Miami-Dade court program helps young inmates change their lives

It was a graduation without pomp and circumstance.

There was marching in combat boots. No gowns.

The remarks by Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Beth Bloom were full of the hallmarks common at any graduation. She spoke of goals and achievement and of the opportunity.

But were it not for the “I’m Ready” program, many of Monday’s graduates would not be anticipating their release from jail in a few short weeks.

The 13 young men in “I’m Ready’s’’ inaugural class had already been convicted of some crime and sentenced to boot camp. But each had some medical or psychological problem that made him ineligible.

Take, for example 20-year-old Franklin Robinson. After being sentenced to boot camp after he violated his probation, Robinson underwent several tests, including an EKG that showed there was difficulty pumping blood to his heart. That prevented him from being admitted to boot camp and could have meant him ending up back in jail with the general population.

Instead, he ended up at the six-month “I’m Ready’’ program, which offers youths ages 14-24 education and services. They undergo behavior modification, life skills, job training, counseling and treatment.

The day begins at 5 a.m. A routine of schooling and vocational training in automotive technology or carpentry carries them through until about 8 p.m.

“I’m Ready” participants are housed in a separate unit to accommodate program activities rather than with the general jail population. They are referred to as “students,’’ not “inmates.’’

“There is a reason why boot camp is able to reduce recidivism,” Bloom said. “It sets the tone that they are there to learn.”

It’s not so different from boot camp, said Officer Cathy Harpp, who oversees the program.

“You can’t do pushups, but you can clean the floor and the toilet bowl with a toothbrush,” Harpp said.

The hardest part was getting them to be receptive to change and adapt to the new rules, Harpp said.

“Once they knew I was not going to let up, eventually, they cave in,” she said. “Here, they’re accountable for everything.”

The idea for the program came to Bloom after she oversaw the case of an insulin dependent diabetic with a 10th-grade education.

After he was deemed unfit for boot camp because of his health condition, Bloom wanted to know what would happen to him.

Young offenders like him would have been incarcerated with the general population of inmates, where there would be no access to training and no structure.

“I’ve seen far too many youth return to the criminal justice system,” Bloom said Monday at the program’s first graduation ceremony. “All of you have met your goal. The community needs you to be the different persons that you are.”

The group of 13 will be released Dec. 28. Twenty-two new students will replace them in January.

Before the new graduates students left the room in a final marching formation, Harpp offered one lasting piece of advice: “This is where the difference begins.”

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YouTube Announces Top 10 Videos of 2012

YouTube has just released their top 10 videos of 2012 along with one dazzling video bound to become a viral sensation in its own right.

Watch the clip to see the Rewind YouTube Style video featuring the website's biggest stars acting out a parody of Gangnam Style and Call Me Maybe. The video was shot at the new YouTube Space in Los Angeles, a place for YouTube creators to come learn, collaborate, and create great content to put up on their YouTube channels.

Check out the list of 2012's greatest YouTube moments below:

1) PSY - Gangnam Style: The Korean pop music video that surprised the world is set to hit 1 billion views and has become the most viewed video of all time in just six months.

2) Walk off the Earth: This is the most-viewed cover song of 2012, attracting 140 million views this year.

3) KONY 2012: This video contained a call to action and collected 31 million views in a single day -- the most views ever for a YouTube video.

4) Call Me Maybe - Bieber, Gomez, Pena: This video, covering the song of the summer, kicked off a trend of lip sync videos that spanned from the Harvard baseball team and celebs to Olympians.

5) Epic Rap Battles - Obama vs. Romney: This episode featured well-known Obama impersonator Alphacat, and is one of the better known instances of the 2012 trend of Obama and Romney videos.

6) Dramatic Surprise: This video, featuring a mysterious sign in the middle of a Flemish square, brought in 25 million views in its first week.

7) Why You Asking All Them Questions: Comedian Emmanuel Hudson's popularity exploded this year partly from this video that garnered 39 million views -- almost half of which came from mobile devices.

8) Lindsey Stirling: Lindsey's trademark dubstep violin styles created a lot of buzz this year -- especially in the U.S., Germany and Poland. This video, which was shot by Lindsey's fellow YouTube creator Devin Graham, has over 500,000 likes and 100,000 comments.

