Ellen DeGeneres Pens Open Letter to Supreme Court to Pass Prop 8 for Gay Marriage

With a touch of her trademark humor, Ellen DeGeneres tackles a very serious topic close to the talk show host's heart: gay marriage.

In an open letter posted to her website, Ellen reaches out to members of the Supreme Court, who will soon decide the fate of same-sex couples who wish to wed.

Pics: 'Amazing Race' Stars Cheer Up Bullied Gay Fan

"Portia and I have been married for 4 years and they have been the happiest of my life," she blogs of her longtime partner Portia De Rossi. "And in those 4 years, I don't think we hurt anyone else's marriage. I asked all of my neighbors and they say they're fine."

Ellen, who tied the knot in 2008 during a brief period when gay marriage was legal in California, now urges the powers that be to open their heart and extend the privilege to every gay couple.

"I hope the Supreme Court will do the right thing, and let everyone enjoy the same rights," Ellen writes. "It's going to help keep families together. It's going to make kids feel better about who they are. And it is time."

Related: Neil Patrick Harris: I Knew I was Gay at 6

In closing the comedian writes, "In the words of Benjamin Franklin, 'We're here, we're queer, get over it.'"

Read Ellen's entire plea to the supreme court here.

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Internet bubble millionaire goes from dot.com to drug con: Jennifer Sultan gets 4 years in scheme

This dot.com millionaire has now gone from penthouse to poorhouse to Big House.

A Manhattan judge wrote the latest chapter in the riches-to-rags story of pretty Jennifer Sultan today -- promising her a four-year prison sentence as she pleaded guilty to gun conspiracy and drug sales.

"Yes," Sultan, a 38-year-old recovering pain killer addict, answered sadly, when asked by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Edward McLaughlin if she'd sold felony weight oxycodone to an undercover cop last spring.

Asked if she'd joined in a conspiracy that sold loaded, operable firearms, Sultan gave a slight smile as she sat at the defense table, her waist-length brown hair hanging forward over one shoulder.

Steven Hirsch

Jennifer Sultan at court today. The dot.com millionaire got four years in gun and drug scheme.

"Yes. Reluctantly," she said.

Sultan has been held since her arrest last summer for the same Queens-based drug-and-gun-gang conspiracy that ensnared convicted NYPD gun thief Nicholas Mina.

She was caught sending text messages to the ring's leader last June saying she had a .357 Magnum "toy" -- meaning a gun -- for sale for $850, according to the indictment against her.

She was also caught on wiretaps asking about firearm prices, and talking about a prior occasion when a gun she gave the ring to sell turned out to be inoperable.

"She's come 180 degrees from when I met her," after her arrest, her lawyer, Frank Rothman, said after court.

"She was unfocused, distracted, drug addicted," he said. "And she is now alert, oriented, and ready to get back to what she does best -- holistic healing," he said of Sultan, a trained acupuncturist.

With good behavior and factoring time she's already served, Sultan could be released in under two years, he said.

When Sultan was just 25, she and a boyfriend built one of the first Internet companies to offer live event streaming on the Web, selling it for $70 million.

By two years ago, she filed for personal bankruptcy. The 6,000-foot East 17th Street loft she shared with her ex-boyfriend is for sale for $6 million; Sultan's share of any sale would not cover her debts, her lawyer has argued.

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Don’t get too personal on LinkedIn

Have you ever received a request to connect on LinkedIn from someone you didn’t know or couldn’t remember?

A few weeks ago, Josh Turner encountered this situation. The online request to connect came from a businessman on the opposite coast of the United States. It came with a short introduction that ended with “Let’s go Blues!” a reference to Turner’s favorite hockey team in St. Louis that he had mentioned in his profile. “It was a personal connection … that’s building rapport.”

LinkedIn is known for being the professional social network where members expect you to keep buttoned-down behavior and network online like you would at a business event. With more than 200 million registered users, the site facilitates interaction as a way to boost your stature, gain a potential customer or rub elbows with a future boss.

But unlike most other social networking sites, LinkedIn is all about business — and you need to take special care that you act accordingly. As in any workplace, the right amount of personal information sharing could be the foot in the door, say experts. The wrong amount could slam it closed.

“Anyone in business needs a professional online presence,’’ says Vanessa McGovern, the VP of Business Development for the Global Institute for Travel Entrepreneurs and a consultant to business owners on how to use LinkedIn. But they should also heed LinkedIn etiquette or risk sending the wrong messages.

One of the biggest mistakes, McGovern says is getting too personal — or not personal enough.

Sending a request to connect blindly equates to cold calling and likely will lead nowhere. Instead, it should come with a personal note, an explanation of who you are, where you met, or how the connection can benefit both parties, McGovern explains.

Your profile should get a little personal, too, she says. “Talk about yourself in the first person and add a personal flair — your goals, your passion … make yourself seem human.”

