Somalia militants’ Twitter account down after hostage threat

NAIROBI (Reuters) – A Twitter account run by Somali militant group al Shabaab was unavailable on Friday, days after the al Qaeda-aligned rebels used the social media site to boast about killing a French agent and threatened to kill several Kenyan hostages.

Al Shabaab often used its Twitter account to claim responsibility for attacks on African Union and Somali government troops, as well as senior officials in the Horn of Africa nation and other bombings in the region.

But the militant group’s official Twitter account, which had thousands of followers, was offline on Friday with a message saying “Sorry, that user is suspended”.

It was not immediately clear why the account, which was created in 2011 under the HSM PRESS Twitter handle, was suspended. The account was still unavailable as of 0930 GMT.

Twitter said it does not comment on individual accounts and the Kenyan government denied it had filed any request for the account to be taken down.

“It’s an emphatic no. We would not try to negotiate or have anything to do with the Al Shabaab. We didn’t even know the account was suspended,” said government spokesman Muthui Kariuki.

Al Shabaab posted on the account on Wednesday a link to a video of two Kenyan civil servants held hostage in Somalia, telling the Kenyan government their lives were in danger unless it released all Muslims held on “so-called terrorism charges” in the country.

“Kenyan government has three weeks, starting midnight 24/01/2013 to respond to the demands of HSM if the prisoners are to remain alive,” the group said.

Last week the rebel group said on its Twitter account that it had executed French agent Dennis Allex, who was held hostage since 2009, after a French commando mission to rescue him failed.

Al Shabaab wants to impose their strict version of sharia, or Islamic law, across Somalia. However, it has lost significant territory in the southern and central parts of the country in the face of an offensive by African Union troops.

(Reporting by Drazen Jorgic and George Obulutsa; Editing by Jon Boyle)

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Amanda Seyfried Calls Mean Girls Her Best Work

Despite being fresh off an Oscar-nominated film (Les Miserables), Amanda Seyfried apparently holds a soft spot for her breakout film Mean Girls, calling it her "best work" to date.

"I was so innocent. I was so green," reflects Seyfried in an interview with Indiewire. "I still look back at Mean Girls as my best work."

Pics: Amanda Seyfried as Porn Star Lovelace

The 27-year-old star stole the show playing the lovably ditzy Karen Smith in the 2004 comedy. Interestingly enough, Seyfried had little confidence in her on-screen work at the time.

"I look back and I’m like, 'Really, I thought I was doing a terrible job.' But it was written so well and so wonderfully directed," says the actress. "Mark Waters (the director) made me look good; he made me funny. And Tina Fey wrote the coolest script of all time."

Now, quite a bit more assured in her abilities, Seyfried is gearing up to show off her chops (and much more) as '70s porn star Linda Lovelace in the new biopic Lovelace. When asked about her reservations in taking on such a risque role, the star says she felt surprisingly comfortable disrobing and simulating sexual acts on film.

Video: SJP Talks About Replacing Demi Moore in 'Lovelace'

"I don't know why I’m comfortable. Nudity: whatever! Sex: we all do it," Seyfried explains to Indiewire. "There's a time and a place to be naked. There's no part in this movie that makes me think, 'Oh, wow, she's naked.' She's a porn star! We simulated some scenes but there's no graphic content in this movie, at all. I mean the graphic stuff is when he's raping me on my wedding night. You see my skirt go up over my head when I’m being gang raped, but it's like, so perfectly done."

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Mayor Bloomberg blasted at candidates forum

William Miller

New York City mayoral hopeful Joseph Lhota at at a Thursday forum discussion.

It looks like Mayor Bloomberg is in for a very long campaign year.

The mayor got battered last night at a forum in the East New York section of Brooklyn that featured Republican contender Joe Lhota in his first appearance with other candidates.

The former MTA chairman offered carefully constructed responses to questions that focused on affordable housing before a packed audience at the St. Paul Community Baptist Church.

But most of his Democratic rivals, as well as Republican hopeful Tom Allon, unloaded at just about every opportunity at Bloomberg.

"It's quite possible Mayor Bloomberg does not know what mold is," mocked Comptroller John Liu when the questioning turned to the city's response to super-storm Sandy.

All six candidates agreed the city hasn't done enough to help residents still struggling to recover.

