14 Solutions to Your New Year’s Midnight Kiss

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There’s got to be one crawling around somewhere. What’s cuter than kissing a baby’s fat cheek? Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

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Do you find yourself in a panic every New Year’s Eve because everyone’s counting down and Billy Crystal has yet to explain all of the reasons why he’s madly in love with you?

No? Oh okay — me neither.

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But the final holiday of the year can put a lot of unnecessary pressure on people. We want to end and begin each year with a bang — this often means the perfect outfit, an amazing soiree and the midnight kiss that will sweep you off your feet.

Instead of starting 2013 in a state of panic, then promising to be better later, enjoy New Year’s Eve and stop worrying about a silly superstition. We’ve come up with a couple solutions to the big smooch at the end of the night.

Photo by Ian Gavan/Getty Images

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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Hillary Clinton Hospitalized for Blood Clot

Hillary Clinton was hospitalized in New York on Sunday after doctors discovered a blood clot.

Pics: From the White House to the Altar: Chelsea Clinton Through the Years

The 65-year-old Secretary of State's spokesman said the clot was found during a follow-up exam related to the concussion she sustained earlier this month when she fainted due to dehydration; Clinton was suffering from a stomach virus and has been sidelined from work for the last three weeks.

Clinton is expected to remain at New York Presbyterian Hospital for the next two days so physicians can treat her with anti-coagulants and keep an eye on her.

Video: Grammys Flashback '97 -- Hillary Clinton! 

Philippe Reines, deputy assistant secretary of state, said in a statement, "In the course of a follow-up exam today, Secretary Clinton's doctors discovered a blood clot had formed, stemming from the concussion she sustained several weeks ago. She is being treated with anti-coagulants and is at New York Presbyterian Hospital so that they can monitor the medication over the next 48 hours. Her doctors will continue to assess her condition, including other issues associated with her concussion. They will determine if any further action is required."

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Chill factor

Most popular songs

1. Locked Out of Heaven, Bruno Mars

2. I Knew You Were Trouble, Taylor Swift

3. Gangnam Style, PSY

4. Ho Hey, The Lumineers

5. Scream and Shout, Will.I.Am

6. Diamonds, Rihanna

7. Thrift Shop, Macklemore, Ryan Lewis

8. Beauty and a Beat, Justin Bieber

9. Cry (The Voice Performance), Cassadee Pope

10. Home, Phillip Phillips

TiVo favorites

1. NFL Football: 49ers vs. Seahawks

2. NFL Football: Giants vs. Ravens

3. The Big Bang Theory

4. NBC Nightly News, Thurs.

5. NBC Nightly News, Wed.

Top video downloads

1. Dashboard cam films Moscow plane crash

AP

Cassadee Pope

AP

Carmen Electra

2. Puppy’s first Christmas

3. Collison’s incredible game-tying 3-pointer

Google trends

1. UFC 155

2. Case McCoy

3. Norman Schwarzkopf

NY Post hot topics

1. Bethenny Frankel: Gimme your lawyer

2. Sex secrets of NYC’s men

3. Holiday apart for Carmen Electra

4. Gallery owner’s suicide manifesto

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South Florida’s biggest business stories of 2012

For South Florida’s economy, 2012 centered on one main question: Would the recovery continue?

The answer: Yes, and slowly.

Housing values continue to climb, unemployment rates shrink, hiring grows and spending strengthens. And yet 2012 ends on the same general theme as 2011: Things are getting better, but at a slow enough pace that South Florida will have to wait at least another year for a healthy recovery to begin.

Behind the broad economic tide, news crashed onto the scene. And now it falls on Business Monday to rank their significance.

We do this each year December as a way to put the year’s business news in perspective. For the rankings, we use three criteria.

First, how important was the news for South Florida’s economy? We only have 10 slots to fill, so the news needs to be big.

Second, how unique was the news to South Florida? National events can have major impacts in South Florida, but we’re looking for news that’s particularly noteworthy to the region.

