Think local, former U.N. leader Kofi Annan tells Miami forum

In the Ritz-Carlton ballroom in Coconut Grove on Monday, Kofi Annan, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations, addressed a crowd of well-dressed world savers to open the Continuity Forum of the Americas Business Council (abc*). In a speech that touched on the environment, the Arab awakening, democracy in Latin America, the spiraling conflict in Syria, nuclear war and resource scarcity, Annan encouraged attendees to address these and other problems by thinking local.

“People ask me all the time, ‘what should one do to become a global citizen?’ I tell them, get involved with your community, your city, your town, your village,” Annan said.

For abc*, a think tank dedicated to “people, planet and philanthropy” in the Americas, Miami is the center of that community. Smack dab in the middle of the hemisphere, for two years Miami has hosted the annual Continuity Forum that attracts more than 300 people from all over North and South America. Rebecca Mandelman, senior director of the abc* based in Miami Beach, said she has recently seen more and more of these would-be world changers coming to Miami to stay.

“There’s this intellectual thirst in Miami that brings a lot of these forces together,” Mandelman said. Referring to the co-sponsoring organizations — many of them local, like the Knight Foundation, Univision, PODER magazine and technology company Ico Group — she said, “Miami is like the fulcrum, the center for people in our community.”

The three-day conference, which sold tickets in advance, features a full roster of impressive speakers, including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes. But the main focus is the competition between 32 “social entrepreneurs” who will present their projects to be judged by the five chairman of abc* and the foundation’s 23 fellows. The best three projects will receive $100,000 grants, media support and business connections for two years.

“We evaluate them by their potential to make the greatest impact,” said Mario Scarpetta, director of Colombian cement and energy company Inversiones Argos and co-chairman of abc*. To evaluate their effectiveness, he said abc* would review each project’s “strategic business plans and economic models of their impact.”

The projects range from a museum of sacred Peruvian plants and an indigenous tourism agency in Mexico to a Nicaraguan organization dedicated to fighting cancer and a “green roof” sustainable building company. The presentations, videos and question-and-answer sessions took place in English and Spanish, and Mandelman said she hoped the casual conversations between sessions would lead to future ideas and organizations.

Even entrepreneurs whose projects are not chosen for the abc* grant have the opportunity this week to interact with investors and leaders of the industries they seek to influence. Pati Ruiz of Grupo Ecológico Sierra Gorda in Mexico said her alliance of five conservation organizations is already active in central Mexico, but if awarded the grant she would use it to expand to the rest of the country and into South America.

“The strength of our project is that it’s already up and running,” Ruiz said in Spanish after her presentation. “We have the tools to expand and reproduce what we’re doing.”

Although most of the conference attendees were excited about the ideas, some expressed frustration with the lack of avenues for individuals to get involved.

“I think that’s the problem with a lot of these conferences: There are no action items, nothing you can really do if you’re not a big-time donor,” said one attendee who didn’t want to be named because he works for one of the co-sponsors of the conference. “We come, watch, applaud and leave.”

Still, abc* continues to connect some of the most creative innovators in a younger generation to current political and business leaders who have the resources to give their ideas wings, Mandelman said, and the rest of the Continuity Forum promises to help make this happen.

“We believe that collective engagement can advance the Americas,” she said.

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Thieves makes off with $35,000 from Miami restaurant

For the second time in four months, thieves hit a Miami restaurant and made off with thousands of dollars in cash.

Late Sunday night or early Monday morning, crooks broke into the Caribe Café in the 7100 block of West Flagler Street. Miami police said they gained access to the restaurant by breaking into a business next door and then cutting a hole in the wall.

Once inside, they stole a safe which had about $35,000 inside. They also took the DVR system that records the restaurant’s surveillance cameras.

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Die-Hard 'Twilight' Fans Camp Out for Last Premiere

Super-dedicated Twilight fans are currently camped out for tonight's last premiere of the super-successful saga, where stars Peter Facinelli and Jackson Rathbone showed their appreciation Sunday by making appearances for all the "Twihards" that have made the franchise a worldwide phenomenon.

"After four years and five movies, it's more like a family now -- I'm gonna miss these guys not only on-set, but off-camera," Peter tells ET about the estimated 2,000 screaming fans. "All these fans camping out every year -- they really made this franchise what it was. It's a two way street, this relationship. We love them just as much as they love these movies."

