A suspicious fire left a Queens man dead early this morning, police said.
The fatal inferno began on the second floor of the building at 115-18 95th Avenue around 2:30 a.m., authorities said.
When firefighters extinguished the blaze they found a 43-year-old man dead inside his home, cops said.
The victim's name has not been released because his family has not yet been notified.
Fire Marshals are still investigating and no arrests have been made.
kconley@nypost.com
For Miami restaurateurs, this is Showtime.
With dozens of top chefs — Bobby Flay, Todd English, Daniel Boloud and Masaharu Morimoto among the list — in town for the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, the pressure is on everywhere, from Michy’s to the new Catch Miami. The goal: Show everyone from around the country that Miami’s food scene has arrived on the national stage.
Chef Michelle Bernstein’s staff whipped up dishes designed to impress guests at Michy’s — like foie gras, oxtail and apple tarte tatin — while she juggled menus for multiple events. Bernstein kept her cellphone handy to make sure any chef friends could get a table, even though her namesake restaurant was sold out.
As always, Joe’s Stone Crab was a must-do stop for many, including Paula Deen and New York restaurateur Danny Meyer. Aussie Chef Curtis Stone attracted a string of admirers as he ate his way around town, with stops at Prime 112, Pubbelly Sushi and Puerto Sagua. Khong River House and Yardbird Southern Table & Bar hosted Meyer, The Food Network’s Anne Burrell and Chef Anita Lo.
Michael’s Genuine was another hot spot.
“This is kind of our coming out party for Khong and it’s our chance to knock it out of the park and wow people,” said John Kunkel, owner of Khong and Yardbird.
Prime 112 owner Myles Chefetz admits he’s a fanatic about checking plates when they come back from a chef’s table. And he’s always on the lookout for the table ordering 20 different items, because that’s usually a restaurateur doing research.
“If you have Jean-Gorges or Bobby Flay eating at your restaurant, you want to make sure he has a great experience,” Chefetz said. “You want to put your best foot forward because you know you’re going to get scrutinized.”
The Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival is not just a forum for impressing the culinary elite. It’s among the top three tourist draws for Miami restaurants and hotels. In its 12th year, the festival draws more than 60,000 people to Miami Beach for a weekend of decadence, featuring more than 50 events spread over four days.
It is neck and neck with two of the area’s other most prominent weekends: Art Basel and Presidents’ Day (which coincides with the Miami International Boat Show).
There’s the immediate economic impact, of course, but the festival has made its mark in other ways: helping transform Miami’s food scene from a cultural wasteland to one of the country’s hot spots, one where top chefs all want to set up shop.
“Twelve years ago I don’t know if you could even name five really good restaurants. Now, you can’t think of where you want to eat because there are so many good restaurants,” said Lee Brian Schrager, festival founder and vice president of communications for Southern Wine & Spirits, its host. “What the festival can take credit for is introducing the culinary world to the great talent down here, and really highlighting South Florida as a great dining destination.”
There has been plenty of indulgence to go around. Flay finally broke his losing streak and took home top honors at the Burger Bash with his award-winning crunchified green chili burger. At the Q, barbecue lovers had their choice of Al Roker’s lamb ribs with baked beans or Geoffrey Zakarian’s smoked tagarashi crusted tuna, among other offerings.
The Fraternal Order of Police filed a lawsuit against the city of Miami on Friday, asserting that an officer who fatally shot an unarmed motorist in 2011 was improperly fired from the police department.
Officer Reynaldo Goyos shot and killed Travis McNeil as he sat in a car at a Little Haiti intersection. It was one of a string of seven deadly shootings of black men in the inner city by Miami police officers in 2010 and 2011.
Goyos was cleared of criminal wrongdoing by prosecutors in 2012. But he was terminated last month after the department’s Firearms Review Board concluded that the shooting was unjustified.
The police union lawsuit claims that the board violated state open-government laws by failing to open its meetings to the public.
Goyos “was improperly terminated by the city of Miami Police Department by a review board that violates the law,” union President Javier Ortiz wrote in a statement.
The lawsuit contends that Goyos should be reinstated.
