Diageo moving office to Coral Gables

Diageo will move its Miami office to Coral Gables in the fall of 2013.

The world’s leading spirits company will move from its current office at Blue Lagoon when its lease ends and relocate to 396 Alhambra Circle in Coral Gables.

Diageo has 175 people based in its Miami office, the majority of whom work for the Latin American and Caribbean region that is headquartered in Miami. The company has signed a 10-year lease in Coral Gables at 296 Alhambra, which is owned by Agave Holdings. The 32,527 square foot office has received LEED Silver and Gold certification.

“The new office is an important hub for not only Diageo North America, but also serves as the gateway to Latin America and our successful – and growing – business there,” said Randy Millian, Diageo President, Latin America and Caribbean. “We are excited to join the Coral Gables community.”

With the completion of the Diageo lease, the 282,000-square-foot Coral Gables office building is now 65 percent lease just one year after its opening. Diageo will join a roster of existing tenants that includes HBO Latin America, Millicom International Services, law firm Richman Greer, Banco Pichincha and CitiBank

“The addition of Diageo strengthens 396 Alhambra’s standing as the Class A address of choice for major multinational users in the Coral Gables market,” said Danet Linares, executive vice president at Blanca Commercial Real Estate, which represented Agave in the transaction.

“Diageo’s decision to relocate to Coral Gables reaffirms that the area is a vibrant business center for the greater Miami area,” said Jose Antonio Perez Helguera, managing director for Agave Holdings.

Danet Linares and Andres del Corral of Blanca Commercial Real Estate represented 396 Alhambra in the transaction, while Joe Garvey of CLW Real Estate Group represented Diageo.

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Report on Dozier School raises new questions about deaths

About100 boys may have died between 1900 and 1960 at a controversial youth prison in the Florida Panhandle, including seven boys who perished following escape attempts, according to a new report that raises troubling questions about the now-shuttered Dozier School for Boys.

As state juvenile justice administrators seek to sell the Dozier property in rural Marianna, researchers with the University of South Florida conducted an exhaustive archeological and historical analysis of the site in an effort to locate the burial grounds of children. In a 114-page report released Monday morning, researchers conclude that a minimum of 98 children died at Dozier between 1911 and 1973.

The largest burial ground is on the north side of the prison camp, next to a garbage dump on what for years was called Dozier’s “colored” section. Though the cemetery holds 31 graves marked with PVC pipe crosses, the report said the markers do not correspond to the actual interments, and it is likely that more than 31 children are buried there.

Dozier, which opened as the Florida State Reform School on Jan. 1, 1900, remained in continuous operations until June 30, 2011, when the state Department of Juvenile Justice shut it down amid a years-long controversy over the physical and sexual abuse of children.

In the fall of 2008, a dozen middle-aged men from throughout the state came forward and said they were raped or mercilessly beaten — or both — at the Marianna campus. The “White House Boys” — as some of the men dubbed themselves after the squat white-washed cottage where they were whipped, sometimes 100 times or more — have since spawned at least two books and a movement to extract some type of compensation from the Florida Legislature.

In October 2008, about a half-dozen of the men returned to Dozier. There, DJJ administrators, along with staff working there at the time, dedicated a plaque outside the building and planted a young crepe myrtle tree alongside the now decrepit White House building. Some of the men sobbed as they toured the inside of the cottage, where they described brutal beatings to a small gathering of reporters.

Records at Dozier that were reviewed by the university show that 54 children people were buried on the school grounds, and 31 were shipped elsewhere for burial. School administrators did not record the burial location for 22 other children.

Prison records suggest administrators may have minimized the number of deaths that occurred there in reports to the state — especially when it came to white children.

Biennial reports to state lawmakers early in the 20th century “often listed fewer deaths than what is listed in the school ledgers,” the report said. In a July 1926 report, for example, the school superintendent told lawmakers that four children had died in 1925 and 1926 — all of them black youths. But school ledgers showed six children had died during that time, including two white boys.

