The freshman 15: South Florida’s newest lawmakers

TALLAHASSEE --
The youngest is 28, the oldest 66. They are teachers, real estate agents, attorneys, entrepreneurs and farmers. And in their spare time, they fly planes, play guitar, raise sheep, write screenplays and go to their kids’ ball games.

These are the faces of the 59 new members of the Florida Legislature (15 from South Florida), which begins its regular session on Tuesday.

The freshman House class of 44 members is tied for the second-largest ever since term limits took effect in 2000. (There were also 44 new members in 2010 and 2008, and the record is 63 in 2000.)

The freshman Senate class of 15 members, meanwhile, ranks in size behind only the freshmen classes of 2002 and 2010.

In total, the new group of legislators includes nearly the same number of Democrats and Republicans, though 10 of the 15 new senators are Republican.

“We’re a broad range of ages and backgrounds,” said Rep. Cary Pigman, R-Avon Park, who like the majority of new representatives is serving in elected office for the first time.

Pasco County businessman and egg farmer Wilton Simpson holds a special distinction: He was unchallenged in his first bid for Senate and was elected without a vote.

Rep. Mark Danish, D-Tampa, said his desire to serve derives from his role as a middle-school science teacher. “I want to extend that and make a difference. There’s a lengthy priority list,” he said, citing issues from creating a homeowner’s bill of rights to addressing local transportation issues.

Another new legislator, Rep. Richard Stark, D-Weston, notes that he, and likely other officials whose homes are hundreds of miles from Tallahassee, “feels a little like college freshmen on their first semester away from home.”

José Javier Rodríguez, D-Miami, who is serving in his first elected office, said chief issues for South Florida involve Citizens Property Insurance, healthcare and education.

“Property insurance, if not at the top, comes close to the top of the list that brings most of us together.”

He also said that he’s been surprised by the expectation of “conformity” in the Legislature. “Asking tough questions definitely rattles people,” said Rodríguez. “Often people expect you to play along, which I find shocking, especially for those of us who ran to shake things up a little bit.”

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Modern Family Stars Get Stuck in Crowded Elevator

No good deed goes unpunished.

PICS: Candid Celeb Sightings

While on their way to a fundraiser for the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Kansas City on Friday night, three stars of ABC's hit sitcom Modern Family were trapped in a crowded elevator for almost an hour, ABC News reports.

Julie Bowen, Eric Stonestreet and Jesse Tyler Ferguson took pictures together during the ordeal, which Ferguson posted to his Twitter account.

"This is us right now. 45 minutes stuck in this elevator," Ferguson wrote, captioning the snapshot from the Sheraton Kansas City Hotel's third floor.

The actors were an hour late to the event after the Kansas City Fire Department rescued them, but they maintained a good sense of humor about their plight, reportedly joking about the ordeal on stage.

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Here we go again: Calif. Republican activist says pregnancies rare in rape cases

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The leader of a conservative faction within the California Republican Party said pregnancies by rape are rare because a woman's body is traumatized by the violence, recalling remarks that derailed a U.S. Senate candidate's campaign last year.

Celeste Greig, president of the California Republican Assembly, made the remarks to the San Jose Mercury News ahead of this weekend's state GOP convention in Sacramento.

Greig was responding to a question about former Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin, who last year said women's bodies have the power to prevent pregnancy — or "shut that whole thing down" — after what he termed "a legitimate rape."

Greig said Akin's comment was insensitive and required an apology, but she then gave a similar remark.

"Granted, the percentage of pregnancies due to rape is small because it's an act of violence, because the body is traumatized," Greig told the newspaper. "I don't know what percentage of pregnancies are due to the violence of rape. Because of the trauma the body goes through, I don't know what percentage of pregnancy results from the act."

The newspaper cited statistics from a 2003 study by St. Lawrence University that showed women get pregnant after rape at a rate that is more than double that for a single act of consensual sex. Relying on data from U.S. National Violence Against Women survey, the study said the per-incident rape-pregnancy rate was 6.4 percent while the same rate for women having consensual sex was 3.1 percent per encounter.

Many Republicans blame the Akin comment on abortion and a later one by Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock for GOP setbacks in last fall's election. Mourdock, who also lost his Senate bid, was criticized after saying pregnancy resulting from rape is "something God intended."

