North Florida private killed in Afghanistan

A Florida soldier who was on his first deployment to Afghanistan was killed this weekend in an explosion, the Pentagon said Monday.

Army Pfc. Markie T. Sims, 20, of Citra, north of Ocala, died Saturday in Panjwal, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device, according to a Defense Department statement.

A combat engineer by training, Sims joined the military in November 2011, trained at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri and was assigned to his first duty station at Joint Base Lewis-McChord with the 38th Engineer Company, 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division. It was not immediately known how long he had been in Afghanistan.

His remains were being returned to the U.S. on Monday, New Year’s Eve, at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

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iPad App Video Review: Anomaly Korea

The tower offense pioneers over at 11 Bit Studios finally released the sequel to their smash hit, Anomaly Warzone Earth. They branched out a bit, releasing the amusing Funky Smugglers and the dreamlike puzzler, Sleepwalker’s Journey, but now they’re back, and as this game will remind you a few times, Baghdad was just the beginning. The battle against a mysterious alien tower menace continues with new visuals, units, modes, and an awesome but sometimes hilarious Korean undertone.

The core game here is still the same, with you planning convoy routes through enemy infested streets, able to change your route on the fly. You technically continue to play as the invisible but ever-present commando unit, with your various power-ups, such as smoke screen, repair field, and others, activating and placing them with a simple tap or two. New units like the Horangi tank join your ranks, with unique unit abilities, like the aforementioned tank’s area of effect blast. As you make your way through the world, you’ll collect resources and upgrade units as well.

It’s not just new unit and enemy types mixing things up. For example, there are now artillery zones that will automatically be targeted and be fired upon as you pass through them, but only after a short countdown. Subtle additions like this are quite elegant, adding more dimensions of strategy without changing anything from previous games. Another great new addition is the Art of War trials. As you play and do well, you’ll unlock these brief but brutal challenges, and they are very satisfying to complete.

The visuals have received an upgrade, as has the voice acting. Still, there’s something kind of funny about all the Korean accented English speaking, along with the still excellent Asian-styled soundtrack. It’s not bad at all, but can feel out of place at first. All in all, Anomaly Korea offers more of the same, but improved, building upon the last game in all the right ways. You don’t even need to have played the first game to enjoy this one, so go ahead and download it for the current price of three dollars. I can’t wait to see where in the world this anomaly pops up next.

Download the Appolicious Android app

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Title Post: iPad App Video Review: Anomaly Korea
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A New Year's Tradition: Dick Clark Rocks On

New Year's Eve will never quite be the same without the faithful presence of the beloved, late Dick Clark to ring in the New Year, and we're looking back at the rich life of the entertainment icon whose legacy lives on. Watch the video!

Pics: Legend Dick Clark & Music's Biggest Names

Despite overcoming a devastating stroke, Dick seemed in good health and full of good humor when America saw him welcome in 2012 from Times Square in New York City on Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve, complete with a kiss for his wife Carrie. But on April 18, Dick died of a massive heart attack at 82, and we all mourned the loss of "The World's Oldest Teenager."

"There's no great secret to staying young inside your head," said the timeless American Bandstand host in a 1990 interview with ET. "I didn't realize 'til I was older how significant that is, because I do run into people my own age who I feel are older than they have to be, only because they've let it happen. If you don't let it happen inside your head, you're much better off."

Video: Dick Clark's Top 'American Bandstand' Moments

This year will mark the first time Ryan Seacreast is hosting Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve on ABC without his friend and mentor, but we know that Dick will be there to watch the ball drop in spirit to welcome 2013. We miss you, Dick.

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Kushner sells his New York Observer building for $95M

The New York Observer will get the boot next year from its West Side offices after Jared Kushner, the owner of the building and publisher of the weekly, sold the property out from under his own paper.

The building went for $95 million.

Suddenly active investors, East End Capital and GreenOak Real Estate, completed the off-market transaction from contract to closing between Wednesday and Friday of last week, The Post has learned. The 1929-era building is located at 321 W. 44th St.

Real estate scion Kushner purchased the 228,268-square-foot building at the top of the 2007 market for $85 million. Known as the New York Observer Building, the newspaper occupies the entire sixth floor.

