Carnival ship fire quickly extinguished as ship wallows in Gulf awaiting tug

The Carnival Triumph, a Galveston, Texas-based passenger cruise ship with the theme “Great Cities Around the World,” might have been better off sitting at port, as a court initially ordered.

As of Monday morning the 14-year old ship was going nowhere, operating on emergency generator power after a fire Sunday in one of the diesel generators killed its propulsion. The fire was quickly put out by an automatic fire extinguishing system, and none of the 4,229 passengers or crew are said to be in any danger

All were waiting patiently as a giant tug boat trudged toward the Triumph, now operating under generator power, with the intention of hauling the 100,000 ton, 893-foot vessel to the nearest port in Progreso, Mexico. It is expected in port some time Wednesday afternoon. Carnival Cruise Lines headquarters are in Miami-Dade.

“The cause of the fire is still to be determined,” said Carnival spokesman Vance Guliksen. In a brief news release, Guliksen said “there were no casualties to guests or crew.”

He said all passengers will be flown back to the United States and will be fully refunded.. Carnival said it will cover any additional transportation expenses. Passengers will also receive a free future cruise.

As of 11 a.m. Tuesday another Carnival ship, the Carnival Elation, was on the scene transferring food and beverages.

According to Carnival, some basic auxiliary power has been restored, cabin toilets are working on part of the ship and some elevators are operational. The dining areas are serving hot coffee and limited hot food.

The $420 million Triumph made news early last year after the family of a German tourist killed in the Costa Concordia disaster in the Mediterranean filed a $10 million lawsuit against Carnival. A judge found the family had standing, and ordered the ship held at port in Galveston. The court later allowed the ship to move between ports until a hearing takes place.

The lawsuit contends that Carnival Cruise Lines is the corporate parent of the Costa Concordia.

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Kerry Washington Channing Tatum Independent Spirit Awards Presenters Exclusive

Given their host (Joel McHale, Rainn Wilson, Seth Rogen, John Waters, Andy Samberg) and nominee track record, The Film Independent Spirit Awards have long been one of my favorite award shows -- and don't even get me started on the sublime singing!

RELATED - Who's Presenting at The Oscars

This year's ceremony is set to be their most star-studded to date. Not only are Jennifer Lawrence, Matthew McConaughey, Bruce Willis nominated, but ETonline can exclusively reveal that Kerry Washington, Channing Tatum, Kyle MacLachlan and Zachary Booth will be presenters on the big night!

McConaughey earned one of his two 2013 nominations for Tatum's movie, Magic Mike, while Booth's insanely good indie, Keep The Lights On, scored nods for Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Male Lead.

RELATED - 2013 Spirit Award Nominations

MacLachlan has been a Spirit Awards staple since Blue Velvet dominated the 1987 ceremony and Washington was nominated for Best Female Lead for 2002's Lift.

The 2013 Film Independent Spirit Awards air February 23 at 10 p.m. on IFC.

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Doctor slapped with 55-count indictment for allegedly selling pain killers to drug dealers

A doctor was slapped with a 55-count indictment today on charges he allegedly sold prescriptions of oxycodone and other highly addictive pain killers to drug dealers from his Manhattan and Rockland County offices, state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced.

The indictment also charges Dr. David Brizer with illegally possessing controlled substances and underreporting his income by at least $500,000 on his state personal income tax returns for 2011 and 2010.

According to the indictment, Brizer, 60, charged his customers up to $300 each time he sold them illegally sold prescriptions for several millions of dollars worth of pills out of his offices at 48 Burd Street in Nyack and 244 W. 54th St. in Manhattan.

Dr. David Brizer.

“Instead of saving lives, Dr. Brizer used his position to supply drug dealers and feeds a prescription drug epidemic that is devastating families across our state,” Schneiderman said.

“The message is clear – whether you are a doctor or a criminal on the street, my office will prosecute those profiting off the cycle of abuse.”

Brizer is charged with two counts of criminal tax fraud, 34 counts of criminal sale of a prescription of a controlled substance, 15 counts of criminal possession of a controlled substance, two counts of offering a false instrument for filing, as well as a scheme to defraud and conspiracy charges. All are felony counts and he faces up to seven years in prison.

Brizer allegedly issued fraudulent prescriptions for fake patient, or those in the names of people who had no knowledge he was doing so.