One of the boys whose death was not listed in 1926 was a child named Thomas Curry, a white boy who, a death certificate says, died of blunt trauma to his head. Records said Curry died away from the prison campus after he escaped.

Records suggest boys who escaped from the North Florida prison often met a violent death: two boys who escaped died of blunt trauma, and two died of gunshot wounds to the head or chest. Two children died in collisions involving cars; one was listed as having been “run over by [an] automobile.”

Even in death, the black children at Dozier received unequal treatment: African-American children were three times more likely to be buried in an unspecified location than were their white peers, the report said.

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China party chief stresses reform, censors relax grasp on internet

BEIJING (Reuters) – China must deepen reforms to perfect its market economy and strengthen rule of law, Communist Party chief Xi Jinping said in southern Guangdong, echoing groundbreaking comments by reformist senior leader Deng Xiaoping in the same province 20 years ago.

Xi’s call for reform was reported on Monday, coinciding with an apparent easing of Internet search restrictions that the party has energetically used to suppress information that could threaten one-party rule.

China’s largest microblog service unblocked searches for the names of many top political leaders in a possible sign of looser controls a month after new senior officials were named to head the ruling party.

Searches on the popular Twitter-like Sina Weibo microblog for party chief Xi Jinping, Vice Premier Li Keqiang and other leaders – terms that have long been barred under strict censorship rules – revealed detailed lists of news reports and user comments.

Xi’s comments on the economy came on Sunday during a trip to Guangdong where he paid tribute to Deng, whose visit in 1992 ushered in an era of breakneck economic reform and growth.

“The government earnestly wants to study the issues that are being brought up, and wants to perfect the market economy system … by deepening reform, and resolve the issues by strengthening rule of law,” Xi was quoted by Xinhua state news agency as saying.

Experts say that unless the stability-obsessed party leadership pushes through stalled reforms, the nation risks economic malaise and social woes that could deepen unrest and threaten its grip on power.

It was too early to detect a change of heart on censorship, but Zhan Jiang, a professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University, said the signs were good.

“Things are changing quietly, and it matches what Xi Jinping said before – to achieve progress and change in a steady way,” Zhan said.

Various search terms for Premier Wen Jiabao, who was at the centre of recent New York Times reports that said his family had accumulated massive fortunes during his tenure, were still blocked on Monday.

Chinese social media sites have posed a unique challenge for party leaders whose overarching goal is to maintain political control, while at the same time allowing people to blow off steam.

Analysts have been searching for signs that China’s new leaders might steer a path of political reform. Many expected at least a temporary loosening of censorship rules after the 18th Party Congress.

“Excessively strict control of the Internet will only make things worse,” said Hu Xingdou, a professor at Beijing Institute of Technology. “So we need to allow people to speak and allow them to voice their grievances.”

(Writing by Michael Martina and Terril Yue Jones. Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard, Sally Huang and Sui-Lee Wee; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Lea Michele Talks Diva Rumors in Marie Claire

Glee's Lea Michele was already a star on Broadway before she hit it big playing Rachel Berry on the hit Fox show, but the road to Hollywood hasn't always been the easiest -- or the most kind. In a new interview with Marie Claire, the 26-year-old singing sensation denies the reports that she's notoriously difficult to work with, as well as opens up about finding love with her Glee co-star Cory Monteith.

"I am a very outspoken person, and if something makes me uncomfortable, you will know that it makes me uncomfortable, but that's as far as it goes," she tells the magazine about her attitude on set. "I can assure you that [the diva rumors] aren't real. It's super-frustrating sometimes, and I used to fight back, but now I feel like, 'You can think what you want about me -- that's OK.' I have the most amazing fans, friends, and family members who have stood by me, and I know that my cast and crew really enjoy working with me. That's all that matters."

Video: Lea Michele Shrugs Off Pregnancy Rumors

The Lea Michele diva rumors recently hit full swing, when reports surfaced that Glee guest star Kate Hudson allegedly found it a "nightmare" to work with her.

