Poll: Floridians favor Medicaid expansion

TALLAHASSEE --
The vast majority of Floridians want lawmakers to accept federal money to expand Medicaid, according to a new survey sponsored by the Florida Hospital Association and conducted by a Republican-leaning pollster.

Of 600 voters polled, 62 percent said the state should take the money and use it to reduce the number of uninsured Floridians. Nearly half of respondents, 49 percent, said they felt strongly about accepting the money. The survey was conducted Jan. 15-17 by Public Opinion Strategies and has a 4 percentage point margin of error.

The Senate's Select Committee on the Affordable Care Act will discuss Medicaid expansion during a meeting Monday. Chairman Joe Negron, R-Stuart, said he isn't swayed by polls because the feedback he receives directly from constituents is a mixed bag.

"I'm out talking to voters and to the people that I represent to ask them what they think, and that does persuade me," Negron said.

Hospitals generally support the Medicaid expansion, as well as the wider health care law, because more people would have insurance and therefore be able to pay for the services they receive. However, Florida legislators and Gov. Rick Scott have said they are worried about the long term costs of adding 1 million people to the Medicaid rolls.

They are not alone.

So far, only six states led by Republican governors have indicated that they will participate in the Medicaid expansion. This week, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Michigan Gov. John Snyder said they would like to accept the federal funding.

In addition to releasing the poll Friday, the Florida Hospital Association announced the launch of "The Florida Remedy," a campaign it is leading to influence lawmakers to support the Medicaid expansion.

"Floridians believe that everyone should have access to high quality, affordable health care, and this is a remedy the vast majority of voters support," Florida Hospital Association President Bruce Rueben said in a news release.

Under the Florida Remedy campaign, the state is urged to support the expansion now but vow to pull back if the federal government ever withdraws financial support. The campaign also ties the expansion debate into Florida's proposal to privatize Medicaid, which is awaiting federal approval.

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Christina Applegate Leaving Up All Night Sitcom

Due to creative differences, Up All Night star Christina Applegate has announced her plans to leave the NBC sitcom.

Pics: Star Sightings

"It's been a great experience working on Up All Night, but the show has taken a different creative direction and I decided it was best for me to move on to other endeavors," Applegate tells Deadline. "Working with Lorne Michaels has been a dream come true and I am grateful he brought me into his TV family. I will miss the cast, producers and crew, and wish them the best always."

Applegate's departure is believed to be linked to the show's plans to switch from multi-camera to single-cam filming format and begin taping in front of a live studio audience.

Related: Christina Applegate Wants 'One More' Baby

Up All Night, also starring Maya Rudolph and Will Arnett, just wrapped it's second season.

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Wait for 'killer nanny' pysch tests; she's accused of murdering 2 kids

Court-appointed shrinks are still puzzling over the trial fitness of accused killer nanny Yoselyn Ortega, charged with the heinous bathtub slashing deaths of two young Upper West Side children under her care.

The court-appointed psychologists need more medical records before they can determine if Ortega is mentally fit for trial, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro said during a brief hearing today.

Ortega -- who had slashed herself in the throat after allegedly slaughtering Lucia and Leo Krim, ages 6 and 2 respectively -- remains held without bail at the prison ward of Elmhurst Hospital until the shrinks can determine if she is able to assist in her own defense and understand the charges against her, the judge said.

“Apparently the doctors are requesting more medical records before they can make their finding of fitness,” the judge said, setting Ortega's next court date for March 8.

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Sign up for Feb. 21 Miami Herald Small Business Forum

Prepare your best pitch for the Miami Herald’s Small Business Forum, Feb. 21 at the south campus of our sponsor, Florida International University.

In addition to how-to panels and inspirational stories from successful entrepreneurs, our annual small business forum will include interactive opportunities with experts to learn about financing options and polish your personal and business brands.

During our finance panel, audience volunteers will be invited to explain their financing needs to the group. During our box-lunch session, they will be invited to pitch their business or personal brand to our coaches.

Those who prefer just to listen will be treated to a keynote address by Alberto Perlman, co-founder of the global fitness craze Zumba. Panels include success stories from the local entrepreneurs who founded Sedano’s, Jennifer’s Homemade and ReStockIt.com; finance tips from experts in small business loans, venture capital, angel investments and traditional bank loans; and insiders in the burgeoning South Florida tech start-up scene.

Plus, it’s a real bargain. $25 includes the half-day seminar, continental breakfast and a box lunch.

