Apple to hand out iTunes credits in settlement

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Apple has agreed to give more than $100 million in iTunes store credits to settle a lawsuit alleging that the iPhone and iPad maker improperly charged kids for playing games on their mobile devices.

The federal case centers on allegations that Apple didn't create adequate parental controls to prevent children from buying extra features while playing free games on iPhones and iPads in 2010 and 2011.

Apple Inc. has agreed to award an iTunes credit of $5 to each of the estimated 23 million accountholders who may have been affected. Parents could receive more if they can show their bills exceeded $5. If the charges exceeded $30, cash refunds will be offered.

A hearing on the proposed settlement is scheduled Friday in San Jose, Calf.

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Hialeah sugar firm Banah files for bankruptcy

A sugar processing company that brought hype to Hialeah after it moved into a 300,000-square-foot space last July — promising to hire up to 300 workers — has filed for bankruptcy protection.

The company’s move to its new headquarters even prompted Miami-Dade County to rename a stretch of Southeast 10th Avenue “Banah Sweet Way” in honor of the company. Several local leaders, including county Mayor Carlos Giménez, attended the naming ceremony.

But late last week, the company, which is owned by a convicted drug trafficker and which had sought taxpayer benefits from a government program promoting investments, left behind a line of outraged creditors. The company had only 15 employees.

Banah Sugar International Group Inc. reported that it owed between $1 million and $10 million to a list of 232 people and companies, according to public records.

The company’s administrative director, Luis Estrada, told El Nuevo Herald on Monday that the company’s owner, Alex Pérez, was meeting with company officials and added that he was not authorized to comment on the issue.

The bankruptcy was filed under Chapter 11, which allows for an attempt to reorganize the company. It allows the company’s management to continue day-to-day operations, but the bankruptcy court must make all the company’s important decisions.

On Monday, several creditors criticized Banah’s owner for failing to make payments.

“I feel frustrated and deceived,” said Alexander A. Pérez, owner of Florida Patrol Investigators (FPI), a Hialeah company that provided security services to the company. “They sent me checks that bounced, and we sued them.”

FPI’s owner said that the company owes him close to $70,000 for security services at Banah his company at 215 SE 10th Ave.

Hialeah’s mayor, Carlos Hernández, declined to comment on the sugar company’s bankruptcy filing, but he defended renaming Southeast 10th Avenue after the company, saying that Banah had promised to make significant investments in the area.

County spokesperson Fernando Figueredo said that Giménez had attended the ceremony “in good faith,” since its intention was to highlight an investment made in a 10-acre plant where 200,000 bottles of liquid sugar were supposed to be processed every day.

“The mayor knew nothing about the company’s background,” Figueredo said. “He attended because the company was creating jobs and was being recommended to be recognized in Hialeah.”

Hiram Mendoza, an aide to County Commission Chairwoman Rebeca Sosa, said that in 2012 Banah requested to be included in a program to receive county and state financial incentives. He added, however, that Banah did not meet the goal of creating 300 jobs it had promised. “They have not received any financial aid from the state or the county,” Mendoza said. “It’s true that they asked for it, but they did not meet the goals.”

Last year, Banah executives announced it would hold a job fair.

On Monday, Estrada said the company never had a job fair. Currently it has 15 employees, he said.

In October, Francisco Alvarado, a New Times reporter, revealed that in 2001 the federal government had indicted Banah’s owner on felony charges of conspiracy of cocaine possession and possession with intent to sell. Two years before, DEA agents had arrested two men with six kilograms of cocaine hidden in a vehicle. The men declared under oath that Pérez, Banah’s owner, had handed them the drugs.

In 2003, Pérez pleaded guilty of one of the charges and served four years in a federal prison.

Diego Leiva, Banah’s former executive director, said he was surprised by the bankruptcy. “I left the company when Pérez’s past came to light,” said Leiva, who is among the company’s creditors. “I didn’t know anything about that.”

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Citizens Property Insurance strains to pull in belt on spending

The Maryland insurance executive charged with cleaning house at Citizens Property Insurance has had trouble sticking to the tighter travel expense policy he put in place.

Since Barry Gilway became Citizens CEO in June, he has stayed in a hotel at nearly twice Citizens’ room rate cap, charged liquor to a corporate credit card in violation of company rules, submitted expense forms late and had to be reminded to include itemized receipts.

A review of travel costs shows that Citizens has taken some steps toward frugality since the Herald/Times revealed in August that executives were enjoying lavish meals and five-star hotel stays at the same time the state-run insurer was aggressively trying to raise rates.

