Saved! US troops rescue Colo. doc from Taliban — Special Ops soldier dies in effort

Morning Star Development

Colorado doctor Dilip Joseph was rescued from his Taliban captors in Afghanistan.

A doctor from Colorado who was kidnapped by Taliban thugs during a humanitarian mission in eastern Afghanistan was rescued over the weekend by US Special Forces, the White House said today.

But the raid to free Dr. Dilip Joseph, a medical advisor with the Colorado Springs-based Morning Star Development charity, sadly cost the life of one member of the elite team that got him out, according to President Obama.

“Yesterday, our special operators in Afghanistan rescued an American citizen in a mission that was characteristic of the extraordinary courage, skill and patriotism that our troops show every day,” he said in a statement. “Tragically, we lost one of our special operators in this effort.”

Joseph was rescued early yesterday after intelligence showed he was in danger of death or injury, officials said.

“This was a combined operation of U.S. and Afghan forces,” said 1st Lt. Joseph Alonso, a spokesman for US forces in Afghanistan. “Information was collected through multiple intelligence sources, which allowed Afghan and coalition forces to identify the location of Joseph and the criminals responsible for his captivity.”

He had been taken about 50 miles from the Pakistan border.

At least six of his captors, believed to be Taliban fighters, were killed in the raid and two suspected ring leaders were captured.

Joseph, 39, was approximately an hour’s drive of east of Kabul last Wednesday with two Afghan colleagues overseeing a medical clinic project when they were abducted, said Lars Peterson, executive director of Morning Star Development.

The two Afghan nationals were released on Saturday after long negotiations, but the abductors held onto Joseph, according to Peterson.

Eleven hours later the US and Afghan forces launched their raid.

Gen. John Allen, the top commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said the joint-force planned, rehearsed and successfully conducted the operation.

“Thanks to them, Dr. Joseph will soon be rejoining his family and loved ones,” Allen said.

Kidnap for ransom plots are common throughout the region by criminal gangs and the Taliban.

“Morning Star Development does state categorically that we paid no ransom, money or other consideration to the captors or anyone else to secure the release of these hostages,” Peterson said.

Joseph is due to return to the US in a few days and will be reunited with his family.

With Post Wire Services

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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 tournament-style 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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Preservation board to decide on historic designation of the Miami Herald building

The city of Miami’s historic preservation office has compiled a lengthy, detailed report that substantially bolsters the case for designation of The Miami Herald’s “monumental’’ bayfront building as a protected landmark based on both its architectural merits and its historic significance.

Somewhat unusually, the 40-page report by city preservation officer Megan McLaughlin, which is supplemented by 30 pages of bibliography, plans and photographs, carries no explicit recommendation to the city’s preservation board, which is scheduled to decide the matter on Monday.

But her analysis gathers extensive evidence that the building’s history, the influential executives and editors associated with it, and its fusion of Mid-Century Modern and tropical Miami Modern (MiMo) design meet several of the legal criteria for designation set out in the city’s preservation ordinance and federal guidelines. A building has to meet just one of eight criteria to merit designation.

A spokeswoman for the city’s historic preservation office said there is no obligation to make a recommendation and the city’s preservation board didn’t ask for one.

Supporters of designation, including officials at Dade Heritage Trust, the preservation group that has received sometimes withering criticism from business and civic leaders for requesting designation, said they felt vindicated by the report, even as they concede that persuading a board majority to support it remains an uphill battle.

“It’s important that an objective expert is saying basically the same thing we’ve been saying, particularly in an environment where there is so much pressure,’’ said DHT chief executive Becky Roper Matkov. “It’s very hard to refute. When you look at the building’s architecture and history, it’s so blatantly historic, what else can you say?’’

The report also rebuts key pieces of criticism of the designation effort leveled by opponents of designation, including architects and a prominent local preservation historian hired by Genting, the Malaysian casino operator that purchased the Herald property last year for $236 million with plans to build a massive destination resort on its 10 acres. The newspaper remains in the building rent-free until April, when it will move to suburban Doral.

Citing federal rules, McLaughlin concluded that the building dates to its construction in 1960 and 1961, and not to its formal dedication in 1963. That’s significant because it makes the building legally older than 50 years. Buildings newer than that must be “exceptionally significant’’ to merit designation under city regulations. Opponents of designation have claimed the building does not qualify because it’s several months short of 50 years if dated from its ’63 opening.

