End of An Era
Taylor Lautner, Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson brought The Twilight Saga - Breaking Dawn: Part 2 finale express to Berlin, Germany today, where the cast walked the red carpet and mingled with their fans.
PHOTOS - Twilight Stars Hit The LA Red Carpet
A district attorney in upstate New York admits that he acted in pornographic movies in the 1970s.
Mark Suben, the DA in Cortland County near Syracuse since 2008, held a news conference Friday to say he had lied about his past in the days before this year's election.
He is apologizing for his actions and says he used "bad judgment" by acting in porn and by recently denying it. He wouldn't take questions, including whether he should resign.
WSTM-TV in Syracuse published a story Friday that said Suben had acted under his name and the pseudonym Gus Thomas. That news story followed a posting on YouTube that compared images of Suben with Thomas.
Suben previously acknowledged he was an actor in New York City in the 1970s but denied acting in adult
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 Stoppa, 30, who works with Rosa, also 30, at a Sao Paulo telecom company. Their next stops: Sawgrass Mills, Aventura Mall and Bal Harbour Shops, if their money holds out. “We came to Miami to shop because it’s very much cheaper than in Brazil.”
Tourists like Stoppa and Rosa are exactly the reason retail experts predict Florida’s holiday shopping season will see its highest increase since the recession.
Across South Florida, stores are getting a head start on the holidays in hopes of cashing in. Sales are already underway everywhere from Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom, to Macy’s, Toys“R”Us and Anthropologie.
The Florida Retail Federation forecasts that Florida will see a 5.2 percent jump in holiday spending from $55 billion in 2011 to $58 billion this year, marking the highest percentage growth predicted since the economic slump began. Pre-recession, retail sales peaked at $54.3 billion in 2006.
“All of the indicators point to what we believe will be a very robust holiday shopping season,” said Florida Retail Federation President and Chief Executive Rick McAllister.
That also translates into more than 42,000 new retail jobs, he said.
Buoyed in large part by tourists and snowbirds, Florida is expected to outpace the nation in spending for the holiday season, as it did before the recession.
This year, the National Retail Federation is predicting holiday spending nationwide to rise 4.1 percent. On average, consumers are expected to spend about $750 each.
Economists point to strong consumer confidence as a major factor contributing to a stronger shopping season.
“By and large the consumer is very confident right now, and that usually leads to spending,” McAllister said.
Other indicators also point to a healthy season. ICSC, a trade association for the shopping center industry, this week released its ICSC-Goldman Sachs 2012 Holiday Spending Intentions Survey, which found that 19 percent of consumers plan to spend more, and 5 percent substantially more, on holiday gifts this year versus last year. It was the highest percentage of consumers reporting they intend to increase spending over the previous holiday season since ICSC began asking the question in 2004.
Retailers like West Elm are ready, beckoning gift givers. Stores are decked out with sparkly, eye-catching displays of items like candlesticks, ornaments and crystal paperweights.
“We’ve had lots of people shopping early, for several weeks,” said Ana Meza, an assistant manager at West Elm in Midtown Miami.
Without question, the holiday season is critical for retailers, a period when they typically generate 20 percent to 40 percent of the full year’s revenue.
This year brings an added bonus. With Thanksgiving falling early, the shopping season is stretched to 32 days, giving retailers more valuable time to rack up sales.
Shoppers like Jose Hernandez aren’t waiting for the last minute. Hernandez, who works as a civilian supervisor at the Naval Construction Battalion Center in Gulfport, Miss., and spends every other three months home in Miami, started his holiday shopping this week. He figures he spent $2,000 at Carter’s, GUESS, Marshalls and Target in Midtown, and plans to spend a total of $5,000 — up 40 percent from last year — before Christmas Day.
“The economy is going up,” said Hernandez, 44.
Yet experts say that many holiday revelers will avoid the stores all together, opting instead for online purchases.
Retail experts expect e-commerce to continue to post a dramatic increase this holiday season, up 15 percent. Though it still represents only about 5 percent of all shopping, online buying is the fastest-growing segment of the retail industry, McAllister said.