Third, how unique was the news to this year? Long-term trends can impact an economy for years, but we’re looking for stories clearly linked to 2012.

On to the rankings...

10: One Community One Goal plan released

Miami-Dade’s economic development agency, the Beacon Council, spent more than a year drawing up what’s supposed to be a blueprint for the county’s economic future. We won’t know for years whether the One Community One Goal plan will actually guide leaders’ decisions as they decide on education priorities and corporate-recruitment targets. The authors of this report boasted that they were determined not to have the latest version seen as obsolete the way the 1996 version was. But with hundreds of people involved in the forums that led to the report, One Community One Goal is sure to be cited in debates and discussion about Miami-Dade’s economy for years to come.

9. Ryder gets a new CEO

It was a tumultuous year for the Miami-Dade trucking giant, which spent the summer backing off early predictions of strong recovery for clients. In July, Ryder CEO Gregory Swienton announced companywide cost cuts to combat flat sales in a year he had originally seen as going well. That move included 60 job cuts at Ryder’s headquarters in western Miami-Dade, out of 450 across the country The end of 2012 brought another big announcement: Swienton was retiring in two weeks, and handing over the top job to his longtime deputy, Ryder COO Robert Sanchez.

Swienton, 63, said he was looking forward to getting back to Texas, where most of his grandchildren live. The board praised Swienton’s 13-year tenure, which saw Ryder stock rise from $17 a share to $50 a share.

Sanchez, 47, is only the company’s fifth CEO since its founding in the Great Depression. A Miami native, he becomes one of only three CEOs of a Fortune 500 company headquartered south of Palm Beach County. The other: AutoNation’s Mike Jackson and World Fuel Services’ Michael Kasbar.

8. Miami Marlins Buyers Remorse

The debut season of Miami’s first official Major League Baseball team brought a string of disappointments on and off the field. Promises of a revitalized Little Havana retail scene around the tax-funded stadium instead brought vacant storefronts. Attendance, a big part of the economic argument for the $635 million stadium, ended up being the worst for a new ballpark in 30 years.

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For new year, resolve to commit random acts of kindness

Well, here we are, dear Friends and Neighbors, on the eve of another new year. So much happened to us in 2012 — some good and some bad. But through it all, by the grace of God, we made it to the end of the "old" year.

When I was a young woman, I made a new year’s resolution every year. The new year brings with it that kind of fresh-start magic.

To many of us, the new year really does mean having a second chance; a fresh start; a new beginning, another opportunity to do something that matters, to touch someone’s life in a positive way, and to do random acts of kindness.

I thought about the random-acts-of-kindness thing when, on Christmas day while in Washington, where my granddaughter Afra was appearing in My Fair Lady at the -Arena Stage Theater, I stumbled upon the perfect opportunity. Afra and I, and her mother Mary Anne, were on our way to have Christmas dinner with their longtime friends who live in Maryland. (A Radio City Music Hall Rockette since 2004, Afra had suffered with tendonitis in her right knee and decided to take this season off to let it heal.)

We got to the Metro station and found it practically empty. We headed for a bench where a man and woman were sitting and Afra motioned for me to take a seat. I spoke to the two individuals and wished them a Merry Christmas. A few minutes later, the woman who had been sitting on the bench moved away. She looked a bit uncomfortable. A few seconds later, I understood why. The young man seemed to be mentally challenged and needed to talk to someone about something that happened earlier at the facility where he lived.

Apparently there had been an argument with a caregiver at the facility, and he got upset and yelled at her. When I asked what was the matter, he started crying, "I yelled at her ... I didn’t mean to do it ... I was in a hurry to get to the station."

I touched his shoulder and tried to comfort him. "I’m sure she is not angry with you. She understood you were eager to get the train to spend Christmas with your mother." He stopped crying and told me his name was Gabriel. He asked my name. I told him and introduced him to my granddaughter and her mother, who were looking in disbelief at the two of us. Their eyes seemed to say, "Doesn’t Grandma know she is in a strange city and this man is a stranger who could be very dangerous?"

