Florida highway agency may be headed to court over license plates

TALLAHASSEE --
The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles may be on the road to court after failed attempts Tuesday to settle a dispute over who will make and distribute the state’s new license tags.

County tax collectors and other groups say Florida is breaking the law as it moves to pay private companies for services that have for decades been done by state workers. The tax collectors’ protest could go before an administrative law judge in January.

In a meeting closed to the public, tax collectors asked the state highway agency to withdraw its request for bids from private companies and create a committee to study whether tax collectors or private businesses are best positioned to improve cost savings and customer service.

The department politely shut down both ideas, said Ken van Assenderp, an attorney for the tax collectors.

“We’re not saying that we’re not open to other solutions,” van Assenderp said. “But don’t try to get into ways of changing things without getting us involved from the beginning, and without having an eye toward service.”

The other two groups that have filed protests are Avery Dennison, a labeling and packaging company that provides materials for plate manufacturers, and PRIDE, a St. Petersburg-based nonprofit company that uses inmate labor to make tags.

Both say the state’s bidding requirements eliminate them—and almost every other company— from applying for $31.4 million in contracts to make the tags and to distribute online and mail orders.

They also take issue with the state’s request that potential vendors be immediately ready to make plates with flat — rather than raised — characters. Florida wants to give its license plates a makeover, and flat plates are generally believed to be more legible by toll and red light cameras.

Avery Dennison and PRIDE do not have the technology to make the flat plates, and “it would not be feasible to obtain all of the equipment necessary,” says the PRIDE complaint.

PRIDE could go out of business if the state follows through with its proposals, it said.

Highway safety officials say this isn’t an attempt to put anyone out of work, but to learn about possible cost savings for taxpayers.

“At least four prospective vendors who expressed interest in (working with the state) did not protest,” said department spokeswoman Courtney Heidelberg.

State officials will not make any decisions until after they meet with Avery Dennison Wednesday, Heidelberg added.

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The business behind the artist: Miami’s art gallery scene still evolving

This week, thousands of art collectors, museum trustees, artists, journalists and hipsters from around the globe will arrive for the phenomenon known as Art Basel Miami Beach. The centerpiece of the week: works shown at the convention center by more than 260 of the world’s top galleries.

Only two of those are from Miami.

While Art Basel has helped transform the city’s reputation from beach-and-party scene to arts destination in the years since its 2002 Miami Beach debut, the region’s gallery identity is still coming into its own.

“Certainly Miami as an art town registers mightily because of the foundations, the collectors who have done an extraordinary job,” said Linda Blumberg, executive director of the Art Dealers Association of America. “I think there’s a definite international awareness there. But the gallery scene probably has a bit of a ways to go. That doesn’t mean it’s not really fascinating and interesting.”

The gallery business, especially where newer artists are concerned, is a game of risk, faith and passion. Once a gallery takes on an artist who shows promise, they become an evangelist on their behalf, showing their work in-house and at fairs, presenting it to museums and curators and potential collectors and bearing the cost of that promotion.

For contemporary artists, most galleries take work on consignment, meaning they get a cut of as much as 50 percent when works sell. While local art galleries have been growing in number and popularity in the last several years — just try to find parking during the monthly art walk in Miami’s hot Wynwood neighborhood — even some of the area’s top art dealers say that while business overall is good, they struggle in the local marketplace.

“Our problem is that we have to do lots of art fairs in order to connect with the market that we need to connect with to sell the work that we have,” said Fredric Snitzer, a Miami-Dade gallery owner for 35 years. “The better the work is, the harder it is to sell in Miami. And that ain’t good.”

A handful of serious collectors call Miami home and store their own collections in Miami, including the Braman, Rubell, Margulies and de la Cruz families. But outside a relatively small local group, many gallerists say, their clients come from other parts of the country and world.

And some gallerists point out the troubling reality that even the powerhouse Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin could not stay open in Miami for more than a few years.

“The fact that big galleries have not been able to sustain their business models in South Florida tells you we’re obviously not at this high established point,” said gallery owner David Castillo. “It’s not like we’ve arrived, let’s sit back and watch Hauser & Wirth open down the street.”

Still, Miami’s gallery business has come a long way since the early 1970s, when a few dealers on Bay Harbor Island’s Kane Concourse were selling high-end pieces but the local scene was hardly embraced.

Virginia Miller, who owns ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries in Coral Gables, first opened in 1974 to showcase Florida artists, though her focus soon added an international scope. She and other longtime observers credit several factors for Miami’s transformation, including the community’s diversity, the establishment of important museums, the Art Miami fair that started 23 years ago, the presence of major collections and, of course, Art Basel Miami Beach.