Register here.

Program

8 a.m.

Registration and continental breakfast, provided by Bill Hansen Catering

8:30 a.m. Welcome

Host: David Suarez, president and CEO, Interactive Training Solutions, LLC

•  Jerry Haar, PhD, associate dean & director, FIU Eugenio Pino and Family Global

Entrepreneurship Center

•  Alice Horn, executive director, Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE South Florida)

•  Jane Wooldridge, Business editor, The Miami Herald

Miami Herald Business Plan Challenge Overview:

•  Nancy Dahlberg, Business Plan Challenge coordinator, The Miami Herald

8:45 a.m. Session I – Success Stories

Moderator: Jerry Haar, PhD, associate dean & director, FIU Eugenio Pino and Family Global

Entrepreneurship Center

Speakers:

•  Jennifer Behar, founder, Jennifer’s Homemade

•  Matt Kuttler, co-president of ReStockIt.com

•  Javier Herrán, chief marketing officer, Sedano’s Supermarkets

10 a.m. Session II – All about Tech

Moderator: Jane Wooldridge, Business editor, The Miami Herald

Speakers

•  Susan Amat, founder, Launch Pad Tech

•  Nancy Borkowski, executive director, Health Management Programs, Chapman Graduate School of

Business, Florida International University

•  Mark Slaughter, CEO, Cohealo.com

•  Chris Fleck, vice president of mobility solutions at Citrix and a director of the South Florida Tech Alliance

11:15 a.m. Keynote

Speaker: Alberto Perlman, CEO and co-founder of Zumba® Fitness

Introduction: Jane Wooldridge, business editor, The Miami Herald

11:45 a.m. Session III – Show me the money: Financing your small business

An interactive session featuring audience volunteers who will be invited to make a short investment pitch before a panel, including experts in microlending, SBA loans, traditional bank loans, venture capital and angel investing. Audience volunteers should come prepared with a two-minute presentation that includes details about current backing, how much money they are seeking and a brief synosis of ow that money would be used.

Moderator: Melissa Krinzman, founder and managing director, Venture Architects

Panelists:

•  Marjorie Weber, chairman, SCORE of Miami-Dade

•  Cornell Crews, Jr., program director, Partners for Self Employment

•  Darius G. Nevin, co-founder, G3 Capital Partners, a mid-market and early-stage investment company

•  Boris Hirmas Said, chairman of the board, Tres Mares S.A. (Santiago, Chile) and entrepreneur in

residence at the Eugenio Pino and Family Global Entrepreneurship Center

1 p.m. Lunch session - Polish your Pitch, Brighten Your Personal Brand

An interactive session featuring audience volunteers who will be invited to make short pitches about their businesses and themselves. Audience volunteers should come prepared with a two-minute presentation.

Coaches: Melissa Krinzman of Venture Architects and Michelle Villalobos of Mivista Consulting

advise audience volunteers on how to best pitch themselves and their products.

Box lunch provided by Bill Hansen Catering

All speakers confirmed unless otherwise noted. Agenda is subject to change without notice .

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Murder charge dropped in Miami Gardens self-defense case

Prosecutors on Thursday dropped a murder charge against a man who claimed self-defense in fatally shooting an armed teen during a June 2010 brawl in Miami Gardens.

Travis Cooper, 28, had been charged with second-degree murder in the killing of Gregory Gant, 16.

The men were part of two groups of fighting men. Cooper claimed Gant pistol-whipped a friend of his, then “pointed the gun in his direction.”

Cooper, a security guard who had a concealed weapons permit, shot and killed Gant. He later called police.

“It’s a relief. They charged me with second-degree murder for no reason,” Cooper said Thursday, flanked by lawyers Andrew Rier and Jonathan Jordan.

Prosecutors decided they could not defend a request for immunity filed under Florida’s Stand Your Ground law, which gave judges greater leeway to throw out criminal cases.

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Heidi Klum Fashion Week amfAR Kickoff Party

Fashion Week kicked off Wednesday night in New York at a black-tie gala in support of amfAR's efforts to end the AIDS epidemic, and ET was there! Watch the highlights as the stars share their fashion enthusiasm and remember where they were one year ago when Whitney Houston unexpectedly passed away before the Grammys…

Pics: Who Wore What

Held at Cipriani Wall Street, the event honored the Chairman of the Board of amfAR, designer Kenneth Cole, legendary performer and amfAR Ambassador Janet Jackson, and supermodel Heidi Klum. The night also featured performances by CeeLo Green, Santigold and others.