Greig's comments come as the California Republican Party is trying to reboot its image after years of election defeats and registration declines.

The party has dropped below 30 percent in voter registration, does not hold a single statewide office, has less than one-third of the seats in the state Legislature and does not yet have a credible candidate to challenge Gov. Jerry Brown when he is up for re-election next fall.

Public opinion surveys show Republicans are consistently in the minority on a range of social issues supported by a majority of California voters.

Greig did not immediately respond to a telephone message and email asking whether she would like to elaborate on her comments to the newspaper.

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When the latest layoff story is about you

It’s an odd feeling reading in the newspaper about losing your job. I didn’t learn about being fired in the newspaper but the story of losing my position was there. Why I lost my job (along with more than a dozen of my colleagues) was the lead story in the business section of The Miami Herald on Feb. 22. It even had a picture of me right next to the paragraph describing how we lost our jobs with the public television program Nightly Business Report.

What’s nice about sharing your employment woes with the entire community is the outpouring of support you get. I received dozens of emails from friends, fans and colleagues across the country, expressing sympathy and pledging to help any way they could. It is humbling to hear how you have impacted people’s lives, especially those you don’t know directly. The range of emotions you feel when you face a job loss can be overwhelming, but a short email or voicemail from an associate can lift your spirits, giving you the strength to press on. The medium of the messages does not matter. A tweet of support, LinkedIn endorsement or text message of sympathy fuels the encouragement to face the anxiety of joblessness.

After news of my job elimination was in the newspaper and blogosphere, there were compassionate glances from fellow parents on the sidelines of the kids’ weekend soccer games. I didn’t have to break the news — most had already read about it. A pedestrian on the sidewalk stopped me in mid-stride to express his disappointment. The inevitable questions came: What are you going to do? Will you stay? Do you have anything you’re working on?

I am lucky my employment status was on the business front page. Thousands of other people are treated as statistics. As a business journalist, I have been guilty of that. Company layoffs numbering in the dozens as ours did rarely demand attention. The cuts have to be in the thousands to have any hope of getting much media attention. Even then, it’s only a number. The names of those losing their jobs are known only to their HR departments, in order to fill out the paperwork. It’s unfortunate, but that’s the nature of job loss. Each job cut is a story that begins en masse in boardrooms and offices but plays out individually in kitchens and living rooms across America.

In January, there were more than 1,300 mass layoffs of U.S. workers. A mass layoff impacts at least 50 people from a single company. More than 134,000 individuals were involved in such action, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. My job loss and that of my colleagues won’t show up in February’s report. There were too few of us. Some of us will appear in other employment data, but we will be just statistics. Each of those statistics has groceries to buy, bills to pay and hope for a new opportunity.

In a $16 trillion economy, it’s understandable that we become statistics. The stakes are just too big to pick up the noise from any of our individual unemployment stories. The weekly and government reports I have spent my career reporting on don’t ask why. They don’t ask who. They only ask how many. It’s our friends and family and colleagues who ask, “How can I help?”

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High-flying executive Claudio Osorio pleads guilty to fraud, money-laundering conspiracies

Claudio Osorio, the former globe-trotting executive who had headed a Fortune 500 company, faces up to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty to stealing millions of dollars from investors in his ill-fated venture to build low-cost housing in Haiti and other developing countries.

Osorio, a Venezuelan native who once held fund-raisers for Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and other political stars at his Star Island home, pleaded guilty Thursday to two conspiracy offenses: wire fraud and money laundering.

The fraud conviction carries up to 20 years and the laundering conviction up to 10 years. But Osorio is expected to be imprisoned for 12 or more years under federal sentencing guidelines at a hearing set for May 9.

FBI agents arrested Osorio, 54, in December after some of his investors accused the high-flying entrepreneur of using his Miami Beach-based company, Innovida Holdings, to fleece $50 million from them and the U.S. government. Among the fleeced investors: former Miami Heat star Alonzo Mourning. Osorio stole the money to prop up his Star Island lifestyle, and maintain resort homes in Switzerland and Telluride, Colo., according to authorities.

