Now that his fake-girlfriend nightmare is over, NFL prospect Manti Te’o scouts a squad of leggy cheerleaders in Atlantic City.
The Notre Dame linebacker was accepting the Maxwell Award and Chuck Bednarik Award as last year’s top player. At Friday’s ceremony, he dodged questions about his online romance with a terminally ill girl that was revealed to be a hoax.
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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?”
The tiny bones recovered from a backyard grave have a story to tell: Are these the remains of Dontrell Melvin, a baby whose family didn’t report him missing for 18 months? And how was the baby killed?
According to notes in the Hallandale Beach police lead investigator’s file, there was blunt force trauma to the child’s cranium after his death, likely caused during the search and recovery of the skeleton.
And that, says attorney Ed Hoeg, who is representing the baby’s father, could have an impact on the case against his client.
“If evidence is compromised, it could change how the case goes,” Hoeg said. “You would hope the evidence would be in pristine condition.”
Meanwhile, the missing child’s parents remain in Broward County jails. Brittney Sierra, 21, faces two counts of felony child neglect; Calvin Melvin, 27, was charged with three felony counts of providing false information to police.
But those charges could be increased if a Texas lab confirms that DNA from a tiny skeleton unearthed in January behind the couple’s former Hallandale Beach rental home matches that of their baby, Dontrell Melvin.
Dontrell, who would have turned 2 last month, had not been seen for nearly 18 months before police learned of his disappearance on Jan 9.
At first, Melvin told Hallandale Beach police that the child was with his family in Pompano Beach. But when police went there, they were told by the grandparents that they didn’t have the child and hadn’t seen him.
During questioning by police, Melvin changed his story several times, investigators said.
At one point, he told them he’d taken the baby to a fire station under Florida’s Safe Haven Law.
But police didn’t believe him and began questioning Sierra, as well. The couple, who have another child together, pointed fingers at one another, police said.
Their answers led police to the backyard of their former rental home at 106 NW First Ave.
It was there that tiny bones were found.
Nearly 90 percent of the baby’s remains were recovered and reconstructed. An initial review of the bones did not reveal any trauma to the bones, said Hallandale Beach Police Chief Dwayne Flournoy.
However, on Jan. 25, forensic anthropologist Heather Walsh-Haney briefed investigators, including Flournoy, Maj. Thomas Honan and Capt. P. Abut, on the case. In his notes, a Hallandale Beach investigator, who was not identified, wrote: “Dr. Walsh-Haney stated that there were no signs of perimortem blunt trauma. However, there was evidence of a postmortem blunt trauma to the cranium. She stated that said postmortem trauma had probably occurred during the search and recovery of the skeleton.”
The notes were provided to The Miami Herald by Hoeg.
The damage to the cranium, Hoeg said, could prove problematic for the case against his client.
“If there is only trauma afterward, did the damage destroy evidence?” he said.
But on Friday, Police Chief Flournoy insisted there was not any damage caused post-mortem to the skeleton. “The bones were not compromised in any way,” said Flournoy.
Regardless, the Texas lab working to identify the baby’s remains has enough evidence to work with.
All a scientist needs is a small bone fragment to create a DNA profile, said John Fudenberg, the president-elect for International Association of Coroners and Medical Examiners.
“Unless there is significant trauma noted, it’s very difficult for a medical examiner to determine the cause of death,” Fudenberg added.
With a touch of her trademark humor, Ellen DeGeneres tackles a very serious topic close to the talk show host's heart: gay marriage.
In an open letter posted to her website, Ellen reaches out to members of the Supreme Court, who will soon decide the fate of same-sex couples who wish to wed.
Pics: 'Amazing Race' Stars Cheer Up Bullied Gay Fan
"Portia and I have been married for 4 years and they have been the happiest of my life," she blogs of her longtime partner Portia De Rossi. "And in those 4 years, I don't think we hurt anyone else's marriage. I asked all of my neighbors and they say they're fine."
Ellen, who tied the knot in 2008 during a brief period when gay marriage was legal in California, now urges the powers that be to open their heart and extend the privilege to every gay couple.
"I hope the Supreme Court will do the right thing, and let everyone enjoy the same rights," Ellen writes. "It's going to help keep families together. It's going to make kids feel better about who they are. And it is time."