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REPORT: Hugh Hefner Gets Marriage License

Hugh Hefner and Crystal Harris have obtained a marriage license, Us Weekly reports.

RELATED: Crystal Harris Apologizes for Spilling Hugh Hefner Sex Secrets

According to the news source, Hefner, 86, and Harris, 26, acquired the license from the Beverly Hills courthouse on Tuesday.

This news follows a Playboy source confirming to E! News yesterday that the couple is engaged again after Harris called off their 2011 wedding just five days before the ceremony. The couple is reportedly planning to wed on New Year's Eve.

RELATED: Hefner Engaged to Crystal Harris Again

In a post on Sunday, the Playboy model tweeted a photo of her hand showing off a sapphire ring, with the caption, "New ring (not that kind of ring) topaz and diamonds #love #fashion." In another recent tweet, she said, "Dear past, thank you for all the lessons. Dear future, I'm ready."

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Rapper likens self to one of world's greatest composers

Big-talking rapper Ryan Leslie -- who set fire to the front page of The Post for reporting on a $1 million jury verdict against him -- is now likening himself to one of history's greatest composers.

Leslie told Vibe magazine that he plans to title his next album "Black Mozart," and will record some of it in the capital of classical music, Vienna.

Last week, a Manhattan federal court jury rapped Leslie for reneging on a $1 million reward he offered for a laptop and hard drive that were stolen while he was on tour in Germany in 2010.

Auto-repair shop owner Armin Augstein found the gear while walking his dog, but Leslie ignored Augstein's efforts to claim the reward.

bruce.golding@nypost.com

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President Obama keeps Debbie Wasserman Schultz as Democratic Party chair

WASHINGTON --
President Barack Obama on Monday asked Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida – who led the Democratic Party in a triumphant election year but also was criticized for a platform snafu during the party’s convention – to serve another term as the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee.

“I’ve asked Debbie Wasserman Schultz to continue her excellent work as chair of the DNC. Thanks for all you do, Debbie,” the president tweeted.

“Thank you, Mr. President,” the Broward County Democrat tweeted in response. “I am honored to serve.”

The Democratic National Committee is all but certain to ratify Obama’s decision at its winter meeting in January. Party chairs usually are elected for four-year terms. Wasserman Schultz would head the party during the 2014 election cycle, a tough task since a second-term president’s party historically suffers losses in midterm elections.

Wasserman Schultz, 46, of Weston, won her fifth term in Congress last month when she easily defeated two challengers. She won the district, which includes Miami-Dade and Broward counties, with 63 percent of the 216,000 votes cast.

In her national role, Wasserman Schultz is credited with helping to steer the Democratic National Committee to a successful election. Democrats did even better than pollsters and analysts had predicted, with net gains of two Senate seats and at least seven seats in the House of Representatives. Obama won a popular-vote majority and a big electoral-vote majority over Republican Mitt Romney.

“She’s done a good job. You can’t argue with the results of the election,” said Kathy Sullivan, Democratic national committeewoman from New Hampshire and a former chairwoman of the state party.

Wasserman Schultz supported Hillary Clinton over Obama in the 2008 Democratic nominating contest, and she’s credited with helping to push the Clintons to campaign vigorously for the party this fall.

Though party officials regard her highly, Wasserman Schultz came under some fire earlier this year at the Democratic National Convention. The gathering in Charlotte, N.C. – carefully calibrated to give Obama a rousing sendoff for the general election campaign – erupted in chaos when the platform failed to mention God or to say that Jerusalem is Israel’s rightful capital.

Wasserman Schultz called the omissions “essentially a technical oversight.” The language was changed after the issues were made public, but the revisions came only after a confused scene on the convention floor. Convention Chairman Antonio Villaraigosa, the mayor of Los Angeles, called for voice votes, but the verdict was unclear. He finally said the changes had been approved, as many on the floor booed.

The controversy died quickly, and Wasserman Schultz was widely praised within the party Monday.

“You don’t mess with success,” said Dick Harpootlian, the chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party. “There’s a very small group of people involved with and enthralled by the party platform, but it often doesn’t affect the vote.”

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The business behind the artist: Miami’s art gallery scene still evolving

This week, thousands of art collectors, museum trustees, artists, journalists and hipsters from around the globe will arrive for the phenomenon known as Art Basel Miami Beach. The centerpiece of the week: works shown at the convention center by more than 260 of the world’s top galleries.

Only two of those are from Miami.

While Art Basel has helped transform the city’s reputation from beach-and-party scene to arts destination in the years since its 2002 Miami Beach debut, the region’s gallery identity is still coming into its own.