9) Facebook Parenting: This video taught us not to mess with Dad. Bringing in 11 million views in one day, this video was the catalyst for an international discussion about parenting and Facebook.

10) Stratos Highlights: This live stream of Felix Baumgartner's free-fall from 128,000 feet shattered previous live stream records with 8 million concurrent views.

Visit youtube.com/rewind for more.

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Killer’s data destruction: Adam Lanza smashed hard drive before massacre

Before he set off on his heinous rampage, Connecticut school shooter Adam Lanza tried to cover his deadly tracks by smashing the hard drive of at least one of his cherished computers, according to investigators.

The shattered drive was recovered during a search of the home of Nancy Lanza, the killer’s doting mom — and his first victim.

Forensics experts were trying yesterday to piece the broken hard drive together, hoping it will help reveal clues about the horrific Sandy Hook Elementary School slaughter, which left 20 little kids and six educators dead.

It is unclear whether information could be retrieved from the battered drive.

Police have declined specific comment on any evidence gathered at the school or Nancy Lanza’s home and said they were not yet ready to discuss a possible motive.

Adam’s father, Peter, a tax expert, and older brother, Ryan, 24, have spent hours answering questions for state and federal investigators but have been unable to shed any light on what sparked Adam’s deadly rage.

“In all that time, they got no real information that could help figure this out,” one source familiar with the interviews told The Post.

Nancy Lanza — who was shot in the head four times by her son before his schoolhouse massacre — gave no indication she thought he was about to snap, friends said.

Diagnosed with the autism-related Asperger’s syndrome and afflicted with a medical condition that kept him from feeling physical pain, Adam Lanza had lived with his mother since his parents’ amicable 2009 divorce.

The Lanzas’ divorce mediator, Paula Levy, yesterday said both parents were concerned about getting the best care and attention for their troubled son. Nancy Lanza got $289,800 a year in alimony and shared custody of Adam, court records show.

“The only two things I remember them saying is that she really didn’t like to leave him alone. And I know they went out of their way to accommodate him,” said Levy.

Adam Lanza, 20, spent much of his time at his mom’s home alone in one of two bedrooms he used, either reading or on his computers, friends said.

“He was always home at 11,” Nancy Lanza’s friend Ellen Adriani said. “Nancy said he was a night owl. He tended to stay up and read into the morning.

“It was unusual,” Adriani noted of the morning Lanza unleashed his evil fury, for Adam “to be up that early.”

When Adam was in high school, he was also given extra supervision by teachers and staff.

Former Newtown HS security head Richard Novia saidNancy Lanza met with counselors and administrators to find ways to keep him safe. Novia said Lanza w

as such an awkward misfit that he worried the boy would be bullied, but that he wasn’t a threat to others.

“He would have an episode, and she’d have to return or come to the high school and deal with it,” Novia said, noting that Adam Lanza would sometime completely withdraw from tasks.

“We were worried about him being the victim, or that he could hurt himself” Novia said.

Meanwhile, Adam’s former childhood babysitter, Ryan Kraft, recalled that Nancy Lanza was insistent that he watch her quiet, introverted son like a hawk.

“[She said] to keep an eye on him at all times,” Kraft told CBS. “To never turn my back, or even to go to the bathroom or anything like that.”

Additional reporting by Jennifer Bain, Josh Margolin and

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American Airlines adds new agreements, flights in South America

In a nod to the importance of Latin America for its business, American Airlines on Monday announced new codeshare agreements with airlines in the region as well as new routes.

American has agreed to codeshare with TAM Airlines, based in Sao Paulo, and LAN Colombia, both part of LATAM Airlines Group.

The airline also said that it will add new routes in late 2013 between Miami and two destinations in Brazil: Curitiba and Porto Alegre. American also plans to add service between Dallas/Fort Worth and Bogota late next year.

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Sperm whale dies off Pompano Beach coast

The carcass of a 40-foot sperm whale that apparently died as it neared the shore off of Pompano Beach on Sunday afternoon later drifted back out to sea, ending a drama that had drawn the attention of beachgoers and scientists alike.

The whale was spotted about noon offshore near the 600 block of North Ocean Boulevard, according to the Broward Sheriff’s Office.

Read the full story at Sun-Sentinel.com.

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O: ‘these tragedies must end’

President Obama last night told the stricken residents of Newtown, Conn., who lost 20 children and six educators to a madman’s gunfire, “We can’t tolerate this anymore.”