Lea reveals that Kate actually called her up personally to assure her that the comments weren't true.

"[Kate Hudson went] straight to the top of my list because it was so classy of her to take a minute to [address the rumor], even though we both knew it was the biggest piece of crap in the whole world. I told her, 'I love you, and I adore you. Thank you so much for creating a human moment with me,'" she says.

Video: Lea Michele on Kate Hudson's 'Glee' Stint

Lea is also now obviously comfortable talking about her recently confirmed relationship with Cory -- and it's clear that she's smitten with him.

"I don't even remember a time when he wasn't my boyfriend. No one knows me better than Cory. No one knows what it's been like to go through this more than he does," she says. "Feeling like you have that net underneath you allows you to jump higher and go farther. He makes me feel like I can do anything. For the first time in my life, I feel really, really settled and happy. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world."

Marie Claire's January issue hits newsstands Tuesday, December 18th

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Elderly woman attacked during Greenwich Village robbery

An elderly woman was robbed and attacked in an elevator of a Greenwich Village building, authorities said.

The 85-year-old woman was followed into the building on West 13th Street near West 4th Street on Saturday at 10:50 p.m., police said.

The suspect knocked the woman over and then stole cash and other belongings from her, police said.

The victim was not badly injured, cops said. The thief is around 35 years old, about 6-foot-2 and between 200 and 230 pounds, police said.

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AutoNation: Back in the fast lane with expansion, higher sales

Despite an agonizingly slow economic recovery, the country’s largest auto retailer, Fort Lauderdale-based AutoNation, is thriving again as demand for vehicles expands.

The company, one of Florida’s largest, is posting increasingly strong profits and revenues. Just last week, in a sign of confidence, Autonation announced a major acquisition — buying six large auto stores in Texas — that will add about 700 employees to its national payroll of 19,400.

In announcing the deal Tuesday, which is expected to provide AutoNation with $575 million in additional revenues next year, the company’s CEO and chairman, Mike Jackson, expressed optimism about the prospects for continued growth in vehicle sales.

“You want to know what I’m thinking, look at what I do,” Jackson told viewers on CNBC’s Squawk Box program.

No information was released on the cost of the transactions, but in recent years auto dealerships sometimes sold for three to five times revenue, which would represent a significant investment for the company.

Tough times

To be sure, AutoNation has struggled through some tough times. It was battered by the Great Recession, which depressed sales and pushed the company into a $1.2 billion loss four years ago. As sales began to improve in 2010 and 2011, it was blindsided by a shortage of Japanese-made cars last year after the earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 shut down Japanese manufacturers of some essential components.

Since then, however, AutoNation has rebounded. Unit sales, revenues and profits all performed well in the first three quarters of this year, and the company expects new vehicle sales to continue their recovery nationwide, rising to the mid-14 million units this year, up from about 12.7 million in 2011. In the third quarter of 2012, AutoNation’s new car unit sales grew by 21 percent over the same period in 2011, doing better than an estimated 15 percent increase industry wide. November’s sales of new vehicles increased by 21 percent over November 2011 .

The big dealerships acquired sell Audi, Porsche, Volkswagen and Chrysler products in the Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth markets. They are expected to sell 14,000 new and used autos this year, and will add substantially to AutoNation’s future sales.

“We are in the right industry at the right time,” Jackson said during an interview. “The recovery in new vehicle sales is being driven by replacement demand,” added Jackson, who has 42 years of experience in the auto business. “The average age of the light vehicle fleet in the country has increased to 11 years, and even though cars and trucks last longer today, they can’t go on forever. About 12 to 13 million vehicles are scrapped every year and need to be replaced.”

Other factors are contributing to stronger demand for vehicles. “The population is growing, interest rates are low, there is ample credit available and manufacturers are producing a wide range of new models that offer attractive styling, power and greatly improved gas mileage,” said Jackson, who took over as AutoNation’s CEO in 1999. “Auto financing is more available than it has been in recent years. A little known fact is that people are more likely to default on a mortgage than on a vehicle loan.”