Related: Neil Patrick Harris: I Knew I was Gay at 6
In closing the comedian writes, "In the words of Benjamin Franklin, 'We're here, we're queer, get over it.'"
Read Ellen's entire plea to the supreme court here.
Jack Dorsey wanted to base his tech start-up, Square, in New York City — but he was in a hurry.
The 36-year-old Twitter co-founder said he changed his plan and based the payments platform in San Francisco because access to engineering talent was easier out West — and he wanted to build Square quickly.
Dorsey, a New York University dropout, made the comments at the school alongside his longtime investor Fred Wilson, of Union Square Ventures, who was chosen to be an early backer of Twitter because of his Big Apple moxie.
“He’s got that New York aggression,” Dorsey said of Wilson. “In Silicon Valley you have a lot of passive aggression.”
That attitude gave Wilson’s Union Square Ventures a leg up in its bid to invest in Twitter, he said.
The two were the featured event at NYU’s Entrepreneurs Festival, which runs through this weekend.
Twitter, which turns seven this month, is a $10 billion company likely headed for a public offering. Four-year-old Square raised $200 million last year at a more than $3 billion valuation.
If everything goes smoothly, you won’t hear much out of China in the new week. And that’s the way its new leaders want it. Even though the world’s second largest economy officially seats a new president and premier, the beginning of China’s parliamentary session on Tuesday comes without the usual pomp and circumstance. Instead, China’s new leaders hope to show their own version of austerity. For instance, there will be no booze at official meals.
The party leaders want a sober beginning to their terms as the hope for a more sober Chinese economy. They want to avoid any significant pronouncements that could threat China’s gentle economic recovery. The country’s biggest trading partner, Europe, continues to struggle, tensions with Japan have been rising and Chinese workers have been demanding (and in some cases getting) pay raises. Chinese home prices have heated up again as the Beijing government moved late last year to stimulate its economy.
It came after China’s economy grew at its slowest pace in 13 years. The new government knows that its political stability depends upon a steady economy. With choking air pollution, a horrendous record on food safety and sanctioned corruption, the new slate of leaders taking their seats this week would like to reduce China’s reliance on exports to fuel its economic expansion, reassure its trading partners it wants to play fair and stoke a steady and sustainable rise of living standards.
Since early December as the stimulus efforts began, the Shanghai Stock Exchange index has shot up 21 percent. Electricity production is rising and manufacturing has rebounded too. But the political volume has been muted.
Tom Hudson is a financial journalist based in Miami. He is the former co-anchor and managing editor of Nightly Business Report on public television.
Even if you’re a Broadway dancer in top shape, it’s not easy looking good and staying fit when you’re on the road with a show like Les Misérables.
"Touring is a difficult life because you’re constantly moving," said Trinity Wheeler, production stage manager for the Les Mis touring company, playing through Sunday at the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami.
"It’s not like you can go to a grocery store and have a kitchen and cook the foods that you want and have a consistent workout schedule. We created something that is consistent for the cast," said Wheeler, who is also a certified trainer. "Eating out every meal and stuff can be challenging to stay healthy. Being healthy and on tour is a goal we all try to accomplish."
Thursday morning, Wheeler held a “Guns of the Barricade” boot camp at Steel Gym in Wilton Manors. The workout session allows cast members and others to stay in shape while they’re on the road, Wheeler said.
The Les Mis touring company has 89 people who travel with the show: cast members, crew and musicians, according to Wheeler.
"It’s a large group of people that have this nomadic lifestyle," he said. "Having fitness incorporated into it, you feel better, you wake up, have more energy. It’s been really great for us as individuals, but also for the show."
Among the touring cast members: Wheeler’s partner, Alan Shaw, who plays Joly. The couple own a house in Fort Lauderdale’s Poinsettia Heights neighborhood.
" Les Mis is three hours long and we do eight shows a week. I realized early on because I’ve been with the show over two years now that if I don’t take care of my body and if I don’t eat right and if I don’t really stay on top of it, I can’t do eight shows a week," Shaw said. "We’re onstage in front of 2,000 people on average every night. You have to look your best. It’s part of our job."
The CW's remake of the '90s hit show 90210 will reportedly end its five-year run in May.
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According to Us Weekly, the show (starring AnnaLynne McCord, Shenae Grimes, Matt Lanter, Jessica Stroup and Jessica Lowndes) has been canceled due to meager ratings.