I did know. But somehow, this didn’t seem like a dangerous situation. Something in my heart said this was a chance to do a random act of kindness. I followed my heart. By the time our train came, Gabriel was smiling.

"I like you," he said. "You are a nice lady."

I reached out and offered a hug. He responded and soon my granddaughter and her mother were hugging him too. It was a wonderful feeling. Gabriel repeated our names over and over, pointing to each of us, so as not to forget them.

In a few minutes, we were at our stop. We said goodbye to our new friend and got off the train. We waved at him as the train pulled away. We didn’t say much about the incident, just smiled knowingly at each other. We knew we had just reached out to another soul who needed to be comforted and by doing so, we had spread a little Christmas cheer.

So, as I write this last column of 2012, I don’t have a list of new year resolutions. What I do have is a determination to live one day at a time, and try to live my life by reaching out to more Gabriels and offering comfort and spreading cheer and good will wherever I can. It may not be in the form of a hug. It just might be a warm smile, a "How do you do?", or "You look nice today". I learned from the Metro Station incident that it doesn’t take much to make somebody’s day. Just be kind. Make it a part of your everyday routine. No resolution is needed. Just do it.

And have a wonderful and healthy New Year!

Arts in the Gardens

Arts at St. Johns will kick off the New Year with the SALA Arts Social at 6:30 p.m. on Jan. 15 at the Miami Beach Botanical Gardens, 2000 Convention Center Dr. SALA is an acronym for Social Action, Local Arts, and is a multi-disciplinary, multi-sensory arts event featuring music, dance, the visual arts, refreshments, drinks, interactive DJ music, networking and a silent auction.

The artists include Tiffany “Hanan” Madera performing Mid-Eastern dance; DJ Madame Turk, who will mix new and old dance club music and Afro/Latin and Brazilian beats.

The visual arts will include a group show by the Artist Colony, a Miami artist collaborative. There will also be a selection of paintings, graphics and assemblages donated for the silent auction by Carol Hoffman-Guzman and her husband Robert Guzman. Carol is the founding director of Arts at St. Johns. She and her husband have been collecting local and emerging artists for over 40 years.

The event celebrates 12 years of SALA presenting performances and art at Arts at St. Johns. According to Hoffman-Guzman, SALA’s name was chosen because it is reflects Arts at St. Johns’ vision to present local artists and art forms and t use the arts to build community, nurture dialogue about social issues and seek to bring about change through the arts.

Tickets to the event are $75 each at the door or online at www.artsatstjohns.com or by calling Hoffman-Guzman at 305-613-2325.

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Buzzmakers: Kate Winslet's Wedding and Rider Strong's Engaged

What had ET readers buzzing this week?

1. Kate Winslet Ties the Knot!

Kate Winslet recently married her boyfriend Ned Rocknroll in a small, secret ceremony in New York.

A rep for the 37-year-old Oscar winner tells ET, "I can confirm that Kate Winslet married Ned Rock'nRoll in NY earlier this month in a private ceremony attended by her two children and a very few friends and family." The rep added that Kate and Ned got engaged over the summer.

British newspapers reported that Kate's Titanic co-star Leonardo DiCaprio gave away the bride in a ceremony so secret that not even the parents of the bride and groom were aware of it.

It is the third marriage for Kate, who split from film director Sam Mendes, the father of her son, in March 2011. She was also previously married for three years to Jim Threapleton, the father of her daughter, before splitting with him in 2001.

Ned, 34, is the nephew of British media/aerospace magnate Sir Richard Branson.

2. 'Boy Meets World' Star Rider Strong Engaged

Amid the holiday engagement rumors (Brandy, Janet Jackson...), Boy Meets World star Rider Strong confirms that he popped the question to his longtime love Alexandra Barreto -- but that's not the crazy part.