Many online sites are offering percentage discounts starting this weekend. Disney Store will offer a selection of “Magical Friday” deals on sale beginning Monday, at DisneyStore.com. Kohl’s is letting customers shop more than 500 “Early Bird specials” on Kohls.com starting Wednesday.
While apparel is expected to be the top category for purchases, gift cards are again projected to outsell any single article of merchandise. The National Retail Federation’s 2012 holiday consumer spending survey showed that 81.1 percent of shoppers will purchase at least one gift card, spending an average of $156.86 on them.
“Gift cards are the best invention ever,” said Jennifer Mayer, 44, a drug representative who has three daughters and lives in Miami Beach. “It’s not for everyone, but it’s great for those you don’t intimately know.”
This year, Mayer plans to buy gift cards at places like Starbucks, H&M, Forever 21 and Barnes & Noble.
“They’re great for bosses. They’re great for teenagers,” she said. “They’re a lifesaver.”
Union leaders asked the city of Miami to reopen contract negotiations Thursday, one day after the city’s budget team announced it had discovered a surprise $45 million surplus.
“You told us to dig into our pockets and we did — for four consecutive years,” Fraternal Order of Police Vice President Javier Ortiz told the city commission, noting that the unions had agreed to millions in employee concessions because the city was projecting a $40 million budget shortfall.
“Now that apparently times are good and we have $45 million, direct the manager to meet with us and reopen our contracts,” Ortiz said.
Mayor Tomás Regalado said he wants City Manager Johnny Martinez to sit down with the unions after Thanksgiving.
“Maybe we can use a little of the money to buy new uniforms or police cars or fire trucks,” Regalado said. “But to say that we are going to restore every concession, to me, that would be irresponsible.”
City administrators are recommending that the bulk of the surplus be stashed in reserves, which remain below the $93 million balance required by a city ordinance.
“Most of this [surplus] money is not recurring,” Regalado said. “If we were to use that money for raises and benefit, we will fall into the same downward spiral that the city was in many years ago.”
While commissioners said they were pleased to have more money than was projected, they did not give the administration a pass for dramatically underestimating the final balance for the past fiscal year. Budget Director Danny Alfonso had initially forecast a budget surplus of $8.5 million.
“I feel like I’ve been played,” Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones said. “How do you all of a sudden find $45 million?”
Spence-Jones said budget and finance officials should have said something over the summer when city leaders were negotiating employee concessions to balance the budget. She stormed off the dais after making her comments.
Alfonso took responsibility for the change in numbers, saying he had been too conservative with his revenue and expense projections.
“In my heart, there was no attempt to deceive anyone,” he told the commission.
Alfonso said the budget surplus was more likely to be around $37 million after several final transactions posted.
Martinez, the city manager, conceded that the administration “could have managed expectations a little better.”
“There was no plot,” he said. “Maybe we were not at our best with our projections, but there was no attempt to defraud or mislead anybody.”
Regalado said he did not expect anyone to be fired for the mistake.
“I stand 100 percent behind Danny Alfonso and the way that he runs his department,” he said. “I stand behind the manager. He is doing the right thing.”
The surplus will likely come up again later in the meeting, when the commission discusses a proposed $45 million bond issue. The money is needed to pay off a short-term loan that financed Miami’s share of the PortMiami tunnel dig.
Commissioner Frank Carollo said he wants to know how the surplus will affect the bond offering.
In other business, the commission extended the agreement that allows Scotty’s Landing restaurant and Grove Key Marina to operate on city-owned property in Coconut Grove.
The 35-year lease for the eatery and marina expired earlier this year, and the city sought proposals from businesses interested in taking over. But administrators halted the bid process in July, citing procedural irregularities.
“The reason why we’re here is because there was a disastrous process that ensued,” Commission Chairman Francis Suarez said.
Director of Public Facilities Henry Torre said he plans to get started on a new bid process later this month. Because the property sits on the waterfront, any new contract must be approved by public referendum.
Until then, Scotty’s Landing and Grove Key Marina will be able to operate under an agreement that can be revoked for any reason with 30 days notice.
The commission approved the agreement 4-1, with Carollo voting in opposition.
Vice Chairman Marc Sarnoff, whose district includes the Grove, urged city administrators to move forward with the new bid process as quickly as possible.