City Attorney Julie O. Bru declined to discuss the specifics of the case. “We reviewed the allegations, and the city maintains that the board has operated consistent with the requirements of law,” she said.
Jimmy Fallon may have gotten The President to Slow Jam the News, but I think getting The First Lady to present A History of Mom Dancing may end up being The Late Night host's greatest accomplishment, yet!
PHOTOS - Michelle Obama's Best Fashions
The routine, in celebration of her Get Up campaign, features Michelle Obama re-creating some of history's greatest mom moves, like The Sprinkler, The Raise The Roof and The Hand Part From Single Ladies.
Watch our FLOTUS break it down.
PYONGYANG, North Korea — North Korea warned the top American commander in South Korea on Saturday of "miserable destruction" if the U.S. military presses ahead with routine joint drills with South Korea set to begin next month.
Pak Rim Su, chief of North Korea's military delegation to the truce village of Panmunjom inside the Demilitarized Zone, sent the warning Saturday morning to Gen. James Thurman, Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency said, in a rare direct message to the US commander.
The threat comes as the US and other nations discuss how to punish North Korea for conducting an underground nuclear test on Feb. 12 in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions banning Pyongyang from nuclear and missile activity.
North Korea has characterized the nuclear test, its third since 2006, as a defensive act against US aggression. Pyongyang accuses Washington of "hostility" for leading the charge to punish North Korea for a December rocket launch that the US considers a covert missile test.
The US and North Korea fought on opposite sides of the three-year Korean War, which ended in a truce in 1953, not a peace treaty, and left the Korean Peninsula divided by a heavily fortified border monitored by the US-led UN Command.
Washington also stations 28,500 American troops in South Korea to protect its ally against North Korean aggression.
South Korea and the US regularly conduct joint drills such as the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercises slated to take place next month. North Korea calls the drills proof of US hostility, and accuses Washington of practicing for an invasion.
"You had better bear in mind that those igniting a war are destined to meet a miserable destruction," KCNA quoted Pak as saying in his message to Thurman. He called the drills "reckless."
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, meanwhile, has been making a round of visits to military units guiding troops in drills and exercises since the nuclear test, KCNA said.
A detailed survey shows that South Florida hospitals could lose $368 million over 10 years in federal budget cuts starting next Friday, if the sequestration program kicks in as scheduled.
The Florida Hospital Association, using data from the American Hospital Association, estimates that over the next decade, sequestration would cause Miami-Dade hospitals to lose $223.9 million and Broward facilities $144.4 million under the Congress-mandated budget cuts that hit virtually all federal programs unless Republicans and Democrats can work out a compromise.
The New York Times and other national news organizations are reporting that sequestration, unlike the New Year’s fiscal cliff, seems virtually certain to take place.
The law requires across-the-board spending cuts in domestic and defense programs, with certain exceptions. Because healthcare represents more than one in five dollars of the federal budget, it will be a huge target for cuts.
For hospitals and doctors, the major impact will be felt in Medicare cuts, which according to the budget law are limited to 2 percent of Medicare payments. Medicaid, food stamps and Social Security are exempted from cuts, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.
The FHA study calculates that over 10 years, Jackson Memorial Hospital stands to lose $30.6 million, Mount Sinai Medical Center on Miami Beach $27.3 million, Holy Cross in Fort Lauderdale $23.8 million and Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood $21.4 million.
“The problem with sequestration is that it just makes broad cuts across the board,” said Linda Quick, president of the South Florida Hospital and Healthcare Association. “The Affordable Care Act is looking at all sorts of intelligent ways to reduce costs,” including coordinated care that will stop duplicated tests and reduce hospital readmissions. “But sequestration takes an ax, and that doesn’t make any sense.”
FierceHealthcare, which produces trade publications, says sequestration cuts over the next decade will include $591 million from prescription drug benefits for seniors, $318 million from the Food and Drug Administration, $2.5 billion from the National Institutes of Health, $490 million from the Centers for Disease Control and $365 million from Indian Health Services.
The National Association of Community Health Centers estimates that 900,000 of its patients nationwide could lose care because of the cuts. The group said the cuts were “penny wise and pound foolish” because they would mean less preventive care while more and sicker patients would end up in emergency rooms.
