Why does Michelle Obama need two Twitter accounts?

Michelle Obama is on Twitter! That was big news on Thursday, the first lady’s birthday. The White House announced that Mrs. Obama had launched a new Twitter account, @FLOTUS, and lots of folks chimed in with messages welcoming her to the world of micro-blogging social media.

But hold it – wasn’t she already on Twitter? We’ve been following @MichelleObama since the beginning of the 2012 presidential campaign. Is this a reboot, a dual account, or what? Is it the equivalent of the grand opening of a store that’s been in business for months?

Sort of, yes. Except it’s a retail establishment that has two branches kept separate for legal reasons.

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The invaluable Mashable has the full story here. The @MichelleObama feed is paid for and run by the Obama/Biden political campaign machinery. That’s why it was so active during the summer and fall, as it exhorted everybody to get out and vote, and in general pushed the fortunes of the incumbent presidential ticket. It’s an overtly political use of social media.

The first lady’s Pinterest site is run the same way. Most of those photos of her and her family, and favorite recipes (grilled peaches with yogurt and pistachios?), and exhortations about “why we vote” were put up by campaign staff.

Mrs. Obama’s new @FLOTUS handle reflects her official White House duties, however. It’s run by people from her office who are executive branch (and hence official US government) employees.

Legally speaking, @FLOTUS tweets will have to be stuff that deals with her official duties and the nation as a whole, as opposed to President Obama’s political fortunes. Thus on Thursday she tweeted “Join me and Barack for #MLK Day of Service” after thanking everyone for sending birthday wishes.

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Hmm. @FLOTUS has sent three tweets, and it’s got more than 78,000 followers. That’s a pretty good tweet-to-listener ratio.

Most of this social media stuff is done by staff, of course. The few that she sends herself are supposed to be signed “-mo.”

Is the White House actually good at social media? We think that question can be answered definitively only by someone more versed in the dark electronic arts than we are. But from our point of view, it’s a pretty shrewd operator. Take the White House petition site. You can put up a petition on anything, and if it reaches a certain signature level in a certain period of time, the White House will respond with its point of view.

Most of the coverage of this “We the People” effort has focused on the weird stuff: petitions for Texas to secede, to deport CNN’s Piers Morgan, and so forth. And responding to them has to be a pain for staff. Mother Jones has a piece on Friday in which anonymous staffers gripe about having to spend time actually writing about why the US won’t build a Death Star, and things like that.

But to us, “We the People” really is a clever technique for harvesting e-mail addresses. When creating an account to sign stuff, you can check whether you want to receive missives from the White House. Most of the petitions are in fact about real policy – the need for more or less gun control, for instance. What the White House may get out of this is a continually growing list of voter contact information segmented by policy interest. To push the president’s new gun policies, for instance, they may send targeted e-mails to pro-control addresses, urging them to contact Congress.

We think this because media organizations do the same thing with interactive questionnaires and quizzes. We figure out who’s interested in what kind of stories and we direct those subjects their way.

Surprised? Don’t be. Building brand loyalty – everybody’s got whole new ways of approaching this old problem in today’s Internet age.

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Batmobile sells for $4.2 million at auction

AP

The original Batmobile in Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES — "Holy windfall, Batman!" The Batmobile just sold for $4.2 million.

The original 19-foot-long black, bubble-topped car used in the 1960s "Batman" TV show sold at auction Saturday.

The Barrett-Jackson Auction Co. in Scottsdale, Ariz., revealed the selling price but says the winning bidder has not been disclosed.

The car's owner — auto customizer George Barris, of Los Angeles — transformed a one-of-a-kind 1955 Lincoln Futura concept car into the sleek crime-fighting machine. It boasted lasers and a "Batphone" and could lay down smoke screens and oil slicks.

The iconic car was used by Adam West who starred as the Caped Crusader and by Burt Ward, his sidekick Robin known for exclamations beginning with —"Holy."

Barris' publicist says his client is pleased with the auction result.

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Investors await word from Apple

No company today elicits such devotion and dedication among its customers and shareholders like Apple. The fervor felt by Apple fans for its products, its leaders and its business underscore the company’s technological eco-centric strategy. While that loyalty has made for rich rewards over the long term, it will mean very little to a myopic stock market when Apple reports its latest financial results Wednesday.

When a company so dominates a business like Apple does, it is subject to plenty of rumors, especially when that company, like Apple, is disciplined to not respond to speculation. There have been a series of anonymous and Wall Street analyst worries floated in the past quarter centered on the iPhone 5. First were concerns Apple couldn’t get enough supplies to build the phones fast enough. Then there were hints Apple cut its supply orders, suggesting slower sales.