“I can foresee no set of circumstances, unless it is Hurricane Sandy reemerging, for me to kick this can down the road, and I am going to hold this administration responsible,” Sarnoff said. “Now it’s time to get this done.”
The deal has been particularly controversial because $2.5 million in back property taxes are owed on the site. Both Scotty’s Landing and the city of Miami have refused to pay. The business owner says his lease exempts him from property taxes.
The Miami-Dade tax collector had initially planned to go after the restaurant and marina. But the collector is now asking a judge to decide if the city or the restaurant is responsible.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – GameStop Corp, the world’s largest retailer of videogame products, reported a stronger-than-expected profit on Thursday but lowered its sales forecast for this year due to uncertainty around the holiday shopping season as the video game market struggles.
Grapevine, Texas-based GameStop forecast same-store sales in 2012 would drop 6 percent to 9 percent, compared with a 2 to 10 percent decline projected previously.
“We’ve continued to find new ways to drive revenues and margins in our stores and that’s enabled us to hold on to some earnings in these difficult times,” Chief Financial Officer Rob Lloyd said in an interview.
“We’re still a little bit cautious in that it’s a difficult environment in which to forecast because the industry has been down,” Lloyd said. “And we’ve got uncertainty surrounding what the supply of the (Nintendo)Wii U is going to be.”
Nintendo Co Ltd is gearing up to launch its Wii U video game console on November 18. It is the first new home console device to be sold by a major gaming company in more than six years.
GameStop hopes the start of a new console cycle with the Wii U launch and just-released high quality games like Microsoft Corp’s “Halo 4″ and Activision Blizzard’s “Call of Duty: Black Ops II” will boost hardware and software sales this holiday season.
GameStop’s shares rose 4.25 percent to $ 24.48 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia said investors seem more comfortable now with the company’s recent efforts to drive profitability.
In the last two years, the company has been tackling decelerating video game sales in a tough market by diversifying its revenue sources, selling electronics like tablets, digital video games and used games.
The games retailer said it had repurchased stock worth $ 76.8 million in the third quarter and announced that its board had approved a new $ 500 million share buy-back plan to replace its existing $ 242 million repurchase plan. It also announced a quarterly dividend of 25 cents, same as last quarter.
The company reported adjusted net earnings per share of 38 cents in the third quarter, beating analysts’ expectations of 32 cents.
“Earnings per share was quite impressive, driven by gross margins being strong and cost control,” Sterne Agee’s Bhatia said.
GameStop said it expects comparable store sales to range between down 7 percent and up 1 percent in the fourth quarter. It forecast earnings per share between $ 2.07 to $ 2.27 for the period.
Sales of traditional videogame products such as consoles have been pressured globally by lower-priced online offerings and gamers spending more time on tablet computers and cell phones.
Total U.S. sales of videogame software in October dropped 25 percent from a year ago, following a similar trend throughout the third quarter, according to a report by market research firm NPD.
GameStop said sales fell 8.9 percent to $ 1.77 billion. Analysts were expecting sales of $ 1.79 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Adjusted earnings were $ 47.2 million, compared with $ 53.9 million a year ago. The company maintained its previously announced full-year earnings outlook of between $ 3.10 per share to $ 3.30 per share.
(Reporting by Malathi Nayak; editing by John Wallace, Maureen Bavdek, David Gregorio and Dan Grebler)
Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News
In another edge-of-your-seat episode of this roller coaster season of Survivor, a critical member of the Tandang tribe flipped, causing Louisiana native Artis Silvester to be sent packing. ETonline gets the scoop from the 53-year-old computer engineer on what he really thought of his alliance-mate Abi, his take on Lisa's big move, and how having survived cancer affected his approach to the game.
ETonline: So, were you surprised when your name was called last night?
Artis: No, not at all. Actually, it's the only thing, the smartest move that they could have made. And I knew that. I was disappointed that I wasn't able to keep a particular person in my corner. But as far as the votes, see the way that the votes came out, they came out exactly like I thought they did. Except for that [swing] vote. Once I saw that vote, I thought, "Oh, I couldn't do a good enough job to convince that person to stay with me." And that's when you saw me put my head down 'cause I knew I was going home.
