Diageo moving office to Coral Gables

Diageo will move its Miami office to Coral Gables in the fall of 2013.

The world’s leading spirits company will move from its current office at Blue Lagoon when its lease ends and relocate to 396 Alhambra Circle in Coral Gables.

Diageo has 175 people based in its Miami office, the majority of whom work for the Latin American and Caribbean region that is headquartered in Miami. The company has signed a 10-year lease in Coral Gables at 296 Alhambra, which is owned by Agave Holdings. The 32,527 square foot office has received LEED Silver and Gold certification.

“The new office is an important hub for not only Diageo North America, but also serves as the gateway to Latin America and our successful – and growing – business there,” said Randy Millian, Diageo President, Latin America and Caribbean. “We are excited to join the Coral Gables community.”

With the completion of the Diageo lease, the 282,000-square-foot Coral Gables office building is now 65 percent lease just one year after its opening. Diageo will join a roster of existing tenants that includes HBO Latin America, Millicom International Services, law firm Richman Greer, Banco Pichincha and CitiBank

“The addition of Diageo strengthens 396 Alhambra’s standing as the Class A address of choice for major multinational users in the Coral Gables market,” said Danet Linares, executive vice president at Blanca Commercial Real Estate, which represented Agave in the transaction.

“Diageo’s decision to relocate to Coral Gables reaffirms that the area is a vibrant business center for the greater Miami area,” said Jose Antonio Perez Helguera, managing director for Agave Holdings.

Danet Linares and Andres del Corral of Blanca Commercial Real Estate represented 396 Alhambra in the transaction, while Joe Garvey of CLW Real Estate Group represented Diageo.

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Keeping your identity safe during the holidays

I have received many emails regarding identity theft, particularly during this time of the year.

I have turned to our FBI partners for information. Special Agent Darin M. Didier, a six-year veteran of the FBI who investigates identity theft for the FBI’s Miami Division, wrote this column.

Have you ever found unauthorized purchases on your credit card or tried to file a tax return only to find out someone else already filed a return in your name?

If you answered yes, you’re not alone – thousands of South Floridians have become victims of identity theft in recent years by these and other common schemes. Approximately 10 million Americans fall victim to identity theft each year at a cost of roughly $5 billion. The FBI, along with numerous other agencies, investigates many different types of identity theft scams that victimize individuals every day.

Simply put, identity theft is the use of someone’s personal information without their permission. Identity theft can be used to obtain new lines of credit, exploit existing credit cards or bank accounts, obtain a mortgage, file a fraudulent tax return or even to get a job.

What used to be a crime committed by criminals grabbing credit card offers from mailboxes has become a global issue that can be perpetrated by individuals thousands of miles away. With advanced technology, criminals exploit the internet as a means to quickly and anonymously find unsecure personal information. While a daunting problem, proper vigilance can help to safeguard your identity. You can help keep your identity safe by following these tips:

Check your credit report for free at least yearly – then follow-up with the credit bureau if you notice anything unusual.

Contact your credit card companies to close out your accounts that you no longer use – just because you paid off the balance does not mean the account was closed.

Regularly review your bank account and credit card statements to ensure no suspicious charges appear.

Never respond to unsolicited text messages, e-mails or phone calls asking for your personal information. If you have any doubt, use the contact number on your account statement to check on your account.

Ensure the websites you use have a secure connection, which is denoted by “https:” at the beginning of the web address and a lock icon displayed in the address bar.

Set up automatic updates for your antivirus and firewall protection.

Use a shredder to destroy all documentation you wouldn’t want others to see.

For more tips to combat identity theft, visit the Federal Trade Commission website at www.ftc.gov. Report all online crime including identity theft at www.ic3.gov. The FBI and its local, state and federal partners take the investigation and prosecution of identity theft seriously. Contact your local FBI offices at (305)944-9101 if you are a victim.

You can also call our office and we will be happy to send you brochures on this topic. We have English and Spanish brochures.

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New leaks suggest Microsoft Office for iOS could launch soon

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Busy Philipps Pregnant With Second Child

Cougar Town star Busy Philipps, 33, just revealed that she's expecting baby number two with her husband, screenwriter Marc Silverstein.

"So this happened ..." she tweeted, along with a picture of a Clearblue pregnancy test reading positive.