Previously, Osorio had headed a computer distribution business in Miami that was listed on the Fortune 500 before it filed for bankruptcy in 2000. Despite the failure of CHS Electronics, several investors said they trusted Osorio with their money in his Innovida start-up because the charming executive sold them on its likely profitability.

Although Innovida had a manufacturing facility in North Miami-Dade, it never got off the ground.

Osorio, represented by attorney Humberto Dominguez, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge William Dimitrouleas in Fort Lauderdale federal court. As part of his plea, the U.S. attorney’s office agreed to drop 20 other charges in the fraud indictment.

In court, Osorio admitted he “solicited and recruited investors by making materially false representations and concealing and omitting material facts regarding ... the profitability of the company, the rates of return on investment funds, the use of investors’ funds and the existence of a pending lucrative contract with a third-party entity,” according to a statement issued by the U.S. attorney’s office.

Dimitrouleas took over the case this week from U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga, who was supposed to hear Osorio’s change of plea in Miami on Friday. Altonaga recused herself from the case because her husband is an attorney in the same Miami law firm as the defense lawyer for Osorio’s co-defendant, Craig S. Toll, 64, of Pembroke Pines. Toll, who pleaded not guilty, was the chief financial officer for Innovida.

Held without bond, Osorio will remain at the Miami Federal Detention Center.

Osorio was convicted of using Innovida, which claimed to produce high-tech building panels for low-cost housing, to deceive investors and boost his lifestyle.

In 2011, a bankruptcy judge ordered Osorio to sell the one major asset that belonged to him and his wife, Amarilis. The couple auctioned their one-acre, two-story Star Island home with infinity pool for $12.7 million.

The sale of the heavily mortgaged property generated millions for banks and other lenders, and some money for his burned investors, including NBA star Carlos Boozer and Miami-Dade businessman Chris Korge.

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Les Miserables Vocal Warm Up Clip

Much has been made about Les Miserables' use of live singing in the critically acclaimed Tom Hooper film, and in this brand new behind-the scenes clip, you get to see just how much work it took to get the actors' voices in tip-top shape!

"You walk from the corridor, and from all the different dressing rooms you just hear the oddest, oddest warm-ups," laughs Samantha Barks, who plays Eponine in the film.

Related: Spears Suggests 'Toxic,' 'Les Mis' Mashup

"I play my voice up and finding all this stuff in there you know, it's just been massively enjoyable," adds Russell Crowe. "I only really enjoy things when they're so damn scary."

Click the video to hear a raw snippet of Amanda Seyfried and Eddie Redmayne's romantic duet.

Related: Scarlett Johansson Talks Failed 'Les Miserables' Audition

Les Miserables arrives on Blu-ray and DVD on March 22, 2013.

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Woman sues, claiming FedEx sent her pot — then gave her address to intended recipients

PLYMOUTH, Mass. — A Massachusetts woman has sued FedEx, claiming the company mistakenly sent her a package containing seven pounds of marijuana, then gave her address to the intended recipients, who later showed up at her door.

Maryangela Tobin of Plymouth said in the suit filed Feb. 12 that by disclosing her address, the company violated state privacy laws and put herself and her children in danger.

"I feel like the safety of my daughters and myself was invaded and it makes things complicated," she told WBZ-TV. "I walk into my house first every time, my kids don't."

Tobin said she thought the package was a birthday present for her daughter, because when she opened it, she found candles, pixie sticks and peppermint. There was also something she thought was potpourri, but it was marijuana.

Tobin said that about an hour later, a man knocked on her door looking for the package, while two men sat in a vehicle in her driveway, waiting. She said she didn't have it, and bolted and slammed the door. Tobin claims FedEx gave out her address, which led the men to her home.

Police made an arrest, but Tobin said now she's worried about retribution.

Memphis, Tenn.-based FedEx said it doesn't comment on pending lawsuits.

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Florida class-action case takes aim at Citizens’ reinspection program

Thousands of Florida homeowners buffeted by higher windstorm premiums have sued state-run Citizens Property Insurance Corp. to recover potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in “back-door” rate increases driven by “arbitrary” reinspections of their residences.