Pics: A Look Back at the 'Breaking Dawn' Premiere

"The craziness just keeps escalating," Jackson smiles. "Year after year, we've been showing up to these events and there's just been a lot of screaming, a lot of hollering going on, and people having a good time."

Summit Entertainment organized a "camp" for Twilight fans, where according to Andrea Newkirk, who's been camped out since Thursday, the overall vibe has been fantastic (despite the cold) due to events such as a meet and greet with author Stephenie Meyer as well as screenings of the last four Twilight films.

"We are all here for the same thing -- to be able to sit together and to watch the movies together, it's a lot of fun. It's just a big camp out, that's really what it is," she explains.

Video: Rob, Kristen and Taylor on the End of 'Twilight'

Check out the video for an interview with a rare male Twilight fan camped out with his wife (who he calls "his Bella"), and Jackson Rathbone on the craziest fan request ever.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2's highly anticipated premiere happens tonight at Los Angeles' Nokia Theatre, with the film hitting theaters this Friday.

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Families of Flight 587 victims take up collection for Sandy-battered Rockaways

It’s victims helping victims.

Families that lost loved ones when Flight 587 crashed off the Rockaways 11 years ago are taking up a collection for residents of the battered shore front community still struggling to recover from the devastation of Hurricane Sandy.

The poignant gesture will raise money for those affected by Hurricane Sandy.

Most of those who’ll be donating will be Dominican-Americans of modest means.

But an official of the Committee in Memory of Flight 587 said the contributors aren’t focused on the money.

“We just want to give them something, you understand?” said Belkis Lora, 45, who lost her 44-year-old brother, Jose.

AP

Norberto Terrero, of New York, left, walks towards his grandson Jayden Terrero, 4, of New York, as they pay tribute to Wilton Mendez, whose name is engraved at the Flight 587 Memorial.

“It’s not going to be a lot. We want them to know we are with them.”

The two communities bonded after the doomed American Airlines flight to the Dominican Republic went down after takeoff from Kennedy Airport with 260 people aboard. Five others died on the ground.

Lora said that the memorial to the victims was littered by storm debris and “many people in the community went there and cleaned out the memorial... They are supporting us by keeping up that memorial.”

As he has for each year since taking office, Mayor Bloomberg yesterday officiated at the 11th anniversary memorial service for the victims, five of whom were from the Belle Harbor section of the Rockaways.

But for the first time, the event was held at the Holy Spirit Catholic Church in The Bronx, and not at the memorial site itself.

The mayor alluded to the connection between Flight 587 families and Rockaways residents in his brief remarks..

“Your commitment to stand together is an enduring promise, to support one another every day, every step of the way,” he said.

“Our city is making the same pledge to the families affected by Hurricane Sandy.”

The names of those who died were read one-by-one by selected family members before an audience of about 300. A couple of the readers wept when they came to the name of their own relatives. Within 45 minutes, the ceremony was over.

The mayor left with a red and white flower in his hand, promising it would be delivered to the memorial.

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Self-publishing industry explodes, brings rewards, challenges

The publishing world is being upended, and reinvented, by people like Hugh Howey, Ily Goyanes and Kristy Montee.

They are part of a movement using the power of e-books and the Internet to lead publishing into a new frontier, and through the biggest upheaval of the industry since Guttenberg’s press.

“It’s the Wild West,” Montee said. “It is literally changing at the speed of light.”

Howey is a writer who authored, designed, formatted and self-published all but the very first of his 14 novelettes and stories as e-books — and saw his Wool series of sci-fi stories make the Top 100 Kindle Best Sellers of 2012, above J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy and the four-book bundle of George R. R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones.

Goyanes is one of a new breed of independent publishers filling the void between self-publishing and traditional publishing giants, offering technical, marketing and distribution help for do-it-yourself authors.

Montee is a Fort Lauderdale-based writer better known to her readers — along with her sister and writing partner, Kelly Nichols — as P.J. Parrish, the pseudonymous author of the Louis Kincaid and Joe Frye thriller series. She’s among the new “hybrid authors,” with a foot in both traditional and the self-published worlds.

“For a long, long, long time in our business anything that you published yourself just had a stench of amateurism about it,” she said. “That was just for desperate people who couldn’t make their way through the labyrinth of the New York system, so they resorted to paying pretty much scam artists to publish their books for them at great expense. And then, Amazon came out with the Kindle, which pretty much changed everything.”