Apple optimists have been quick to defend the company even as its stock has fallen from $700 to around $500 per share since September. The stock drop has come even as Apple probably sold a record number of iPhones and iPads during the holiday quarter.

No doubt Apple will trumpet its financial prowess on Wednesday. And it should. After all it generates more than $500 million dollars a day. But the short-sighted stock market has been conditioned to expect big numbers. Therein is the challenge for Apple: incubating such devotion without inflating expectations.

Tom Hudson is anchor and managing editor of Nightly Business Report, produced by NBR Worldwide and distributed nationally by American Public Television. In South Florida, the show is broadcast at 7 p.m. weekdays on Channel 2. Follow him on Twitter, @HudsonNBR.

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King’s son brings message to South Florida

The past few days have kept the eldest son of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. busy. He’s been to at least three states to carry on his father’s message: ending violence and learning from historical wrongs.

In a Fort Lauderdale Baptist church early Friday, he delivered another directive:

“A nation is judged on how we treat our most prized possession,” Martin Luther King III said. “And our most precious resource, I think, is our children.”

King served as the keynote speaker at the ninth annual Martin Luther King Jr. inspirational breakfast hosted by the YMCA of Broward County.

More than 500 gathered inside the First Baptist Church on Broward Boulevard, selling out the $2,500 per table event, to honor King’s legacy.

“My concern was that it would not be reduced to a day of relaxation,” said King III. “We have to look at this as a day on — not a day off.”

The Rev. King, a prominent civil rights leader, was born this week 84 years ago. He lead peaceful protests and bus strikes working for racial equality until his 1968 assassination.

The younger King told the South Florida audience about spending his youth at the local YMCA in Birmingham, learning to swim and working out with his dad.

“Those were wonderful experiences, experiences that I will never forget,” he said.

Like his father, King III has been a fighter for human rights, justice and non-violence in the United States and abroad. He also served as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s president, a position his father once held.

During his 2009 inauguration, President Barack Obama declared the holiday honoring King should be spent as a national day of service.

At Friday’s event, 15 youngsters from the Lauderhill YMCA were honored for their service to the community. The young friends managed to clean up a popular overpass and get rid of gangs who were harassing children.

They called their project “Own the Overpath.” The idea started when 14-year-old Kervens Jean-Louis was attacked by a gang on a fenced in walkway that spans the Florida Turnpike while coming from the YMCA, based at Boyd Anderson High School. But Jean-Louis didn’t back down.

He and other students mobilized and launched a campaign to clean-up the area surrounding the “overpath.” The youngsters made a formal presentation to the Lauderhill City Commission and Florida Department of Transportation officials.

Now, there is a $400,000 project in the works to install more lights on the bridge to increase visibility. The city broke ground in November.

“I learned that when you speak out loud it makes a difference,” said Jean-Louis.

For Jean-Louis, speaking loud meant going back to the bridge to warn others of the dangers of traveling across it at night.

He will spend this upcoming Saturday as a volunteer, painting and cleaning up a garden.

“Now I tell others what’s going on and how they can help out,” he said, much like the man they had all come to honor.

After the youngsters were honored, King III left the crowd to ponder a final thought: “We can either be a thermometer or a thermostat.”

A thermometer, he explained, takes the temperature while a thermostat regulates the temperature.

Despite the progress his father saw in his lifetime, and the decades since his death, there is still much work to be done, King III said.

“I always come with a heavy heart in January,” he said. “Because we have not fully realized the dream.”

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Drew Barrymore on Oprah's Next Chapter

Drew Barrymore opens up about her complicated childhood and the lessons she's learned when it comes to being a new mother on Oprah's Next Chapter, and we have a sneak peek!

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Marking the first time cameras have ever been allowed inside her home, Drew also talks to Oprah about her new marriage to Will Kopelman, shares details about their newborn baby Olive, and reveals the story behind why her mother did not attend her wedding.

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Oprah's Next Chapter with Drew Barrymore airs Sunday at 9 pm ET/PT on OWN.

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Arrest made in death of Amityville boy, 4

Frank Eltman

Police investigate the death of an Amityville child's death.

AMITYVILLE — An arrest has been made in the slaying of a 4-year-old boy found alone inside a Long Island apartment after an anonymous 911 call, police said Saturday.

Jonathan Thompson, 31, was charged with second-degree murder in the death of Adonis Reed, Suffolk County police said in a news release.

Adonis was found unconscious on a couch in an apartment in a private house on a quiet Amityville street on Wednesday afternoon. He was pronounced dead at a hospital, and his death was classified as a homicide. Detectives said he showed signs of being assaulted.

Suffolk County police Lt. Jack Fitzpatrick told reporters Wednesday night that Adonis was "a victim of violence."