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Green cards for sale at a South Beach hotel: Competition is on for EB5 investment visas

If David Hart gets his way, South Beach’s 42-room Astor Hotel will be on a hiring spree this year as it adds concierge service, a roof-top pool, an all-night diner, spa and private-car service available 24 hours a day.

New hires will be crucial to Hart’s business plan, since foreign investors have agreed to pay about $50,000 for each job created by the Art Deco boutique.

The Miami immigration lawyer specializes in arranging visas for wealthy foreign citizens under a special program that trades green cards for investment dollars. Businesses get the money and must use it to boost payroll. The minimum investment is $500,000 to add at least 10 jobs to the economy. That puts the pressure on Hart and his partners at the Astor to beef up payroll dramatically, with plans to take a hotel with roughly 20 employees to one with as many as 100 workers.

“My primary responsibility is to make something happen here over the next two years that will create the jobs we need,’’ Hart said a few steps away from a nearly empty restaurant on a recent weekday morning. “It’s all going to be transformed.”

Though established in the 1990s, the “EB5” visas soared in popularity during the recession as developers sought foreign cash to replace dried-up credit markets in the United States.

Chinese investors dominate the transactions, accounting for about 65 percent of the nearly 9,000 EB5 visas granted since 2006. South Korea finishes a distant second at 12 percent and the United Kingdom holds the third-place slot at 3 percent. If Latin America and the Caribbean were one country, they would rank No. 4 on the list, with 231 EB5 visas granted, or about 3 percent of the total.

Competition has gotten stiffer for the deep-pocketed foreign investors willing to pay for green cards. The University of Miami’s bio-science research park near the Jackson hospital system raised $20 million from 40 foreign investors under the EB5 program, most of them from Asia. The money went into the park’s first building; visa brokers are waiting to see if the second building will proceed so they can offer a new pool of potential green-card sales.

In Hollywood, the stalled $131 million Margaritaville resort had hoped to raise about $75 million from EB5 investors before ditching that plan last year to pursue more traditional financing. A retail complex by developer Jeff Berkowitz in Coral Gables also launched a program to raise $50 million in EB5 money for the project, Gables Station. Hart worked with other EB5 investors to back pizza restaurants in Miami and South Beach. A limestone mine in Martin County also was backed by EB5 dollars.

This year, the city of Miami itself is expected to get into the business by setting up an EB5 program to raise foreign cash for a range of city businesses and developments. The first would be the tallest building in the city — developer Tibor Hollo’s planned 85-story apartment tower, the Panorama, in downtown Miami.

With a construction cost of about $700 million, Miami’s debut EB5 venture hopes to raise about $100 million from foreign investors, said Laura Reiff, the Greenberg Traurig lawyer in Virginia working with Miami on the EB5 effort. “This is a marquis project,’’ she said.

The arrangement is a novel one for Miami, with the city planning to help a private developer raise funds overseas for a new high-rise. And it would allow Hollo and future participants to tout the city of Miami’s endorsement when competing with other Miami-area projects for EB5 dollars. “We will have the benefit of the brand of the city of Miami,’’ said Mikki Canton, the $6,000-a-month city consultant heading Miami’s EB5 effort. “A lot of these others are privately owned and they won’t have that brand.”

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Two Fantasy 5 tickets sold in Broward take $92,069 jackpot

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) – Three tickets, two purchased in Broward County, matched all five Fantasy 5 numbers to collect a jackpot worth $92,069.38 each, the Florida Lottery said Sunday.

The winning tickets were bought in Plantation and Tamarac and in Homosassa, lottery officials said.

The numbers drawn Saturday night were 1-3-16-18-25

The 463 tickets matching four numbers won $96 each.

There was no Florida Lotto winner. The jackpot is now $16 million for Wednesday’s drawing.

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Chris Brown Car Collision

ET has learned that Chris Brown was involved in a solo, non-injury traffic collision in Beverly Hills at noon today, blaming the paparazzi for losing control of his Porsche and colliding with a wall.

Pics: Remembering Whitney Houston

A statement from Lieutenant Lincoln Hoshino of the Beverly Hills police details the incident: "On February 9, 2013 at approximately 12:03 p.m., entertainer Chris Brown was involved in a solo, non-injury traffic collision in the 600 Block Bedford Drive/Camden Drive alley. Mr. Brown was the driver of the vehicle and collided with a wall. Brown stated that he was being chased by paparazzi causing him to lose control of his vehicle. Brown's Black Porsche was towed from the scene at his request."