With the stigma fading, and Amazon’s help, self-publishing has exploded. On its website, Publishers Weekly last month cited a new analysis of data from Bowker, which shows the number of self-published books produced annually in the U.S. has nearly tripled, growing 287 percent since 2006, with 235,625 print and e-titles released in 2011.

As a “mid-list author” with 13 moderately successful books to her name, Montee felt the pressure when her publisher began trimming its author list to reduce costs.

“So a lot of us, and this includes a lot of my friends,” began looking for ways to survive independently, Montee said. “Amazon made it extremely easy and very attractive to go self-publish through their model.”

She and her sister regained rights to two of their early books to re-publish and have a novella in the works they plan to self-publish.

The advantages, and the profits, can be huge. The downside, of course, would make a Vegas gambler sweat.

“The largest, by far, percentage of authors are making less than $500 a year self-publishing, because there’s a glut,” said M.J. Rose, a best-selling novelist and founder of the writer’s marketing company AuthorBuzz.com. “There’s over 350,000 books being self-published every year and readers are not finding them. There’s just no way to expose people to all of these books.”

Howey, however, who spends mornings writing at his home in Jupiter, might be the perfect example of what “making it” looks like in this thoroughly modern twist on every writer’s dream. He began writing while working at a bookstore, and he received a modest advance when a small press picked up his first novel.

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New allegations surface in case against Jim Greer

TALLAHASSEE --
Allegations of a golf cart filled with prostitutes at a party in the Bahamas surfaced Friday in the criminal case against former Florida GOP Party Chairman Jim Greer.

Delmar Johnson, a former GOP official who is testifying against Greer in return for immunity from prosecution, described the women June 15 as he was questioned under oath by Greer’s lawyer.

Johnson was asked to describe events at a 2009 gathering in the Bahamas, scheduled as a thank you party for men only. Those attending included then-Gov. Charlie Crist, lobbyist Brian Ballard and GOP finance chair Harry Sargeant, among others.

Johnson said he presumed the women were prostitutes but provided no details of what occurred. He also said Greer asked him to introduce him to some airline flight attendants but he declined.

The questions came from Damon Chase, a Lake Mary lawyer who represents Greer on criminal fraud charges brought by a statewide grand jury in 2010. Greer is scheduled to face trial in February.

The Bahamas trip and the women have become a salacious sidelight in the case against Greer as lawyers for some of the men who attended the event battle to keep details of it out of the public eye.

Chase’s questions focused primarily on Victory Strategies, a business Greer established with Johnson to handle party fundraising. Johnson says Greer wanted to be a silent partner and kept his name off of corporate documents. The company is at the heart of the criminal charges against the former chairman.

Johnson said Greer created the company and asked him to become the only named official on company documents. Victory Strategies was to collect 10 percent of all money raised by the party and the two men would divide the profits with Greer collecting 60 percent, Johnson said.

Several witnesses interviewed by investigators say Greer had a number of meetings for men only and refused to allow women to attend unless they were “paid.’’

A Florida Department of Law Enforcement report describing the Bahamas event was declared a public record by Orlando Judge Marc Lubet in July but has remained sealed while lawyers appeal his ruling to the Fifth District Court of Appeal.

The lawyers who are appealing say they are trying to protect “interested persons’’ who could be damaged by the contents of the report. They have refused to identify the clients who hired them.

Ballard and Sargeant have signed affidavits supporting Greer’s version of events surrounding the decision to turn party fundraising over to Victory Strategies.

Crist insists that he did not know Greer would personally benefit from the fundraising contract, but Ballard and Sargeant say the governor knew of Greer’s involvement.

A lawyer for Crist has accused Greer and Chase of possible witness tampering, saying Chase tried to get the former governor to change his testimony or face embarrassing disclosures about his personal life. Crist said Greer and his attorney are “delusional.’’

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Buzzmakers: Brooke's Cancer Fight & World War Z

What had ET readers buzzing this week?

1. It's Brad vs. Zombies in World War Z

Zombie attack!!! Brad Pitt plays a family man and United Nations employee who faces a deadly zombie pandemic in World War Z -- we gave you an exclusive first look and now we've got the intense trailer!