Thompson's home address is the same as the residence where the boy was found. He was arrested in Brooklyn with the help of the U.S. Marshals Service.

Thompson was in custody Saturday and not immediately available for comment. He is scheduled to be arraigned later in the day.

Neighbor Eric Erath told reporters on Thursday that he used to see the little boy and his 6-year-old sister occasionally playing around the house, but he couldn't recall the last time. "Every time I used to see them, they were both very cheerful," said Erath, who lives next door.

He said he never saw any signs of abuse. "I do not believe anything like that happened," he said.

The boy's sister was in the custody of county child welfare officials, police said. It wasn't clear if the children lived at the apartment.

The apartment house where the boy's body was found is in a middle-class neighborhood with a hodgepodge of old and new architecture. The apartment is in a two-story Victorian-style house with yellow shingles.

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Miami-Dade sees first hiring drop since 2010

Miami-Dade ended 2012 with its first overall job loss in more than two years as sharp drops in construction, healthcare and government jobs wiped out other gains.

The sectors all share one key funding source — tax dollars — as ongoing squeezes in government budgets force cutbacks in hospitals, infrastructure projects and basic municipal staffing. Miami-Dade lost nearly 5,000 local government jobs in December compared to the year before. Its hospital and construction sectors were both down almost 2,000 jobs each. Miami-Dade last saw its overall payroll number decline in June 2010.

Along with a hiring loss, Miami-Dade reported a sharp increase in people describing themselves as unemployed. Miami-Dade’s unemployment rate went from 8.4 percent in November to 8.8 percent in December, the sharpest increase since the recession was still underway in 2009.

Miami-Dade’s new job numbers were easily the most discouraging data set in Florida’s latest employment report. Florida reported an unemployment rate of 8 percent for December, down from 8.1 percent in November even though hiring is down for the year. And Broward recorded its second month of job gains, up about 5,000 positions.

Construction and government hiring have been rocky for years in South Florida, but the decline in the healthcare could mark a new, disturbing milestone for Miami-Dade’s economy. Before the end of 2012, Miami-Dade hospitals hadn’t reported a net job loss for 56 months. The losses follow significant layoffs at both the University of Miami medical school and the Jackson hospital system.

Miami-Dade’s 8.8 percent unemployment rate is still significantly lower than where it was a year ago, when unemployment sat at 10.2 percent in December 2011. Monthly employment reports also subject to revisions, so the hiring picture could look much better in a month. Still, Miami-Dade’s increase of four-tenths of percentage point in the unemployment rate is the fastest growth since April 2009, two months before the 2007-09 recession officially ended.

Of all the local job markets, only Miami-Dade receives a seasonally adjusted unemployment rate on the same day as the statewide report. The smaller markets’ raw rates aren’t considered as reliable.

Broward’s raw unemployment rate was 6.7 percent in December, down from 7 percent in November.

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Sen. Marco Rubio to swear in Miami-Dade commissioner Rebeca Sosa on Friday

Miami-Dade Commissioners Rebeca Sosa becomes Miami-Dade commission’s first Hispanic chairwoman when she is sworn in on Friday by U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio.

Also being sworn in is fellow commissioner Lynda Bell, who is now the vice chair. Miami-Dade County Judge Gladys Perez will swear in Bell

The installation ceremony will be at 11:30 a.m. ceremony at the commission chambers at the Stephen Clark Center, 111 NW First St.

First elected in 2001, Sosa represents District 6, which includes areas of Miami, Coral Gables, West Miami, Hialeah and Miami Springs, as well as unincorporated zones.

Sosa’s office explained the Florida Senator is doing the honors at the historic swearing in because the two are long-time friends.

Bell who was elected in 2010 represents District 8, which encompasses a significant area of southeastern Miami-Dade, including the municipalities of Palmetto Bay, Cutler Bay and Homestead with portions of Kendall an the Redlands.

Sosa and Bell won two-year terms in November.

The installation ceremony is open to the public.

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Mo. lawmaker wants tax on violent video games

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Republican lawmaker from rural Missouri bucked her party’s anti-tax bent on Tuesday and called for a sales tax on violent video games in response to a deadly Connecticut school shooting.

Rep. Diane Franklin, of Camdenton, said the proposed 1 percent sales tax would help pay for mental health programs and law enforcement measures aimed at preventing mass shootings. The tax would be levied on video games rated “teen,” ”mature” and “adult-only” by the Entertainment Software Rating Board, the organization in charge of rating video games.

The rating board classifies games as “teen” if they contain violence, suggestive themes and crude humor. The popular music game “Guitar Hero” has a teen rating and would be taxed under Franklin’s plan. Another popular title, “Call of Duty,” has a mature rating and also would be subject to the sales tax. “Mature” games are deemed suitable for people 17 and older and may contain intense violence and gore.

