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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Steam for Linux Launches Its Beta; 60,000 Sign Up in First Week
















The creators of Portal, Team Fortress 2, and a ton of other AAA titles announced a few months ago that they were planning to bring their Steam digital distribution service to Linux. It’s basically an app store just for games, and it’s one of the most popular places to buy games for PC or Mac. Now the first wave of outside beta testers has been accepted, and gamers are buying and playing Steam games — including Valve’s — on Linux.


Buy why Linux?













Gabe Newell, Steam’s co-founder, isn’t optimistic about Steam’s future on Microsoft’s new version of Windows, Windows 8. In an interview with VentureBeat, he called it “a catastrophe for everyone” who works with PCs, and said that “margins are going to be destroyed” and they should “have alternatives to hedge against that.”


Why is Windows 8 a “catastrophe?”


From Newell’s perspective, one big reason is probably the new Windows Store. Both Windows 8 and OS X (on Macs) now have built-in app stores, which threaten to make Steam redundant. That’s because you have to go out of your way to install Steam and buy games from them, whereas on Windows 8 and OS X you can just click a button to buy from their stores.


Isn’t Valve unlikely to sell many games on Linux?


You’d think! Linux has always been pretty obscure, and there haven’t been comparatively many brand-name games or apps made for it.


A Linux OS called Ubuntu, however, has made it a lot more attractive to developers, by making Linux more popular and easier to use. Since then, the Humble Indie Bundle made pretty much all of its games run on Linux, and its publicly available sales figures show that a big chunk of its profits come from Linux gamers.


Newell said in the interview that “we’re trying to make sure that Linux thrives.” Valve is staking its reputation on helping make Linux a world-class gaming platform, and it’s been at this for longer than most people probably realize.


How many people would actually use Steam on Linux, though?


Well, as of right now more than 60,000 people have signed up to test out the beta. Not all of them have been accepted yet, but in true Linux fashion some of the ones who haven’t been accepted have figured out how to get in anyway (which may or may not violate Valve’s terms of service).


But what games are there? Aren’t they all Mac and Windows games?


A lot of the games on Steam already have Linux versions, thanks to the Humble Indie Bundle (which gives out Steam keys for all of its games). Meanwhile, Valve’s been working behind the scenes for awhile now to bring the Source engine, which powers many of its games, to Linux. There’s already an official Linux version of Team Fortress 2, Valve’s free-to-play multiplayer first-person shooter, and there are 25 titles in all which are supported for the Linux beta right now.


More games will almost definitely be available soon, as the title Valve’s internal testers were using to work out the bugs in the Steam client — Left 4 Dead 2 — hasn’t appeared in their Linux store yet. And, for the record? It ran faster on Linux than on Windows 7.


Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.


Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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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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Pepper-spray attack on bus driver, latest assault on MTA worker








Robert Miller


A nutjob doused the inside of this bus with pepper spray in Harlem, in an apparently random attack that sickened the driver and six passengers.



A maniac doused a city bus driver and several passengers with what is believed to be pepper spray in Harlem today, in the latest of a string of seemingly unprovoked attacks MTA employees, police said.

The female driver and three passengers were so sickened by the 1:30 p.m. attack at 125th Street and Lexington Avenue that they had to be treated at a hospital, cops said.

Police say a Hispanic man in his 30s walking outside the bus approached the vehicle as it was stopped on 125th Street, then sprayed the driver through an open window, apparently at random.




The driver and six passengers in all were sickened, but three passengers were treated on scene and refused a trip to the hospital. The driver and three other passengers were taken to Mount Sinai Hospital for skin and eye irritation, and difficulty breathing.

Today's pepper-spray attack comes on the heels of several random assaults on city bus drivers, including a terrifying syringe stabbing in Brooklyn on Sept. 24.

In that case, driver Mark Salandy was stabbed from behind by a deranged passenger who had snuck on board without paying.

The alleged stabber, Shelwyn Patt, 53, is charged with attempted murder and assault. He is free on $7,500 bail, but is barred from riding any city buses,

Salandy, the driver, fears the needle contained HIV — but he won't find out whether he's been infected for about a year.

Robert Miller


Fire Department personnel tend to stricken passengers after the bizarre attack.