Related: Rihanna Accompanies Chris Brown to Court

Earlier this week, Brown visited an L.A. courthouse with girlfriend Rihanna on to oppose a motion to revoke his probation stemming from his 2009 assault on Rihanna. Prosecutors claim Brown did not show sufficient evidence that he completed his required community labor sentence. 

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'Identity Thief' steals No. 1 spot at weekend box office

AP

Melissa McCarthy and Jason Bateman in a scene from "Identity Thief"

LOS ANGELES — "Identity Thief" has turned out to be the real thing at the box office.

The comedy starring Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy debuted at No. 1 with a $36.6 million opening weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday.

"Identity Thief" opened solidly despite the winter storm that buried much of the Northeast. Distributor Universal Pictures estimates the storm might have choked off as much as 10 percent of the movie's business.

"It took such a chunk out of the business this weekend. But we can't control Mother Nature," said Nikki Rocco, Universal's head of distribution. "We probably could have hit $40 million if it weren't for the weather this weekend."

The previous weekend's top movie, the zombie romance "Warm Bodies," fell to No. 2 with $11.5 million. That raises its domestic total to $36.7 million.

The weekend's other new wide release, Steven Soderbergh's thriller "Side Effects," had a modest opening of $10 million, coming in at No. 3.

Tom Cruise's 1986 hit "Top Gun" took flight again in theaters with a 3-D reissue that pulled in $1.9 million in narrow release of 300 theaters. The movie has a short run on the big-screen leading up to its Feb. 19 3-D release on DVD and Blu-ray.

Overall domestic revenues were down sharply from a year ago, when four movies had big openings — "The Vow," ''Safe House," ''Journey 2: The Mysterious Island" and a 3-D reissue of "Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace."

Receipts totaled $105 million, down 45 percent from the same weekend last year — which was the only non-holiday weekend to have four movies open with more than $20 million, according to box-office tracker Hollywood.com.

"The same weekend a year ago was such a tremendous weekend," said Hollywood.com analyst Paul Dergarabedian. "It's really tough to live up to a weekend like we had last year. It was sort of a foregone conclusion that this was going to be a down weekend."

"Identity Thief" came in above industry expectations despite the storm and poor reviews for the comedy, which stars Bateman as a man chasing down a con artist (McCarthy) who has racked up thousands of dollars of charges in his name.

The combination of the actors and the premise made it a review-proof comedy, Rocco said.

"I think people just want to be entertained," Rocco said. "The chemistry between Jason and Melissa is the reason why this picture is doing so well."

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Where available, latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

1. "Identity Thief," $36.6 million ($230,000 international).

2. "Warm Bodies," $11.5 million.

3. "Side Effects," $10 million.

4. "Silver Linings Playbook," $6.9 million.

5. "Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters," $5.8 million ($11.6 million international).

6. "Mama," $4.3 million ($6.1 million international).

7. "Zero Dark Thirty," $4 million.

8. "Argo," $2.5 million.

9. "Django Unchained," $2.3 million.

10. "Bullet to the Head," $2 million.

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Mega mansion frenzy: Buyer snaps up Pat Riley’s $16M home to level it, rebuild

Miami Heat President Pat Riley sold his spectacular bayfront mansion in gated Gables Estates for $16.8 million last March.

The 12,856-square-foot Mediterranean-style dream house at 180 Arvida Parkway has a theater, wine cellar, library, and a sprawling pool with waterfalls and an aqua bar.

But that’s all coming down.

Turns out the lure was the lot: a rare fingertip of prime land, nearly two acres, jutting into the turquoise waters of Biscayne Bay.

In December, the buyer — listed as 180 Arvida LLC represented by Miami attorney Mark Hasner — presented the city of Coral Gables with plans to tear down the home, built in 1991, and erect an even grander estate along the 900 linear feet of bayfront.

“Most people would move in and be perfectly happy, but clients are looking for perfection — really good stuff,” said Jorge Uribe, a senior vice president at One Sotheby’s International Realty, who wasn’t involved but sold an even bigger trophy property last year: a $39.4 million estate at 14 Indian Creek Dr., in Indian Creek Village, dubbed “Miami’s Billionaire Bunker” by Forbes magazine.