Strong, 33, told E! News that he asked Barreto to marry him with "a handmade ring he created himself!"

The actors met on set of the 2006 series Pepper Dennis, and the rest is history. "I asked on December 23, while her parents were visiting for the holidays. I took her for a walk under the redwoods on the property where I grew up in Northern California," Strong tells ETonline. "It was pouring rain, but it didn't look like it was going to stop anytime soon, so I just decided to go for it."

Meanwhile, TheInsider.com confirmed earlier this past November that Strong will not be joining the cast of Disney's Girl Meets World, a spin-off of his wildly popular teen show Boy Meets World. "Girl Meets World will be, and I think it should be, its own show. It will be about Cory and Topanga, their daughter, and a new set of characters. It's the next generation."

3. 'Glee' Creator is A New Dad!

Ryan Murphy had a very merry announcement this holiday season: he's a father!

According to E! News, Murphy and partner David Miller welcomed a son into their family recently, with the couple announcing their new addition on Christmas Eve to friends and family via email.

The announcement revealed the boy, named Logan Phineas Miller Murphy, was born December 24, 2012 9:47 a.m.

Earlier this year, Murphy opened up to Vogue about his desire to become a father. "I thought if I don't do this ... I'm 46 ... I will really, really regret it," he said, adding, "I want the kid to be bold."

4. Jessica Simpson Confirms She's Pregnant, Again!

After weeks of speculation, Jessica Simpson has confirmed that she is pregnant with her second child!

This morning she Tweeted, "Merry Christmas from my family to yours," along with a photo of daughter Maxwell sitting above a message written in the sand. It read: "Big Sis."

Simpson, who gave birth to Maxwell on May 1, has been spotted wearing lots of loose clothing in recent weeks as rumors swirled that she was pregnant again.

This will be the second child for Simpson and her fiance, Eric Johnson.

5. Lady Gaga Announces Documentary

The nearly 33 million Little Monsters who follow Lady Gaga on Twitter got a massive Christmas present this morning as the singer revealed she'll soon be coming to a theater near you!

"Merry Christmas little monsters," Gaga wrote. "Terry Richardson is making a #LadyGagaMOVIE documenting my life, the creation of ARTPOP + you!" "Thank you for being so patient waiting for my new album ARTPOP I hope this gets u excited for things to come. I love you with all my heart!" Gaga announced her fourth album on August 6, 2012 and featured several of the songs in contention for inclusion on her recent Born This Wall Ball. Although no release date is yet known, it's rumored to be due out in Spring 2013.

Gaga has previously collaborated with Richardson on countless magazine covers and 2011's Lady Gaga x Terry Richardson photobook.

Lady Gaga won't be the only major musician to be featured in a documentary next year. It was revealed on November 26 that HBO would be airing a Beyonce documentary on February 16, 2013.

The film promises extensive first-person footage -- some of it shot by Beyonce on her laptop -- in which she reflects on the realities of being a celebrity, the refuge she finds onstage and the joys of becoming a mother after giving birth to her daughter, Blue Ivy Carter, in January 2012. Watch a sneak peek below.

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He’s doughin’ for the gold!

He’s a twirling dervish — and wants a slice of history.

Prize-winning pizza man Bruno DiFabio hopes to set the world record for fastest pie making next month when he challenges the current mark of 28 seconds for five pizzas.

“I’ve done 25 seconds in practice,” says DiFabio, 43, a Yonkers native who honed his skills in the pizzerias of Manhattan and now owns restaurants nationwide.

“But it’s different when there’s an official watching you,” he says.

To set the record, he’ll have to stretch five 10-ounce dough balls into neat circles that fully cover 12-inch pizza screens.

NY Post: J.C. Rice

PIE IN THE SKY: Pizza master Bruno DiFabio practices his moves at Harry’s Italian Pizza Bar.

“No metal showing and you can’t have any holes,” says DiFabio, who consistently rates among the five fastest at the World Pizza Championship and also won the top prize for best pizza at an international culinary competition in Paris in November.