Beyond that, keep your LinkedIn posts, invitations, comments and photos professional, McGovern says.

If you had a hard day at the office or your child just won an award, you may want to share it with your personal network elsewhere — but not on LinkedIn.

“This is not Facebook. Only share what you would share at a professional networking event,” she says.

Another etiquette pitfall on LinkedIn is the hit and run — making a connection and not following up.

At least once a week, Ari Rollnick, a principal in kabookaboo, an integrated marketing agency in Coral Gables, gets a request to connect with someone on LinkedIn that he has never met or heard of before. The person will have no connections in common and share no information about why they want to build a rapport.

“I won’t accept. That’s a lost opportunity for them,” Rollnick says.

He approaches it differently. When Rollnick graduated from Emory with an MBA in 2001, he had a good idea that his classmates would excel in the business world. Now, Rollnick wanted to find out just where they went and reestablish a connection.

With a few clicks, he tracked down dozens of them on LinkedIn, requested a connection, and was back on their radar. Then came the follow-up — letting them know through emails, phone calls and posts that he was creating a two-way street for business exchange. “Rather than make that connection and disappearing , I let them know I wanted to open the door to conversation.”

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Second eastbound lane opens on Bear Cut Bridge leading to Key Biscayne

A second east-bound lane on the Bear Cut Bridge that connects Virginia Key to Key Biscayne has been opened, giving travelers heading to the village a second lane nearly two months after structural flaws nearly shut down the bridge.

Public works administrators said they reconfigured the roadway to make more room for the second lane. On Wednesday, the first day it was in use, they said vehicular and bike traffic flowed smoothly to and from Key Biscayne, on what used to be the eastbound-only lanes headed to Key Biscayne.

Two ad-hoc westbound lanes remain in place, next to a dedicated bicycle/pedestrian lane, along the north side of the bridge.

The bridge’s westbound lanes on the structure’s south side have been completely shut down since the Florida Department of Transportation raised concerns with the county about the condition of exposed steel beams and girders in early January. The westbound half of the bridge was built in 1944; its eastern counterpart is much younger, built in 1983 in concrete-encased beams.

Though alternate planning has been underway for well over a month, county and Key Biscayne leaders are still concerned about the March 18 opening of the two-week Sony Open tennis tournament at the Crandon Park Tennis Center on Key Biscayne.

A month ago, hoping to speed up repairs, county commissioners waived the usual competitive bidding process, giving firms two weeks instead of the usual six to bid on the repair work. The repair job is still expected to take almost a year, and cost close to $31 million.

To finance the plan the county will issue bonds which will be paid off with toll receipts. Commissioners voted last month to raise the toll for cars to $1.75 from $1.50.

A casualty of the Bear Cut repair plan will be the Crandon Park Marina boat launch, which will shut down for two weeks from March 18-31, as the bridge undergoes repairs. Alternate county launch sites are no where near Key Biscayne.

The locations are: Herbert Hoover Marina at Homestead Bayfront Park, 9698 SW 328th St., Black Point Marina, 24775 SW 87th Ave., Matheson Hammock Marina, 9610 Old Cutler Rd., Pelican Harbor Marina, 1275 NE 79th St., and Bill Bird Marina at Haulover Park, 10800 Collins Ave.

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EXCLUSIVE: General Hospital Star Genie Francis Visits The Chew

'General Hospital' Star Visits 'The Chew'

Soap star Genie Francis (General Hospital, The Young and the Restless) is appearing on tomorrow's episode of The Chew and we have an exclusive first look! Click through the photos to get a glimpse of the actress chopping it up with co-hosts Mario Batali, Carla Hall, Clinton Kelly and Daphne Oz. The Chew airs weekdays at 1 pm ET/12 pm PT on ABC.

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Read the heartbreaking impact statement read by the Figoski girls

Pool Photo

Below is the impact statement read in Brooklyn Supreme Court today by the four daughters of NYPD Det. Peter Figoski at the sentencing of his killer, Lamont Pride. The one joint statement was read in court, with each daughter taking a portion.

CHRISTINE FIGOSKI, 21:

On the evening of Sunday, December 11, my sisters and I went to bed with the worries of your average teenage girl. We were worried about studying for upcoming college final exams, and high school tests, and looking forward to going home for the Christmas holiday and having the family together.

We all got our normal “Night, I love you” text from Daddy, and only a few hours after, my sisters and I were faced with the tragedy that would impact the rest of our lives. The next events that happened that morning are events that will haunt us for the rest of our lives.

We were awoken by my Mom in a panic after hearing that Daddy had been in an accident. We were startled and from that moment on everything seemed to get worse.

We all came to the hospital to “Hope” and “Pray” that our Dad would pull through. Our Father was shot in the face, and still breathing at that moment, and even though as bad as his condition was, we still thought just somehow he would survive. Nothing at that moment felt real and till this day, it still doesn’t.