Video: Heidi Klum Dances of Leno's Desk

Since 1998, the amfAR New York Gala has become one of New York City's most successful and high-profile AIDS benefits and has raised nearly $13 million to date for essential AIDS research, prevention, and education. For more on amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research, go to www.amfar.org.

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US survivors of Algerian hostage crisis plagued by nightmares, guilt

Mark Cobb was so close to the terrorists, he could hear their footsteps. Steve Wysocki escaped after hearing his boss taken hostage next door. Nick Frazier was on a bus that al Qaeda-linked militants sprayed with hundreds of bullets.

Although the three Americans escaped the harrowing attack on a petrol plant in Algeria with their lives, they are still racked with guilt, plagued with nightmares and haunted by memories of their ordeal and the co-workers they left behind.

Cobb, Wysocki and Frazier described the attack -- in which 37 workers died -- to Charlie Rose in an extensive 60 Minutes interview which airs Sunday.

AP

Algerian soldiers stand guard at the gas plant in Ain Amenas, seen in background.

Cobb, who is a manager at Ain Amenas field in the Sahara, described how he hid under a pile of maps in a locked room with several co-workers after gunfire broke out on January 16.

“If they started poking at the maps with an AK-47 or peeling maps off the top…I knew it was over,” Cobb told Rose.

“I heard them kick open the front door. That’s I guess at the point, in all honesty that I felt pure terror… I elected to begin to make my calls to my family and say my goodbyes.”

Cobb’s door was one of two the militants failed to kick in and he eventually escaped to a nearby Algerian Army base through a hole in the fence.

“The nightmares for me are all the same thing,” Cobb said. “It’s the sound of those footsteps as they came down that hallway towards that door.”

Oil and gas expert Wysocki also escaped through the fence, but not before hearing the terrorists find his boss, Gordon Rowan, who did not survive.

“I’m like ‘Why couldn’t I have done something to help? And…(I) feel guilty that I was paralyzed with fear and not do(ing) anything,” Wysocki told Rose. “I’m especially guilty because they lost their lives and I didn’t.”

BP petrol engineer Frazier described how his bus was peppered with hundreds of bullets before Algerian army soldiers rushed to the rescue, resulting in a 30-minute gun battle.

“They saved our lives,” said Frazier. “They returned…heavy, heavy gunfire…they stood by the bus and shot back and kept the terrorists from getting onto the bus.”

Rowan and gas workers Frederick Buttaccio and Victor Lovelady were the three Americans who died during the standoff, which ended when Algerian special-forces stormed the facility, freeing 685 Algerians and 107 foreigners. More than 30 militants died during the attack.

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Miami startup that turns text to video receives $1 million in seed funding

Guide, a new technology startup based in Miami, announced Tuesday it has closed a $1 million round of seed funding from investors including the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Sapient Corp., MTV founder Bob Pitman, actor and producer Omar Epps, and early Google employee Steve Schimmel. The Knight Foundation is supporting Guide through its new early-stage venture fund, the Knight Enterprise Fund.

Led by CEO and founder Freddie Laker and COO Leslie Bradshaw, Guide’s team of seven is focused on turning online news, social streams and blogs into video for users who may be cooking, exercising, commuting or getting ready in the morning. The free application offers consumers a selection of about 20 “anchors” — including a dog, a robot and an anime character — that will read the article and present the accompanying photos, pull-out information and video clips in its video presentation. Revenue drivers for Guide could include in-app purchases, advertising-based anchors and customizations from publishers, said Laker, a former vice president at SapientNitro.

Laker and his team plan to launch a public beta next month, which they plan to do with a splash at the huge technology conference South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas.

Read more about Guide here on the Starting Gate blog. Follow Nancy Dahlberg on Twitter @ndahlberg

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Judge orders state to release emails in suit over Gov. Scott's plan for Tallahassee park

TALLAHASSEE --
Some governors left bronze statues behind. Others contributed a library or a sun room to the Governors’ Mansion.

Gov. Rick Scott envisions a legacy that would create Governor’s Park, across a six block by three and a half block area in downtown Tallahassee.

The boundaries of the proposal are contained in a memo and maps that state officials attempted to withhold from disclosure in a lawsuit filed by Tallahassee lawyer Steve Andrews as part of a fight over land that once belonged to Gov. LeRoy Collins.