Like the fiscal cliff, Republicans and Democrats agreed on a sequestration strategy, with the idea that the drastic measure would force the two sides to reach agreement on more deliberative budget adjustments. That hasn’t happened.
The White House reports that the law will mean that nondefense programs will be cut by 5 percent, defense programs by 8 percent. But since the first year’s cuts must be done over seven months, that means in 2013, nondefense programs need to be cut by 9 percent, defense programs by 13 percent.
John Travolta set his boogie shoes strolling in Saturday Night Fever at Miami’s The Omni 6. Angie Dickinson shared her shower with us as she Dressed to Kill at the Concord on Bird Road and 114th Avenue. The revelation, “Luke, I am your father,” had you gripping your plush, gold seat at the Dadeland Twin movie theater as The Empire Strikes Back revealed its shocker.
Plus, who, among people of a certain age, didn’t stand in line to see Jaws at Coral Gables’ Miracle Theatre in the summer of 1975?
“Apparently the whole world saw Jaws there,” recalls Rebecca Smith, head of Special Collections at History Miami. Yes, she saw Jaws at the Miracle, too.
As Hollywood celebrates the best of 2012 with Sunday’s Oscars telecast, movies take center stage once again. In Miami-Dade, the best of Hollywood stood out in grand movie palaces, where red velvet curtains parted across wide screens, where marquees lit the night sky, and where crystal chandeliers hung like constellations above the balconies.
Hollywood premieres? We had them, too.
Press agent Charlie Cinnamon remembers the publicity stunts he’d conjure for the Lincoln Road movie theaters he represented on the mall, like the Lincoln, Carib and the Beach. He orchestrated the opening of Elizabeth Taylor’s epic Cleopatra in 1963 at the Lincoln and the British comedy Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines two years later at the Carib, a theater whose facade above the marquee displayed a full-scale map of the Caribbean.
“I did the opening of Cleopatra and we had a parade down Washington Avenue with the Miami Beach High School. In those days we had big parades and the Lincoln was the theater,” Cinnamon said from his office on Lincoln Road. “For Magnificent Men we had vintage cars and airmen and a parade. Fantastic openings. Hollywood openings right here in Miami. We haven’t had that in years and it’s so sad that we don’t have that kind of premiere anymore where the whole community joined in to have big events and red carpet openings.’’
The theaters got into the spirit during the Golden Age of Cinema. The Byron-Carlyle, on 71st Street in Miami Beach, for instance, had its ushers dress up like Dracula when the 1979 remake starring Frank Langella opened. Cobwebs and black velvet curtains lent an air of Transylvania to the theater, which has since become the home to the Miami Beach Stage Door theater company.
Perhaps the reason The Miracle, now home to the Actors’ Playhouse, stands out for its screening of Jaws is because the theater decorated the lobby in the style of the seafaring movie — netting on the ceiling, nautical props along the walls. The only thing missing was “Bruce” the mechanical shark, but he revealed plenty of himself on the large screen inside.
“That was the whole point, that movie theater was always great to go to because they always fit the theme when you went there,” said Eugene Flinn, the former mayor of Palmetto Bay. “It was a great theater to see things, too. So formal with everything. A throwback theater, even for our age group, and that’s why I’m so thrilled it’s been properly repurposed and it’s a great place to go see plays. What a treasure,” said Flinn, 50.
Beautiful in Blue
First Lady Michelle Obama sported a chic custom navy blue Reed Krakoff dress and pearls for her second official White House portrait.
Take a look at some of Mrs. O's most fashionable outfits through the years!
The grass, it seems, is always greener on the other side of the highway median. Ask any US driver about his commute, and you’ll likely get a lengthy tirade about the abysmal traffic conditions on his daily drive.
Whether you live in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Spokane, New York or even Orlando, chances are that you dread the daily commute and believe that traffic is better anywhere else in the United States than in your city.
Thanks to the most recent Annual Urban Mobility Report from the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI), we now know who’s got bragging rights for the latest year studied, 2011.