Two of us arrived at the hospital to see the grim faces of family members and the sad faces of hundreds of police officers that were lined up throughout the hospital.

The next several hours were some of the hardest of our lives as we were told that our Father died as a result of a gunshot to the face. We spiraled into the confusion of having to deal with the hard reality of having to prepare with life without our Dad.

CORINNE FIGOSKI, 15:

Our dad was our world, our everything. He was our hero, protector, role model and our best friend. He always made everything better. And not at one moment would any of us realize what it would be like without a father, it’s more than anyone could ever imagine. Everything our Dad did was for us. He was always trying his hardest to make us the best people we could be.

Now a day's “Promise” is just a word. When people say, “I promise everything will get better, and it’s going to be OK,” it’s just a lie to us.Nothing will ever be the same again and we will never feel the way we used to.

We lay in bed for hours in the dark at night, thinking about every possible thing that has changed in our lives since December 12, 2011. Sometimes we want to believe that this world is hell and there is another peaceful world where our dad is now. I’m not sure if we are depressed, but we are constantly angry and sad, but we continue to put smiles on our faces and laugh and joke with one another like our Father would want. But inside we are numb, and broken. We find it so hard to be happy, sometimes we forget how to feel. The past is better than it is now, and the future is less resolved. When our father died, a part of us died inside. We realize that once you’re broken in certain ways, they couldn’t ever be fixed now, no matter how hard you try.

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Cab drivers stage protest at Fort Lauderdale airport over safety cameras

A morning protest at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport by taxi drivers upset with technology installed into their cabs that monitors problem driving ended with two drivers being arrested, and several passengers looking for other modes of transportation.

“We have to stand up for our rights,” said Davincy Metayer, 50, who has been driving a cab for 15 years and works for Yellow Cab. “We can’t make a living like this.”

As news of the protest traveled, taxi drivers across Broward County gathered at the airport about 8 a.m., but refused to pick up fares from the dispatcher.

Although the protest was peaceful, police arrived after 10 a.m. when two taxi drivers blocked the entrance to the lot on Perimeter Road, said Broward Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Keyla Concepcion. Tow trucks were called to move the vehicles, and when the trucks arrived, the drivers laid in front of the trucks blocking them from removing their cars.

“There is no problem with peaceful protests, but blocking the way of traffic for the cab drivers who don’t want to participate created a problem,” she said.

Those drivers were arrested, but their names and the charges they face are unknown.

John Camillo, president and CEO of B&L Service Inc., which operates Yellow Cab of Broward County, said the protests originated from two drivers who became unhappy after the company installed DriveCam technology in all 547 of its cars.

The DriveCam cameras are equipped with a GPS device, video recorder and cell modem that transmit information to DriveCam.com. They were installed in the Yellow Cab cars at the beginning of February after a test group used them in December.

They detect deceleration and braking, excessive acceleration, going around corners at high speeds, going quickly over speed bumps and other problematic “events.” Video of these events is transmitted to professionals at DriveCam, who analyze it and identify risky driving.

One of the upset drivers was involved in a rear-end accident and two more events that indicated he was not paying attention, Camillo said. Despite going through Yellow Cab’s free internal coaching sessions, he was not showing signs of improvement. That’s when Camillo suggested he attend a National Safety Council class, which costs $100, as an alternative to giving up his job at Yellow Cab.

But the driver became incensed, Camillo said.

The other unhappy driver also has a spotty driving history, including a time when he covered up his in-car camera and “threw his keys on the table,” Camillo said.

Camillo said the technology and services for DriveCam will cost his company almost half a million dollars each year. But it’s all in the name of public safety.

“I’m guilty of wanting them to be safe drivers, to go home to their families and not be hurt, and not having them hurt other people,” Camillo said. “I’m guilty of all those things.”

But drivers have a different account.

“We can’t even use our brakes,” said Wilson Charles, 38, who recently completed the 8-hour National Safety Council class.

Ithamar Matador, who took part in Wednesday’s protest, said he one of two cab drivers who were brought into the Yellow Cab office Tuesday after his red light activated. He said he was taking a fare from the airport when he slammed on his breaks after a car cut in front of him, avoiding an accident.

He was given two options; “They told me I can either pay $100 for the course or hand over my keys.”

“I handed over my keys,” said Matador, 38, who has been driving a cab since 2003, adding that with that kind of light system he, and other drivers, would be called in every week. “I can’t afford that.”

Some cab drivers pay as much as $585 a week to drive their cab, they said. They also have to pay $3.50 per fare from the airport, which is up from $2 last year, they said. They also have to pay $1 for every time someone pays with a credit card.

Most drivers say they work seven days a week and about 15 to 18 hours a day. After all the fees, they say there is little left for them to take care of their families.