But even with a new policy designed to rein in costs, old habits die hard.

Some executives, including Gilway, have failed to file expense reports within the required 15 days of a trip. They’re still spending hundreds of dollars to change airplane tickets. Co-workers are still dining with each other at company expense at high-end restaurants like Tampa’s Capital Grille and Orlando’s Ocean Prime.

Recent expense reports also indicate that Citizens could have done more in the past to hold down costs at Florida hotels.

For a board meeting in February, 2012, Citizens paid $179 a night for employees to stay at the Peabody in Orlando.

But after Citizens imposed a $150 cap on in-state lodging, the Peabody agreed to reduce its rate to $149 a night for a December meeting.

"We had to work very diligently to get the rate down and it was a one-time thing they were able to get done for us since we had done business with them previously,’’ said Christine Ashburn, a Citizens spokesperson. "Due to their rates we will no longer be working with them going forward.’’

Expense reports filed since the travel policy changed in October also show that good hotels in out-of-state cities were available at much lower rates than what Citizens executives customarily spent. Before last fall, Sharon Binnun, the chief financial officer, typically stayed in New York City hotels costing $350 a night and up. But for a recent trip, she booked a room at the swank Marriott Marquis in Times Square at a nightly rate of just $204.

Under the new travel policy, Citizens executives are allowed to charge the company up to $60 a day for meals, still far higher than the $36-a-day limit set by other state agencies. On numerous occasions in the past few months, executives sought only partial reimbursement for expensive meals to avoid exceeding the cap.

More changes may be in the works.

"We currently are reviewing our expense procedures to develop and implement policies that more closely align with state policies and expect to have the revised policy in place in early March,’’ Ashburn said.

Last year, Gov. Rick Scott called on his inspector general to investigate Citizens after the Herald/Times reported on extravagant spending and allegations of corporate misconduct and waste, including hundreds of thousands of dollars in severance packages paid to executives who resigned amid scandal.

Scott weighed in again last week after the Herald/Times reported that Binnun and other top executives had received raises between 12 and 24 percent. Scott called the raises "foolish" and urged the executives to return them. Gilway and Citizens board chairman Carlos Lacasa have repeatedly said high salaries and travel expenses are justified as the cost of doing business in the competitive insurance world.

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Janet Jackson Married Wissam Al Mana

Rumors that Janet Jackson is planning her wedding to Wissam Al Mana have been flying fast and furious for weeks now. There's only one problem: they're already married!

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In their first joint statement as a couple, Janet Jackson and Wissam Al Mana confirm the news exclusively to ET, saying, "The rumours regarding an extravagant wedding are simply not true. Last year we were married in a quiet, private, and beautiful ceremony."

VIDEO - Prince Michael Jackson is ET's Newest Correspondant

"Our wedding gifts to one another were contributions to our respective favourite children’s charities. We would appreciate that our privacy is respected and that we are allowed this time for celebration and joy. With love, Wissam and Janet"

Congratulations to the happy couple!

Photo by world-renowned photographer, Marco Glaviano.

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Jury hears openings in 'cannibal cop' case

AP

Gilberto Valle is seen in federal court today.

Gilberto Valle's mind is full of sick thoughts — and he wants a jury to know it.

His own lawyer has shown prospective jurors a kinky staged photo of a woman trussed up in a roasting pan to test their tolerance for the officer's "weird proclivities."

Prosecutors say an NYPD officer wanted to kidnap, torture and devour women in a twisted plot of cannibalism.

The accusations were made Monday during opening statements at the federal trial of Gilberto Valle.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan plan to use e-mails and other evidence to show that the 28-year-old was a would-be killer. They say he even drew up a list of targets using a law enforcement database.

Gilberto Valle

Defense witnesses are expected to describe how he lived in a secret, online fantasy world. The defense says participants role-play as cannibals, but never act on it.

Valle's wife is expected to testify against him later Monday.

The baby-faced tabloid sensation known as the "cannibal cop" is even expected to take the stand to make the case that it was all fantasy, that his online chats were so offensive, so over-the-top that they couldn't possibly be taken seriously.

If jurors were to believe that the countless people who visit fetish chat rooms were real cannibals, then where's the horrific feeding frenzy?

Valle, a 28-year-old college grad and father, was just another NYPD patrolman until late last year, when he was charged with conspiring to kidnap a woman and unauthorized use of a law enforcement database.