"This is a city administration that wanted to run a marathon while people were just moving into shelters and unfortunately bodies were still being found," said former Comptroller Bill Thompson.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who is closest the the mayor of all those running, said mold removal should have been included in the "rapid repairs" program initiated by the city after a homeowner from Gerritsen Beach said hundreds of homes there might be lost due to spreading contamination.

Bloomberg has said that he doesn't intend to respond to every single issue raised by his would-be successors.

But Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson felt compelled to tweet last night, "Reality check-- Bloomberg at 65-23 (per cent in polls) on Hurricane Sandy performance."

The harshest attacks on the mayor came during a discussion of the Housing Authority and its embattled chairman, John Rhea.

Public Advocate Bill de Blasio charged that the agency can't function well "if the mayor doesn't care about people who live in public housing. There's an old colorful Sicilian expression that says the head stinks from the head down."

Longshot GOP hopeful Tom Allon went him one better by describing Rhea as the "Cathie Black" of housing, a stinging reference to the schools chancellor appointed by the mayor who lasted 96 days.

There's not much political downside for the Democratic candidates hammering away at Bloomberg before the primary, where the electorate tends to lean to the left and the mayor is an easy target.

The one place where Bloomberg got some credit was his ambitious program to build or rehabilitate 165,000 housing units before he leaves office, the largest such project in the nation.

Every candidate pledged to keep that pace of 15,000 added apartments a year. None explained how they'd paid for them.

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Lennar design accommodates multigenerational families

In some cases, it may be Grandma moving in with the family. Other times, it may be a recent college graduate returning to the nest.

For all sorts of reasons — financial, medical, personal — a rising number of Americans are moving into extended family households.

Spotting a niche in the growing trend, Lennar Corp. has launched a new concept tailor-made for multigenerational family living.

It’s basically a house within a house: a smaller living unit next to the main home designed to provide independence but also access to the rest of the family household.

“People are really loving the whole concept,” said Carlos Gonzalez, president of the southeast Florida division of Lennar, a Miami-based home-building giant. “We adapted to the market from a design standpoint.”

In Miami-Dade County, Lennar is selling various versions of multigenerational homes in three new developments in Doral, Kendall and Homestead.

Louis Moreno of Kendall and his wife, Danilza Velez, signed a contract for a large NextGen home in The Vineyards development in Homestead last October — even before the models had been built.

“We loved it,” said Moreno, a 45-year-old engineer.

Moreno said his mother-in-law will be able to use the new suite when she visits, as will his family members who frequently come to town from Puerto Rico. “This will provide them with more comfortable space and more privacy,” he said. He also plans to use it as a game room and entertainment area.

The two-story Zinfandel home Moreno picked has three bedrooms and 2 1/2 bathrooms in the main home with a family room and two-car garage. In addition, it has an ample 789-square-foot suite with two bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchenette. The suite has its own garage, a separate front entrance and an internal door connecting to the main home.

The Zinfandel, which has 2,249 square feet of air-conditioned space in the main house, starts at $283,990 in the Homestead community at 128 SE 28th Ter., but a similar home in Kendall would run about $100,000 more, primarily because of higher land costs, Fernandez said. (In Doral, there is a NextGen home priced at $677,990.)

Some multigenerational models have suites as small as 489 square feet, but all have a separate entrance, a bedroom, a bathroom and some sort of kitchen space.

The idea takes various shapes. One option at the Kendall Square development at 16950 SW 90th St. is a Granny unit above a detached garage.

“Independence is the key word,” said Frank Fernandez, director of sales and marketing for the southeast Florida division.

Depending on local zoning rules, some homes can have full kitchens, others are restricted to kitchenettes with a microwave but no stove. Similarly, some municipalities permit the space to be used as a rental, others prohibit it.

The choice is proving popular. Fernandez said in The Vineyards development in Homestead, 10 of the 14 homes sold to date are NextGen. At Kendall Square, 35 of 107 sales are multigenerational, and at the Isles at Grand Bay development at 11301 NW 74th Street in Doral, five of 48 houses are.

Adapting homes for special needs, such as wheelchairs and safety railings, is done at cost, Fernandez said: “That is company policy.”

As one of the nation’s largest home builders, Lennar has been rebounding strongly from the housing crash. Last week, the builder, whose shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange, posted better than expected earnings for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended Nov. 30, 2012.

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Nevin Shapiro’s lawyer said she did nothing wrong

Maria Elena Perez — the Miami criminal defense attorney for convicted Ponzi schemer and former University of Miami booster Nevin Shapiro — was thrust Wednesday into the harsh spotlight of the NCAA’s probe of UM’s athletic program.