“These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change,’’ he added, grimly noting it was the fourth time in his presidency he’d spoken to the nation about a mass shooting.

“The fourth time we’ve hugged survivors,’’ he said. “The fourth time we’ve consoled the families of victims.”

He did not mention the mounting calls for stronger gun controls in the wake of the tragedy, but noted, “There have been an endless series of deadly shootings across the country, almost daily reports of victims, many of them children. Much of the time, their only fault was being in the wrong place at the wrong time.’’

AFP/Getty Images

SORROW:

The president addresses the devastated community
of Newtown, Conn., at a
vigil yesterday
for grieving
families.

Reuters

Shocked kids clung tightly to plush toys donated by the Red Cross.

He predicted, “We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and that is true. No single law, no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society. . . .But that can’t be an excuse for inaction.”

He added, “If there is even one step we can take to save another child or another parent or another town . . . surely, we have an obligation to try.’’

He vowed to “use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens . . . in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this . . . We can’t accept events like this as routine.’’

The president asked, “Are we really prepared to say that we’re powerless in the face of such carnage, that the politics are too hard? Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is the price of our freedom?”

He told his grief-stricken audience, “I can only hope it helps for you to know that you’re not alone . . . that all across this land of ours, we have wept with you.”

Loud sobbing was heard from the audience throughout the speech.

The president cited the heroics of the six Sandy Hook Elementary School educators who gave their lives trying to shield the children.

He closed by reading of the names of all those murdered.

Before speaking to about 1,000 people at the interfaith service in the auditorium of the town’s high school, Obama met privately with relatives of about 15 of those killed by 20-year-old Adam Lanza.

Additional reporting by Lia Eustachewich and Julia Marsh in Newtown, Conn., and Gerry Shields in Washington, DC

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Five years after the recession, a slow recovery plods on

Five years ago this month, the Great Recession began. Which leads to this question: How much longer until South Florida can erase the damage?

Officially, the recession ended in June 2009. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the national economy began contracting in December 2007 and did not grow again for 19 months. Using taxable sales figures, it’s probably safe to say South Florida experienced a longer downturn. Overall spending contracted for the first time in South Florida in March 2007 and didn’t post a year-over-year gain until February 2010.

“Miami was at the forefront of the housing boom and bust,’’ said Karl Kuykendall, an economist who follows South Florida for IHS Global Insight. “It’s no surprise Miami was early into the recession and somewhat late coming out.”

But whatever the actual duration of the downturn, it doesn’t take much math to realize the economy still feels shaky. South Florida lost its first net job in more than two years in October, when a tiny decline of 300 payroll slots interrupted 26 months of consistent expansion. The upcoming November report out Friday will show whether the losing streak continues.

And while unemployment is off near-record highs set in April 2010, more than 180,000 South Floridians were listed as officially out of work in the last count. That’s almost 90 percent more than the 98,000 people listed as out of work in the first month of the recession.

Tourism posted an early recovery, particularly in Miami-Dade, where foreign visitors helped hotels shake-off a sharp drop in U.S. vacationers and business travelers. But the recession lingers in Broward’s tourism industry, which is just now retiring past records.

Housing suffered the most dramatic crash throughout the recession and was also the last of the major indicators to begin its recovery. The Case-Shiller real estate index pegs May 2006 as the peak of the bubble in South Florida. Although each neighborhood is different, the average South Florida house worth $200,000 that month would have fallen down to $97,600 by the time the market hit bottom just over a year ago, in November 2011.

Values have recovered 9 percent since then, meaning the same house should be worth just over $105,0000. That’s a loss of 47 percent over six years.

Recovering from that kind of crash takes time, and five years clearly isn’t enough. To give a hint of the progress underway, Business Monday checked into businesses and residents on the frontlines of the recovery. The reports follow:

Housing

After fending off a foreclosure and battling to get out from under an onerous option ARM mortgage, Marie and Wilson Destin recently worked out a loan modification on their 4-bedroom, 2-bathroom house near Miami Lakes.

With the help of Neighborhood Housing Services of South Florida, a nonprofit agency that helps people navigate the Byzantine home financing landscape, the Destins cut their monthly mortgage payment to $1,500 from $1,900 under a new fixed-rate loan.