Beyond the tabloid headlines that blared "Finest Young Cannibal" and "Cook 'em Danno," the accusations were startling and serious: The FBI, following a tip from Valle's estranged wife, unearthed an alleged plot to cook and eat dozens of women, all graphically detailed in a trail of emails, computer files and instant messages. A conviction on the kidnapping count carries a possible life sentence.

"I'm planning on getting me some girl meat," he allegedly wrote in one chat room. "It's this November, for Thanksgiving. ... She's not a volunteer. She has to be abducted."

Another purported target was an 18-year-old high school student who Valle wrote was "the most desirable piece of meat I've ever met" and was small enough to fit in his oven.

A criminal complaint claimed that Valle had created a computer file cataloging at least 100 women with their names, addresses and photos. And it accused him of illegally culling some of the information from the restricted law enforcement database, and doing surveillance on some of his potential victims.

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Miami medicine goes digital

About 10 years ago, Dr. Fleur Sack quit her practice as a family physician to become a hospital department head. Spurring her decision was the need to switch from paper records to electronic ones to keep her private practice profitable. “At that time, it would have cost about $50,000,” Dr. Sack recalled. “It was too expensive and it was too overwhelming.”

But times and technologies changed, and last year, Dr. Sack left her hospital job to restart her medical practice with an affordable system for managing electronic patient records. She agreed to a $5,000 setup fee and a subscription fee of $500 per month for the system. Her investment also qualified her for subsidy money, which the federal government pays in installments, and to date, her subsidy income has paid for the setup fee and about two years of monthly fees. “So far, I’ve got my check for $18,000,” she said. “There’s a total of $44,000 that I can get.”

That kind of cash flow is one reason why so-called EHR software systems for electronic health records have been among the hottest-selling commercial products in the world of information technology. EHR system development is a growth industry in South Florida, too. Life sciences and biotechnology are among the high growth-potential sectors identified by the Beacon Council-led One Community One Goal economic development initiative unveiled in 2012; already, the University of Miami has opened a Health Science Technology Park while Florida International University has launched a program in its graduate school of business oriented toward biotechnology businesses.

For many young businesses in the area’s IT industry, government incentives are paving the way. The federal government is pushing doctors and hospitals to use electronic health records to cut wasteful spending and improve patient care while protecting patient privacy — sending digital information via encrypted systems, for example, rather than regular email.

Under a 2009 federal law known as the HITECH Act, maximum incentive payments for buying such systems range up to $44,000 for doctors with Medicare patients and up to $63,750 for doctors with Medicaid patients. Hospitals are eligible for larger incentive payments for becoming more paperless. The subsidy program isn’t permanent; eligible professionals must begin receiving payments by 2016. But by then, the federal government will be penalizing doctors and hospitals that take Medicare or Medicaid money without making meaningful use of electronic health records.

“What the government did is, they incentivized, and now they’re going to penalize,” said Andrew Carricarte, president and CEO of IOS Health Systems in Miami, one of the largest South Florida-based vendors of online software service for physician practices. He said insurance companies also may start penalizing physicians for failing to adopt electronic health records because “the commercial payers always follow Medicare and Medicaid.”

It’s all part of the growth story at IOS Health Systems, which has more than 2,000 physicians across the nation using its online EHR system. Carricarte said many of the company’s customers buy their second EHR system from IOS after their first one flopped. “Almost 40 percent of our sales come from customers who had systems and are now switching over to something else,” he said.

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Opinion: Salute to the Brothers to the Rescue fliers shot down on this day by Cuba

I was 5 years old and strapped to a tall pole across from my 3-year-old sister. The pole, a mast for a sail that was never very useful, was in the center of a raft being thrown about the Florida Straits.

I don’t remember the nights, but I’m told they were so dark my mother, sitting between us, could not see us, but only feel us. I don’t remember being wet or cold, but my parents tell me the waves rolling over us were about 20 feet high. I don’t remember the sun, but after four days at sea, my skin was two shades darker than what most women would pay for at a tanning salon.

If there were a soundtrack to my life, Willy Chirino’s Nuestro Día (Our Day) would be one of the first songs on the album. The first two verses always bring tears to my eyes and remind me of the danger my family was in when Brothers to the Rescue saved our lives. Brothers to the Rescue is the organization whose pilots kept a watchful, protective eye for rafters making the perilous journey from Cuba to freedom. It was 17 years ago today that four of them were ambushed in the sky and killed by Cuban MiGs.