Just when you thought that the zombie genre may be starting to generate less screams and more Zzzz's, World War Z arrives with an adrenaline shot in the arm for the genre -- complete with insane special effects and a claustrophobic urgency and realism not seen since the introduction of those "speed zombies" in 28 Days Later.

Directed by Marc Forster (Quantum of Solace), World War Z invades theaters June 21, 2013.

2. Oprah Reveals Her 2012 'Favorite Things'

It's officially the holiday season!

Oprah just revealed her "Favorite Things" for 2012, which includes such items as a $1,800 Jetson E-Bike, a $192 hand-picked Tom Ford lipstick palette and a $238 Lafco soap set.

"This luxuriously oversize, deliciously scented soap is my new go-to gift. I even brought a set to Mr. and Mrs. Colbert when I interviewed Stephen for Next Chapter," she says about the pricey soap set.

But of course if you don't have the income of Oprah, you can pick up O's December issue to learn how you can win all 49 of Oprah's favorite things, which hits newsstands November 6.

"Oprah's Favorite Things" is also getting its own two-hour, prime time special airing Nov. 18 on OWN. The special will surprise unsuspecting military spouses with items from the media mogul's exclusive must-have gift selections for the holiday season, and for the first time, viewers of Oprah's Favorite Things: 2012 will have the opportunity to watch and win select items featured in each segment of the show.

3. Brooke Burke-Charvet Reveals Cancer Diagnosis

Brooke Burke-Charvet released a video online Thursday to announce that she was recently diagnosed with a cancerous growth on her thyroid gland. In the video posted on her Modern Mom blog, the 41-year-old actress and TV host explained that a nodule was discovered on her thyroid and after a series of tests over the last few months, it was eventually determined to be cancerous and her thyroid will have to be removed.

"Which means that I'm going to have a nice big scar right her across my neck," Brooke said. "And I don't get to just walk around and pretend like nothing happened or not follow up or not share it, because it's going to be pretty much dead center."

Brooke said the discovery -- which originated from a regular physical -- came as a complete shock because she's otherwise healthy. "As crazy as it is, my head is in the right place, and it's going to be good," she said, adding that the doctors consider this a form of "good cancer" compared to many others and the prognosis is good. "I'm just going to make a positive out of this negative thing."

She said the surgery has been scheduled and she promised to keep her fans updated through her blog. "Now I'm ready to deal with it and I'm going to be fine. And I feel really, really strong."

Speaking on Thursday's episode of The Talk, Brooke's co-host on Dancing with the Stars, Tom Bergeron, commented on her cancer diagnosis. "My love and support are with you -- we are all there with her," he said. Bergeron added that he personally has a very positive outlook. "I've known about this for a few months. I have had experience with this in my family. You never want to hear the word cancer. But thyroid cancer is one of the most treatable cancers. It has an incredibly high success rate."

4. Kirstie on Secret Relationship with Swayze

Kirstie Alley reveals to ET's Chris Jacobs intimate details about what she says was a powerful attraction and hidden relationship with her North and South co-star, Patrick Swayze. Although both stars were married during filming of the mini-series, Alley tells Jacobs when she first saw Swayze, they had an intense attraction and she tried to avoid "going down that road," but they ultimately fell in love.

"Both of us were married. We did not have an affair. But again, I think what I did was worse. Because I think when you fall in love with someone when you're married, you jeopardize your own marriage and their marriage. It's doubly bad," said Alley.

Alley goes on to say that although she's friends with Patrick's wife, Lisa Niemi, who asked Alley to speak at Swayze's funeral, she is uncertain if Lisa is aware of their relationship.

5. One Direction & Drew Brees Play Catch - Exclusive

One Direction and Drew Brees teamed up last month to film an adorable Pepsi spot and during Thursday night's episode of The X Factor, the band will not only perform their newest singles, Live While We're Young and Little Things, but also reveal an alternate ending to the ad!

For those who missed the spot, the original ended with Drew Brees sacrificing his last can of Pepsi in order to become an unofficial member of One Direction. But, according to Angelique Krembs, VP Marketing for Pepsi, they also wanted to show fans what would happen if Drew won the last can of Pepsi. "Our latest Live For Now spot has received an enormous amount of buzz and online excitement," Krembs said. "And of course everyone wants to see the boys from 1D suit up in football gear and have some fun."