Citing Florida’s public records law, a judge ordered release of documents that outline the park plan after reviewing 120 records that the Department of Environmental Protection tried to shield from public view.

"After conducting an in camera inspection of 120 emails, the court finds that 105 emails were public records … and improperly withheld from the plaintiff after a public records request,’’ Circuit Judge John Cooper wrote in his Jan. 29 order.

Andrews sought the records after filing a lawsuit against Scott and 15 other officials involved in the state’s attempt to block him from buying land where his office is located. The land in question is owned by the Collins estate and fronts Monroe Street, the north-south thoroughfare through the heart of the capital city.

The proposed park would surround the Governor’s Mansion and an adjacent site known as The Grove, the ancestral home of territorial Gov. Richard Keith Call and the final home of the Collins family.

The state bought the Collins home in 1985 with plans to create a museum and visitors center. Maps included in the email released Wednesday indicate that the park would include both mansions and about 120 additional lots now in private ownership in an area between Monroe and Bronough streets.

Andrews signed a contract to buy his office building for $580,000 after then-Secretary of State Kurt Browning signed a letter rejecting the state’s right of first refusal to buy the property. Scott’s office objected at the last minute, and Scott and the Cabinet voted to buy it a year ago in spite of the contract between Andrews and the Collins estate.

The lawsuit grinds on, with more than a dozen lawyers representing various state agencies and a separate lawsuit filed by Scott and the Cabinet against John Aurell, Collins’ son-in-law and executor of the Collins estate. The judge has rejected state accusations of fraud and breach of contract against Aurell, calling them without merit.

Andrews said the state will spend some $10-million if it proceeds with the park plan as outlined.

"It’s a lot of money when you think that Governor Collins’ legacy is that he was the first southern governor to advocate publicly for the passage of civil rights legislation,’’ Andrews said. "Even Gov. Charlie Crist refused to do repairs and paint the Governor’s Mansion because so many people in the state were losing their homes to foreclosure.’’

A spokeswoman for Scott did not respond to questions about the cost of the plan or explain why the records were withheld from public view.

The tradition of governors enhancing the mansion is longstanding. Some redecorated; others added a pool, tennis courts, fencing and a garage, often at state expense.

Since Gov. Bob Graham’s wife Adele created a private foundation, additions have mostly been paid for with private donations. The Grahams built a large sun room on the north side of the mansion.

Former Gov. Bob Martinez raised money for a bronze manatee sculpture on mansion grounds, and former Gov. Lawton Chiles left a large bronze sculpture of children walking on a log. Former Gov. Jeb Bush used his fundraising ability to add a library.

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Will Smith Explains Why Willow Smith Dropped Out of 'Annie'

Will Smith explains why daughter Willow has dropped out of the big-screen Annie reboot, telling the audience of Real Talk with Sister Souljah and Will Smith at Philly's Temple University that his high-profile daughter really wants to act her age.

Pics: Stars and Their Cute Kids

Will told the audience, "Willow was supposed to be doing Annie, we got Jay-Z to do the movie, got the studio to come in and Willow had such a difficult time on tour with Whip My Hair and she said, 'You know Daddy, I don't think so,' and I said, 'Baby, hold up!' I said, 'No, no, no, listen, you'll be in New York with all of your friends and Beyoncé will be there. You will be singing and dancing,' and she looked at me and said, 'Daddy, I have a better idea, how about I just be 12.'

The Smith clan has been in creative career overdrive, with 2010 alone packed with the release of Whip My Hair, The Karate Kid, Hawthorne and the Nobel Concert when Barack Obama won his Nobel Peace Prize. This summer, Will's sci-fi movie with son Jaden, After Earth, hits theaters.

"Don't be clapping yet, that wears you out," explains Will. "The thing that had become very clear to me is the danger of a material world and focusing so hard on coming up with money or a house or a job. You focus so hard on those things, and sometimes you can lose focus on why you are doing it in the first place. The only reason to do any of that is to have love."

Video: Will & Jaden Smith Survive 'After Earth'

He continued, "I'm really learning through Willow the necessity that we have to snap ourselves back and refocus on the emotional needs of the people that we love. Someone's emotional needs can be very, very different from your dreams and what you think they should be doing and where they are supposed to be."

So it looks like Willow will slow things down a bit for now and just focus on being a kid. Lesson learned, Will, lesson learned.

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