Marc Caputo: A swig of water isn’t going to sideline Marco Rubio

It’s official: Marco Rubio is a national punch line.

After the Florida senator’s weird decision to interrupt his Tuesday rebuttal of the president’s State of the Union speech by taking a swig from a bottle of water, he was quickly mocked on The Daily Show, Colbert Report, Tonight Show with Jay Leno and the Late Show with David Letterman.

Four days later, Saturday Night Live worked him over.

But none of it means Rubio’s a joke.

His recovery from the gaffe has been serious business, a clear-eyed example of protecting a political brand as Rubio eyes a White House bid in four years.

Rubio quickly joined the chorus of mockers Tuesday night by poking fun at himself on Twitter. He posted a picture of the Poland Spring water bottle he grabbed. He then fund-raised off it.

The coverage and mockery perversely benefitted Rubio in another respect: It drew attention away from a speech that, in the eyes of liberals, deserved to be torn apart for misrepresenting the president’s record as well as Rubio’s.

“Don’t worry, Sen. Rubio, nobody noticed — that you gave a speech,” comedian Stephen Colbert joked Wednesday after devoting more than 40 percent of his almost half-hour show to Rubio’s water break.

By then, Rubio had already spent the day making fun of himself on TV.

Less than eight hours after his speech, Rubio appeared on ABC’s Good Morning America, where George Stephanopolous asked him what happened.

Rubio smiled, reached for a water bottle and took a swig. Stephanopolous laughed.

“You’ve shown an ability to laugh at yourself,” Stephanopolous said.

Said Rubio: “I needed water — what am I going to do? . . . God has a funny way of reminding us we’re human.”

Rubio gave a similar performance on Fox & Friends.

Then on Wednesday night, his political action committee Reclaim America PAC started selling $25 water bottles emblazoned with RUBIO in big red letters on a white background.

“Quench your thirst for conservative leadership? Order a bottle now,” Rubio advertised from his Twitter account.

This isn’t just political showmanship or boldness. It’s a type of alchemy, figuratively turning H₂O into campaign gold.

All of that money flows back into a sophisticated brand-building operation boosting Rubio, as The Miami Herald’s partner paper, The Tampa Bay Times, details on the front page of today’s Herald.

Of the $1.7 million Rubio’s committee spent through Dec. 31, the lion’s share has been used to pay political consultants and underwrite travel for the senator throughout the nation, where many Republicans view him as the great Hispanic hope for their party as he helps lead a bipartisan push to reform immigration laws.

Rubio’s roots as the son of working-class immigrants and his ability to describe it all in vivid detail made him the obvious choice to deliver the Tuesday rebuttal to President Barack Obama’s speech.

Where Obama said “middle class” eight times in about an hour, Rubio said it 16 times in less than 15 minutes.

“Mr. President, I still live in the same working-class neighborhood I grew up in,” Rubio said Tuesday.

“My neighbors aren’t millionaires. They’re retirees who depend on Social Security and Medicare,” he continued. “They’re workers who have to get up early tomorrow morning and go to work to pay the bills. They’re immigrants who came here because they were stuck in poverty in countries where the government dominated the economy.”

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A Good Day to Die Hard Bruce Willis Takes Over Box Office

Audiences agreed that it was a good weekend to die hard, as the fifth installment of the Die Hard franchise opened strong.

RELATED: New Blu-ray & DVD Releases

A Good Day to Die Hard is expected to pull in $28.2 million over the four-day holiday, beating out last weekend's winner, Identity Thief ($27.6 million), and Safe Haven ($25.4 million.

This weekend is on pace to be the biggest international opening in the history of the 25-year-old Die Hard franchise, as it held the top box office spot in many of the 63 markets where it's been released.

Escape from Planet Earth had a harder time getting off the ground, garnering $20.5 million. Warm Bodies dropped to fifth place with $10.9 million.

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7 hurt when cab crashes into food cart crowd

Seven people were injured on West 34 Street and Eleventh Avenue when a cabbie plowed into a vehicle, jumped a curb and hit a small crowd of people near a food cart on the sidewalk, cops and witnesses said.