In 2006, when the housing market was booming, the Haitian-American couple had taken out an option ARM loan on the property, which they had owned for several years.

“Somebody came to the house and approached me with an option ARM loan,’’ said Wilson Destin. “They said I would pay less.’’

The option ARM — which has triggered financial woes for thousands of homeowners during the downturn — allowed for flexible payments and negative amortization, practically encouraging people to defer payments.

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7-year-old in critical condition after accident

Police were investigating an accident involving a 7-year-old who was struck by a vehicle in a Lauderhill neighborhood late Saturday, Lauderhill Police spokesman Rick Rocco said.

The vehicle and its driver, who has not yet been identified, remained on scene after the incident near the intersection of Northwest 27th Court and 56th Avenue.

The child was transported to Broward Health Medical Center in critical condition immediately after the incident, police said.

Details of the accident were not immediately available.

This post will be updated as we receive more information.

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U.S. gun website sued for alleged ties to slayings

CHICAGO (Reuters) – A prominent U.S. gun control group on Wednesday sued a gun auction website it says is linked to a mass shooting at a Wisconsin spa in October and the stalker slaying of a woman near Chicago in 2011.

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence alleges that the design of armslist.com facilitates illegal online sales to unlawful gun buyers with no background checks, and enables users to evade laws that permit private sellers to sell guns only to residents of their own state.

“We as a nation are better than an anonymous Internet gun market where killers and criminals can easily get guns,” said Jonathan Lowy, the Brady Center’s Legal Action Project Director, in a statement.

The wrongful death lawsuit was filed in Cook County Circuit Court on behalf of the family of Jitka Vesel, 36, an immigrant from the Czech Republic who was shot and killed last year by Demetry Smirnov, a stalker.

The suit, which the Brady Center says is the first of its kind, alleges that Smirnov illegally bought the gun from a private seller he located through armslist.com.

Vesel was killed in the parking lot of the Chicago-area Czechoslovak Heritage Museum, where she was a volunteer preparing for a celebration in memory of Czech-American Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak.

Cermak was slain with a handgun during an attempted assassination of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933.

A representative for website owner Armslist, LLC was not immediately available for comment. The company is based in Noble, Oklahoma, according to public records.

The website includes a “terms of use” page on which users must promise they are age 18 or older and will not use the site for illegal purposes.

The Brady Center said that the case does not infringe on the Second Amendment right to bear arms, noting that 74 percent of National Rifle Association members believe that no guns should be sold without a criminal background check.

A representative for the NRA was not immediately available for comment.

Radcliffe Haughton, who killed his estranged wife and two other women and wounded four others before killing himself in a shooting in a Milwaukee suburb on October 21, also got his weapon through armslist.com, according to Wisconsin officials.

Haughton, who was under a restraining order for domestic violence, avoided a background check through a “lethal loophole” by buying a gun through the website, according to a letter to Armslist sent by Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and Wisconsin U.S. Representative Gwen Moore on October 26.

Sales conducted over the Internet also have been linked to mass killings at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University. In 1999 eBay announced it was prohibiting online gun sales, according to the Brady Center lawsuit.

Craigslist did the same in 2007. Amazon.com and Google AdWords also prohibits the listing of firearms for sale, the suit says.

An undercover investigation of online gun sales by New York City last year found that 62 percent of private gun sellers agreed to sell a firearm to a buyer who said he probably could not pass a background check.

(Reporting By Mary Wisniewski; Editing by Greg McCune and Xavier Briand)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Riveting Details Emerge from CT School Rampage

As morning turned to afternoon on Friday, further details continued to emerge from Newtown, CT, a tight-knit community shaken by a massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School that took the lives of innocent students and teachers, in addition to the gunman, reportedly identified as Adam Lanza.

RELATED: President Fights Tears as He Addresses Nation

As President Barack Obama touched on in his tear-jerking press conference, this is not the first time the nation has witnessed a tragedy of this kind. The recent mass shooting at an Aurora, CO movie theater is just one instance of such violence. Columbine High School and Virginia Tech also resonate as prime examples.

Hollywood's biggest stars were quick to react to the news on Twitter and made an outcry for stricter gun control regulations.

Watch the video for ET's complete coverage of today's biggest headline.

RELATED: Celebs Tweet Reactions to CT School Shooting

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