“The trend in the last several years is a demand for very high-quality product. People are looking for really good locations, really good materials, and they’re willing to pay for it,” Uribe said.

Miami’s ultra-luxury market is on fire. Prices for the fanciest single-family homes and condominiums have soared to levels never before seen in the area, fueled by strong foreign demand and renewed interest from New Yorkers and others in the Northeast.

With Miami’s global image burnished by Art Basel Miami Beach and the debut of other cultural and entertainment venues, the city is emerging as an even greater magnet for the world’s super-rich.

In January, a penthouse at the Setai Resort & Residences on Miami Beach fetched $27 million, a new high for a Miami-Dade condominium. “Every building we do business in is at its highest price of all time,” said Mark Zilbert, president of Zilbert International Realty, which represented the buyer in the Setai deal.

Last August, a sleek, new home, built on spec at 3 Indian Creek Dr., sold for $47 million, a record high for a Miami-Dade residence. The buyer, whose identity has not been revealed, is Russian.

“People are realizing how valuable the bay waterfront is,” said Oren Alexander, co-founder of the Alexander Group at Douglas Elliman Real Estate, who co-listed the 3 Indian Creek property with The Jills team at Coldwell Banker and represented the buyer for the home. His father, Shlomy Alexander, developed the property with partner Felix Cohen.

Shlomy Alexander is working on two more extravagant spec homes — one at 30 Indian Creek Dr. and a second that is set to break ground shortly at 252 Bal Bay Dr. in Bal Harbour, his son said. Plans envision a tropical modern-style project that fuses the indoors and outdoors — a concept popular in Brazil.

The elder Alexander recently traveled to Italy to shop for exclusive stone for the projects, said the son.

“It’s really trending to the ultra-luxury. All sorts of exotic materials — exotic woods, exotic marbles, exotic stones,” said Sean Murphy, an executive vice president at Coastal Construction, a major builder of luxury hotels and condominiums that also has erected some of the most extravagant mansions in the region. “Everything is so exotic.”

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Miami-Dade police officer convicted in lewdness case

A Miami-Dade police officer, who routinely stopped women drivers without cause and engaged in lewd conversations, was convicted in federal court Friday.

Prabhainjana Dwivedi, a seven-year veteran, was found guilty on six of seven counts of depriving people of their civil rights. He was found not guilty on the seventh count involving an undercover police officer.

Following the ruling, U.S. District Judge Jose Martinez immediately remanded Dwivedi back into custody pending sentencing scheduled for sometime in April, according to prosecutor Karen Gilbert. The trial began Monday.

Dwivedi faces up to a year in prison for each count.

A grand jury indicted Dwivedi after he was arrested by FBI agents Sept. 5 at Miami-Dade police headquarters.

Dwivedi, 33, was charged after an investigation into complaints filed for stops made in May and June of 2011 in which he detained “numerous women” for “unreasonable” length of time “without probable cause, reasonable suspicion or other lawful authority to conduct a stop,” a criminal complaint said.

None of the questionable stops were ever listed on his daily reports or called into dispatch.

According to the complaint, Dwivedi who worked overnight patrolling an area from Key Biscayne to Jackson Memorial Hospital, stopped a 24-year-old bartender who was driving from South Beach to Broward County on her way home from work at about 5:30 a.m. on June 25, 2011, in the area of the Golden Glades interchange.

The bartender, identified as M.F., was accused by Dwivedi of driving under the influence. Pleading her innocence, she requested to have a sobriety test performed. Her request was refused.

Noticing a child’s safety seat in the back seat, Dwivedi threatened M.F. that she would lose custody of her son if she were to be arrested on DUI charges, the criminal complaint said. Then the conversation turned sexual.

According to the complaint, Dwivedi, began to inquire about her surgically enhanced breasts and asked “if she had any scars or incisions from the surgery.”

Dwivedi then asked to see the scars. M.F. obeyed, lifting her shirt and exposing her breasts.

According to the complaint written by FBI special agent Susan Funk, “M.F. stated that Dwivedi did not touch her breast.”

, Dwivedi then allowed her to drive home, but said he would follow her to make sure she got safely home. Once at M.F.’s residence, Dwivedi said he was thirsty and asked for a glass of water. Once inside her home, he lingered for an hour speaking of his personal life.