“Certainly Miami as an art town registers mightily because of the foundations, the collectors who have done an extraordinary job,” said Linda Blumberg, executive director of the Art Dealers Association of America. “I think there’s a definite international awareness there. But the gallery scene probably has a bit of a ways to go. That doesn’t mean it’s not really fascinating and interesting.”

The gallery business, especially where newer artists are concerned, is a game of risk, faith and passion. Once a gallery takes on an artist who shows promise, they become an evangelist on their behalf, showing their work in-house and at fairs, presenting it to museums and curators and potential collectors and bearing the cost of that promotion.

For contemporary artists, most galleries take work on consignment, meaning they get a cut of as much as 50 percent when works sell. While local art galleries have been growing in number and popularity in the last several years — just try to find parking during the monthly art walk in Miami’s hot Wynwood neighborhood — even some of the area’s top art dealers say that while business overall is good, they struggle in the local marketplace.

“Our problem is that we have to do lots of art fairs in order to connect with the market that we need to connect with to sell the work that we have,” said Fredric Snitzer, a Miami-Dade gallery owner for 35 years. “The better the work is, the harder it is to sell in Miami. And that ain’t good.”

A handful of serious collectors call Miami home and store their own collections in Miami, including the Braman, Rubell, Margulies and de la Cruz families. But outside a relatively small local group, many gallerists say, their clients come from other parts of the country and world.

And some gallerists point out the troubling reality that even the powerhouse Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin could not stay open in Miami for more than a few years.

“The fact that big galleries have not been able to sustain their business models in South Florida tells you we’re obviously not at this high established point,” said gallery owner David Castillo. “It’s not like we’ve arrived, let’s sit back and watch Hauser & Wirth open down the street.”

Still, Miami’s gallery business has come a long way since the early 1970s, when a few dealers on Bay Harbor Island’s Kane Concourse were selling high-end pieces but the local scene was hardly embraced.

Virginia Miller, who owns ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries in Coral Gables, first opened in 1974 to showcase Florida artists, though her focus soon added an international scope. She and other longtime observers credit several factors for Miami’s transformation, including the community’s diversity, the establishment of important museums, the Art Miami fair that started 23 years ago, the presence of major collections and, of course, Art Basel Miami Beach.

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Four Things Google’s Nexus 4 Has in Common with the iPhone 4

Besides being each company’s flagship smartphone (and having the number 4 in their names), Google‘s new Nexus 4 and the 2010 iPhone 4 have a fair bit in common with each other.

This could be a good thing, if you remember just how popular the iPhone 4 was. Unfortunately, in this case it’s more of a bad thing, and hearkens back to “Antennagate” and the iPhone 4′s other problems. Do any of these features remind you of anything?

​A glass back

With the iPhone 5, Apple finally moved from a crack- and scratch-prone glass backplate to a solid, aluminum unibody construction. Google doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo that the former may have been a bad idea, however, and the Nexus 4 has a sparkly glass back surface.

While sparkly things obviously have their fans, the Nexus 4′s chassis also seems to lean towards the brittle side. Joshua Topolsky, who reviewed the Nexus 4 for The Verge, managed to crack the glass when he accidentally knocked his phone off the table. Meanwhile, Droid-Life’s Kellex found that setting the phone on a stone countertop caused its glass back to fracture in two.

​No 4G

Even Topolsky’s glowing review of the Nexus 4 said “It feels slow,” and “There’s simply no way to ignore this deficit.” That’s because, like the iPhone 4, the Nexus 4 lacks a 4G radio (even though it has the chip to support one if it had it).

The iPhone 4, however, was released in 2010, when 4G was still a new thing and the Android “superphones” which supported it had enormous screens and horrible battery life. Today, even the iPhone has 4G. Possibly because of bad blood between Google and the wireless carriers, which appear to resent Google’s selling phones unsubsidized and sans “customizations,” the Nexus 4 does not.

​Selling out fast

Every one of Apple’s iPhone models has sold out faster, and more dramatically, than the one before. Google’s Android devices, in contrast, haven’t tended to do so … although the new Nexus smartphones and tablets are starting to have this problem.

How bad is it? After Google finally got a new wave of Nexus 4s up for sale, they sold out in about a half-hour. Google claims that it hasn’t actually sold out, but even if you spotted the Nexus 4 on Google Play, chances are you ran into technical glitches which kept it out of your shopping cart. Tipster “Syko Pompos” told the Android Police blog how to get around this and place your order, but expect to wait months to receive it.

​Public relations nightmares

It hasn’t quite reached Antennagate levels yet, perhaps partly because the Nexus brand isn’t as well-known as the iPhone (the iPhone 4′s antenna problems were actually shared by many smartphones). But most of the press coverage of the Nexus 4 lately has been about how you can’t get one. Or else, how if you want one you’ll have to either buy it on contract or pay a lot more to get it unsubsidized from T-Mobile.