ETonline: I thought it was very magnanimous of you in the closing credits when you were saying that you thought it was great the way that it ended. And that said a lot about your respect for the game, I think.
Artis: Yes! It is a game. I have no problems with anybody's game. ... You know 'cause it is a game. You can't control people, [they] are gonna do what they're gonna do, what they feel is best for them. And even if it's not, in their mind if they feel that it is the best move that they can make, then they're gonna do it. And the other situation is you have some people that play for the million dollars. And you have some people that take Survivor, and they actually believe that it's their stepping stone to fame and fortune and stardom. I wasn't like that. I came there for the money. The game is great, and if you play the game like that. Jeff's job is to edit; the host's job is to edit the game. He can give them the material. You can't go out there trying to help him with his material, because you have this ulterior motive. But, like I said, you can only do so much. And I had a blast.
Related: Lisa Whelchel Snuffs Blair's Torch on 'Survivor'
ETonline: Great. So when you went into that vote, did you know Skupin was going to go the other way?
Artis: Absolutely. Absolutely. There was no doubt in my mind. That was the one time that Mike had any power whatsoever. Mike could do what he wanted to do and not suffer any consequences. And that's what he was looking for. He was looking for an avenue where he could do something, and not suffer any consequences. That was the one time he could do it. 'Cause he had the immunity idol. You take that idol away, and I guarantee you he doesn't do what he does.
ETonline: I noticed in the episode last night, Skupin talked about how he and Lisa were going to be going together 'til the end, and always voted the same way. But Lisa ended up voting with Tandang last night. So I was wondering if you think that she, knowing that Skupin was gonna vote for you, that she felt like she could still vote with Tandang and appear to be loyal, even though she knew you were going home.
Artis: I think Lisa is loyal to Tandang, because Lisa is genuinely loyal to Tandang. She did things that people didn't agree with, myself included. But in her mind's eye, she did things for the betterment of the tribe. Again, she's also one, where she falls into that thing where you gotta make a big move, "Well, this is my big move. And my big move will also help my tribe." I can't fault her for that. Can't get mad at her for that. You know? For people to jump on her like that-- like, why? I mean, there was no need to jump on her like that. I mean, I was disappointed at her move. I told her I was disappointed at it. ... I said "I'm not disappointed in your game play, I know you're gonna make moves. I just wish you had told me you were gonna do it before you did it. Because your move directly affects, impacts, what happens to me in the rest of the game. Or anybody else as well. You know, I'm not mad at what you did, I'm just mad at how you did it." And I told her, "We're still good. We're still good. I have no bias, you're still my girl! Don't worry about it."
Related: Survivor's Jeff Kent: Lisa Burned Bridges
ETonline: And going along those lines. Abi was very direct with everyone in the game. And kind of maybe was a little too honest. Do you think that her outbursts ended up putting a target on your back, because you were in an alliance with her?
Artis: First of all, let's call it what it is. Abi was not honest. Abi was abusive. There's a big difference. There's a huge difference between being honest, and being abusive. Abi was abusive. Alright? Again, I don't know if after getting cast, that she decided that was the character she was gonna portray. ... If so, I would like to say well done, but I'm not. On the other side of the coin, if that is who she is, then there's a lot to be said there as well.
ETonline: Yeah.
Artis: So I guess she figured that you know, "If nobody likes me, they'll take me to the end." And for the most part, that's right. But I'm just not a fan of that philosophy. Because, you don't know what goes in the minds of other people, alright. And at that point in time, you are actually really competing for the million dollars. And you're probably sitting there with your chest stuck out, all big and proud, thinking that because you brought Abi to the end, and nobody likes her, that you're automatically gonna get that gold. But you don't know what goes on in the psyche of a human being's mind. They could flip around and say nobody likes her, but they refuse to get rid of her, and she's still there. Now they give her the million dollars, and then you're gonna feel like an ass. Now if you pressed me, I would never take Abi to the end. I wouldn't even give her the opportunity to have a shot at the million dollars in a situation like that. I believe you need to earn that shot.
ETonline: If you could go back, and do anything over again, would you do anything differently?
