WATCH: Obama discusses tragedy during weekly address

President Obama discussed the Connecticut school tragedy during his weekly radio and Internet address this morning, calling for politicians to put partisanship aside in order to better address gun violence.

“Our hearts are broken today,” Obama said in the address, echoing sentiments from his Friday press conference. “We grieve for the families of those we lost. And we keep in our prayers the parents of those who survived. Because as blessed as they are to have their children home, they know that their child's innocence has been torn away far too early.”

The Newtown shooting rocked the nation, leaving 20 children and six adults dead. The gunman, identified as Adam Lanza, 20, turned the gun on himself after storming Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Obama referenced recent mass shootings during his address, including a July movie theater shooting in Colorado and an August shooting at a Wisconsin Sikh temple.

“As a nation, we have endured far too many of these tragedies in the past few years,” he said. “Any of these neighborhoods could be our own. So we have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this from happening, regardless of politics.”

Today’s statement followed Obama’s Friday speech when he choked on his words – and wiped a tear from his eye – while addressing the nation.

Republicans normally issue a counter-statement to Obama’s weekly addresses, but this week they ceded their time so Obama could speak for the nation.

With AP

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Miami in spotlight at AVCC, other entrepreneurship events

Entrepreneurs from around the world took the stage during this packed week of entrepreneurship events in Miami: Florida International University’s Americas Venture Capital Conference (known as AVCC), HackDay, Wayra’s Global DemoDay and Endeavor’s International Selection Panel.

The events, all part of the first Innovate MIA week, also put the spotlight on Miami as it continues to try to develop into a technology hub for the Americas.

“While I like art, I absolutely love what is happening today... The time has come to become a tech hub in Miami,” said Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos A. Gimenez, who kicked off the venture capital conference on Thursday. He told the audience of 450 investors and entrepreneurs about the county’s $1 million investment in the Launch Pad Tech Accelerator in downtown Miami.

“I have no doubt that this gathering today will produce new ideas and new business ventures that will put our community on a fast track to becoming a center for innovative, tech-driven entrepreneurship,” Gimenez said.

Brad Feld, an early-stage investor and a founder of TechStars, cautioned that won’t happen overnight. Building a startup community can take five, 10, even 15 years, and those leading the effort, who should be entrepreneurs themselves, need to take the long-term view, he told the audience via video. “You can create very powerful entrepreneurial ecosystems in any city... I’ve spent some time in Miami, I think you are off to a great start.”

Throughout the two-day AVCC at the JW Brickell Marriott, as well as the Endeavor and Wayra events, entrepreneurs from around the world pitched their companies, hoping to persuade investors to part with some of their green.

And in some cases, the entrepreneurs could win money, too. During the venture capital conference, 29 companies —including eight from South Florida such as itMD, which connects doctors, patients and imaging facilities to facilitate easy access of records — competed for more than $50,000 in cash and prizes through short “elevator’’ pitches. Each took questions from the judges, then demoed their products or services in the conference “Hot Zone,” a room adjoining the ballroom. Some companies like oLyfe, a platform to organize what people share online, are hoping to raise funds for expansion into Latin America. Others like Ideame, a trilingual crowdfunding platform, were laser focused on pan-Latin American opportunities.

Winning the grand prize of $15,000 in cash and art was Trapezoid Digital Security of Miami, which provides hardware-based security solutions for enterprise and cloud environments. Fotopigeon of Tampa, a photo-sharing and printing service targeting the military and prison niches, scored two prizes.

The conference offered opportunities to hear formal presentations on current trends — among them the surge of start-ups in Brazil; the importance of mobile apps and overheated company valuations — and informal opportunities to connect with fellow entrepreneurs.

Speakers included Gaston Legorburu of SapientNitro, Albert Santalo of CareCloud and Juan Diego Calle of .Co Internet, all South Florida entrepreneurs. Jerry Haar, executive director of FIU’s Pino Global Entrepreneurship Center, which produced the conference with a host of sponsors, said the organizers worked hard to make the conference relevant to both the local and Latin American audience, with panels on funding and recruiting for startups, for instance.

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Miami-Dade elections group to discuss potential changes to state law

An advisory group poring over Miami-Dade elections problems will hold its second meeting Friday, this time to focus on what changes to request from state lawmakers.

County Mayor Carlos Gimenez, who convened the group, and his appointed elections supervisor, Penelope Townsley, already asked Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner — the state’s chief elections officer — on Wednesday to make several recommendations to Gov. Rick Scott to tweak elections laws.