On the plus side (for the Nexus), this problem is only partly caused by the Google Play store’s technical errors. The biggest reason it’s taking so long to get out to people is, like with the iPhone 4, simply how popular it is.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.

Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Is Pregnant Kate Middleton Having Twins

The royal couple has something extra to be thankful for this holiday season.

Related: Prince William & Kate Middleton Expecting a Baby

Prince William and his bride Kate, The Duchess of Cambridge, announced they're expecting a baby in the coming months. Tomorrow, ET breaks down all of the exciting details including rumors the mother-to-be is pregnant with twins.

Also Tuesday, Melissa McCarthy's Vanity Fair exclusive!

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Brooklyn yeshiva principal convicted of sex abuse

The principal of a Brooklyn yeshiva was convicted today of sexually abusing three young brothers, authorities said.

Emanuel Yegutkin, 33, abused the boys after he became close friends with their father and was invited regularly to Friday night shabbat dinners, the meal that marks the start of the weekly Jewish day of rest.

The abuse began when two of the boys were just 7 years old, according to the Brooklyn District attorney’s office.

“He would touch me under the table,” one of the brothers testified last month. “I wasn’t taught about sexuality so I wasn’t sure if it was right or wrong.”

When the jury returned the verdict, Yegutkin was immediately taken into custody and his wife began to cry.

He faces up to 25 years in prison on the top charge alone.

“This violent sexual predator faces the remainder of his life behind bars,” said DA Charles Hynes. “This should serve as a clear message that those who would sexually abuse children in this country will be punished severely.”

jsaul@nypost.com

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Two dead after bus crash at Miami International Airport

What began as a day of prayer and fellowship turned into a surreal scene of stunned, bloodied passengers and twisted metal.

There was the sickening sound of crunching metal early Saturday as a busload of Jehovah’s Witnesses was low-bridged by a concrete overpass at Miami International Airport, peeling back the top of the vehicle “like a can of sardines.”

Airport workers running to the scene found shocked passengers thrown into the aisle or trapped in their seats by the wreckage.

Riders in the front rows were crushed — two of them killed, others seriously injured.

The driver of the bus, 47-year-old Ramon Ferreiro, took a wrong turn off LeJeune Road, entering the airport by mistake, then rolled past multiple yellow signs warning tall vehicles. He drove on, approaching an overpass whose sign said “8ft-6in”. The driver either didn’t see it, couldn’t read it, or realized it too late.

The bus stood 11 feet tall.

“The last thing he should have done is to keep going,” said Greg Chin, airport spokesman. “That goes against all logic.”

Ferreiro, whose driver’s seat was lower than those of the passengers, was not injured.

One passenger, 86-year-old Miami resident Serfin Castillo, was killed on impact, and all 31 others were taken by ambulance to local hospitals. Thirteen ended up at Jackson Memorial’s Ryder Trauma Center, where one of them, 56-year-old Francisco Urana of Miami, died shortly after arriving.

Three remained in critical condition Saturday night, and three had been released.

Luis Jimenez, 72, got a few stitches on his lip and hurt his hand. He said the group left the Sweetwater Kingdom Hall about 7 a.m., bound for West Palm Beach.

“I was sitting in the back when it happened,” Jimenez said. “We were on our way to an assembly and lost a brother today. I’m very sad.”

Delvis Lazo, 15, a neighbor and member of the same congregation, described Castillo as a “nice, old man.” He often saw Castillo at religious gatherings, and their families have known each other for more than 15 years.

The last time Lazo saw him was about two months ago, as he prepped for a talk before his congregation.

“He gave me a thumbs up, told me that everything was going to be all right,” he said.

The bus, one of three traveling to the Spanish-language general assembly on Saturday, had been contracted by the congregation, which has fewer than 150 members.

According to public records, the bus belongs to Miami Bus Service Corporation, a Miami company owned by Mayling and Alberto Hernandez that offers regularly scheduled service between South Florida and Gainesville, often used by University of Florida students. At the home address listed for the company and the owners, Mayling Hernandez told The Miami Herald that passenger safety is her primary concern.

“At this time I’m worried about the driver and the families of the victims. I’m praying for them,” she said. “My job is to worry about the safety of the passengers who are our clients. What we do requires a lot of responsibility. I didn’t know the passengers but that doesn’t mean I’m not suffering.”

Neighbor Armando Bacigalupi described the owners as “caring people” and said he had seen buses park briefly in front of the house.

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the company has two drivers for its three passenger motor coaches.

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