Artis: Yes. Probably two things. One of two things, depending on how they played out. First is I would've went to Jeff, before Jeff got voted out, and let him know that he was on the block. And see if he could get his people together, and we get rid of Mike. Alright. Tandang still would've been up in the numbers. I like Jeff. Jeff would've still been in the game. Jeff's own tribe [member], Penner, got rid of Jeff. He did, Penner literally got rid of Jeff. I would've went to Jeff. Other than that, I might-- you know, looking back at it now, I'm thinking that I might have sided with Penner. But I really don't think that I would take that route. I think that the move I would've made would've been to go with Jeff and get Jeff to get rid of Mike. Penner's an excellent player. But he better be. You play this game this game three times, and you still haven't learned nothing? You should stay your ass at home. You know? Again, you play it three times-- you play it two times you're supposed to win. The third time, if you don't get that check, you really do need to stop playing. Regardless of what everybody thinks about you.
ETonline: Why do you think that Penner was able to break the Tandang alliance ultimately? And do you think it was him that was ultimately responsible for swaying Skupin?
Artis: No, Mike was gonna leave regardless. He didn't even have to say anything. All Penner would have to do is say [was], "Hello, Mike?" and Mike would've been like, "I'm there." He was gone. He was gone so fast. All he needed was somebody just to say hello to him.
ETonline: So I saw in your profile, I don't think this really came out much in the show, but you have beaten cancer in the past. Congratulations on that.
Artis: Thank you.
ETonline: How did that affect how you approached playing Survivor?
Artis: Before I got cancer, as I would watch the show, I thought I would play one way. 'Cause before cancer I was this monster of a man. I mean I literally was huge. I'm not even half the size of what I was before I got cancer. I was literally a rock solid monster. So I'm just thinking of all these things that I would've done. But after going through it, and being given a whole new outlook on life, you know -- before playing the game I didn't care. I wouldn't have cared about hurting your feelings. Nothing like that, I wouldn't have cared anything. I just would've squashed you on my way to the end. But now, when I play this time, understanding that it is a game, I'm gonna play hard. I don't care if you like me. Liking me is irrelevant. But I never want to see anyone hurt. You know, because it is a game. And you should not be hurt by a game. So, a softer side of me played this game. Until we started competing, because I always compete hard and heavy.
Related: Exclusive First Look: 'Survivor' Reaches the Merge
ETonline: Cool. So one last question. Who do you think is going to be victorious in the end?
Artis: I don't know. Because who I thought was gonna be victorious is not there. I thought it was gonna be me! Without a doubt, I hands down was like, "I got this!" But now, it's just a wild card, I just have to look. I have to watch and see what I wanna do. You know, where I want to give my vote. Who I want to give the money to. I have to watch and see who's left. And then evaluate, of the people left, who I wanna give this money to. I have no frontrunner. My frontrunner was me. And if anybody who plays the game says anything other than that, they shouldn't have played the game.
ETonline: Great. This season to me, having watched many seasons of Survivor, seems to be one of the most up-in-the-air that I've ever seen. So it's really anyone's guess.
Artis: It sure is. I'm interested to see who's still left and who comes home next.
Survivor: Philippines airs on CBS on Wednesday nights at 8/7 c.
The family of Shannan Gilbert, whose death has been linked to the Gilgo Beach serial killer, filed a wrongful-death lawsuit today against a physician who once lived near where her remains were found.
Mom Mari Gilbert believes Dr. Peter Hackett was among the last people to see Shannan Gilbert alive and could have prevented her death, according to the civil complaint filed in Riverhead, LI.
The heartbroken mom claims she got a call from Hackett, a day after Shannan went missing, who said he was a doctor and was caring for Shannan.
Remains of the Craigslist prostitute Shannan Gilbert were found in a nearby marsh in December.
VICTOR ALCORN
Attorney John Ra and Shannan Gilbert's mother Mary Gilbert address the media.
AP
Shannan Gilbert.
Suffolk County cops have cleared Hackett as a suspect in the string of murders along the Long Island coast.
"I do believe in my heart that Dr. Hackett played a major role in my daughter's death," Mari Gilbert said. "It’s time that we stand up for our rights.”
Hackett, who has since moved to Florida, insists never he’s never met Shannan.