The show has reportedly averaged 1.23 million viewers this season, being overshadowed by new hits The Vampire Diaries and Arrow.
"The CW has had five great seasons with America's favorite zip code, 90210," CW network president Mark Pedowitz announced in a statement. "I'd like to thank the talented cast, producers, and crew for all their hard work and dedication to the series. We are very proud of the West Beverly High alumni."
John Paulson is moving against MetroPCS.
The hedge-fund billionaire, whose Paulson & Co. hedge fund is the biggest shareholder of the wireless carrier, said yesterday he intends to vote against the proposed sale to T-Mobile.
“MetroPCS is contributing 42 percent to the pro forma company’s value but its shareholders are only receiving 26 percent of the pro forma company’s equity,” the firm said.
Paulson’s opposition throws the success of the deal into doubt.
T-Mobile, America’s fourth-largest carrier, has reached a deal to buy 74 percent of pre-paid leader MetroPCS in a stock and cash transaction.
The March 28 vote by shareholders is expected to be close, said a source.
Private-equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners, which in 2005 bought into MetroPCS and owns an 8.3 percent stake, supports the merger.
Paulson & Co., in a letter, said, “We believe that as an independent company MetroPCS will be able to pursue a higher value transaction with industry peers than previously made offers at significant premiums to MetroPCS’ current [$9.80] share price.
The hedge fund could be alluding to Sprint, which has been rumored to be interested in the company — but sources with direct knowledge of the situation said Sprint has no present plans to make a counter-proposal.
jkosman@nypost.com
Have you ever received a request to connect on LinkedIn from someone you didn’t know or couldn’t remember?
A few weeks ago, Josh Turner encountered this situation. The online request to connect came from a businessman on the opposite coast of the United States. It came with a short introduction that ended with “Let’s go Blues!” a reference to Turner’s favorite hockey team in St. Louis that he had mentioned in his profile. “It was a personal connection … that’s building rapport.”
LinkedIn is known for being the professional social network where members expect you to keep buttoned-down behavior and network online like you would at a business event. With more than 200 million registered users, the site facilitates interaction as a way to boost your stature, gain a potential customer or rub elbows with a future boss.
But unlike most other social networking sites, LinkedIn is all about business — and you need to take special care that you act accordingly. As in any workplace, the right amount of personal information sharing could be the foot in the door, say experts. The wrong amount could slam it closed.
“Anyone in business needs a professional online presence,’’ says Vanessa McGovern, the VP of Business Development for the Global Institute for Travel Entrepreneurs and a consultant to business owners on how to use LinkedIn. But they should also heed LinkedIn etiquette or risk sending the wrong messages.
One of the biggest mistakes, McGovern says is getting too personal — or not personal enough.
Sending a request to connect blindly equates to cold calling and likely will lead nowhere. Instead, it should come with a personal note, an explanation of who you are, where you met, or how the connection can benefit both parties, McGovern explains.
Your profile should get a little personal, too, she says. “Talk about yourself in the first person and add a personal flair — your goals, your passion … make yourself seem human.”
Beyond that, keep your LinkedIn posts, invitations, comments and photos professional, McGovern says.
If you had a hard day at the office or your child just won an award, you may want to share it with your personal network elsewhere — but not on LinkedIn.
“This is not Facebook. Only share what you would share at a professional networking event,” she says.
Another etiquette pitfall on LinkedIn is the hit and run — making a connection and not following up.
At least once a week, Ari Rollnick, a principal in kabookaboo, an integrated marketing agency in Coral Gables, gets a request to connect with someone on LinkedIn that he has never met or heard of before. The person will have no connections in common and share no information about why they want to build a rapport.
“I won’t accept. That’s a lost opportunity for them,” Rollnick says.
He approaches it differently. When Rollnick graduated from Emory with an MBA in 2001, he had a good idea that his classmates would excel in the business world. Now, Rollnick wanted to find out just where they went and reestablish a connection.
With a few clicks, he tracked down dozens of them on LinkedIn, requested a connection, and was back on their radar. Then came the follow-up — letting them know through emails, phone calls and posts that he was creating a two-way street for business exchange. “Rather than make that connection and disappearing , I let them know I wanted to open the door to conversation.”
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