He hopes to beat his “arch rival and nemesis” Brian Edler, an owner of four Domino’s franchises in Ohio who set the current record in 2004 and made history in 2010 by churning out 206 pizzas in an hour — the only speed mark that Guinness recognizes.

DiFabio’s edge is his “New York hand-slap,” a quick, back-and-forth flipping of dough, which gives him a read on its elasticity.

“Once I slap a few times, I go into the pulling part, then I’m down on the board,” he says. “I lay it down like a blanket on a bed.”

In addition to quick dough stretching, he limits his use of the sauce ladle to one dip and grabs all the cheese he needs in a single handful.

“It’s about cutting down on movements,” he says.

A judge will be on hand at Harry’s Italian Pizza Bar in Battery Park City and DiFabio hopes to have an official from Guinness there as well.

He prides himself on speed, which is more than just a parlor trick. It’s vital to keeping up with orders in a crowded restaurant, he says.

“You can’t believe how nerve-wracking it can be as tickets pile up on you,” DiFabio says. “It helps to have a lot of experience. In my lifetime, I’ve made close to a million pizzas.”

He began his career at age 12, working with his grandfather, Angelo, at his restaurant, Tony’s Italian Kitchen, on West 79th Street, then the biggest restaurant on the Upper West Side.

He currently has three pizza joints in Westchester but none in the city after his downtown venture, 900 Degrees, closed last year.

“I served myself a big piece of humble pie,” he says.

But he’s still among the upper crust in the trade, having mastered three styles: classic New York, Neapolitan and Romano — and will happily explain the nuisances of flour protein and butter fat in cheese.

“I’ve dedicated myself to the science,” he says.

Chef Bruno DiFabio’s tips for making five pizzas in 25 seconds:

* Get dough to room temperature — it’s easier to stretch.

* Use an 8-ounce ladle; dip it only once.

* Do only eight turns with the sauce.

* Grab all the cheese you’ll need — 16 ounces — in one handful.

brad.hamilton@nypost.com

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Week brings startup launches, social media advice for 2013

Jared Kleinert, a South Florida entrepreneur, plans to soon launch Synergist, a platform that allow social entrepreneurs to meet potential co-founders online, collaborate and crowdfund their new projects. He also just launched AliveNDead, a blog about risk-taking, and he interns for a Silicon Valley startup.

And when he’s not doing all that, he’s going to class — he’s a junior at Spanish River High School in Boca Raton.

Lester Mapp is CEO and founder of the new Miami-based startup called designed by m. His team has just designed a sleek, ultra-thin aluminum iPhone bumper and launched the project on Kickstarter. After just a few days, Mapp is already more than a third of the way to his $20,000 fund-raising goal.

Read about both these entrepreneurs on The Starting Gate blog, where there’s also a post on the most pressing issues facing small businesses in the coming year — taxes, healthcare, lending and a skilled worker shortage, for starters.

And as you are ringing in the New Year, you may be resolving to beef up your business’ social media strategy. Susan Linning's guest post offers five top tips for boosting your social media effectiveness. Among them: Go beyond retweets and make your posts original, fun and personal (but not too personal.) Use visuals, too. Find this and other news, views and tools for entrepreneurs on the blog, which is at the bottom of MiamiHerald.com /business.

Follow me on Twitter @ndahlberg and Happy New Year to all.

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Former Miami Beach resident may be next Israeli ambassador to U.S.

Ron Dermer, a top adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and who has family ties to two former Miami Beach mayors, may soon become the next Israeli ambassador to the United States, according to reports in an Israeli newspaper.

The daily Makor Rishon reported late Friday that the current ambassador, Michael Oren, plans to step down from his post in the spring of 2013 and would be replaced by Dermer.

Dermer was nicknamed “Bibi’s Brain’’ in a 2011 Tablet profile that compared his relationship with Netanyahu to that of Karl Rove and former President George W. Bush.