Related: Busy Philipps Talks 'Cougar Town'

Her rep later confirmed the happy news.

"I can confirm she is pregnant," Busy's rep, Carrie Byalick, told Life & Style.

Video: Busy Philipps Gets 'Mortified'

The newest member of the family will join their daughter Birdie, 4, who the couple welcomed on August 13, 2008.

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Fourth accuser sues Kevin Clash: Elmo's puppeteer had sensitive 'medical condition'

Elmo have hard problem.

The fourth man to accuse “Sesame Street’’ puppeteer Kevin Clash of inappropriate sexual contact says the older man couldn’t get it up when the two were getting it on in Clash’s New York City pad around 1995, according the alleged victim’s civil lawsuit filed today in Manhattan Federal Court.

At the time, Clash, then 35, blamed his penis problems on an unspecified “medical condition,” the lawsuit said.

The accuser, who is now in his 30s, said he was around 16 when he met Clash walking on a Miami beach and that the pair kept in touch over the phone.

Getty Images

Kevin Clash, the former puppeteer for the Elmo character on the long-running children's television show Sesame Street.

After learning that the accuser had problems at home and wanted to run away, Clash, the squeaky voice of Elmo, promised to “be a dad” to him and lured him to the city “with promises to pay for his plane ticket ... and give him cash and a free place to stay,” the lawsuit said. The accuser was allegedly sexually abused after visiting Clash.

A previous accuser who says he was also 16 when he and Clash hooked up also had written in a memoir, “The game we played was father and son.”

Clash’s latest accuser remained unnamed in the suit. His lawyer is also representing two other accusers.

Clash’s rep did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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AutoNation: Back in the fast lane with expansion, higher sales

Despite an agonizingly slow economic recovery, the country’s largest auto retailer, Fort Lauderdale-based AutoNation, is thriving again as demand for vehicles expands.

The company, one of Florida’s largest, is posting increasingly strong profits and revenues. Just last week, in a sign of confidence, Autonation announced a major acquisition — buying six large auto stores in Texas — that will add about 700 employees to its national payroll of 19,400.

In announcing the deal Tuesday, which is expected to provide AutoNation with $575 million in additional revenues next year, the company’s CEO and chairman, Mike Jackson, expressed optimism about the prospects for continued growth in vehicle sales.

“You want to know what I’m thinking, look at what I do,” Jackson told viewers on CNBC’s Squawk Box program.

No information was released on the cost of the transactions, but in recent years auto dealerships sometimes sold for three to five times revenue, which would represent a significant investment for the company.

Tough times

To be sure, AutoNation has struggled through some tough times. It was battered by the Great Recession, which depressed sales and pushed the company into a $1.2 billion loss four years ago. As sales began to improve in 2010 and 2011, it was blindsided by a shortage of Japanese-made cars last year after the earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 shut down Japanese manufacturers of some essential components.

Since then, however, AutoNation has rebounded. Unit sales, revenues and profits all performed well in the first three quarters of this year, and the company expects new vehicle sales to continue their recovery nationwide, rising to the mid-14 million units this year, up from about 12.7 million in 2011. In the third quarter of 2012, AutoNation’s new car unit sales grew by 21 percent over the same period in 2011, doing better than an estimated 15 percent increase industry wide. November’s sales of new vehicles increased by 21 percent over November 2011 .

The big dealerships acquired sell Audi, Porsche, Volkswagen and Chrysler products in the Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth markets. They are expected to sell 14,000 new and used autos this year, and will add substantially to AutoNation’s future sales.

“We are in the right industry at the right time,” Jackson said during an interview. “The recovery in new vehicle sales is being driven by replacement demand,” added Jackson, who has 42 years of experience in the auto business. “The average age of the light vehicle fleet in the country has increased to 11 years, and even though cars and trucks last longer today, they can’t go on forever. About 12 to 13 million vehicles are scrapped every year and need to be replaced.”

Other factors are contributing to stronger demand for vehicles. “The population is growing, interest rates are low, there is ample credit available and manufacturers are producing a wide range of new models that offer attractive styling, power and greatly improved gas mileage,” said Jackson, who took over as AutoNation’s CEO in 1999. “Auto financing is more available than it has been in recent years. A little known fact is that people are more likely to default on a mortgage than on a vehicle loan.”