But the 13-member advisory group might choose to make additional suggestions. And while the meeting with Detzner was more informal, the Miami-Dade group plans to make its requests in writing, and incorporate them into the county’s annual package of policies to lobby for in Tallahassee. County commissioners are scheduled to vote on the legislative package Tuesday.

The 2013 state legislative proposals drafted by the elections department include allowing early-voting sites in more locations — a request Miami-Dade has been making since 2006. State law currently limits the sites to elections offices, city halls and libraries.

The department also plans to ask legislators to reinstate 14 days of early voting. Scott, a Republican, signed a law passed by the GOP-led Legislature last year reducing the number of days to eight, while keeping the total number of hours offered on the books — 96 — the same.

The law also guaranteed one Sunday of early voting, but prohibited voting the Sunday before Election Day. African-American churches with large numbers of Democratic voters had traditionally used that day to bring “souls to the polls.”

About 90,000 fewer Miami-Dade voters cast early ballots in 2012 compared to 2008, according to the department.

The third request proposed by the department would limit the number of words printed on state constitutional amendments on the ballot, keeping them to the same length as county charter amendments. The county caps its ballot measures at 75 words; this year, one of the constitutional amendments took up a full page in Miami-Dade, where ballots are printed in English, Spanish and Creole. The 2012 presidential ballot ran 10 to 12 pages long, depending on the voter’s location, compared to four to six pages in 2008.

Federal law requires that ballots be available in other languages for minorities whose population meets a certain threshold.

In a letter she sent to the mayor last month, U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Miami Gardens, recommended that the county print separate ballots in each of the three languages. “Printing all three languages creates the false impression that the ballot is excessively long,” she wrote. It is unclear how that proposal would work.

She also made other requests, including that the county support extending early voting.

Gimenez replied Thursday that most of Wilson’s recommendations “are in line with what we are proposing.”

In addition, the Miami-Dade elections department would like more time to count absentee ballots, which have become an increasingly popular voting method. State law currently allows tallying to begin 15 days prior to Election Day.

Other requests include:

• Remove political party executive committeeman and committeewoman races from the primary ballot in presidential election years, and require the parties to pay for those elections. This change would shorten the ballot, reduce the number of different ballots printed in the county, and save money.

• Do away with the term “absentee ballot” and replace it with “vote by mail.” The mayor has endorsed this change, saying absentee voting is a misnomer because Florida no longer requires that voters provide a reason — such as being ill or out of town — for voting by mail.

• Require that community development district elections be carried out only by mail. This change would shorten the ballot and reduce the number of different ballots. Community development districts are special taxing districts of 1,100 acres or more.

The advisory group will meet at 9 a.m. on the 18th floor of the Stephen P. Clark Government Center, 111 NW First St.

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Anne Hathaway Fashion Time Warp

Anne Hathaway is having quite a year. 

Pics: Anne Hathaway's Stunning 'Les Mis' Premiere Looks

Not only is the 30-year-old beauty receiving major critical acclaim for her Golden Globe-nominated performance in Les Miserables, the newlywed recently underwent a dramatic makeover and now looks better than ever!

Join us as we look back at Anne's best and worst looks of red carpets past.

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LI cop who allegedly spent nights in girlfriend's bed when he was supposed to be on patrol arrested this morning

The married Long Island cop who spent nights in his girlfriend’s bed with his marked cop car in her driveway – while he was supposed to be on patrol -- was arrested this morning.

Details of the charges against Nassau Officer Mike Tedesco, 43, who is collecting a full pension, are pending, Nassau DA Kathleen Rice said.

He did not comment as he was led in to the DA’s office early this morning.

“Ultimately, not every lapse in judgement amounts to a crime,” said his lawyer, Aida Leisenring.

The Post broke the story in April. Tedesco, 43, spent more than 100 nights while on duty at the home of Massapequa divorcee Tara Obenauer -- having sex, watching TV, and napping, she told The Post at the time. He would lay his gun belt at the foot of bed.

Mike Tedesco and Tara Obenauer

Dennis Clark

Tedesco and his wife this past April

Tedesco told Obenauer he let other, younger officers answer police calls, so he could goof off on the public payroll while collecting his $175,000 salary. She said he called the other cops “my assist bitches.’’

Obenauer believed Tedesco, 43, was divorcing his wife, but, when Internal Affairs cops came to her door in February, she found out he was still married and he was also cheating on her, she said.

Tedesco was caught after one of Obenauer’s neighbors became angry at the sex-break cop’s brazen dereliction of duty and called Police Headquarters, source said.

After the scam appeared in The Post, Tedesco quickly put in for retirement and is currently collecting a state pension. Nassau has refused to grant him additional accrued pay -- but he is disputing that.

