cousins and widow of nine of the 12 people killed in the July shooting said they were asked to attend an "evening of remembrance" followed by a movie when the Aurora theater reopens on Jan. 17. They released a letter sent to the theater's owner, Cinemark, in which they criticized the Plano, Texas-based company for not previously reaching out to them to offer condolences and refusing to meet with them without lawyers.
"Our family members will never be on this earth with us again and a movie ticket and some token words from people who didn't care enough to reach out to us, nor respond when we reached out to them to talk, is appalling," the letter said.
Cinemark had no immediate comment.
The company announced last month that it would reopen the theater on Jan. 17 and invite people affected by the attack and other guests, a move that Aurora officials said has strong support in the community. Gov. John Hickenlooper plans to attend.
The Aurora Sentinel reported that plans filed with the city call for turning the theater into one of the company's "extreme digital cinema" sites that feature massive screens. It's not clear from the plans whether there will be a memorial to the victims.
The invitation was emailed to families by the Colorado Organization for Victim Assistance, which said the offer was being sent on behalf of Cinemark.
It arrived two days after Christmas as Sandy and Lonnie Phillips, the mother and stepfather of Jessica Ghawi, one of the 12 people killed, were housesitting in Denver.
They had left their home in San Antonio, Texas, on the advice of their grief counselor to avoid being where they typically would have celebrated Christmas with Jessica. Sandy Phillips said they picked Denver on purpose because her daughter, a 24-year-old aspiring sportscaster, had been happy there.
The Phillipses said the invitation could be a public relations ploy to help show the public that some victims or their families are willing to attend the theater reopening.
"It was a killing field. It was a place of carnage and they've not once told us what their plans are for the theater other than that they're reopening it," said Sandy Phillips. She would like the theater where her daughter was killed to be demolished, though she acknowledged that it was unrealistic to expect Cinemark to give up the rest of the building.
The families of some victims have sued Cinemark. The father of the youngest person killed in the shooting, 6-year-old Veronica Moser-Sullivan, is among them. He didn't sign the letter but the girl's grandparents did. The Phillipses have not decided whether they will sue.
Also Wednesday, prosecutors and defense lawyers said they are ready for a crucial hearing next week in which prosecutors will outline their case against James Holmes, who is charged with killing 12 people and wounding 70 during the midnight showing of the Batman movie "The Dark Knight Rises" on July 20.
It starts Monday and is scheduled to run all week. At its conclusion, state District Judge William B. Sylvester will decide if the evidence is sufficient to put Holmes on trial.
The defense could waive the hearing but legal analysts said defense lawyers sometimes go ahead with the hearing to get an idea of how strong the prosecution's case is.
Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and a former federal prosecutor, said preliminary hearings sometimes set the stage for a plea agreement as each side gets to assess the strength of the other.
Holmes is charged with multiple counts of first-degree murder and attempted murder and hasn't been asked to enter a plea yet. His lawyers have said he suffers from mental illness.
Next week's hearing will give the public its first officially sanctioned look at much of the evidence against Holmes.
A judge imposed a gag order shortly after Holmes' arrest barring attorneys and investigators from speaking publicly about the case, and many documents have been sealed.
The University of Colorado, where Holmes was enrolled in a Ph. D. neuroscience program, has also been tight-lipped about the case. Investigators said he began stockpiling firearms and ammunition while taking classes in the spring.
In June, he made threats to a professor and on June 10 filed withdrawal papers after failing a year-end exam, prosecutors said. The next day he saw his school psychiatrist who tried to report him to a campus security committee, according to Holmes' lawyers.
A New York firm bought part of the Macy’s building in downtown Miami and is expected to acquire the rest. The next priority is negotiating a new lease to keep Macy’s as a tenant.
In a deal that could have implications for the future of downtown Miami’s anchor retail tenant, a New York real estate investment firm paid $15.55 million to acquire more than half the property that now houses Macy’s Flagler Street store.