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Republican insider fight becomes headache for GOP

MiamiHerald.com/columnists

A Republican is suing the Republican Party of Florida, saying it disenfranchised him and some Republican voters.

On its face, the lawsuit filed last week by former Miami-Dade School Board member Renier Diaz de la Portilla looks like a simple paperwork fight over an obscure party position.

But the underpinnings of the case are much more complicated, involving the byzantine politics of Miami-Dade and the behind-the-scenes battle in Tallahassee for who leads the Florida House in six years.

The lawsuit is also another public-relations headache for the Republican Party of Florida, which would prefer to focus its energies on bigger matters, like promoting Gov. Rick Scott.

But RPOF has no choice. It has to deal with Diaz de la Portilla.

He was elected Aug. 14 as Republican State Executive Committeeman from Miami-Dade. The party, though, refused to seat him. It said he forgot to submit a loyalty oath to the party in Tallahassee.

Diaz de la Portilla said that’s false.

“The law is on my side,” Diaz de la Portilla said. “I won the election. And I filed my loyalty oath. I don’t see what the problem is, why they want to disenfranchise Republican voters.”

Party spokesman Brian Burgess said RPOF isn’t cancelling Republican votes; it’s ensuring the rules are properly followed.

Burgess said he couldn’t comment on Diaz de la Portilla’s suit, filed last Tuesday. A Friday hearing on the case was delayed until another date.

Under party rules, candidates for executive committeeman were supposed to file loyalty oaths to the party between June 4 and June 8.

Diaz de la Portilla signed the oath June 5, got it notarized and promptly submitted it to the county and state elections offices as well as the local Republican Party, according to documents he filed in his lawsuit.

In a sworn affidavit, Miami-Dade Republican Party Executive Director Yulexis Argota said he faxed the loyalty oath to party headquarters in Tallahassee on June 6 and then personally spoke with a party official who confirmed receipt.

Perhaps there’s another twist, but right now it’s tough to see how RPOF can deny Diaz de la Portilla the executive committeeman position, which has limited say and influence over the direction of the party.

But this is law and politics and internal Republican Party infighting we’re talking here. So nothing is as simple as it seems.

After all, the committeeman battle is bound up in the fight over who becomes Florida House Speaker, from 2018 to 2020.

That post appears at the moment to have been won by Hialeah state Rep. Jose Oliva.

Diaz de la Portilla’s brother, Alex Diaz de la Portilla, wanted the job. But he lost his central Miami state House race in a general-election upset to Democrat Jose Javier Rodriguez.

Months before, Renier Diaz de la Portilla also lost his bid for a state House seat that he sought at the same time he ran for committeeman.

Assuming he and his brother won, Alex Diaz de la Portilla would have had a strong shot at the speakership (their oldest brother, Miguel, serves in the state Senate) because Republican House members choose the chamber’s leader in the GOP-controlled Legislature. Democrats essentially have no say.

Alex Diaz de la Portilla knows something about legislative leadership races; he helped engineer a coup that cost former Miami state Sen. Alex Villalobos his shot at becoming state Senate president in the 2009-10 sessions.

This year, as Renier and Alex Diaz de la Portilla ran for their house seats, Renier hedged his bets by simultaneously running for the committeeman slot. He won that post, salvaging a win against the man who beat him for the House seat, newly elected Rep. Manny Diaz Jr. – an ally of Oliva’s.

Then, in mid-October, the state party informed Diaz de la Portilla that he didn’t properly file his paperwork. It said that Diaz, the runner up in the committeeman race, would be seated instead.

Diaz de la Portilla tried to sound reasonable at the time and said all the votes cast for him should count.

"I hope to work with party officials to make sure that 30,000 Miami-Dade Republicans are not disenfranchised by this misunderstanding,” he told The Herald in October.

But the more the case develops, the less it looks like it’s a fight about the preference of rank-and-file voters for a position that few understand.

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Top 10 Tech This Week

1. Here Comes the First Real Alternative to iPhone and Android

Jolla, a Finnish startup, launched a new mobile OS called Sailfish, which the company believes will become a legitimate alternative to the Coke and Pepsi of smartphone platforms: Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. Learn more about the new OS.

Click here to view this gallery.

[More from Mashable: Jimmy Fallon and Mariah Carey Take on ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’]

It’s been awhile since the big tech companies launched products in time for the holiday shopping season. So this week, tech news has mostly been filled with cool scientific developments and — of course — drones.