“I haven’t broken any rules,” Perez, a 2000 UM law school graduate, told The Miami Herald. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

The NCAA acknowledged that its enforcement officers “improperly” obtained information by working too closely with Perez, whose client instigated the NCAA probe that has been going on for two years.

In saying so, the NCAA has, in effect, made her a part of the UM investigation.

Perez became Shapiro’s criminal defense lawyer soon after he was charged in April 2010 with orchestrating a $930 million investment scam. Shapiro, who used a portion of that money to make donations to UM and buy gifts for many of its star football players, would plead guilty to securities fraud and other charges. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

At the same time, Shapiro’s investment victims forced his Miami Beach-based company, Capitol Investments USA, Inc., into bankruptcy with a goal toward recovering millions of dollars in losses.

But Perez told The Herald she used the bankruptcy case for a different purpose: to gather evidence from major witnesses who might help her seek a lower prison sentence for Shapiro.

“I was exercising my due diligence as Nevin Shapiro’s criminal defense attorney,” she said.

Toward that end, she subpoenaed Sean Allen, a UM graduate and former assistant equipment manager for the Hurricanes’ football team, who worked briefly for Shapiro’s sports agency and later for the businessman himself. She also subpoenaed Jacksonville lawyer Michael Huyghue, who founded the sports agency and brought in Shapiro as a partner, who invested $1.5 million.

The NCAA investigators did not have the power to subpoena either man. But Perez did, as Shapiro’s lawyer.

After Perez grilled both men under oath, she shared the depositions with the NCAA, which says it paid her for those legal services.

That’s the crux of the problem: The NCAA now admits that its investigation is tainted by those two depositions — because the information was “improperly” obtained. So it has now ordered up an investigation of its investigation.

This was not her intention at all, Perez said.

“This was for Nevin Shapiro’s criminal case,” said Perez, who joined the Florida Bar in 2001 but has no disciplinary history. She pointed out that depositions are open to the public. Anybody, including the NCAA, could have gotten them as a public record.

While no NCAA enforcement officer attended her depositions, one official from the association did show up for other depositions taken by Miami lawyer Gary Freedman, the lead attorney for the trustee in Shapiro’s bankruptcy case.

NCAA official Michael Zonder sat in on the October 2012 deposition of civil attorney Marc Levinson, of the Miami firm Shook, Hardy & Bacon. Levinson had represented Shapiro in his investment in the sports agency known as Axcess, and in his other business affairs.

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Sony fined in UK over PlayStation cyberattack

LONDON (AP) — British regulators have fined Sony 250,000 pounds ($ 396,100) for failing to prevent a 2011 cyberattack on its PlayStation Network which put millions of users’ personal information — including names, addresses, birth dates and account passwords — at risk.

Britain’s Information Commissioner’s Office said Thursday that security measures in place at the time “were simply not good enough.” It said the attack could have been prevented if software had been up to date, while passwords were also not secure.

David Smith, deputy commissioner and director of data protection, acknowledged that the fine for a “serious breach of the Data Protection Act” was “clearly substantial” but said that the office makes “no apologies” for that.

“There’s no disguising that this is a business that should have known better,” he said in a statement. “It is a company that trades on its technical expertise, and there’s no doubt in my mind that they had access to both the technical knowledge and the resources to keep this information safe.”

Smith called the case “one of the most serious ever reported” to the data regulator.

Sony, which has previously apologized for the data breach, said Thursday it “strongly disagrees” with the ruling and plans to appeal.

David Wilson, a spokesman for Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Ltd., said the company noted that the ICO recognized that Sony was the victim of a criminal attack and that there is no evidence payment card details were accessed.

“Criminal attacks on electronic networks are a real and growing aspect of 21st century life and Sony continually works to strengthen our systems, building in multiple layers of defense and working to make our networks safe, secure and resilient,” he said in a statement.

————————

Cassandra Vinograd can be reached at http://twitter.com/CassVinograd

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Ashton Kutcher Becomes Steve Jobs

Ashton Kutcher takes on the role of a lifetime in JOBS, and we have your first look at the movie.

RELATED: Stars Who Have Missed Out on Movie Roles

In the clip, Jobs (played by Ashton Kutcher) is raving about the operating system that Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak (played by Josh Gad) created. While Jobs is certain that this will become a ubiquitous product for mass consumption, Wozniak needs convincing.