Obenauer later filed an unusual notice of claim against the county – claiming they owed her $10 million for allowing Tedseco to seduce her under false pretenses.

She said their relationship began in July, 2011, while she was struggling with breast cancer chemotherapy. Another cop came to her home on a routine call and told the prowling Tedesco that she was pretty, she said.

About a month later, she and Tedesco began a romantic relationship. Tedesco lounged at Obenauer’s lavish waterfront home while on duty, she said. He sometimes used his cop car to chauffeur her daughter and deliver ice cream for her kids, Obenauer said.

When he was caught by Internal Affairs cops, Tedesco called Obenauer and threatened her, she said.

"He screamed at me, 'you f—king tell them that I’m just a friend who stops by once in a while,' Obenauer said. "I told him, `They have your GPS records, you moron. I’m not perjuring myself for you. We’re over and I want my key,’ ‘’

Nassau Police cars are equipped with GPS recorders but the department is not allowed to track cops unless an investigation is started for another reason.

Tedesco was on the force for 17 years. Before that, Tedesco was a New York Housing cop for about four years.

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Wynwood co-working center funded by Knight Foundation, angel investors

The LAB Miami announced Thursday it will open a 10,000-square-foot co-working center in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and local angel investors are investing $650,000.

As Miami’s startup community continues to grow, The LAB Miami said its “work-learn campus” will offer an in-house mentor network that will include investors and serial entrepreneurs, said Wifredo Fernandez, co-founder of The LAB Miami with Danny Lafuente and Elisa Rodriguez-Vila.

The LAB Miami, now in a 720-square-foot space in the same neighborhood, turned a Goldman building at 400 NW 26th Street into an artsy, modern space that can support 300 members, including tech startups, programmers, designers, investors, nonprofits, artists and academics.

In addition to offering space to work, the new co-working space plans to offer courses and workshops in business and technology — including a startup school and code school — as well as art, design and education, Fernandez said. It will be a welcoming space for traveling Latin Americans, too. “We want this to be a community center for entrepreneurs,” said Fernandez, explaining that the mix of activities and workshops will be structured by the needs of the LAB’s members.

While the Knight Foundation’s Miami office has sponsored many entrepreneurship events in the past four months, this is the foundation’s largest investment announced so far in its efforts to help accelerate entrepreneurship in Miami, said the Knight Foundation’s Miami program director, Matt Haggman. The Knight Foundation’s Miami office, which made accelerating entrepreneurship one of its key areas of focus this year, is investing $250,000 with the rest of the funding coming from a group of investors lead by Marco Giberti, Faquiry Diaz-Cala, Boris Hirmas Said and Daniel Echavarria.

“This is an important part of our strategy,” said Haggman. “Entrepreneurs need places to gather, connect and learn.”

The LAB Miami has already hosted several events, including HackDay and Wayra DemoDay earlier this week, and the co-working space plans to open for membership in January.

Co-working space will start at $200 a month to use the communal tables, and private offices that will accommodate up to six are also available. The LAB will also offer “Connect” memberships for $40 a month, which allows members who do not need co-working space to participate in events. In addition, there will be phone booths, classrooms, flexible meeting spaces, a lounge area, a kitchen, a “pop-up shop” for local fashion, art or technology products, a shower for those who bike to work and an outside garden with native landscaping.

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Miami city Commission considers hiring attorney to defend mayor against commissioner

The Miami City Commission will convene its final meeting of the year on Thursday.

The agenda is long, but few of the proposals are expected to be controversial except for an item from Mayor Tomás Regalado.

Regalado is asking the commission for an outside attorney to defend him in a lawsuit filed by Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones. The suit accuses the mayor and Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernández Rundle of plotting to destroy Spence-Jones’s political career. Spence-Jones successfully fought a pair of political corruption charges last year.

Regalado says that City Attorney Julie O. Bru cannot defend him because she was a player in some of the alleged activities outlined in the lawsuit.

“The city attorney is totally conflicted out,” he said.

He believes the city should foot the bill because he was sued for actions he took in his capacity as mayor.

Regalado would like to be represented by attorney José Quiñón, according to the meeting agenda.

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Grammys Flashback: Backstreet Boys 1999

It's hard for many to imagine their lives without the Internet. It has changed the world, and at lightning speed. Therefore, it seems like ages ago when the medium through which we live our lives was viewed as a novelty. The Backstreet Boys take us back to that period in history.

While this flashback only rewinds the clock back fourteen years from the upcoming 2013 Grammys, listening to the way that Backstreet Boys' frontman Kevin Richardson talks about the Internet makes us realize how rapidly it's become an integral part of society.