In the end, Dwivedi left without ever reporting anything to dispatch or making any notes of the stop in his daily reports, the criminal complaint said.

A month earlier, Dwivedi made another questionable stop.

According to the complaint, Dwivedi stopped a19-year-old woman at 2:20 a.m. on May 27, 2011, on her way home from a nightclub with two friends. The woman, identified, as A.R., was informed the traffic stop was a result of a failure to turn on her headlights.

Dwivedi also claimed she was driving under the influence, but A.R. disputed the accusation.

A.R. was instructed to sit in the back seat of his marked cruiser and then Dwivedi “instructed A.R. to lower the zipper on the front of her dress down past her breasts to her mid-stomach” according to the complaint.

An hour and 20 minutes later, A.R. was on her way home without any citation and Dwivedi again made no mention or note of the stop, the complaint said.

Miami Herald staff writer Jay Weaver contributed to this report.

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Buzzmakers: David Beckham Strips and Miley Cyrus Loves Her Hair

What had ET readers buzzing this week?

1. David Beckham Strips Down to His Skivvies

He may have a new job with the Paris Saint-Germain team but David Beckham is still finding time to strip down for his American fans. The overwhelmingly good-looking soccer dad shared photos from his new underwear line that he, of course, is modeling. Posting not one, but two shirtless shots, Beckham wrote on his Facebook page: "Here are a few campaign shots from my latest H&M range."

Click here for a closer look at the fashionisto's sexy photos!

2. Miley Cyrus: I'll Never Have Long Hair Again

Though Miley Cyrus' super-short 'do definitely has its fair share of haters, according to Miley herself, she has no intentions of growing it out -- ever.

"You will never see me with long hair again!," she tells E! News. "My fiancé [Liam Hemsworth] loves it…It's so easy and [I] don't need to wash it. It looks better grungy and not washing it."

And clearly, she doesn't miss her formerly long locks "in any way."

"I feel like I had bun every day of my life," she says, referring to her often-copied topknot. "I hated the extensions hair -- that's sewn into your head. It's creepy."

Miley first debuted the drastic cut in August, and seems to be cutting her hair even shorter progressively.

3. Stars Flock to Super Bowl XLVII

Alicia Keys and Jennifer Hudson kicked off the Super Bowl Sunday with stunning renditions of the national anthem and America the Beautiful (respectively).

Check out the pics here!

4. Designer: Beyonce Was 'Losing Weight Every Day'

One of the most anticipated events at this year's Super Bowl was Beyonce's performance during the halftime show and ET spoke exclusively to the superstar's costume designer about her rigorous rehearsals and how much work went into her various outfits.

"When a performer is working so vigorously, they're shrinking constantly, and so she was losing weight every day," fashion designer Rubin Singer told ET. "So we had to keep taking it in and taking it in and taking it in and doing tweaks and changes."

Singer said he was based in New Orleans all last week preparing for Beyonce's Super Bowl performance and that a team of 14 people put about 200 man hours into producing and tweaking the costumes. "When you have the dress rehearsals and you actually get to see the footage the next day, or that night, and you see all the little nuances that you need to change," he said.

In addition to Beyonce's costumes, Singer also created the outfits for former Destiny's Child band member Michelle Williams as well as the jackets for the show's 120 backup dancers.

5. Jennifer Love Hewitt Debuts Lingerie Music Video

Jennifer Love Hewitt's Lifetime series The Client List is known for pushing the envelope with racy story lines and revealing wardrobe. In advance of the show's upcoming second season, we've got a sneak peek of a sexy new music video in which Jennifer sings, struts and strips down to lingerie!

"I had a dream about it in the middle of the night," Jennifer explains about how the video came about. She said she loves the song -- I'm a Woman from the Broadway play Smokey Joe's Cafe -- and thought it would be fun to do something burlesque-oriented "to shake things up a bit."

In the show, Jennifer plays a Texas single mother who secretly also provides sexual favors for money at a day spa. She said one of the things she's most proud of about the show is that she feels it portrays the subject matter in a way that is not degrading to women. "I feel like we've been able to take an unconventional story line and make it female empowerment in some weird way."

Watch the video for scenes from the steamy music video and also to hear Jennifer talk about getting in shape for the shoot and then splurging at the end.

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