But he has admitted to calling Mari Gilbert once -- at the request of Shannan’s boyfriend Alex Diaz, who met Hacket while searching for his girlfriend.
Hacket said his May 2010 chat with the mom was brief and he offered his help as a board member of the Oak Beach homeowners association.
"Dr. Hackett has told many bizarre stories about his role in this case," lawyer John Ray said.
"There's no direct evidence as to who killed this lady," Ray added. "But circumstantial evidence can be very strong and the circumstantial evidence right now is very strong to support what we're doing with this lawsuit. I don't care what the police believe."
The lawsuit does not have a figure for damages, but plaintiffs said they’ll ask for millions of dollars.
Dr. Hackett could not be immediately reached for comment today.
Additional reporting by David K. Li
Summer brought more tourists to Florida this year than last, according to preliminary numbers from Visit Florida.
The state’s official tourism marketing corporation said 21.9 million people visited the state in the third quarter of the year, 3.5 percent more than last summer.
The number of domestic travelers, which make up the vast majority of visitors, increased 3.2 percent. Overseas visitors jumped 5.5 percent and Canadians increased 4 percent.
As Diego Hurtado gently toyed with his dog’s ear, he recalled jumping out of a plane at 2,000 feet, then freefalling when his parachute failed to open.
He tightly held the dog’s ear in his palm as he recalled the mid-air collision of two aircraft at Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina, that spilled fuel and debris on the base, killing 24 fellow paratroopers and injuring countless others.
Hurtado’s dog Rex, a nearly 80-pound yellow Labrador-golden retriever mix, may seem like any other four-legged canine.
But Rex, 3, is also a service dog trained to help Hurtado cope with post-traumatic stress disorder as well as with the service-related physical injuries.
“With Rex I have been able to reduce my anti-depressants by more than half,” said Hurtado, 51, a sergeant first class who served in the Army for 20 years. “I am able to go to a lot of places I was not able to go to at all.”
Like many other veterans who struggle with PTSD and physical injuries, Hurtado turned to man’s best friend for help. Nonprofit organizations across the country provide dogs to veterans to help servicemen and servicewomen cope with their injuries, both physical and emotional.
Kendall resident Jose Moran received his German shepherd, Jana, from the same organization as Hurtado: New York-based America’s VetDogs.
Coral Springs resident and Iraq war veteran Moises Castro turned to Florida-based Dogs 4 Disabled Veterans for his pit-boxer mix, Salsa.
Both organizations train the dogs to match the personality and needs of each veteran and provide the dogs for free.
Castro, 47, served in Kuwait during the Iraq War as a U.S. Navy petty officer second-class. Once he came back, his anxiety, due to PTSD, was high, especially when he would go into crowds. To add to that, in 2010 he had a brain tumor removed, leaving him with sporadic seizures.
For two years, he barely left his home.
Then along came 2-year-old Salsa with white paws.
She has been trained to sense when Castro is about to get a seizure.
“She just knows it before I do,” he said, adding that during a seizure she licks his face to comfort him.
And when the two enter a big crowd that may induce anxiety, she veers him away.
“Then she keeps looking at me to make sure everything is OK,” said Castro. “She has given my freedom back to me.”
During Moran’s service in the U.S. Army as a sergeant first class, his vehicle ran over an explosive device in Sadr City, Iraq, a suburb of Baghdad The impact crushed one of the disks in his spine and his left knee.
“I don’t really remember too much,” said Moran, 45. “I heard a pop and I was out.”
After returning to South Florida, it was not easy to return to civilian life. Sometimes he did not eat for a week because his PTSD caused him so much anxiety in crowds that he avoided going to the grocery store.
“It got pretty bad there for awhile,” he said. “As bad as you can get without crossing the line.”
Three years ago he got Jana, who has been trained to sense Moran’s anxiety levels and knows when the two are about to walk into an uncomfortable situation.
“She can tell if someone is going to annoy me,” said Moran.
On a recent visit to the Miami VA, a man got in the elevator with the two. He “was just loud” and asked a lot of question about Jana, Moran said.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Brad Keselowski became a social media darling after hopping on Twitter during a lengthy delay in the Daytona 500.
Keselowski was the center of attention, and NASCAR seemed trendy and hip — a description its executives surely adored.