A witness said the cabby was stopped behind another vehicle in the eastbound lane at a light on 34th Street at around 5 p.m. when he suddenly “took off," Hanna Ramzey,25, a vendor, said.

"The cab first hit the car then the vendors, three customers and people on the corner,” he said.

"He [one vendor named Maged] was injured in his head and leg. And had blood from his nose. One man, his leg was twisted the wrong way. One woman was bleeding from the back of her head,” Ramzey added.

All the victims were taken to Bellevue Hospital with minor injuries, cops said.

Police sources said the yellow-cab driver is in police custody and charges were pending.

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Small business lending rebounds in South Florida

For years, Pablo Oliveira dreamed of buying a property to house his high-end linen and furniture rental company, Nuage Designs, which has created settings for such glamorous events as the weddings of Carrie Underwood and Chelsea Clinton.

A few months ago, that dream came true, when Oliveira purchased a warehouse across the street from his current Miami location. He is now renovating the loft-like space with the help of a $2.1 million, 25-year small business loan.

“It allows me to own my own space as opposed to renting, and that will decrease my costs for infrastructure and allow me to build equity with time,” said Oliveira, who secured a U.S. Small Business Administration-guaranteed loan from Wells Fargo.

For small businesses like Oliveira’s, a loan can be the critical key to growing a business, as well as the kindling to ignite an operation.

Take Harold Scott’s fledgling Great Scott Security, which manufactures window guards in Hollywood that can open quickly in case of need.

When he was 13, Scott’s stepfather perished in a Georgia house fire because he couldn’t escape through heavy window bars. Scott made it his mission to fix the problem.

“I promised myself I would dedicate all my time to working on a solution,” said Scott, 60.

Now retired from a 23-year career in the U.S. Justice Department, Scott recently secured a $7,500 microloan from Partners for Self Employment. He used it to buy a computer and pay for marketing and other business expenses for his quick-release window guards, which have met national, state and Miami-Dade County fire safety codes.

During the depths of the recession, business owners often griped that gaining access to capital was their biggest hurdle. Saddled with bad loans, many banks were wary of making new ones. At the same time, both the value of collateral and the creditworthiness of many borrowers tumbled.

Now, at last, banks are starting to open their pocketbooks again, experts say, though lending is still not on par with pre-recession levels.

“There is no question that small business borrowing declined as a result of the recession and has yet to recover to pre-crisis levels,” said Richard Brown, chief economist for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., via email. “According to the Federal Reserve, total loans to noncorporate businesses and farms stood at just under $3.8 trillion in September, which remains below the peak of about $4.1 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2008.”

Signs of Growth

In South Florida, more businesses are applying for loans and getting approvals from banks, according to lenders, officials at government agencies and leaders of organizations that help small business owners secure loans.

“Lenders are expressing a greater interest than they have in the past few years in terms of meeting the needs of the small business community,” said Marjorie Weber, Miami-Dade Chapter Chair of SCORE, which helps business owners put loan packages together and refers them to bankers.

Loan figures are indeed rising. During the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2012, SBA-guaranteed loans were up in both Miami-Dade and Broward counties, according to the SBA. In fiscal 2012, 449 loans were approved in Miami-Dade, totaling $213.3 million, up from 426 loans for $154.4 million in 2011. In Broward, 262 loans for $91.4 million were approved in fiscal 2012, compared to 257 loans for $102.4 million in 2011.

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Parents decry closing of two Broward schools for special-needs kids

If you ask parents why they value Broward’s Wingate Oaks Educational Center — and why they’re so furious about its imminent closure — the answer often boils down to trust.

The school for medically fragile children is a place where students might need help going to the restroom, and parents trust the teachers and staff to respect their child’s dignity. David Martinez’s 7-year-old daughter, Anabelle, must eat lunch through a feeding tube, and it took time for Martinez to let Wingate Oaks’ nursing staff handle that delicate procedure.

“It’s not right, it’s not right,” Martinez says about the school’s closing. “On the backs of our children, they want to save money.”