Tired of living in a country where he was persecuted for uttering disapproval of the government’s hateful policies and tactics, my father, then 25 years old, decided it was time to leave. My mother refused to stay behind with two young girls and no future. So after hiding in a military neighborhood for most of the summer of 1992 — and six days after Hurricane Andrew had destroyed Homestead — my family left Cuba.

We left just before dawn through the middle of Varadero, a popular, and hence heavily patrolled, beach. We left on a raft engineered and built by my father with the help of a few other men who left with us.

There were nine of us — although it nearly became 10. My parents tell me that a drunk who was walking the beach helped push the raft away from the shore, then begged to come with us. But our food and water supplies were carefully rationed for nine. Our vessel, if you could call it that, was full.

I remember only snippets of that night. Mostly, I recall darkness, tall grass, running on the sand, and my little sister crying while my mother tried desperately to keep her quiet.

Though it was four days and two more nights before we were spotted by Brothers to the Rescue, the next thing I remember is eating delicious pastelitos. A creative humanitarian in that plane fashioned a parachute, out of a cardboard box filled with Cuban pastries from Miami, and tied it to an actual message in a bottle. The sweet parachute fell to the water and bobbed around just close enough for someone in our party to reach.

My mother recalls it was the first food in almost a week that my sister and I were able to keep down.

The “bottle,” a clear plastic jar with a white sticker and bold red letters that read: “Hermanos Al Rescate” — Brothers to the Rescue — held a message that had my sister and I standing and waving excitedly up at the sky: “Don’t despair. God is with you and the U.S. Coast Guard is on its way from Key West.”

I am now 26, and that plastic jar has had a place of honor in our family’s kitchen for over 20 years.

Today it is filled with coffee beans my aunt sent from Cuba when she heard we were alive and safe.

Since Feb. 24, 1996, these memories are tinged by sadness. That is the day I heard that two Brothers to the Rescue planes had been shot out of the sky by Cuban military planes.

As a 9-year-old child, I don’t think I understood what was going on. All I knew then of Brothers to the Rescue was that we had one of their bottles in our kitchen, and that they had sent us delicious pastries when we couldn’t keep down the tinned spam my mother had tried feeding us on that raft.

Today I am a young Cuban-American about to graduate from law school. When I see the plastic jar, I think of those men who died in the shootdown and wonder if they could have been the same pilots involved in my own family’s rescue.

I may not have known them personally, but they have my eternal respect: Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandre Jr., Mario de la Peña, and Pablo Morales.

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Independent Spirit Award Winners 2013

The 2013 Film Independent Spirits Awards were handed out in Santa Monica, CA today and lots of Oscar frontrunners cemented their status by dominating in their categories once more.

Check out all the winners below:

Best Feature

Beasts of the Southern Wild

Bernie

Keep the Lights On

Moonrise Kingdom

Silver Linings Playbook

BEST FEMALE LEAD

Linda Cardellini, Return

Emayatzy Corinealdi, Middle of Nowhere

Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook

Quvenzhane Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild

Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Smashed

BEST MALE LEAD

Jack Black, Bernie

Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook

John Hawkes, The Sessions

Thure Lindhardt, Keep the Lights On

Matthew McConaughey, Killer Joe

Wendell Pierce, Four

BEST SUPPORTING FEMALE

Rosemarie DeWitt, Your Sister's Sister

Ann Dowd, Compliance

Helen Hunt, The Sessions

Brit Marling, Sound of My Voice

Lorraine Toussaint, Middle of Nowhere

BEST SUPPORTING MALE

Matthew McConaughey, Magic Mike

David Oyelowo, Middle of Nowhere

Michael Pena, End of Watch

Sam Rockwell, Seven Psychopaths

Bruce Willis, Moonrise Kingdom

BEST DIRECTOR

Wes Anderson, Moonrise Kingdom

Julia Loktev, The Loneliest Planet

David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook

Ira Sachs, Keep the Lights On

Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild

BEST SCREENPLAY

Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola, Moonrise Kingdom

Zoe Kazan, Ruby Sparks

Martin McDonagh, Seven Psychopaths

David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook

Ira Sachs, Keep the Lights On

For the full list of winners, click here.

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Man nearly hacks wife to death with meat cleaver

Gregory P. Mango

Crime tape at the scene of today's fight

A meat cleaver-wielding maniac attacked his wife in front of two New York firefighters, who had been trying to break up their fight, officials said.