Turns out, tweeting from the car isn’t cool with NASCAR.
Keselowski was fined $ 25,000 on Monday for tweeting during the red flag at Phoenix International Raceway. The punishment was confusing to fans who vented on Twitter, of course, wondering why Keselowski was punished for Sunday’s tweets when he was celebrated by NASCAR for doing the exact same thing in February’s season-opening race.
Some alleged the Sprint Cup Series points leader was actually being disciplined for his profanity-laced outburst after Sunday’s crash- and fight-marred race.
NASCAR spokesman Kerry Tharp on Tuesday dismissed the conspiracy theories, and said drivers had been told after the Daytona 500 that electronic devices — including cellphones — could not be carried inside the race cars going forward.
“Brad’s tweeting at the Daytona 500 was really our first introduction to the magnitude of the social media phenomenon at the race track, especially how we saw it unfold that evening,” Tharp said. “We encourage our drivers to participate in social media. We feel we have the most liberal social media policy in all of sports, and the access we provide is the best in all of sports.
“But we also have rules that pertain to competition that need to be enforced and abided by. Once the 500 took place, and in the days and weeks following the 500, NASCAR communicated to the drivers and teams that while social media was encouraged and we promoted it, the language in the rule book was clear and that drivers couldn’t carry onboard their cars electronic devices, like a phone.”
Keselowski, who takes a 20-point lead over Jimmie Johnson into Sunday’s season finale in his quest to win his first Sprint Cup Series title, has not commented on his penalty.
But with the championship on the line, his crew chief indicated Tuesday he’ll be doing his best to keep the phone out of the No. 2 Dodge this weekend.
“Never even crossed my mind, to be honest with you,” Paul Wolfe said. “We get so involved in worrying about how to make the race car go around the track that, obviously, Brad’s cellphone is not on my mind a whole lot. I’ll definitely remind him this weekend.”
The Daytona 500 was stopped for nearly two hours when Juan Pablo Montoya crashed into a jet dryer that was cleaning the track during a caution period. The crash caused a fuel explosion, and Keselowski used his phone to tweet pictures, answer questions and give updates on the cleanup during the delay.
The race, which had been rained out for the first time in 54 runnings, was being aired on Monday night in prime time for the first time in history and Keselowski’s tweeting drew worldwide headlines.
Afterward, NASCAR specifically said Keselowski did not violate a rule barring onboard electronic devices and would not be penalized.
“Nothing we’ve seen from Brad violates any current rules pertaining to the use of social media during races,” NASCAR said the day after the race. “We encourage our drivers to use social media to express themselves as long as they do so without risking their safety or that of others.”
NASCAR did not issue a technical bulletin to clarify phones could no longer be inside cars, and the clarification to drivers was apparently done quietly. In fact, Keselowski tweeted from Victory Lane at Bristol in March, and from inside his car parked on pit road during a rain delay at Richmond in September. It’s possible someone could have handed him his phone both times.
A year ago, the outspoken Penske Racing driver was fined $ 25,000 headed into the finale for criticizing electronic fuel injection. At the time, NASCAR had been privately punishing drivers for making disparaging remarks about the series, but word of Keselowski’s fine leaked and forced NASCAR to change its policy during the offseason.
Still, many fans were convinced this week’s fine against Keselowski was actually for his post-race comments about the aggressive racing at Phoenix.
He’d been criticized by several drivers for racing Johnson hard over a pair of late restarts at Texas a week earlier, and felt his aggressive driving paled in comparison to Jeff Gordon intentionally wrecking Clint Bowyer with two laps to go on Sunday. Gordon’s retaliation also collected Joey Logano and Aric Almirola, and forced Keselowski to weave his way around the accident.
“It just drives me absolutely crazy that I get lambasted for racing somebody hard without there even being a wreck and then you see stuff like this … from the same people that criticized me,” he said. “It’s OK to just take somebody out. But you race somebody hard, put a fender on somebody and try to go for the win, and you’re an absolute villain. We can just go out and retaliate against each other and come back in and smile about it, and it’s fine. That’s not what this sport needs. It needs hard racing, it needs people that go for broke, try to win races and put it all out there on the line. Not a bunch of people that have anger issues.”
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