VIDEO: New Kids On The Block & Backstreet Boys Spill Tour Secrets

"The Internet is a whole new generation. The Year 2000, the Internet, computers--I mean, it's a whole new means of communicating and getting in touch with people," Richardson said alongside his bandmates, who had been nominated for Best New Artist at that year's Grammys (the award went to Lauryn Hill).

Although nobody could have foreseen the adverse effect of the Internet on the music industry, the irony in Richardson's sure response of the Internet's ability to aid album sales is nevertheless a laughing point. Napster was launched a month after the Backstreet Boys released their next album, Millennium, and so set off a trending decline in album sales that lasted to the present day.

RELATED: Nick Carter Speaks Out About Sister's Death

However, the Internet only had a positive effect on Millennium, as the group would go on to sell a whopping 30 million copies worldwide of its U.S. sophomore album. As they looked towards the future as a band, Howie Dorough reveals his big hopes for The Backstreet Boys.

"Any time there's a similar formula [like] New Edition [or] New Kids on the Block, normally the odds are most of the times that most groups do split up, [but] our control of our careers [is] within our own destiny here," he says. "Right now we're all very happy as The Backstreet Boys and we plan on being around hopefully as long as The Eagles [and] The Beatles and hopefully doing several reunion tours and hopefully coming back here [in] several years."

VIDEO: Kevin Richardson is a Backstreet Boy Again

The band went on to earn five Grammy nominations for Millennium but never won a Grammy. Despite frontman Kevin Richardson leaving the group for a while, The Backstreet Boys have remained intact over the years and plan to release their eighth studio album in the coming years

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NY voters want legalized marijuana, stricter building codes post-Sandy

ALBANY - Legalize it.

Most New York voters favor legalizing marijuana, but by a slim 51-44 majority, according a new poll.

Quinnipiac University found the younger the voters, the higher they are on the idea, with 62 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds favoring legalization.

Meantime homeowners and businesses destroyed by Hurricane Sandy should rebuild to stricter building codes, according to 65 percent of voters - including 68 percent in the city and 67 percent on Long Island, the hardest hit regions.

Eight percent think destroyed structures shouldn't be rebuilt at all, the Dec. 5-10 telephone survey of 1,302 voters found.

While 74 percent say they're concerned about climate change and two thirds expect their community to be hit by a major storm in the next decade, only 45 percent think Sandy actually resulted from climate change. Half of voters didn't - including 83 percent of Republicans.

Voters are split on fracking - and on Gov. Cuomo's non-decision so far on the controversial issue.

The poll found 44 percent support drilling for natural gas upstate because of potential economic benefits while 42 percent are opposed for fear of environmental damage.

Most favor a tax on gas drilling companies (54-32 percent) and believe high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing will create jobs (78-15 percent), while half think the practice of fracturing shale with a pressurized chemical, water and sand mix to extract gas will damage the environment (50-17 percent).

On Cuomo, 26 percent say he's “carefully evaluating the issue" while 25 percent accuse him of “dragging his feet."

Four of every five voters favor raising the minimum wage (80-18), with strong support even among Republicans (61-38). And 43 percent even support an increase above the $8.50 an hour Cuomo and fellow Democrats have proposed.

Still, 49 percent think small businesses will reduce hiring if the minimum wage is raised to 44 percent who don't.

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Lennar to borrow $1.7 billion from Chinese bank

Miami-based Lennar Corp. has gotten approval on $1.7 billion in loans from China Development Bank to fund the development and construction of two major projects in San Francisco, according to a person familiar with the transaction.

The contract, set to close by Dec. 31 subject to various conditions, would mark the first U.S. loan by the big state-owned Chinese bank. One condition — tagged the “Chinese component”— is that China Railway Construction Corp. be included as a general contracting partner in the project, the person said.

Closing by year’s end is crucial because of new tax rules set to take effect, the person added.

The agreement, first reported in The Wall Street Journal, would provide funding for the first six years of what is envisioned to be a 20-year project.

The loan agreement, reached Dec. 7 after Lennar officials met in China with bank officials, provides for $1 billion in financing to a partnership led by Lennar to redevelop Hunters Point Shipyard-Candlestick Point, a site in southeast San Francisco spanning more than 700 acres, the person said. Plans for the mixed-use community call for nearly 12,000 residential units on the site. Construction is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2013.

Under the pact, the Chinese bank would provide another $700 million to a partnership of Lennar, Stockbridge Capital Group and Wilson Meany, a real estate investment and development firm, to redevelop Treasure Island and Yerba Buena Islands in San Francisco Bay. Some 8,000 units of housing are planned for the mixed-use project on 535 acres. The U.S. Navy is set to turn over the first parcel of land to the development company in late 2013.

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