The property also has a “minimal’’ baywalk at the rear but there is room to expand it, the report indicates. The building is considerably set back from the edge of Biscayne Bay, between 68 feet at the widest point and 23 feet at its narrowest, the report says. That’s comparable to what many new buildings provide, thanks in part to variances granted by the city, and could blunt criticism that the Herald building “blocks’’ public access to the bay.

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How They Pulled Off 'The Impossible'

The true story of the devastating 2004 tsunami that consumed the coast of Phuket, Thailand -- and how one family survived it -- is reenacted by Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor in The Impossible. Watch the video to go behind the scenes...

Video: Tsunami Survivor Petra Nemcova Reacts to Latest Disaster in Japan

In theaters December 21, The Impossible finds Naomi as Maria and Ewan as her husband Henry, who are enjoying their winter vacation in Thailand with their three sons. On the day after Christmas, their relaxing holiday in paradise becomes an exercise in terror and survival when their beachside hotel is pummeled by an extraordinary, unexpected tsunami.

Video: Watch the Trailer for 'The Impossible'

The Impossible tracks just what happens when this close family and tens of thousands of strangers must come together to grapple with the mayhem and aftermath of one of the worst natural catastrophes of our time.

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Speeding SUV slams into Jeep, which then runs over family of four in Brooklyn

Benny J. Stumbo

This jeep flipped over and hit a family of four during a terrible accident in Brooklyn sparked by a speeding SUV.

An out-of-control SUV driver blew a stop sign and caused a domino effect of destruction — hitting a jeep that flipped over and struck a group of pedestrians in Brooklyn this afternoon, witnesses and authorities said.

Horrified onlookers watched as Jeep hit a family of four standing on a sidewalk, leaving one member clinging to life, witnesses and authorities said.

At least four others were injured in the massive accident.

“My mother and I heard screaming and a huge explosion coming from [the street.] I immediately thought my brother could be out there,” said Diana Babbo, 18.

“I ran up the street and saw that a Jeep was flipped over. An entire family was pinned between the jeep and a parked car on the street, she said.

“A lady was completely dead or passed out. It was horrifying. An infant and two other people were under the car. It was so terrible. I’m trembling thinking about it.”

Babbo bawled as they pulled the car off the woman, she said.

“She was turning blue,” the teen recalled.

“The guy driving the Jeep had his head cracked open. He was walking towards the police after they cut him out of his car.”

The man passed out on the street, she said.

“I pray to god everybody is okay. I can’t get their faces out of my head.”

Other residents like Mohammed Umair, 17, said accidents have happened at this location many times before.

“This cross street is a death trap,” he said.

“A car smashed into a house. This isn’t going to stop until there are more lights and signs put up. More people are going to die if something isn’t done.”

cgiove@nypost.com

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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 tournament-style 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 13,000 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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South Florida summit message: Climate change is here

South Florida took the threat seriously before most everybody else, with four counties reaching a landmark compact in 2009 to work together to start addressing the risks of global warming.

But four years and one “super storm” named Sandy later, the risks to Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe counties — as well as much of coastal Florida — seem only bigger, scarier and no longer quite so far down the road.

An eye-opening example: Fort Lauderdale’s famous “strip,” where waves from Sandy, followed by routine high tides and heavy seas three weeks later, chewed away beach, seawall, sidewalk and roadbed, leaving a four-block-long swath of State Road A1A whittled from four lanes to two.

During a two-day regional climate change summit that ended Friday in Jupiter, political leaders and climate experts stressed two messages: One, South Florida faces a long, immensely costly war to protect its heavily developed coast and economy from the rising sea and increasingly destructive flooding from hurricanes like Sandy. Two, the “super storm” underlined why the region should quickly ramp up “adaptation” efforts and spending to reduce its exposure — from restoring beach dunes to building bigger sea walls to elevating roads and homes and maybe even moving them from the most vulnerable areas.

“Planning is nice, but now it’s all about implementation,’’ said Susanne Torriente, an assistant city manager in Fort Lauderdale who helped craft a wide-ranging climate-change action plan approved by Broward and Monroe counties in the past few months. County commissions in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach are expected to consider the plans by early next year.

Fort Lauderdale, Torriente said, is working with Broward County and state transportation experts on shoring up its heavily eroded strip. Repairs will easily run into the tens of millions of dollars and include elevating some of the iconic strip or building beach dunes, which some residents have long resisted because it spoils the view from AIA.

“Adaptation is not something we’re talking about in textbooks any more. It’s happening right in our backyard,” she said. “People like to see the water, but let’s be realistic.”