Broward’s school district has defended its plan to close Wingate Oaks, along with another special-needs school, Sunset Learning Center. Both Fort Lauderdale schools are set to shut down at the end of the school year. The district calls it a move toward operational efficiency, as both centers are at well under 50 percent capacity — combined, they serve fewer than 200 students. The district says that students who are relocated to the county’s remaining four centers that focus on kids with special needs will benefit from expanded programming. Any savings realized from the closures will be reinvested in the classroom, Superintendent Robert Runcie said.

“I recognize that people don’t like change, but they also need to have an open mind about this,” Runcie said. “This is going to provide better outcomes for their students.”

Parents at the schools remain angry — one group in a growing chorus of special-needs families who are upset with the school district.

In recent weeks, a whole other group of infuriated parents (unaffected by the two school closures) have trekked down to Broward School Board meetings to criticize the system as flawed. They accuse district staff of having a combative attitude with parents, forcing parents to go to court for reasonable requests, and pushing disabled students off the academic path to a traditional diploma.

Parents’ verbal exchanges with School Board members have at times turned nasty — one parent recently turned her back on board members while she spoke to them to symbolize how the district had “turned its back” on her daughter.

Unhappy parents have formed a special-needs task force to plot strategy. There’s been talk of filing a class-action lawsuit.

“People react when they’re not heard,” said Broward parent Rhonda Ward, who is part of that task force.

Ideally, decisions regarding special-needs children — how difficult their courses should be and what support services and therapies they should receive — are made by a cooperative team that includes parents, teachers, school psychologists and other district staff. In many cases, everyone successfully works together to create an individualized education plan for a disabled child. A well-thought-out plan will allow the child to reach his or her full academic potential, while avoiding unrealistic expectations that doom the student to repeated failures and disappointment.

The problem is, parents and school staff may not agree on what goals are realistic, and those differences of opinion can easily end up in court. For example, a parent who is unhappy with the district’s evaluation of her child can request the hiring of an outside independent evaluator — at taxpayers’ expense. The district then has two options: Pay the outside expert, or take the matter to a state administrative judge in a “due process” hearing, and argue that an outside second opinion isn’t needed.

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Hugh Grant is a Dad Again

Hugh Grant confirmed Saturday that he is a dad again.

PICS: Celebs and Their Cute Kids

The 52-year-old British actor tweeted, "In answer to some journos. Am thrilled my daughter now has a brother. Adore them both to an uncool degree. They have a fab mum."

Hugh and actress Tinglan Hong welcomed a daughter named Tabitha in 2011. No word yet on what Tabitha's little brother is named.

Related: Hugh Grant Responds to Jon Stewart Diss

Hugh told The Guardian in 2012 of being a dad, "I like my daughter very much. Fantastic. Has she changed my life? I'm not sure. Not yet. Not massively, no. But I'm absolutely thrilled to have had her, I really am. And I feel a better person."

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Upstate fire department's squirrel hunt fundraiser draws ire

HOLLEY — A weekend squirrel-shooting contest in upstate New York is a sell-out, with all 1,000 tickets spoken for, organizers said, despite a push by animal rights groups and others to cancel the event.

The 7th annual "Hazzard County Squirrel Slam" will raise money for the volunteer Holley Fire Department, the event sponsor.

Prizes ranging from $50 to $200 will be given out Saturday for the largest squirrel shot and the heaviest group of five squirrels. Five rifles and shotguns are to be raffled off, according to a flier on the western New York fire department's website.

Critics have sought to stop the event through online petitions and protests, calling the event cruel and a bad example for children. The contest targeting red and gray squirrels is open to anyone over age 12 with a hunting license.

"Declaring someone a winner for killing the most animals influences children and the wider community to believe that wildlife is unimportant and killing for a monetary prize is meritorious," Brian Shapiro, New York state director of the Humane Society of the United States, wrote in a letter to Holley Fire Chief Pete Hendrickson.

Supporters say hunting is just part of life upstate, including in the largely rural village of 1,800 people on the Erie Canal.

"This is a community of hunters and they're going to hunt anyways. Why not hold a fundraiser that will reach our community," the event's chairwoman, Tina Reed, told the Democrat and Chronicle of Rochester. She said the event has grown each year: This year, 1,000 tickets were made available after it sold out of 200 tickets last year.

