Interfaith Thanksgiving service planned for Wednesday night

Members of various faiths in Coral Gables will come together at 7 p.m. Wednesday in a spirit of unity for the annual Thanksgiving Eve Interfaith Worship Service hosted by Coral Gables Congregational United Church of Christ, 3010 De Soto Blvd., across the street from the Biltmore Hotel.The Rev. Dr. Laurinda Hafner, senior pastor of the church said, "We invite everyone - no...

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Buzzmakers: Lindsay Lohan Comes Clean & Janeane Marries

What had ET readers buzzing this week?1. Janeane Garofalo: I Didn't Know I was Married!Sometimes what happens in Vegas actually does stay in Vegas -- at least for two decades. Funny girl Janeane Garofalo is claiming she's been married for 20 years, and didn't even know it!The Reality Bites actress told the New York Post that she and Big Bang Theory producer Rob Cohen decided to wed at a Las Vegas...

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Readers thinking about matters of life and debt

John Crudele DEAR JOHN...THE ANSWER MAN Dear John: It would actually be much better if the Federal Reserve dropped cash from a helicopter because of the propensity to spend among regular people. W.K.Dear W.K Sure, until bread reached $10 a loaf and Twizzlers — the product by which I measure all others — get to $20 a bag.Or they...

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Panama Canal’s $5 billion makeover could be boon for South Florida

PANAMA CITY, Panama -- Huge yellow dump trucks resemble Tonka toys in a sand pile as they haul tons of rust-colored dirt and basalt rock from a 56-foot gash in the earth that will become a new access channel in the $5.25 billion expansion of the Panama Canal.The trucks keep rumbling up muddy terraced slopes as a quick-moving storm blurs the horizon. The rain chases away workers...

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Miami’s book fair ‘Evening With…’ series ends on easy note

A bit of fiction and a bit of philosophy, both seasoned with a touch of the historical, rounded out the final night of Miami Book Fair International’s “Evenings With…” programs Friday.Emma Donoghue read from her Astray, new book of short stories inspired by old newspaper accounts, and historian Alan Ryan talked about his weighty new two-volume work On Politics: A History...

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NBCU pink slips land at biz network

NBCUniversal’s flurry of year-end pink slips hit business network CNBC. The network yesterday cut a handful of staffers as part of NBCU’s call for 450 layoffs company-wide. A CNBC spokesman declined to comment. The changes come as Patricia Fili-Krushel, the new chairman of NBCUniversal News Group, makes her mark in the news division. Earlier this week,...

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Jolly holiday shopping season already underway

Lilian Stoppa and Renata Rosa stepped out of Target in Midtown Miami with a cart piled high with holiday gifts.Landing in Miami on Thursday morning for a five-day shopping spree, they already had spent $800 by mid-afternoon on presents for family members: toys for Rosa’s daughter, beauty items for Stoppa’s mother, plus lots of other stuff.“This is just the start,” giggled...

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Former Miami Mayor Manny Diaz pens book about reinventing the city

Former Miami mayors don’t usually write books anyone would want to publish, much less read.Then there’s Manny Diaz. Whether you admire him like many in Miami and across the country do, or excoriate him as some at home did, Diaz was hardly shy about embracing big plans and notions. And few would disagree that the city was a far different place when he exited City Hall in 2009...

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Watchdog groups question tourism agency’s CEO pick

TALLAHASSEE -- The day after the CEO of the state’s top tourism agency announced he was stepping down, board members quickly handpicked his replacement. There was only one problem. Picking Visit Florida’s chief marketing officer Will Seccombe to head the agency without doing a national search could upset the agency’s main funders — state legislators and Gov. Rick Scott.Visit...

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Concert tells tale of a ‘Tough Turkey’

Orchestra Miami will present a series of free family concerts, designed to introduce young children to classical music. At 7 p.m. Friday , the orchestra will perform "Tough Turkey in the Big City: A Thanksgiving Odyssey," by Bruce Adolphe and Louise Gikow at Miami Shores Presbyterian Church at 602 NE 96th St.At 1:30 p.m. Saturday the orchestra will bring the concert to the...

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RIM CEO sees new BlackBerry powering growth

WATERLOO, Ontario (Reuters) – A new line of BlackBerry 10 devices will provide Research In Motion with a framework for growth over the next decade, offering long-term value for unhappy shareholders, Chief Executive Thorsten Heins said on Wednesday.In an interview with Reuters, Heins said RIM had identified $ 800 million of the $ 1 billion of savings...