Though Sandy’s worst impacts were in the Northeast — where the storm killed more than 100 people, flooded New York City subways, swamped New Jersey coastal — it also caused extensive erosion along much of the South Florida coast.

While it remains uncertain what if any impact climate change had on Sandy, the devastating storm, which caused tens of billions of dollars in damage, gave both the public and political leaders across the country a glimpse of potential future scenarios. It also has injected new urgency in efforts in South Florida, many of the elected officials, planners, scientists, engineers and other experts at the annual regional summit agreed.

John Englander, an oceanographer who this year published a book called High Tide on Main Street, called Sandy a wake-up call for many coastal communities like Fort Lauderdale.

“People are starting to get increasing awareness to their vulnerability from storm surge,’’ he said. “They just can’t ignore the beach and walk away from billions of dollars worth of hotels.’’

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The Era of Twitter Without Instagram Has Now Begun

We know everyone is a little bummed about all those filtered photos disappearing from your Twitter streams this weekend, but let’s not get all worked up about it: They are disappearing, and there is no scandal.

RELATED: Why You Can’t See Instagram Photos on Twitter Anymore

TechCrunch’s  Drew Olanoff got a little too excited on Friday and thought a single in-stream photo meant that Instagram was allowing its Twitter cards back on Twitter and thought the two services were planning a sudden reunion. You may have seen some, too, but a Facebook spokesperson assured users these Instagram photos on Twitter were the last holdouts in the switchover. ”What you are seeing now may be some sort of regression depending on the mobile client, but we’re checking in with the engineers,” read Facebook’s statement, via Talking Points Memo’s Carl Franzen.

RELATED: How to Get Over the Twitter-Instagram War on Photos

Which means the end of this particular social-media marriage is upon us. Despite the immediate user backlash, Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom has made it pretty clear that the photo-sharing app doesn’t plan on making nice with Twitter. In case you hadn’t accepted the reality of Silicon Valley competition the first time around, this photo-friendly weekend might be the time to check out our handy three-step guide to getting over it. 

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Reese Witherspoon's Priceless Christmas Present

Santa came early this year for Reese Witherspoon and husband Jim Toth when their son Tennessee was born on September 27. On Friday, the actress was appropriately honored as a role-model mother at the March of Dimes' Celebration of Babies.

"It's always such an exciting time in your life when you have a brand-new baby," Witherspoon gushed. "It's Christmas and it's so nice to have this beautiful present in our lives."

RELATED: Brian Austin Green Dishes on Son's Secret Birth

Megan Fox quietly became a mom around the time that Witherspoon welcomed her third child, and she and husband Brian Austin Green had nothing but good things to say about March of Dimes.

"It's an amazing organization," said Green. "Anyone that supports and takes care of children and newborns and pregnant women -- you can't lose."

March of Dimes is a leading nonprofit organization for pregnancy and baby health.

Other notable attendees included Hilary Duff, Elizabeth Banks and the master of ceremonies Nick Cannon. Watch the video for more.

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DA drops fight against pair wrongfully convicted in Bronx cabby slay

Robert Kalfus / Tomas E. Gaston

Eric Glisson (left), gets a hug and Cathy Watkins (right) beams after their release in October.

Bronx prosecutors are giving up their fight in the case of a man and woman wrongly convicted in the notorious robbery-slaying of a cabby — and may also drop charges against three other suspects in the case.

Eric Glisson, 37, and Cathy Watkins, 44, were freed in October after spending 17 years in prison in the January 19, 1995 slaying of cabby Baithe Diop. They will be able to remove their ankle monitoring bracelets after a hearing next week.

In court papers filed today, Bronx DA Robert Johnson’s office admitted that new evidence uncovered in the case last year may also clear the other three suspects — Devon Ayers, Michael Cosme and Carlos Perez. The DA has agreed on a near hearing to hear evidence in their cases.

Two gang-bangers admitted to Diop’s killing in an unrelated federal investigation, and have already pleaded guilty to a federal robbery charge in his death. They can’t be prosecuted further.

The Bronx DA is holding the line for now on the convictions of Ayers, Cosme and Perez in the slaying of Denise Raymond, a Fed Ex executive found dead in her Soundview home three days before Diop was killed.

But the trio also hopes for a new hearing in that case as well. They said fresh evidence shows Raymond was murdered by an ex-boyfriend, who is now deceased.

Glisson and Watkins were not charged in Raymond’s death.

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