The man and woman were loudly arguing in front of Fong’s Trading at 74 Canal St. at 10:24 a.m. when two of New York’s Bravest—stationed across the street at Engine Company 9, Ladder Company 6—saw the dispute and tried to intervene, according to FDNY spokesman Jim Long.

That’s when the man allegedly pulled out a meat cleaver and began hacking at his wife.

“He got a couple of good hits in,” Long said. “He hit her several times.”

Both firefighters tackled the cleaver-wielding man and held him for cops, Long said. The man was booked into custody at the 5th Precinct station house in Chinatown.

As the man was tackled, the woman took off running, leaving her thick, wedge shoes and clumps of bloody hair behind, witnesses said.

A third Bravest and two neighborhood cops on patrol chased the injured woman and finally caught up with her at Division and Eldridge Streets, witnesses said.

They calmed her down and called paramedics, witnesses said. She’s listed in critical condition at Bellevue Hospital but is expected to survive her wounds, officials said.

"She was running down the street screaming, `Help!’ ” said witness Jose Mendez, 56, superintendent of Eldridge Street Synagogue and other neighborhood buildings.

Before cops and the firefighter could reach the woman, she ducked into a small noodle shop at 13B Eldridge St., came out and ran another half block.

“She was barefoot and went into the restaurant and then ran back out,” Mendez said. “There was blood on the window. They cleaned it up right away. It was pretty weird."

Additional reporting by Wilson Dizard and David K. Li

Gregory P. Mango

Another shot of the near-fatal scene

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South Beach Wine & Food Festival changes Miami's culinary scene, impacts economy

For Miami restaurateurs, this is Showtime.

With dozens of top chefs — Bobby Flay, Todd English, Daniel Boloud and Masaharu Morimoto among the list — in town for the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, the pressure is on everywhere, from Michy’s to the new Catch Miami. The goal: Show everyone from around the country that Miami’s food scene has arrived on the national stage.

Chef Michelle Bernstein’s staff whipped up dishes designed to impress guests at Michy’s — like foie gras, oxtail and apple tarte tatin — while she juggled menus for multiple events. Bernstein kept her cellphone handy to make sure any chef friends could get a table, even though her namesake restaurant was sold out.

As always, Joe’s Stone Crab was a must-do stop for many, including Paula Deen and New York restaurateur Danny Meyer. Aussie Chef Curtis Stone attracted a string of admirers as he ate his way around town, with stops at Prime 112, Pubbelly Sushi and Puerto Sagua. Khong River House and Yardbird Southern Table & Bar hosted Meyer, The Food Network’s Anne Burrell and Chef Anita Lo.

Michael’s Genuine was another hot spot.

“This is kind of our coming out party for Khong and it’s our chance to knock it out of the park and wow people,” said John Kunkel, owner of Khong and Yardbird.

Prime 112 owner Myles Chefetz admits he’s a fanatic about checking plates when they come back from a chef’s table. And he’s always on the lookout for the table ordering 20 different items, because that’s usually a restaurateur doing research.

“If you have Jean-Gorges or Bobby Flay eating at your restaurant, you want to make sure he has a great experience,” Chefetz said. “You want to put your best foot forward because you know you’re going to get scrutinized.”

The Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival is not just a forum for impressing the culinary elite. It’s among the top three tourist draws for Miami restaurants and hotels. In its 12th year, the festival draws more than 60,000 people to Miami Beach for a weekend of decadence, featuring more than 50 events spread over four days.

It is neck and neck with two of the area’s other most prominent weekends: Art Basel and Presidents’ Day (which coincides with the Miami International Boat Show).

There’s the immediate economic impact, of course, but the festival has made its mark in other ways: helping transform Miami’s food scene from a cultural wasteland to one of the country’s hot spots, one where top chefs all want to set up shop.

“Twelve years ago I don’t know if you could even name five really good restaurants. Now, you can’t think of where you want to eat because there are so many good restaurants,” said Lee Brian Schrager, festival founder and vice president of communications for Southern Wine & Spirits, its host. “What the festival can take credit for is introducing the culinary world to the great talent down here, and really highlighting South Florida as a great dining destination.”

There has been plenty of indulgence to go around. Flay finally broke his losing streak and took home top honors at the Burger Bash with his award-winning crunchified green chili burger. At the Q, barbecue lovers had their choice of Al Roker’s lamb ribs with baked beans or Geoffrey Zakarian’s smoked tagarashi crusted tuna, among other offerings.

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