Dermer, a Florida-born conservative, reportedly planned Republican Mitt Romney’s trip to Israel last summer during the U.S. presidential campaign.

He has been Netanyahu’s senior adviser since 2009.

The Prime Minister’s Bureau and the Prime Minister’s Office declined comment on the newspaper’s report, according to Israeli media.

Family members in Miami Beach contacted by The Miami Herald also declined to comment.

Dermer is the brother of former Miami Beach Mayor David Dermer, whose first campaign he managed, and the son of former mayor Jay Dermer.

His father was a mayor in the 1960’s and his older brother David was mayor from 2001-2007.

Just two weeks before Ron’s bar mitzvah, his father died of a heart attack. Growing up in Miami Beach, he attended a Jewish day school.

Ron Dermer and his younger sister Esther moved to Israel in the late ’90s after completing their studies. He earned a degree in finance and management from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a degree in philosophy, politics and economics from Oxford University.

For three years, he wrote a column for the Jerusalem Post and, along with former Soviet dissident and Israeli politician Natan Sharansky, co-authored the book, “The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror.’’

He and his wife Rhonda have three children: Mayor, Zev and Ezra.

Dermer had to give up his U.S. citizenship in 2005 when he was appointed Minister for Economic Affairs to the Israeli Embassy.

In a 2011 interview with The Tablet, Dermer said he still thinks of himself as an American.

“When I think about Israel, I always ask myself, I call it the WWAD question: ‘What would America do?’”

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It’s Easy to Save Videos From Facebook Poke Permanently

Apps like Snapchat and Facebook Poke let users send short messages, photos or videos that automatically self-destruct after a few seconds. However, it’s actually very easy for a recipient to save some of those messages permanently — and without the sender knowing.

Both apps will alert the sender if the recipient takes a screengrab of whatever was sent, of course, but by connecting your phone to a PC or Mac, the messages can be secretly offloaded without the sender knowing — a possibility first reported by BuzzFeed. For an iPhone, all you’ll need is a third-party file manager like iExplorer.

[More from Mashable: Facebook in 2013: More Growing Pains Ahead]

For Poke, only videos can be permanently stored in this manner, and only videos that you haven’t already viewed. But it’s very easy. Once you’ve installed your file manager, connect your iPhone and you should see a list of your apps. Select the Poke folder, then navigate to Library>Caches>FBStore>315_14_>MediaCache. There you should see every Poke video that you haven’t yet watched. (See screencap below.)

[More from Mashable: NYC Releases App to Tell You When the Next Subway Is Coming]

From there, all you need to do is drag and drop the files to any other folder on your computer to copy and store them. After that, you can open the file in Poke, let it self-destruct, and the sender will be none the wiser.

Although permanent storage only works for videos in Poke, performing similar steps for Snapchat will let you save both videos and photos.

While it’s a bit surprising that it’s so easy to save messages that are ostensibly deleted permanently, it may be a stretch to characterize this file caching as a “vulnerability” of the apps, which are generally intended for casual use. Facebook‘s official statement on the matter appears to take this stance:

“Poke is a fun and easy way to communicate with your friends and is not designed to be a secure messaging system. While Pokes disappear after they are read, there are still ways that people can potentially save them. For example, you could take a screenshot of a photo, in which case the sender is notified. People could also take a photo of a photo you sent them, or a video of a video, with another camera. Because of this, people should think about what they are sending and share responsibly.”

What do you think of the potential for someone to save a Facebook Poke or Snapchat message? Let us know in the comments.

Top image courtesy of iStockphoto, JimmyAnderson

Facebook Poke: Startup Screen

Poke, the new iPhone app from Facebook, lets you send short messages, photos and videos to friends that automatically self destruct after a few seconds. If you have the Facebook app on your phone already, logging in is effortless.

Click here to view this gallery.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: It’s Easy to Save Videos From Facebook Poke Permanently
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based on 99998 ratings.
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