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Terra Group plans single-family development in Doral with modern architecture




















Terra Group expects to break ground soon on a major mixed-use development in Doral, including 300 single-family homes and a grocery-anchored shopping center.

Separately, the Miami developer said it recently acquired four parcels on the edge of Miami’s Midtown/Design District near 36th Street and Biscayne Boulevard through Terra Skylar Investments, a new venture formed with partners Avra Jain and Joseph Del Vecchio, giving it a foothold in a rapidly emerging hotspot.

The Doral Commons project — which will span more than 90 acres between Northwest 97th Avenue and Northwest 107th Avenue on the north side of 74th Street — will be the first project to break with the Mediterranean-style architecture for which the city is known.





“We’re going to be doing modern architecture for the first time in the city of Doral. We plan to have clean lines with a lot of glass. It will be very interesting architecture,” said David Martin, Terra’s president and chief operating officer.

The 3,000- to 4,000-square-foot homes planned for two gated communities will start in the $600,000s, with larger homes in the $1 million range.

Pascual, Perez, Kiliddjian & Associates will be the architect for the Doral project, Martin said.

Terra closed on the purchase of the Doral land from Flagler Development about two weeks ago.

Terra currently has three residential projects under way in Doral: Doral Cay, Vintage and Las Ramblas.

“The problem with Doral is the scarcity of land,” Martin said. “This is our last opportunity to develop something in Doral, and we want to do something design driven.”

He said the homes will feature more garage, storage and closet space than the standard fare.

On the retail side, the Doral project will include a 150,000-square-foot neighborhood shopping center featuring a supermarket and other retail, such as food and beverage, fashion along with some space for banks, Terra said. Courtelis Co. will handle leasing.

Meanwhile near the Midtown/Design District neighborhood, which is in the midst of major development plans, Terra Skylar acquired a 50,000-square-foot office building at 3550 Biscayne Boulevard and several nearby parcels.

For now, Martin said the plan is to maintain the office building with its current tenants. Metro One is handling the leasing. Plans for the undeveloped lots are still in the making but will probably include residential, retail or hospitality, Martin said.

“It’s really a key piece of that neighborhood,” said Martin, who described the area as “where Miami’s creative class of tomorrow wants to live, work and play.”





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Florida elections chief: 'We could have done better'




















Gov. Rick Scott’s top elections official acknowledged for the first time Friday that the state bears some responsibility for long lines and late vote counts that have once again made Florida a target of national ridicule following a presidential election.

“We could have done better. We will do better,” Secretary of State Ken Detzner said on CNN during pointed questioning from anchor Ashleigh Banfield.

Detzner, however, twice demurred when offered a chance to say he was sorry for inconveniencing so many voters. He said the length of the ballot and record turnout of 8.4 million contributed to bottlenecks that forced people in Miami-Dade to wait seven hours to vote. He did concede that the state should have allowed counties to add more early voting sites.





“The solution is that in current Florida law, there’s a limit on the number of locations that supervisors can use in early voting. We need to take a very serious look at that and open up the number of locations,” Detzner said.

From author Carl Hiaasen on CBS (“a freak show”) to The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart, who tossed bleeped-out expletives at Florida, writers and comedians have had a field day lampooning the state’s latest electoral embarrassment. The scrutiny would have been immeasurably worse if Ohio had not sealed President Barack Obama’s re-election.

But it’s no joke, and the most ferocious criticism is aimed squarely at Scott, the former hospital-chain CEO who repeatedly urges people to hold him accountable for his performance.

Florida elections officials Friday were still counting absentee ballots in Palm Beach County, and though Obama held a 60,000-vote edge statewide, news organizations had yet to declare Obama the winner of Florida’s 29 electoral votes.

What Detzner did not say on TV was that for years, Republican legislators in Tallahassee have ignored pleas by county election supervisors to let them expand early voting to sites beyond their own offices, city halls and libraries, so crowds at each site would be smaller.

For the past three years, Sen. Nan Rich, D-Weston, filed bills to add flexibility to the choices of early voting sites. The 2012 version, SB 516, was shelved and never heard by a committee chaired by Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, R-Miami, whose county had by far the longest lines and who voted with other Republicans to reduce early voting days.

“The Legislature wouldn’t hear that bill,” Rich said. “The governor and Republican-dominated Legislature caused this to happen, by reducing early voting days and by putting all of those constitutional amendments on the ballot.”