Participants must abide by New York's hunting regulations, hunting only where it is permitted and killing no more than six squirrels in a single day. Shooting will be followed by a weigh-in, then a dinner.

State Sen. Tony Avella, a Queens Democrat, called the contest insane during an Albany news conference with the group Friends of Animals earlier this week. The group planned to protest outside the Holley Fire House on Saturday afternoon.

Avella's upstate colleague, Sen. George Maziarz, a Democrat who represents Holley, defended the fundraiser, saying hunting, fishing and shooting sports are part of the region's lifestyle.

"It's like a fishing derby but it's squirrels, not fish," Maziarz spokesman Adam Tabelski said Friday.

Neither the fire department nor members of its board of directors returned telephone and email messages from The Associated Press.

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Sign up for Feb. 21 Miami Herald Small Business Forum

Prepare your best pitch for the Miami Herald’s Small Business Forum, Feb. 21 at the south campus of our sponsor, Florida International University.

In addition to how-to panels and inspirational stories from successful entrepreneurs, our annual small business forum will include interactive opportunities with experts to learn about financing options and polish your personal and business brands.

During our finance panel, audience volunteers will be invited to explain their financing needs to the group. During our box-lunch session, they will be invited to pitch their business or personal brand to our coaches.

Those who prefer just to listen will be treated to a keynote address by Alberto Perlman, co-founder of the global fitness craze Zumba. Panels include success stories from the local entrepreneurs who founded Sedano’s, Jennifer’s Homemade and ReStockIt.com; finance tips from experts in small business loans, venture capital, angel investments and traditional bank loans; and insiders in the burgeoning South Florida tech start-up scene.

Plus, it’s a real bargain. $25 includes the half-day seminar, continental breakfast and a box lunch.

Register here.

Program

8 a.m.

Registration and continental breakfast, provided by Bill Hansen Catering

8:30 a.m. Welcome

Host: David Suarez, president and CEO, Interactive Training Solutions, LLC

•  Jerry Haar, PhD, associate dean & director, FIU Eugenio Pino and Family Global

Entrepreneurship Center

•  Alice Horn, executive director, Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE South Florida)

•  Jane Wooldridge, Business editor, The Miami Herald

Miami Herald Business Plan Challenge Overview:

•  Nancy Dahlberg, Business Plan Challenge coordinator, The Miami Herald

8:45 a.m. Session I – Success Stories

Moderator: Jerry Haar, PhD, associate dean & director, FIU Eugenio Pino and Family Global

Entrepreneurship Center

Speakers:

•  Jennifer Behar, founder, Jennifer’s Homemade

•  Matt Kuttler, co-president of ReStockIt.com

•  Javier Herrán, chief marketing officer, Sedano’s Supermarkets

10 a.m. Session II – All about Tech

Moderator: Jane Wooldridge, Business editor, The Miami Herald

Speakers

•  Susan Amat, founder, Launch Pad Tech

•  Nancy Borkowski, executive director, Health Management Programs, Chapman Graduate School of

Business, Florida International University

•  Chris Fleck, vice president of mobility solutions at Citrix and a director of the South Florida Tech Alliance

•  Charles Irizarry, co-founder and director of product architecture, Rokk3r Labs

11:15 a.m. Keynote

Speaker: Alberto Perlman, CEO and co-founder of Zumba® Fitness

Introduction: Jane Wooldridge, business editor, The Miami Herald

11:45 a.m. Session III – Show me the money: Financing your small business

An interactive session featuring audience volunteers who will be invited to make a short investment pitch before a panel, including experts in microlending, SBA loans, traditional bank loans, venture capital and angel investing. Audience volunteers should come prepared with a two-minute presentation that includes details about current backing, how much money they are seeking and a brief synosis of ow that money would be used.

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Van Myers, former president of Wometco, dies at 95

Sylvan “Van” Myers spent 44 years at Wometco, rising through the ranks, first to head the data division, later as executive vice president of bottling, vending and food service operations and finally as president and CEO of the company.