“History shows there is a mental health component to these shootings,” Franklin said, referring to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that killed 20 students and six adults in Newtown, Conn., and the Aurora, Colo., movie theater shooting that left 14 dead.

Franklin’s plan is the latest in a string of measures proposed in response to recent mass shootings. Another Missouri Republican has filed a measure that would allow teachers to carry guns in the classroom. On the national level, Vice President Joe Biden is leading an effort to reduce gun violence and is expected to reveal recommendations Wednesday that include steps to improve school safety and mental health care, as well as address violence in entertainment and video games.

Franklin’s proposal already faces opposition from the Entertainment Software Association, which represents companies that publish computer and video games.

“Taxing First Amendment protected speech based on its content is not only wrong, but will end up costing Missouri taxpayers,” the association said in a written statement.

Tax increases typically are a hard sell in Missouri. This past November, voters rejected a proposed tobacco tax increase for the third time in a decade, choosing instead to leave the state’s cigarette tax at the lowest level in the nation. Republican legislative leaders and Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon both have taken stands against tax increases.

Other proposals to tax violent video games failed in Oklahoma in 2012 and New Mexico in 2008. In Oklahoma, Republican state Rep. William Fourkiller had proposed a violent video games tax to combat childhood obesity and school bullying, but his plan failed to make it out of a committee.

Other non-tax efforts to curb the effect of violent video games also have fallen short. U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W. Va., put forward a measure last year for the study of the impact of violent video games on children, but it failed. A California law banning the sale of violent games to minors was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2011.

The Entertainment Merchant’s Association sent a letter to Biden last week urging him to look elsewhere when it comes to his plans on gun violence.

“Make no mistake: blaming movies and video games is an attempt to distract the attention of the public and the media from meaningful action that will keep our children safer,” wrote the merchant’s association, a lobbying group for the home entertainment industry.

Others, however, have criticized the video game industry and its role in mass shootings.

“There exists in this country a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people,” National Rifle Association Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre said at a December news conference.

Franklin said she hopes her bill will “start a discussion” on the relationship between violent games and mental illness. Franklin, who has a granddaughter in kindergarten, added she is concerned about the safety of schools and universities in the state.

In 2008, there were 298 million video games sold in the U.S., generating $ 11.7 billion in revenue. Six of the 10 best-selling games included violence, and four carried a “mature” rating.

Franklin’s bill was formally introduced Monday and must be referred and approved by a committee before being considered on the House floor.

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Catfish Creator Talks Manti Teo and Kekua

The story of Notre Dame All-American linebacker Manti Te'o, and the hoax he reportedly perpetuated, has captivated both sports-lovers and novices alike. In short, Te'o had started an online relationship with a woman who used the phony name Lennay Kekua, and fooled the athlete into believing she died of leukemia in September. Te'o was vocal about Kekua's battle, further endearing him to the Football nation.

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But on Wednesday, Te'o's story was exposed as a lie in the press, 10 days after he reportedly learned of the hoax himself. The rub is that, despite learning that Kekua was a fraud on December 6, he continued to talk about her battle with leukemia in interviews on December 8 and again in a newspaper interview published Dec. 10, according to The Huffington Post.

Putting aside Te'o's potential perpetuation of this hoax for personal gain (some have posited he did so to further endear himself to Heisman Trophy judges), this phenomenon is not only becoming increasingly more commonplace, but it's a full-fledged TV phenomenon thanks to MTV's Catfish, based on the 2010 documentary.

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Nev Schulman, the original "Catfish," Tweeted on January 16, "I am working on finding out more about this @MTeo_5 #Catfish story. I have been in contact with the woman involved and will get the truth." He later Tweeted at Manti, saying, "I know how you feel. It happened 2 me. I want 2 help tell ur story & prevent this from happening to others in the future. Lets talk."

Nev's brother, and Catfish co-producer, Ariel Schulman appeared on Good Morning America minutes ago and revealed that while Manti hasn't returned their interview requests, they have learned quite a bit about what happened behind the scenes.

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"[Nev and Catfish co-host Max Joseph have] uncovered a few people who were duped by the fake Kekua character," Ariel told George Stephanopoulos. "It's bigger than Manti, there were other people she was corresponding with."

When asked why Te'o would carry on a relationship with someone he'd never met, Schulman explained, "I think when you want something bad enough, in his case, a connection, you'll ignore the red flags. My gut is that there's a lonely person behind it all who didn't expect it to go this far. My guess is there was no malicious intent and it was just two people looking for love."

For more on MTV's Catfish, click here!

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