Rich and other Democrats say the limited sites and long ballot were a sinister plot by Republicans to make it harder for Democrats to vote.

Elections are run by counties in Florida, but are governed by state law.

Scott signed into law changes in 2011 that cut early voting days from 14 to eight. As the early voting lines grew longer, he refused requests to issue an executive order adding more days. The day after the election, he said: “Let’s look and see what we can improve.”

In turning down a request last week by Monroe County elections chief Harry Sawyer to add additional days of early voting, Detzner said the state had no authority to do so except during a state of emergency that could risk lives or property.

Thousands of Floridians have flooded Scott’s email in-box with criticism, some promising not to vote for him when he seeks re-election in 2014.

“The fact that Florida is an embarrassment yet again falls within your purview,” Danielle McWilliams, a teacher in Stuart, told Scott in an email. “This is yet another reason why you should be out of office.”

Paul Adams of Sarasota ridiculed Scott’s choice of Detzner, a former lobbyist for the beer industry, as the state’s chief elections officer.

“Your people can’t get it together,” Adams wrote Thursday. “Who won the election?”

CNN’s Banfield, who said she spent 14 hours at Miami-area voting sites Tuesday, peppered Detzner with tough questions and demanded he explain why the state didn’t anticipate the bottlenecks and expand the locations.

“We were following the law,” Detzner said. “It appears as though now we need to redress the issue regarding the locations. The governor has asked me to look at that issue.”

Banfield told viewers it was time for Scott to “face the music” and explain what went wrong.

As she closed her program, Friday, she spoke directly to Scott, noting that he has declined two offers to appear on the air.

“We’d really like you to join us,” she said, “and answer for your state.”

Tampa Bay Times researcher Natalie Watson contributed to this report.





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Parenthood Together Exclusive Clip

Now that Kristina's learned she'll have to undergo chemotherapy, Tuesday's all-new Parenthood shows The Braverman Family balancing the responsibilities of their daily lives while simultaneously preparing to embark on the next stage of her treatment.

RELATED - Monica Potter On Parenthood's Personal Storyline

First up: organic living!

Although, as you can see in ETonline's exclusive sneak peek at the November 13 episode, titled Together, Kristina doesn't take too kindly to Adam's first offering. Luckily the family has lots of help as both Camille and Crosby step up in a big way!

Parenthood airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. on NBC.

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B'klyn man accused of beating boyfriend to death claims self-defense








A Brooklyn man arraigned today for beating his boyfriend to death killed in self-defense, his defense lawyer said.

Devineil Brown, 25, confessed that he did “stab, punch, kick and stomp” Shaun Woolford, 31, to death on Wednesday inside the older man’s apartment, according to the criminal complaint.

Brown was charged with second-degree murder and criminal possession of a weapon at his Brooklyn Criminal Court arraignment.

Woolford was a hairdresser at Salon AKS, a trendy Fifth Avenue hair salon, according to his Facebook page.

Defense attorney Fredrick Spiegel said after court that the two men had a fight and Brown acted in self-defense.



Brown tossed the apartment and pulled down his one-time lover’s pants in an attempt to make the crime look like a robbery, police sources have said. Brown then returned to the scene as cops arrived and pretended he had been at his grandmother’s, the sources said.

jsaul@nypost.com










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Zillow: Foreclosure discounts shrinking




















Buying a foreclosed home is no longer the big bargain it used to be.

In South Florida, the discount for foreclosures narrowed to 2.9 percent below a comparable non-distressed home in September from 6.8 percent a year earlier, according to Zillow.

The foreclosure discount for the tri-county area of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties peaked in August 2008, when bank-owned homes fetched 22.7 percent less than non-distressed homes, the Seattle-based real-estate information firm said.





Nationwide, the foreclosure discount was 7.7 percent in September, down from 9.1 percent a year earlier, Zillow said. The widest gap nationally between foreclosed and non-distressed sales was 23.7 percent in September 2009.

“The smallest foreclosure discount is found in places where competition for homes is so high, people there are willing to pay the same amount for a foreclosure re-sale that they would for a non-distressed home simply to take advantage of historic affordability,” said Dr. Stan Humphries, Zillow’s chief economist.





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