The Observer, which Kushner bought in 2006, has a year to find another 20,000 square-foot home.

Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump, intends to buy another property for the paper and its off-shoots which include the Commercial Observer and the Mortgage Observer, sources said.

East End was formed by former Broadway Partners’ Jonathon Yormak and David Peretz along with real estate investor Richard Ruben. GreenOak principals Sonny Kalsi, John Carrafiell and Fred Schmidt ran the investment group at Morgan Stanley.

Darcy Stacom of CBRE handled the brokerage.

No one returned calls today. Together they also own 256 W. 28th St. and 21-27 Mercer St.

Last week, Aby Rosen’s RFR joined with East End and GreenOak to buy the Young & Rubicam building at 285 Madison Ave. for $189.25 million, also marketed by Stacom.

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Florida recovery picks up the pace

A Federal Reserve index shows a big improvement for Florida’s economy.

Each month, the Fed’s Philadelphia bank issues state-by-state indices that combine wage, employment and manufacturing data. And while most states have been improving since 2009, Florida’s index for October saw the biggest jump in seven years.

The so-called coincident index by the Philadelphia Fed tracks overall job growth, unemployment, average hours worked in the manufacturing industry and wage levels. The four indicators are combined into a single index, which the Fed says should roughly match growth in each state’s economic output.

For October, the most recent index available, Florida’s coincident score grew by three-tenths of a percent. That would amount to an economy growing at 3.5 percent per year. It was the largest monthly increase since September 2005, when the Florida index grew by slightly more than three-tenths of a percentage point. The biggest dip came in January 2009, when Florida’s “Philly Fed” index dropped by almost two percentage points in a single month.

DOUGLAS HANKS

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Manhunt continues for Miami man suspected of killing ex-girlfriend

Miami police detectives on Sunday were still looking for the man suspected of killing his ex-girlfriend outside a Little Havana drugstore Friday afternoon.

Investigators said Ifrain Quintana is armed and extremely dangerous. Quintana is believed to be driving a 2001 Blue Ford Explorer with a Florida tag.

Quintana is wanted for questioning in the daylight shooting of Ariadna Gonzalez Campa, 42.

Police said Quintana confronted Gonzalez on Friday afternoon along Southwest Fifth Street and Eighth Avenue, taunted her then shot her multiple times in front of La Milagrosa drugstore.

Among those urging him to turn himself in is his mother, Katileydi Quintana, who on Saturday made an emotional plea on Miami Herald’s newspaper CBS4 for him to come forward.

“Turn yourself in,” she told him over the phone. “Call me.”

He said Quintana acted out of jealousy and Quintana’s mother agreed.

“You did it out for love. For love...” Katileydi Quintana said.

Quintana said her son needs psychiatric help.

Gonzalez’s 19-year-old son waited for word about his mother shortly after she was rushed to the Jackson Memorial Hospital. The young man broke down on the sidewalk when police told him his mom didn’t make it.

“I want justice for the man who did this,” he told CBS 4

Anyone who sees the suspect or has information about the shooting should call Crime Stoppers at 305- 471-8477.

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Golden Globes Flashback: Alec Baldwin 2007

Alec Baldwin was known as a film actor until undertaking debatably the best role of his career on television as "Jack Donaghy" on 30 Rock. After decades in the industry, he experienced immediate, tangible success through the show and was stunned by it all.

While he had previously been nominated for awards, including both Oscar and Golden Globes nominations for his 2003 film The Cooler, Baldwin had yet to win a major individual award for his acting until the Tina-Fey-created comedy series came along.

VIDEO: Alec Baldwin Jokes About Photog Controversy

The first season of 30 Rock premiered in the fall of 2006 and Baldwin was nominated a few months later for a Golden Globes for Best Actor. With Season 1 winding down, he was granted the award, his first of this magnitude, in January at the 2007 Golden Globes.

"I never really think of myself of someone that's going to walk in and [win the award]," he says to ET's former co-host Mary Hart after winning the award. "Meryl [Streep] walks in and wins the award. There's people that just have that role; they have that gravitational field...To win this, I am shocked. I am truly, truly shocked."