"Nobody wants to buy a computer," says Wozniak.

"How does somebody know what they want if they've never even seen it?" Jobs replies.

RELATED: Ashton Kutcher to Play Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs lost his battle with pancreatic cancer at the age of 56 in October 2011 and as April 2013 marks the 37th anniversary of the founding of the Apple Computer Company, Open Road Films has decided to release JOBS on April 19.

Directed by Joshua Michael Stern, written by Matthew Whitely, shot by Oscar-winning cinematographer Russell Carpenter and produced by Mark Hulme, JOBS details the major moments and defining characters that influenced Steve Jobs on a daily basis from 1971 through 2001, according to a press release.

JOBS also co-stars Dermot Mulroney, Lukas Haas, J.K. Simmons and Matthew Modine.

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It’s plenty of 20 – plus flurries

When they say it’s “too cold to snow,” don’t believe them. A dusting of 1 to 2 inches is expected when snow showers develop tomorrow afternoon and continue into the evening.

Before that we’ll get more struggling sunshine today, with temperatures peaking at 21 degrees — but icy winds feeling like only 2 degrees. Tonight’s low temperature will be about 13, forecasters said.

Tomorrow’s temps should be more of the same, with a high around 22 degrees.

The weekend will be warmer, but just a bit. Saturday’s high is expected to be 24 and Sunday’s will be 27.

Don’t expect relief until next week. Forecasters say temps will finally go above freezing and hit 36 on Monday, 40 on Tuesday and a positively balmy 48 onWednesday. Andy Soltis

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Miami Dolphins slam Norman Braman, Marlins Park deal

The Miami Dolphins ramped up their public campaign for a tax-funded stadium renovation this week, buying full-page ads against their top critic and trying to distance the plan from the unpopular Marlins deal.

The team bought an ad in Tuesday’s Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald knocking auto magnate Norman Braman’s criticism of the Sun Life Stadium deal, which would have Florida and Miami-Dade split the costs with owner Stephen Ross for a $400 million renovation. The Dolphins would pay at least $201 million, with taxpayers using state funds and a higher Miami-Dade hotel tax to pay $199 million.

In a fact sheet sent to media Tuesday morning, the Dolphins listed ways their deal differs from the 2009 Marlins deal. First: Ross, a billionaire real estate developer, would use private dollars to fund at least 51 percent of the Sun Life effort, compared to less than 25 percent from Marlins owner Jeff Loria. Second, Sun Life helps the economy more than the Marlins park does.

“Just because the Marlins did a bad deal doesn’t mean we should oppose a good deal where at least a majority of the cost is paid from private sources and more than 4,000 local jobs are created during construction alone,” the fact sheet states. And while the Dolphins’ Miami Gardens stadium has hosted two Super Bowls since 2007 and is in the running for the 2016 game, “Marlins Stadium does not generate the ability to attract world-class sports events -- other than a World Series from time to time depending on the success of the team.”

NFL teams play eight home games a year if they don’t make the playoffs, while baseball teams have 81.

Miami and Miami-Dade built the Marlins a $640 million stadium at the site of the Dolphins’ old home at the Orange Bowl in Little Havana. The Marlins contributed about $120 million and agreed to pay between $2.5 million and $4.9 million a year for 35 years to pay back $35 million of debt the county borrowed for the stadium. As a publicly owned stadium, the Marlins ballpark pays no property taxes. Most of the public money came from Miami-Dade hotel taxes, along with $50 million of debt tied to the county’s general fund.

Sun Life is privately owned and pays $3 million a year in property taxes to Miami-Dade. It currently receives $2 million a year from Florida’ s stadium program, a subsidy tied to converting the football venue to baseball in the 1990s when the Marlins played there. The Dolphins also paid for a second full-page ad with quotes from leading hoteliers in Miami-Dade endorsing the stadium plan. Among them: Donald Trump, whose company recently purchased the Doral golf resort. “Steve Ross’ commitment to modernize Sun Life Stadium -- while covering most of the construction costs -- is the right thing for Miami-Dade,’’ the ad quotes Trump as saying.

Also on Tuesday, Ross and team CEO Mike Dee sent a letter to Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez and county commissioners requesting negotiations over the stadium deal. The letter said the deal Ross unveiled last week is a “baseline for debate” and asked for talks. The letter also urged the commission to adopt a resolution proposed by Commissioner Barbara Jordan endorsing the state bill that would allow taxes for Sun Life. The resolution is on the agenda for Wednesday’s commission meeting.