Robert Kalfus
Traffic in the George Washington Bridge toll plaza coming into New York
According to the TTI, traffic in Washington D.C. is the worst, with each commuter losing an average of 67 hours per year in traffic. Los Angeles and San Francisco are tied for second place, with each municipality taking 61 hours annually from its commuters.
In fourth place is Newark, New Jersey, lumped into one miserable bundle with New York, New York. Drivers here can expect to waste 59 hours sucking down exhaust fumes each year, which is quite a bit worse than fifth-place Boston (with a mere 53 hours annually).
To read more, go to Fox News
A panel of frosted glass puts everything in perspective for Delphine Dray as she oversees a years-long, multi-million dollar renovation project at the National Hotel on Miami Beach.
“Chez Claude and Simone,” says the piece of glass stationed between the lobby and restaurant, a reference to Dray’s parents, who bought the hotel in 2007.
“Every time I am exhausted and I pass that glass, I remember why,” said Delphine Dray, who joined her father — a billionaire hotel developer and well-known art collector in France — to restore the hotel after the purchase.
After working with him for years, she is finishing the project alone. Claude Dray, 76, was killed in his Paris home in October of 2011, a shooting that remains under investigation.
In a recent interview and tour of the hotel’s renovations, which are nearly finished, Dray did not discuss her father’s death, which drew extensive media coverage in Europe. But she spoke about the evolution of the father-daughter working relationship, the family’s Art Deco obsession and the inspiration for the hotel’s new old-fashioned touches.
The National is hosting a cocktail party Friday night to give attendees a peek at the progress.
Dray grew up in a home surrounded by Art Deco detail; her parents constantly brought home finds from the flea market. By 2006, they had amassed a fortune in art and furniture, which they sold for $75 million at a Paris auction in 2006.
That sale funded the purchase of the National Hotel at 1677 Collins Ave., which the Drays discovered during a visit to Miami Beach.
After having lunch at the Delano next door, Dray said, “My dad came inside the hotel and fell in love.” The owner was not interested in selling, but Claude Dray persisted, closing the deal in early 2007. Her family also owns the Hôtel de Paris in Saint-Tropez, which reopened Thursday after a complete overhaul overseen by Dray’s mother and older sister.
Delphine Dray said she thought it would be exciting to work on the 1939 hotel with her father, so she moved with her family to South Florida. She quickly discovered challenges, including stringent historic preservation rules and frequent disagreements with her father.
“We did not have at all the same vision,” she said.
For example, she said: “I was preparing mojitos for the Winter Music Conference.” Her father, on the other hand, famously once unplugged a speaker during a party at the hotel because the loud music was disturbing his work.
“We were fighting because that is the way it is supposed to be,” she said. “Now, I understand that he was totally right.”
She described a vision, now her own, of a classic, cozy property that brings guests back to the 1940s.
Joined by her 10-year-old twin girls, Pearl and Swan, and 13-year-old son Chad, Dray pointed out a new telephone meant to look antique mounted on the wall near the elevators on a guest floor. She showed off the entertainment units she designed to resemble furniture that her parents collected. And she highlighted Art Deco flourishes around doorknobs and handles.
“It’s very important for us to have the details,” she said.
With those priorities in mind, she is overseeing the final phase of the renovation, an investment that general manager Jacques Roy said will top $10 million. In addition to the small details, the renovation includes heavier, less obvious work: new drywall in guest rooms, for example, and new windows to replace leaky ones.
Painting of the building’s exterior should be finished in the next two to three weeks, Roy said. Dray compared its earlier unfinished state to resembling “a horror movie — the family Addams.”
And the final couple of guest room floors, as well as the restoration of the original Martini Room, should be done by the end of April.
“At the end, I will be very proud,” Dray said.
The National’s renovation wraps up as nearby properties such as the SLS Hotel South Beach and Gale South Beach & Regent Hotel have been given new life. Jeff Lehman, general manager of The Betsy Hotel and chair of the Miami Beach Visitor and Convention Authority, said the National has always been true to its roots. He managed the hotel for 10 years, including for a few months after Dray bought the property.
“I think historic preservation and the restoration of the hotels as they were built 70, 80 years ago is such a huge piece of our DNA,” he said. “It’s a lot of what sets us apart from any other destination on the planet.”
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