While you have to wait until Thursday to see the entire surprise ending to Pepsi's Live For Now television commercial, ETonline scored an exclusive sneak peek of One Direction tossing the pigskin around with Brees!

Tune in to The X Factor on November 8 at 8 p.m. to see the alternate ending!

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Queens man dies from injuries sustained in fall at dark apartment building as NYC's Sandy death toll reaches 43

Police say a 77-year-old man who died from injuries sustained in a fall at his darkened apartment building has become the latest victim of Superstorm Sandy.

That raises the city's death toll related to the storm to 43.

Authorities say Albert McSwain died Saturday. He was found Oct. 31 at the bottom of the steps of his building on Rockway Beach Boulevard. The building had no power. He had injuries to his head and was paralyzed from the neck down and was taken to the hospital.

Police say there have been 23 storm-related deaths on Staten Island; 11 in Queens; seven in Brooklyn, and two in Manhattan.

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Gov. Rick Scott may shift stance on health reform law

With the reelection of President Barack Obama, Florida’s Republican leaders are reconsidering their fervent opposition to federal healthcare reform, triggering a discussion that could have huge repercussions for South Florida.

At stake is more than $6 billion in federal funding for Miami-Dade and Broward over the next decade and the possibility of health insurance for a large percentage of the 1.4 million people in the two counties who now lack coverage.

After the defeat of Mitt Romney, who vowed to halt Obama’s healthcare overhaul, the Republican leaders of the Florida House and Senate quickly said the Legislature needed to reexamine the federal act. On Friday evening, Gov. Rick Scott said he agreed there needed to be a discussion.

“Just saying ‘no’ is not an answer,” Scott said in a statement that repeated exactly what Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Destin, the incoming Senate president, told The Miami Herald on Thursday.

“I don’t like this law,” Gaetz also said, “but this is the law, and I believe I have a constitutional obligation to carry it out.” He added that he thinks “there needs to be some adult debate between Republicans and Democrats” on finding ways to make the law work.

Still, Gaetz, Scott and others in the Republican leadership, which controls both the Florida House and Senate, have many criticisms of what both parties now call “Obamacare.” Some are searching for compromises on how it is carried out in the state. What this means for patients and the healthcare industry in Florida — particularly South Florida — remains an enormous question mark.

Time is running short for decisions as the once-distant consequences of the Affordable Care Act are scheduled to kick in during the next 14 months.

The first deadline is Friday. That’s when states must tell Washington whether they plan to set up exchanges — marketplaces where individuals can purchase insurance at discounted group rates and cannot be denied because of pre-existing conditions.

Florida’s political leaders acknowledge they won’t make the deadline. The exchanges are scheduled to start Jan. 1, 2014, and if a state doesn’t set up an exchange, its residents can participate in a federal exchange.

The next provision starts Jan. 1 with an increase in Medicaid fees for primary care physicians. Primary care physicians, who have long complained about low rates for Medicaid, which provides coverage for the poor, are scheduled to be paid at considerably higher Medicare rates — with the feds picking up all of the added cost. But such a pay hike can only happen with the approval of the governor and Legislature, and it’s unclear whether that will happen.

The following year, on Jan. 1, 2014, the biggest changes are slated to start, including a major expansion of people covered by Medicaid. An analysis from the Safety Net Hospital Alliance of Florida shows that if the state doesn’t expand coverage, Florida will lose $27.9 billion in federal funds over 10 years.

That breaks down to a $4.5 billion loss for Miami-Dade during that time, and a $2.3 billion loss for Broward, according to the alliance’s analysis.

Under the law, Washington will pay all Medicaid expansion costs for the first three years, but then the states would have to pay up to 10 percent of the costs in following years — an expense that the Safety Net Alliance calculates will come to $1.7 billion over 10 years in Florida. The expansion could provide coverage to an additional million-plus Floridians. Reform supporters say the expansion would provide cheaper basic care that would help prevent serious illnesses that lead to expensive hospital stays.

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Weather alert: Weekend will be cool and breezy

Cool weather will continue Saturday in South Florida with breezy conditions and low temperatures dipping below 70. Highs will be in the mid-70s.

On Sunday, forecasters expect the start of a warming trend, with highs near 80 and a low of about 70.

Monday will bring more breezes and partly sunny skies, with a high of 79 degrees and a 20 percent chance of rain after 8 a.m.

For up-to-date forecasts and maps, click here.

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