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State scraps plan to have private vendors make license tags

TALLAHASSEE --
Backing away from a possible court fight, the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles announced Friday that it will halt its attempt to bid license tag services to private vendors.

Tax collectors — who distribute state tags — and two manufacturing groups tried to block the change by lobbying elected officials and filing legal action against the department.

Highway Safety Chief Julie Jones had wanted to save money by paying private companies $31.4 million over two years to make tags and distribute mail and online orders, but she abandoned the idea under pressure from Attorney General Pam Bondi and Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater, among others.

“We listened to what everyone had to say, considered questions that vendors posed and received information from our tax collector partners,” Jones said. “Based on the input, we have decided to withdraw [efforts to privatize].”

The decision will keep Florida out of administrative court, which is where it seemed headed Tuesday after department lawyers shut down tax collectors’ requests to retract its invitation to bidders.

Jones’ change of heart earned praise from Bondi, who said the department “did the right thing.”

Manufacturing company Avery Dennison and St. Petersburg-based PRIDE, a nonprofit organization that uses prisoners to manufacture tags, filed formal protests and met with state officials this week.

For them, the state’s decision may only be a temporary victory.

Stephen Hurm, an attorney for the state highway agency, told tax collectors Friday the department will not seek to privatize plate distribution but could reignite the push as early as January to bid out the manufacturing role.

The state may want to switch from raised tags to the more modern flat tags that are thought to be more legible for red light and toll cameras. PRIDE doesn’t have the equipment to make flat tags.

Hillsborough County Tax Collector Doug Belden says he will fight the state if it moves to exclude PRIDE.

“Why change a system that is working well and that customers enjoy? My job as an elected official is to provide the most friendly, capable customer service for the best price. We’re doing that,” said Belden, who criticized Jones for excluding tax collectors in her decisions.

Belden, along with PRIDE lobbyist Wilbur Brewton, argue that flat tags are no easier to read and are more expensive — which will result in more fees for motorists. The company may try to invest in new technology if that’s what it takes to continue working with the state, Brewton said.

“Is the equipment currently sitting in the plant to do it? No,” he said. “This could cause harm, but we would have to calculate that once we see the details.”

Jones hasn’t committed to any tag — flat or raised, she said. She just wants something legible and well-priced.

“We want to get the best product moving into the future in terms of technology, but at a cost that’s affordable,” Jones said. “This is going to be done in a cost-effective manner.”

The controversy over the tags is not expected to stall a planned redesign.

Floridians can continue to vote on four designs for a new state tag at Vote4FloridaTag.com. About 50,000 people have weighed in. The deadline is Dec. 14.

Brittany Alana Davis

can be reached at bdavis@tampabay.com .

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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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Three dead, four injured in California Indian reservation shooting

PORTERVILLE, Calif. — Three people died and four others, including two young girls, were wounded after a shooting on an Indian reservation in Central California, authorities said.

When deputies were called to a trailer Saturday night on the Tule Indian Reservation, they found the body of a man and a woman inside, Tulare County sheriff's officials said in a release Sunday. A third body was nearby.

Deputies also found a wounded male juvenile. His condition was not known.

Tulare County authorities did not immediately return a call to The Associated Press seeking details.

The Fresno Bee reported that a vehicle with the suspect — 31-year-old Hector Celaya — and his daughters, ages 5 and 8, was pulled over by deputies early Sunday.

Celaya was then wounded during an exchange of gunfire. He was being treated for life threatening injuries, sheriff's officials said in their release.

Officials say the girls were hospitalized after they had been earlier shot by their father. One girl suffered life-threatening injuries while the other girl was less seriously hurt.

Sheriff's officials say they were able find Celaya by tracking his cellphone.

The reservation where the shooting took place is about 50 miles north of Bakersfield.

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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 martial arts-inspired 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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