We learned about Swiss researchers who created an underwater drone that resembles a sea turtle, and a father who built a DIY drone to track his kid walking from home to the bus each morning.

[More from Mashable: News Corp. Kills ‘The Daily’]

This week, we also took a look at new innovations: One groups of scientists created the lightbulb of the future, and another team built the largest-ever model of a functioning brain.

There was also plenty of mobile news. Read up on a new Finnish mobile OS that aims to be the alternative to iOS and Android, and about a Casio watch that syncs with your iPhone.

For these stories and more, check out this week’s Top 10 Tech gallery, above.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Mexican-American singer Jenni Rivera missing after plane disappears over Mexico

MEXICO — A small plane carrying Mexican-American singer Jenni Rivera went missing early Sunday after taking off from the city of Monterrey, authorities in northern Mexico confirmed Sunday.

Jorge Domene, spokesman for the Nuevo Leon state government, told Milenio television on Sunday that the plane left Monterrey about 3:30 a.m local time after a concert there and aviation authorities lost contact with the craft about 10 minutes later. It had been scheduled to arrive in Toluca, which is located outside Mexico City, about an hour later.

Domene said a search for the plane was launched early Sunday, with helicopters from the local civilian protection agency flying over the state. He said seven people including the crew were believed to be aboard the U.S.-registered Learjet 25.

The 43-year-old who was born and raised in Long Beach, California, is known for her interpretations of Mexican regional music known as nortena and banda.

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Events showcase Miami’s growth as tech center

One by one, representatives from six startup companies walked onto the wooden stage and presented their products or services to a full house of about 200 investors, mentors, and other supporters Thursday at Incubate Miami’s DemoDay in the loft-like Grand Central in downtown Miami. With a large screen behind them projecting their graphs and charts, they set out to persuade the funders in the room to part with some of their green and support the tech community.

Just 24 hours later, from an elaborate “dojo stage,” a drummer warmed up the crowd of several hundred before a “Council of Elders” entered the ring to share wisdom as the all-day free event opened. Called TekFight, part education, part inspiration, and part entertainment, the martial arts-inspired program challenged entrepreneurs to earn points to “belt up” throughout the day to meet with the “masters” of the tech community.

The two events, which kicked off Innovate MIA week, couldn’t be more different. But in their own ways, like a one-two punch, they exuded the spirit and energy growing in the startup community.

One of the goals of the TekFight event was to introduce young entrepreneurs and students to the tech community, because not everyone has found it yet and it’s hard to know where to start, said Saif Ishoof, the executive director of City Year Miami who co-founded TekFight as a personal project. And throughout the event, he and co-founder Jose Antonio Hernandez-Solaun, as well as Binsen J. Gonzalez and Jeff Goudie, wanted to find creative, engaging ways to offer participants access to some of the community’s most successful leaders.

That would include Alberto Dosal, chairman of CompuQuip Technologies; Albert Santalo, founder and CEO of CareCloud; Jorge Plasencia, chairman and CEO of Republica; Jaret Davis, co-managing shareholder of Greenberg Traurig; and more than two dozen other business and community leaders who shared their war stories and offered advice. Throughout the day, the event was live-streamed on the Web, a TekFight app created by local entrepreneur and UM student Tyler McIntyre kept everyone involved in the tournament and tweets were flying — with #TekFight trending No. 1 in the Miami area for parts of the day. “Next time Art Basel will know not to try to compete with TekFight,” Ishoof quipped.

‘Miami is a hotbed’

After a pair of Chinese dragons danced through the audience, Andre J. Gudger, director for the U.S. Department of Defense Office of Small Business Programs, entered the ring. “I’ve never experienced an event like this,” Gudger remarked. “Miami is a hotbed for technology but nobody knew it.”

Gudger shared humorous stories and practical advice on ways to get technology ideas heard at the highest levels of the federal government. “Every federal agency has a director over small business — find out who they are,” he said. He has had plenty of experience in the private sector: Gudger, who wrote his first computer program on his neighbor’s computer at the age of 12, took one of his former companies from one to 1,300 employees.

There were several rounds that pitted an entrepreneur against an investor, such as Richard Grundy, of the tech startup Flomio, vs. Jonathan Kislak, of Antares Capital, who asked Grundy, “why should I give you money?”

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