PIC: Photographer Alleges Alec Baldwin Punched Him

Although he was shocked to receive the award, Baldwin admits that he believed the show had a chance to succeed due to the various positive elements that comprised 30 Rock. Not only did the show reap accolades for Baldwin, but it also provided him with a new lifestyle that he enjoyed.

"I love the people and I love the scripts and I love the opportunity but I also love the lifestyle," he says. "In the past when I did movies, there was a thing that was thrilling to me twenty years ago, and that was I didn't know where I was going to be four months from now...and now I know exactly where I'm going to be four months from now, and I need that. I want that."

VIDEO: Alec Baldwin Takes on Santa

Baldwin has been able to maintain a stable lifestyle of filming 30 Rock for seven years now and awards have become a predictable facet of his life as well. After winning for Season 1, he has gone on to win two more individual awards, receiving a nomination in every year since 2007.

The 54-year-old actor will have a chance to add yet another Best Actor Golden Globe to his collection, as he has once again been nomination for 30 Rock's final season.

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'The Hobbit' stays atop box office for third week

LOS ANGELES — "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" continues to rule them all at the box office, staying on top for a third-straight week with nearly $33 million.

The Warner Bros. fantasy epic from director Peter Jackson, based on the J.R.R. Tolkien novel, has made $222.7 million domestically alone.

Two big holiday movies — and potential awards contenders — also had strong openings. Quentin Tarantino's spaghetti Western-blaxploitation mash-up "Django Unchained" came in second place for the weekend with $30.7 million. The Weinstein Co. revenge epic, starring Jamie Foxx and Christoph Waltz, has earned $64 million since its Christmas Day opening.

James Fisher

Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins in "The Hobbit"

And in third place with $28 million was the sweeping, all-singing "Les Miserables." The Universal Pictures musical starring Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway has made $67.5 million since debuting on Christmas.

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Week brings startup launches, social media advice for 2013

Jared Kleinert, a South Florida entrepreneur, plans to soon launch Synergist, a platform that allow social entrepreneurs to meet potential co-founders online, collaborate and crowdfund their new projects. He also just launched AliveNDead, a blog about risk-taking, and he interns for a Silicon Valley startup.

And when he’s not doing all that, he’s going to class — he’s a junior at Spanish River High School in Boca Raton.

Lester Mapp is CEO and founder of the new Miami-based startup called designed by m. His team has just designed a sleek, ultra-thin aluminum iPhone bumper and launched the project on Kickstarter. After just a few days, Mapp is already more than a third of the way to his $20,000 fund-raising goal.

Read about both these entrepreneurs on The Starting Gate blog, where there’s also a post on the most pressing issues facing small businesses in the coming year — taxes, healthcare, lending and a skilled worker shortage, for starters.

And as you are ringing in the New Year, you may be resolving to beef up your business’ social media strategy. Susan Linning's guest post offers five top tips for boosting your social media effectiveness. Among them: Go beyond retweets and make your posts original, fun and personal (but not too personal.) Use visuals, too. Find this and other news, views and tools for entrepreneurs on the blog, which is at the bottom of MiamiHerald.com /business.

Follow me on Twitter @ndahlberg and Happy New Year to all.

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Port strike for east and gulf coasts averted for 30 days, talks continue

A looming longshoremen’s strike set for midnight Saturday, which threatened havoc at 15 ports along the eastern seaboard and Gulf Coast, has been averted for at least a month.

The two sides, the International Longshoreman’s Association and the U.S. Maritime Alliance, announced Friday morning they would continue to negotiate after a couple of days of tense mediation.

After eight months of talks the sides went their separate ways Dec. 18. But talks picked up again this week in response to pressure from port directors, retail federations, even the White House.

The longshoremen, a group of 14,650 workers, some who operate the giant gantry cranes at the nation’s ports, threatened to walk out on contract talks early Sunday morning if the U.S. Maritime Alliance didn’t back off its demand that the union stop receiving royalties, or bonuses, for each container leaving or loaded onto a ship. In many cases those bonuses allow longshoremen to double their salaries to more than $100,000 a year.

Port directors throughout the nation have expressed concern that a strike would virtually halt economic activity throughout the country. It would affect mostly non-perishable goods like clothing and televisions. PortMiami does close to $20 billion a year in container business.

The longshoremen’s contract actually expired at the end of September, but the sides agreed to continue talks for 90 days.

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