The acquisition by Aetna Realty Group includes the 48,000 square feet of land that was leased to R.W. Burdine in 1917. Until the recent sale, the property was owned by 23 heirs of Richard and Harriet Ashby, who signed the initial 99-year lease with Burdine. The lease expires in 2016.
The Ashby family began taking steps to prepare the property at the intersection of Miami Avenue and Flagler Street for sale nearly four years ago, said Lewis R. Cohen, a GrayRobinson lawyer who represented the Ashby family in the transaction that closed on New Year’s Eve.
Over the years, Macy’s and its predecessor, Burdines, grew the site’s downtown presence well beyond the Ashby land, and the current building now extends another 30,000 square feet of land. Aetna has also made a commitment to purchase the remaining portion of the building, that is currently owned by Macy’s, Cohen said. But that deal hasn’t closed yet.
“That deal is a sure thing,” Cohen said. “They could not have closed with us without having an agreement with Macy’s completely nailed down.”
When Macy’s decided not to purchase the Ashby land itself, the owners soughta third-party that could control both pieces. The reason: Improvements made to the store over the years straddled both properties, such as elevators and escalators starting on one parcel and ending on another.
“Between the engineering difficulties of severing the properties and the legal issues involved, it would have been somewhere between extremely expensive and impossible” for different entities to share control, Cohen said.
Aetna was one of three bidders interested in the site, Cohen said. One of the other players was the Barlington Group, a Miami developer that in 2011 signed a deal with Macy’s to sub-lease 20,000 square feet of empty ground-floor space for a mix of restaurants and cafes.
Macy’s spokesman Jim Sluzewski said this transaction doesn’t impact Macy’s current lease. He declined to comment on any other pending transaction regarding the property the retailer owns in downtown Miami.
“It’s business as usual,” said Sluzewski, who also would not discuss Macy’s long-term plans for downtown Miami beyond the expiration of its lease. The company’s roots in downtown Miami date to 1898, when the first Burdines opened in a nearby downtown location.
Aetna and its local attorneys did not respond to calls Wednesday for comments.
But Cohen said Macy’s is in the process of finalizing a short-term deal with the new owners.
“They intend to stay for at least the foreseeable future,” Cohen said. “For a minimum of five years they’ll be there and possibly longer.”
Downtown scene
Macy’s long-term future on Flagler Street has been in doubt since 2007, when Macy’s Florida then-Chairwoman Julie Greiner took city leaders to task for the deplorable conditions in downtown and threatened that the retailer might leave.
A stray bullet fired into the air just after midnight on New Year’s Eve struck a man as he celebrated at a party in Miami, according to police.
The bullet grazed the man’s upper left shoulder. Paramedics treated him outside the Allapattah home at Northwest 25th Avenue and 32nd Street. The man, who was not identified, wasn’t taken to a hospital.
Miami police spokesman Detective Willie Moreno confirmed that the victim was struck by a stray bullet.
Homeowner Randy Ruiz said the injured man was a friend of a friend who was visiting his home on New Year’s Eve.
“We had a lot of friends and family in my yard, and fireworks were being fired off,” Ruiz said. “Just after midnight, one of the guests complained of blood on his shirt. So we quickly ran over to see what was going on and saw there was blood on his left arm.”
Neighbor Barbara Jimeno, who has three grandchildren between the ages of one and four, said she was alarmed by what happened.
“It could happen to me or my grandchildren, who live around the block,” she said.
The injury followed a series of warnings from the Miami mayor, Miami police and activists about the dangers of firing bullets into the air on New Years Eve.
Taylor Swift and Harry Styles had equally amazing 2012's, and they kissed good-bye to the preceding 365 days together in Times Square last night.
After singing on ABC's New Year's Rocking Eve, Swift and Styles braved the crowds to watch the ball drop. And to the hordes of fans who'd gathered to count down to midnight, "Haylor's" ensuing smooch ended up being more captivating than all the twinkling lights in the sky.
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