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Ellen Throws Keira Knightley a Bridal Tea Party

In light of Keira Knightley's engagement to Klaxons keyboardist James Righton, Ellen DeGeneres has a refined surprise for British actress on her next show.PIC: Knightley 'Doesn't Mind' Going ToplessThe TV host throws Knightley a bridal tea party as a celebration of her upcoming wedding, which the Anna Karenina star admits she hasn't put much thought into."The problem is ever since [our engagement]...

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Base boot for general busybody

The social-climbing military groupie at the center of the David Petraeus sex scandal has been banned from MacDill Air Force Base.Jill Kelley — who played unofficial hospitality hostess to Gen. Petraeus, Gen. John R. Allen and a stream of top military brass at the powerful Tampa, Fla., Central Command base — lost her unfettered base access after her claims...

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Steve Wozniak, Chris Hughes share tales with Coconut Grove audience

Co-founders from two of Silicon Valley’s most innovative companies gave a South Florida audience a glimpse into the early days of developing the technology that would reshape the world.Steve Wozniak, of Apple, and Chris Hughes, of Facebook, were back-to-back speakers for the three-day Americas Business Council’s Continuity Forum that wrapped up Wednesday at the Ritz-Carlton...

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Metrorail worker who was struck and killed by train identified

George Andrews, a Miami-Dade Transit employee who was killed Monday near Earlington Heights station when a moving train struck him, was walking on the tracks after parking his train on a side track because it had been malfunctioning, the director of MDT, Ysela Llort, said Tuesday. “He had a train that was not functioning correctly and central control told him to park the...

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AMF Bowling rolls gutter ball

Amf Bowling Worldwide, the world’s largest bowling alley operator, yesterday filed for bankruptcy protection for the second time in 12 years, saying recent economic weakness has cost it business and left it with an unmanageable debt burden. The Mechanicsville, Va.-based company said it has agreed on a plan to significantly reduce its debt and turn over...

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No touch screen? Stick with Windows 7

Q. I recently had to replace my 9-year-old Windows XP computer, and am having trouble adapting to Windows 7.What are the advantages, if any, for me to upgrade to Windows 8, which I’ve read has touch-screen capability and works with other equipment besides desktop computers? Since I don’t have a touch screen, I’m wondering if there is any point in upgrading.Peter Robinson...

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South Florida disaster team heads north to help after Sandy

The 52 colorful quilts were neatly folded into a red duffel bag and hand-carried to New York City on Monday, where a local fire department will distribute them to victims of Hurricane Sandy.The gifts from the East Sunrise Quilters Guild were brought north by nurse and educator Debra Hauss-DeJesse, one of 42 members of the South Florida Disaster Medical Assistance Team who...

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One Direction on What They Look for in a Girl

Ellen DeGeneres is holding her biggest outdoor concert ever with British pop sensation One Direction on Thursday, and we have an advance clip.RELATED: One Direction Plays Catch with Super Bowl ChampDuring the sit-down portion, the boys answer the crucial questions: Which members are single and what do they look for in a girl?"I like someone that's cute. Someone I can have a laugh with. And I also...

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Friends in grief

It’s victims helping victims.Families that lost loved ones when Flight 587 crashed in the Rockaways in 2001 are taking up a collection for residents of the battered shorefront community still struggling to recover from the devastation of Hurricane Sandy.The poignant gesture will raise thousands, not millions. Most donors will be Dominican-Americans of modest...

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Noven’s niche: The Miami company is key producer of transdermal patches

At the Noven Pharmaceuticals plant in southwest Miami, scientists and technicians use highly specialized machinery to blend prescription medications and adhesives to make layered transdermal patches that release precise quantities of drugs over time after being applied to a patient’s skin.Noven, a subsidiary of Japan’s Hisamitsu Pharmaceutical, has about 700 employees nationwide...

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Two more Cuban dissidents allege abuse by former prison official now living in Miami

Two more Cuban dissidents have alleged that they were abused personally or on the orders of a former Villa Clara provincial prison chief Crescencio Marino Rivero, who now lives in Miami. Rivero, 71, and his wife Juana Ferrer, both former officers in Cuba’s Interior Ministry and members of the ruling Communist Party, appear to have obtained their U.S. visas and residency without...

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Target of mistress’ Rage

It was a married Florida woman who blew the lid off the scandalous affair that led retired Gen. David Petraeus to resign as CIA chief when she told the FBI of allegedly threatening e-mails she’d received from his lover, sources said yesterday. Jill Kelley, 37, of Tampa — a “social liaison” to the powerful Joint Special Operations Command — reported the...

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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...

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