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.
Saturday was just another crazy day in the love life of Kat Von D – you know, marriage proposals via Tweet, etc.
After a two-month hot and heavy romance with Canadian DJ Deadmau5 (followed by a November breakup), the pair is not only back together, they’re engaged — and it all went down on Twitter.
PLAY IT NOW: Meet The Six Little McGhees
“I can’t wait for Christmas so…. Katherine Von Drachenberg, will you marry me?” Deadmau5 (Joel Zimmerman) Tweeted on Saturday, along with a photo of the engagement ring he plans to get the tattoo artist.
Click HERE to see the ring – complete with a diamond flanked by (what else?!) two skulls!
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Stars Who Got Engaged In 2012
Kat replied with a series of exclamation points, to which Deadmau5 romantically responded with, “Holy f***ing s**t. im engaged and stuff!”
The freshly-minted engaged couple then thanked their followers for their support.
“Mi corazon!!! Thank you all for the lovely congratulations!” Kat wrote. “Please excuse me while I go squeeze the hell out of my fiance!”
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Guess The Celebrity Ink!
“Thanks for the well wishes and support from the horde and everyone else!” Deadmau5 Tweeted. “brb while i spend the rest of my evening with my future wife 
”
VOTE: Will Kat & Deadmau5 make it down the aisle?
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Hollywood’s Smokin’ Hot Couples
Prior to her whirlwind romance with Deadmau5, Kat was recently engaged to Sandra Bullock’s ex-husband, Jesse James, but the now-ex-couple broke it off in June, 2011.
As previously reported on AccessHollywood.com, Kat and her new fiance, dubbed “Kat and Mau5″ (mouse), were first spotted together in September, and the DJ called Kat “The love of my life” just one month later.
One month after his declaration of love, the pair broke up.
– Erin O’Sullivan
Copyright 2012 by NBC Universal, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News
REUTERS
A woman and a child pray over candles outside Saint Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church a day after a shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut Saturday.
NEWTOWN, Conn. — A grieving Connecticut town braced itself Monday to bury the first two of the 20 small victims of an elementary school gunman and debated when classes could resume — and where, given the carnage in the building and the children's associations with it.
The people of Newtown weren't yet ready to address the question just three days after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and a day after President Barack Obama pledged to seek change in memory of the children and six adults ruthlessly slain by a gunman packing a high-powered rifle.
"We're just now getting ready to talk to our son about who was killed," said Robert Licata, the father of a student who escaped harm during the shooting. "He's not even there yet."
Newtown officials couldn't say whether Sandy Hook Elementary, where authorities said all the victims were shot at least twice, would ever reopen. Monday classes were canceled, and the district was considering eventually sending surviving Sandy Hook students to a former school building in a neighboring town.
TERRIFIED STUDENTS RAN INTO DANGER
OBAMA: "THESE TRAGEDIES MUST END"
MOTHER DEVOTED HER LIFE TO HIM - THEN HE ENDED IT
The gunman, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, was carrying an arsenal of hundreds of rounds of especially deadly ammunition, authorities said Sunday — enough to kill just about every student in the school if given enough time, raising the chilling possibility that the bloodbath could have been even worse.
The shooter decided to kill himself when he heard police closing in about 10 minutes into Friday's attack, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said on ABC's "This Week."
At the interfaith service in Newtown on Sunday evening, Obama said he would use "whatever power this office holds" to engage with law enforcement, mental health professionals, parents and educators in an effort to prevent more tragedies like Newtown.
"What choice do we have?" Obama said on a stark stage that held only a small table covered with a black cloth, candles and the presidential podium. "Are we really prepared to say that we're powerless in the face of such carnage, that the politics are too hard?"
The president first met privately with families of the victims and with the emergency personnel who responded to the shooting. Police and firefighters got hugs and standing ovations when they entered for the public vigil, as did Obama.
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.
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.
When Tumblr went down Wednesday evening, users flocked to Mashable to express their rage and disbelief.
Click here to view this gallery.
[More from Mashable: Mysterious Package Addressed to Indiana Jones Arrives at UChicago]
Where were you the day that Tumblr went down? Whether you were at home, at work or on the move, it’s possible that you somehow ended up on Mashable. That was the case for thousands of Tumblr users, who, desperate for their GIF fix after a Tumblr outage on Wednesday, found themselves commenting on a Mashable story about the glitch.
Frustrated Tumblr frequenters left without a blogging platform transformed the comment thread on Mashable’s story into a makeshift Tumblr dashboard. Users gathered to commiserate, voice their anger and post GIFs to express their feelings. The micro-community that sprung up in the post made these the top comments on Mashable this week.