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‘Lies, deceit and coverup’ in Rilya Wilson murder case, prosecutors say

Friends puzzled by the disappearance of the little girl. State child welfare administrators stunned at the vanishing of the 4-year-old foster child. A slew of police investigators dispatched to work the case.

A pathetic shell of a woman, cowed by an older lover into keeping her silence. Three prison inmates — one an eccentric con with a long rap sheet — who said they learned the truth about the crime while behind bars.

For eight weeks, these were the witnesses who testified against Geralyn Graham, who is accused of murdering foster child Rilya Wilson more than a decade ago. And on Tuesday, their photos adorned an eight-foot-long timeline poster board, suspended from the ceiling by chains of paper clips as a Miami-Dade prosecutor weaved each of their stories into a chilling. if circumstantial. narrative.

Graham, driven by festering hatred for little rambunctious Rilya, smothered the girl with a pillowcase, disposed of her body and for years concocted a web of “fanciful” tales to hide the crime, the state said.

“Lies, deceit and coverup,” Miami-Dade prosecutor Joshua Weintraub told jurors during closing arguments.

The arguments come more than a decade after Rilya disappeared, a case that rocked the Florida Department of Children & Families, which for 18 months did not realize the girl was missing. Authorities never found Rilya’s body.

Graham, 67, is charged with aggravated child abuse, kidnapping and first-degree murder. Testimony in her trial began Nov. 26. She faces life in prison if convicted.

Jurors are expected to deliberate Wednesday after defense lawyers and prosecutors complete their final arguments.

A grand jury indicted Graham in 2005 after a jailhouse witness, Robin Lunceford, told police that the woman tearfully confessed to smothering the child with a pillow and burying the body near water in South Miami-Dade.

Weintraub recounted how DCF placed Rilya at the Graham house, how the agency discovered the disappearance and heard the varying accounts Graham gave about the girl’s absence.

To some, Graham claimed a “Spanish lady” she met at a park had taken Rilya on a trip to New York. To investigators, she claimed in April 2002 that an unnamed DCF worker had whisked the girl away — never to return — for some sort of mental health treatment.

“It’s incomprehensible that a child would disappear into thin air,” Weintraub said.

The key witness: Pamela Graham, Geralyn Graham’s younger lover, who was also the girl’s legal custodian. Weintraub said Pamela — who admitted she went along with her lover’s lies out of fear — was flawed.

“Pamela Graham, one of the most gutless, mousy women you will ever meet,” Weintraub said. “But for Pam Graham’s cowardice and unwillingness to stand up to her 18-years-senior lover, we might have known what happened to Rilya a lot earlier.”

Pamela testified that Graham kept the child confined in the laundry room, used “flex cuffs” to restrain her to a bed and secured a dog cage to keep Rilya from climbing on the furniture. Graham refused to tell Pamela what happened to Rilya, and even threatened her with a hammer if she called police, Pamela testified.

Defense attorney Michael Matters suggested Pamela was just a jilted lover who admitted she never actually saw the girl confined in the cage. He showed jurors photos of a happy, healthy-looking Rilya

“Sure doesn’t look like Rilya is afraid to go in that laundry room or that dog cage,” Matters said.

Defense attorneys tried to shift the blame to DCF, and specifically case worker Deborah Muskelly, who admitted she lied in claiming she was making regular visits to the Graham home to check on Rilya. Muskelly later pleaded guilty to falsifying time sheets to show she was working with DCF when she was actually working as a substitute teacher.

“Deborah Muskelly did whatever she could to make a buck,” said Matters, who suggested detectives did not investigate any role Muskelly herself might have played in the girl’s disappearance.

The latter weeks of the trial featured Lunceford, plus two other inmates who claimed Graham suggested to them that she had killed the child. A stream of current and former corrections employees testified about the jail and prison world in which the women live.

Graham’s defense focused on destroying the credibility of Lunceford, a colorful con with a long rap sheet who got a reduced prison sentence in return for her testimony. She spent four days on the witness stand.

A former inmate, Cindy McCloud, told jurors that Lunceford concocted the whole story to reduce her sentence. Prosecutors countered that McCloud is a “scorned lover” looking to exact revenge on Lunceford.

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