The proposed class-action lawsuit, filed in Broward Circuit Wednesday, aims to halt Citizens’ reinspection program, claiming it has illegally stripped discounts from homeowners who had earned them under a 2007 inspection program approved by the Florida Legislature. Their original inspections were supposed to be valid for five years.

But in 2010, Citizens violated the due-process rights of homeowners, who had submitted official inspection forms, by arbitrarily reinspecting their properties to boost lost revenue that the agency could not generate lawfully through premium hikes, the suit said.

Lawyers who filed the suit, whose class representative is a Broward homeowner, said Citizens violated the due-process rights of its policyholders, costing each higher premiums averaging upwards of $1,000 — and possibly more — a year.

The collective cost to homeowners throughout Florida exceeds more than $100 million, said attorney Todd Stabinksi, whose Miami law firm, Stabinksi & Funt, filed the suit with Farmer, Jaffe of Fort Lauderdale and Kula & Samson of Aventura. They gathered Thursday for a press conference outside the West Broward County Courthouse in Plantation.

“Citizens got the benefit of lowering their risks, but Citizens’ policyholders did not get the benefit of lower premiums,” Stabinski said. “It should have been a mutually beneficial bargain.”

Consumer advocates have accused Citizens of using the reinspection program to impose “massive” rate hikes on homeowners. Citizens has denied the charge, saying that it is simply trying to get accurate information about the homes it insures.

“Since at least 2010, Citizens has used a wind mitigation reinspection program to systemtically deprive policy holders of legitimate wind mitigation credits,” said a nonprofit group, Florida Association for Insurance Reform, which praised the legal action.

A spokesperson for Citizens said the company has been operating under the law, and that the reinspections came after regulators changed the mitigation criteria. “Our position is Citizens’ reinspections were conducted under statutory authority afforded any insurer to verify, at the insurer’s expense, the accuracy of inspection reports submitted for a mitigation discount,” said spokesman Michael Peltier.

Discontent has been widespread among Citizens’ policyholders, who spent large sums of money on roof, window and other upgrades to earn windstorm mitigation discounts while protecting their homes against potential hurricane damage. In response, Citizens unveiled major changes to its home reinspection program last August, after consumers expressed outrage over media reports about a staggering $137 million in premium increases generated by the unpopular program.

Under its new plans, homeowners who lose insurance discounts because of a reinspection can receive a second inspection free of charge. They will have new tools to dispute the findings of the first reinspection. That decision could impact more than 200,000 property owners, who have already seen their premiums go up by an average of about $800 after the initial reinspection.

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Driver gets 6 years for hit-run death of 11-year-old

A Miami-Dade County judge on Thursday sentenced a driver for the 2009 hit-and-run death of an 11-year-old girl to six years in prison, plus eight years of probation.

Harvey Abraham, 37, was convicted in November of fleeing the scene where he struck and killed Ashley Nicole Valdes as she crossed a West Kendall street on Jan. 8, 2009.

He was arrested after a citizen who had been following the case saw Abraham’s Ford F-150 outside a South Miami auto body shop. Abraham took the truck to the shop and filed an insurance claim after the crash, saying he was the victim.

On Thursday, Judge Thomas J. Rebull decried Abraham’s decision to flee the scene.

“Mr. Abraham, if you had just stopped, even if there was nothing you could do to help Ashley Valdez, I can’t imagine you would be facing what you are facing,” he said.

Abraham received six years in prison plus four years of reporting probation for leaving the scene of an accident involving death. For tampering with evidence by attempting to have his truck repaired, he received an additional four years of probation.

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Hannibal Full Trailer NBC 2013

Every since it was announced last May, NBC's Hannibal has been high atop my must-see list -- and this just-released trailer for Bryan Fuller's latest small screen endeavor does not disappoint!

RELATED - TV's Most Devastating Deaths

Starring Mads Mikkelsen (Casino Royale's Le Chiffre), Hugh Dancy, Laurence Fishburne and Caroline Dhavernas, Hannibal looks to be a dark, disturbing and dynamic reimagining of Thomas Harris' classic Hannibal Lecter saga.

Watch the bloody exciting trailer & tune in to the April 4 series premiere of NBC's Hannibal at 10 p.m.

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