[More from Mashable: The Top Comments on Mashable This Week]
We recently renovated our commenting system to allow readers to embed video and images, a feature Wednesday’s commenters took full advantage of. By the time Tumblr was again functional, the story had accrued over 4,000 comments. Users traded domain names, discussed their blogs and, above all, bemoaned a lack of access to the site. YouTube user moviepimpdj posted a video of the rapidly moving comment thread.
This week we also saw major changes to Facebook’s privacy settings, with our readers feeling mixed emotions about the shift. The community mused on what 2013 might hold with respect to responsive design.
What were your favorite comments from the Mashable community this week? Get involved with the discussion by signing up for Mashable Follow. You could see your voice in our next weekly roundup!
Image courtesy of Flickr, kurichan+
This story originally published on Mashable here.
Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News
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
TOKYO — Voting has begun in Japanese parliamentary elections expected to put the once-dominant conservatives back in power after a three-year break amid widespread voter dismay with the Democrats.
Major newspapers predict the vote will give the Liberal Democratic Party, led by the ex-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a majority in the 480-seat lower house.
Many have soured on the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, which won a landslide victory in 2009 but could not deliver on a string of campaign pledges and passed legislation to double the sales tax.
Entrepreneurs from around the world took the stage during this packed week of entrepreneurship events in Miami: Florida International University’s Americas Venture Capital Conference (known as AVCC), HackDay, Wayra’s Global DemoDay and Endeavor’s International Selection Panel.
The events, all part of the first Innovate MIA week, also put the spotlight on Miami as it continues to try to develop into a technology hub for the Americas.
“While I like art, I absolutely love what is happening today... The time has come to become a tech hub in Miami,” said Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos A. Gimenez, who kicked off the venture capital conference on Thursday. He told the audience of 450 investors and entrepreneurs about the county’s $1 million investment in the Launch Pad Tech Accelerator in downtown Miami.
“I have no doubt that this gathering today will produce new ideas and new business ventures that will put our community on a fast track to becoming a center for innovative, tech-driven entrepreneurship,” Gimenez said.
Brad Feld, an early-stage investor and a founder of TechStars, cautioned that won’t happen overnight. Building a startup community can take five, 10, even 15 years, and those leading the effort, who should be entrepreneurs themselves, need to take the long-term view, he told the audience via video. “You can create very powerful entrepreneurial ecosystems in any city... I’ve spent some time in Miami, I think you are off to a great start.”
Throughout the two-day AVCC at the JW Brickell Marriott, as well as the Endeavor and Wayra events, entrepreneurs from around the world pitched their companies, hoping to persuade investors to part with some of their green.
And in some cases, the entrepreneurs could win money, too. During the venture capital conference, 29 companies —including eight from South Florida such as itMD, which connects doctors, patients and imaging facilities to facilitate easy access of records — competed for more than $50,000 in cash and prizes through short “elevator’’ pitches. Each took questions from the judges, then demoed their products or services in the conference “Hot Zone,” a room adjoining the ballroom. Some companies like oLyfe, a platform to organize what people share online, are hoping to raise funds for expansion into Latin America. Others like Ideame, a trilingual crowdfunding platform, were laser focused on pan-Latin American opportunities.
Winning the grand prize of $15,000 in cash and art was Trapezoid Digital Security of Miami, which provides hardware-based security solutions for enterprise and cloud environments. Fotopigeon of Tampa, a photo-sharing and printing service targeting the military and prison niches, scored two prizes.
The conference offered opportunities to hear formal presentations on current trends — among them the surge of start-ups in Brazil; the importance of mobile apps and overheated company valuations — and informal opportunities to connect with fellow entrepreneurs.
Speakers included Gaston Legorburu of SapientNitro, Albert Santalo of CareCloud and Juan Diego Calle of .Co Internet, all South Florida entrepreneurs. Jerry Haar, executive director of FIU’s Pino Global Entrepreneurship Center, which produced the conference with a host of sponsors, said the organizers worked hard to make the conference relevant to both the local and Latin American audience, with panels on funding and recruiting for startups, for instance.
A Miami-area photographer who secretly videotaped children while they changed clothes in his home studio was sentenced in federal court Friday to 10 years in prison.
Diego Tobias Matrajt, 37, pleaded guilty in September to distribution and possession of child pornography.
Last February, Matrajt distributed 10 images of child pornography to an undercover agent by using a peer-to-peer file sharing program, according to court records.
In April, FBI agents did a search of his home and computers, uncovering 26 video images of boys and girls changing clothes alone in a guest bedroom with their genitalia exposed, records show.
Matrajt admitted surreptitiously video recording children under the age of 12 as they changed clothes in the guest bedroom during photo shoots.
Copyright © Assume News. All rights reserved.
Design 
And Business Directories