After retiring in 1984, Myers devoted himself to the South Florida community and working to improve people’s lives, said son Bruce Myers.

“I think he was a role model, a leader,” Bruce Myers said. “He would’ve made a good politician, but people like that don’t want to run for office.”

An avid sports fan, devoted father and husband of 72 years to wife Jane, Myers died Tuesday. He was 95.

Born in Norfolk, Va., in 1917, Myers’ father wanted him to join him in the family’s mattress company. But Myers had bigger plans and left home for Harvard University.

It was there that an acquaintance gave Myers the phone number for a young woman, a senior in high school. Jane and Van began dating, eventually marrying in 1940.

But the honeymoon was short — Myers soon went into the Navy and served as a lieutenant during World War II. He was assigned to an amphibious craft in Okinawa.

After the war, he returned briefly to Boston, but was soon contacted by Mitchell Wolfson, the co-founder of Wometco Enterprises, a prominent Miami-based entertainment company that founded WTVJ, Miami’s first television station.

Myers followed Wolfson down to Miami in 1946 and never left.

At Wometco, he was a born leader. He rarely raised his voice, said his son, but he had a quality that made people follow him.

“He’s just the type of person you would want to be around and work for,” Bruce Myers said.

When Wolfson died in 1983, Myers became president and CEO, responsible for overseeing its sale to Kohlberg Kravis Roberts.

Although his presidency was brief, he made sure to stick around long enough to advocate for his former employees, his son said.

By the time Kohlberg Kravis Roberts took over the company in 1984, Wometco’s assets included 45 movie theaters, three TV stations, 47 cable TV systems, the Miami Seaquarium, the Citrus Tower and one of the largest Coca-Cola bottlers in the nation

Ever concerned with giving back to the city and the people he loved, Myers remained on several community boards in his retirement, including WPBT-Channel 2 and The Family Counseling Service. He was a founding member of Feeding South Florida and an original board member of the Mitchell Wolfson Foundation, of which he was a member when he died.

“He was literally the soul of decency, in my estimation,” said Dave Lawrence, a former publisher of The Miami Herald and founder of The Children’s Trust. His warm sense of humor and his thoughtfulness made him a good leader and a great friend, Lawrence said.

Myers was a tireless sports fan, often taking his two children to see the Miami Dolphins, the Miami Heat and the University of Miami Hurricanes. Another weekly family activity, during his time at Wometco, was Friday screenings of movies the company wanted to show at its theaters.

Well into his 90s, Myers still insisted on going somewhere outside his home every day. He had an endless reading list, as a longtime member of the Book of the Month Club, and he was interested in every subject.

In addition to his wife Jane and son Bruce, Myers is survived by daughter Catherine Myers and sister Valerie Rothschild.

There will be a celebration of his life at 1 p.m. Feb. 23 at the Coral Gables Country Club, 997 N. Greenway Dr.

In lieu of flowers, Myers’ family requests that donations be made to WPBT-Channel 2 or Feeding South Florida.

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Miley Cyrus Talks Liam Hemsworth and Cosmopolitan Cover

Liam Hemsworth is one lucky man, and he knows it.

Miley Cyrus recently made a big hoopla about how gorgeous she finds her soon-to-be hubby Liam in the pages of Cosmopolitan magazine, and who can blame her? At Cosmo's big bash in NYC, celebrating the issue's launch, Miley tells ET that her fiancé can't get enough of her sexy compliments.

Pics: Miley Cyrus & Liam Hemsworth Through the Years

"I'm the only fiancee that pimps her fiancé out," Miley laughs, clarifying that by "pimps" she means "talks about how hot" her beau is.

"All these women are reading about sex in Cosmo, and then it's like Liam naked in the pool. So he loves it, I'm sure."

And speaking of sexy, Miley touched upon her daring topless cover shoot for the mag. When asked if it way her idea to strip down for the issue, the singer took responsibility for her skin-baring stunt.

Related: I'll Never Have Long Hair Again, Says Miley Cyrus

With a sigh she says, "I guess it's always all my fault."

For Miley's hot interview with Cosmopolitan, pick up the mag's March issue which is on stands now.

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