Greg Meyer, the spokesman for the airport, said Wednesday’s protest did not have a huge impact on travelers.

Instead of the cabs being dispatched from the holding lot, they were sent directly to the airport Meyer said. He said normal service returned at about 1 p.m.

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Ex-con who shot parole officer was having 'a terrible month': lawyer

The Brooklyn ex-con who blasted his parole officer only attacked because he was “in the grips of extreme emotional distress,” his defense attorney said during the trial’s opening yesterday.

Robert Morales, 52, shot his parole officer Sam Salters in the shoulder in 2010 because he said his new parole officer’s demands were ruining his life.

“It was a terrible, terrible month,” defense attorney John Stella said in Brooklyn Supreme Court, referring to the time Morales reported to Salters.

“It was the worst month in the life of a guy who has been in more correctional facilities than you can count on two hands.”

Gregory P. Mango

Robert Morales is being re-tried for shooting Samuel Salters, his parole officer.

This is Morales’ retrial after his first trial ended in a mistrial last year.

Stella even laid some blame on Salters, who spent months in the hospital after the attack.

“Sam Salters treated him in a manner that he had never been treated by anyone in the correctional system.”

Stella argued that Morales is guilty only of aggravated assault of an officer, while prosecutors made the case for attempted aggravated murder.

“He shot him at point-blank range with full intent to kill him,” said Brooklyn assistant district attorney Lew Lieberman. “There is no extreme emotional distress defense here.”

In 1979 Morales was sentenced to 25 years to life for setting a fire that killed an 8-year-old boy.

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EEOC files discrimination suit against transportation firm

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said Tuesday that it filed a lawsuit against Prestige Transportation Service for hiring discrimination.

According to the suit, Prestige refused to hire black applicants for employment, discriminated against a black employee and retaliated against three employees for opposing race discrimination and/or filing a discrimination charge with the EEOC.

The lawsuit also says that Prestige unlawfully destroyed or failed to keep records and documents related to employment applications, personnel records, and documents regarding rates of pay and other terms of compensation.

Prestige, based in Miami, primarily transports crew members of airlines between airports and their hotels. Executives could not be reached for comment late Tuesday.

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Temporary ban on Fla. welfare drug testing upheld

TALLAHASSEE --
A federal appeals court upheld the temporary ban on Florida’s drug-testing for welfare recipients Tuesday, saying that a lawsuit challenging the program had a good chance of succeeding.

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta sided with a lower court decision, stating that Florida failed to show that the drug testing plan was so critical that the Fourth Amendment, which bars unreasonable searches by the government, should be suspended.

The decision — which did not weigh in on the case’s ultimate constitutionality question — is the latest setback in Gov. Rick Scott’s controversial drug testing push. In 2011,Scott and the Florida Legislature instituted a program for drug-testing all recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Luis Lebron, a single-father and TANF applicant who refused to take the test on constitutional grounds, filed a lawsuit with help from the American Civil Liberties Union.

In authoring the court’s opinion, Judge Rosemary Barkett said that Florida had not proven that its drug-testing program serves a “special” or “immediate” need, or that it even protected children in families with substance abuse.

“There is nothing so special or immediate about the government’s interest in ensuring that TANF recipients are drug free so as to warrant suspension of the Fourth Amendment,” Barkett wrote. “The only known and shared characteristic of the individuals who would be subjected to Florida’s mandatory drug testing program is that they are financially needy families with children.”

Scott immediately vowed to appeal the decision and take his fight to the Supreme Court.

“The court’s ruling today is disturbing," he said in a statement. "Welfare is 100 percent about helping children. Welfare is taxpayer money to help people looking for jobs who have children. Drug use by anyone with children looking for a job is totally destructive. This is fundamentally about protecting the well-being of Florida families.”

The appeals court relied on a similar case in Georgia, which struck down a program requiring political candidates to take drug tests. That case found that Georgia did not show that there was a drug problem among elected officials, and the law was mostly “symbolic.”

In rejecting Florida’s appeal to the lower court’s preliminary injunction, a trio of federal judges took a similar position.

“The state has presented no evidence that simply because an applicant for TANF benefits is having financial problems, he is also drug addicted or prone to fraudulent and neglectful behavior,” Barkett wrote on behalf of the court.

The ACLU’s associate legal director Maria Kayanan said the ruling was a vindication for struggling families who apply for government assistance.

"The state of Florida can’t treat an entire segment of our community like suspected criminals simply because they are poor and are trying to get temporary assistance from the government to support their families,” said Kayanan, who was lead counsel on the case.

Florida also passed a law last year requiring drug testing for all state workers, but that issue is also tangled in constitutional challenges and litigation. A district court found the state worker testing plan unconstitutional, and Scott appealed. The appeals court is scheduled to hear arguments on that case next month.

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