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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Parents of students at Broward school warned of Legionnaires’ Disease exposure

Parents of students at Olsen Middle School in Dania Beach were being informed on Tuesday that their children may have been exposed to someone diagnosed with Legionnaires’ Disease, Broward School District officials said.

The person with Legionnaires’ Disease was not a student, district spokeswoman Nadine Drew said. They did not say if the infected person was a teacher.

Automated ‘robo-calls’ were made to the telephones of Olsen Middle School parents that explained how the district was working with the Broward Health Department

To read the entire Sun Sentinel story click here.

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Jessica Chastain on Top Secret Zero Dark Thirty Shoot

The black ops mission to capture or kill Osama bin Laden was as top secret as they come and, as it turns out, so was the feature film adaptation of the true-life story. 

In fact, Zero Dark Thirty's cast, headlined by Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke and Kyle Chandler were forbidden to speak a word of the hush-hush project to the press which caused a few problems for one cast member in particular.

Video: 'Zero Dark' Stars on Emotional 9/11 Connection

"As soon as I was cast I wanted to just scream it from the rooftops," revealed Chastain of the moment she found out she'd nabbed the part of Maya, a CIA analyst who anchors the film's hunt for bin Laden.

Speaking with ET at the Los Angeles Premiere, the much-buzzed-about star says, along with wanting to share her accomplishment, she longed to correct the misinformation being circulated about the flick.

Video: How 'Zero Dark Thirty' Copied Bin Laden's Compound

"I had to keep it a secret for a whole year and press was coming out saying that they were speculating that I was playing the wife of a SEAL, which just sort of made me more mad," she explained. "But I had to keep my tongue."

Zero Dark Thirty, helmed by Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow, is out in limited release December 19.

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Iran’s panic = Obama’s opportunity

Amir Taheri

For the past few months, Iran’s rulers have shown growing signs of panic.

Transformed into pulpits, the state-owned media showcase one mullah after another in a campaign of “stiffening Islamic resistance.” The regime’s various military arms are organizing rival exercises with the claim that the Islamic Republic is “ready for all eventualities.”

Meanwhile, people are selling whatever they can, and emptying their savings, to dump the rial, the national currency, and buy dollars and/or gold.

For his part, “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei has broken his tradition of remaining in seclusion to embark on tours of several provinces. Yet his message of “don’t panic” sounds hollower each time.

Observers agree that the Tehran rulers haven’t manifested such panic since 2003, when they believed that the American “Great Satan,” having deposed the despot Saddam Hussein, would turn on them next.

This time, no one fears a US invasion. If anything, the mullahs hope to save themselves by leading the Obama administration down the garden path.

The somber mood in Tehran is prompted by several factors.

The first is deepening divisions within the regime as it prepares for another tricky presidential election in June. Though every such election is stage-managed, none has passed smoothly. The 2009 election provoked uprisings that were crushed with massive brutality.

This time, the regime faces a split: One faction, led by outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is trying to retain power by fielding a candidate and “arranging” a victory. Its candidate is Esfandiar Rahim Masha’i, a homespun philosopher believed to be Ahmadinejad’s guru. Khamenei loyalists fear that Masha’i plans to push the mullahs out of politics in the name of Iranian nationalism.

The second source of panic is the economic crisis prompted by continued drop in the value of the rial. This has led to mass unemployment and flight of capital on an unprecedented scale.

The regional political landscape is also changing against the regime. The Arab Spring has led to the emergence of new Arab regimes dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood — a Sunni Muslim movement hostile to Shiism, the majority faith in Iran.

Tehran is also near the point of losing its chief Arab ally, Syrian despot Bashar al-Assad, as rebels pursue their thrust into Damascus. And loss of Syria could also mean the end of the Lebanese branch of Hezbollah — and thus the loss to Tehran of an instrument of terror against Israel and the United States.

The Iranian regime is also contemplating the erosion of its influence with Hamas, the group controlling Gaza. In recent weeks, a coalition of Egypt, Jordan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia has persuaded Hamas’ leaders to distance themselves from Tehran.

Last month, Iran’s foreign minister asked to visit Gaza to celebrate what he termed “the success of Fajr 5 missile” supplied by Tehran and used by Hamas against Israel. He got no invitation because Hamas, already promised $400 million by Qatar, feels its bread is buttered more thickly by the oil-rich Arab states than by an Iran whose economy is in free fall.

Tehran is also losing influence in Iraq. One sign is Baghdad’s decision to challenge Iran by fielding a candidate for OPEC secretary-general. Coveting the post, Iran has worked hard to win it with help from Venezuela.

But then Tehran may soon also lose Venezuela, its staunchest ally, as President Hugo Chavez faces yet another round of cancer treatments. The rest of the Chavista establishment has never shared “El Loco’s” enthusiasm for alliance with Tehran.

But the “Great Satan” might ride to the regime’s rescue. President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have hinted at such a possibility by offering “direct and unconditional talks” with Tehran.

Such talks could torpedo negotiations with the 5+1 group (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany). The argument would be to put off 5+1 negotiations, which focus on the nuclear issue, pending the outcome of Iran-US talks.

That, in turn, would mean putting five Security Council resolutions on the backburner for an unknown period — since Tehran could drag talks with America as it’s done under every US administration (except that of George W. Bush) since 1979.

The perception that tension is easing with the United States would immediately boost Iran’s economy, relieving pressure on the rial and slowing the capital haemorrhage.

And, as with previous talks with America, regime factions would close ranks pending the outcome of the high-stakes negotiations.

Obama could put the panic in Tehran to better use. He should throw his weight behind the 5+1 negotiations by making his offer of “direct talks” conditional on success on the nuclear issue, where Iran faces the whole United Nations and not America alone. Talks on bilateral Iran-US issues could start once Tehran has at last complied with the five Security Council resolutions.

The offer of direct talks should be used as an incentive to Iran to stop its defiance of the United Nations. Otherwise, Tehran will see the offer as another sign of US weakness, and be encouraged to continue thumbing its nose at the 5+1.

Have a comment on this PostOpinion column? Send it in to LETTERS@NYPOST.COM!

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Tips for managing workplace stress

There are end of the year deals to close, budgets to meet, gifts to buy, and just thinking about it has your stress level rising. But when does stress turn into distress and at what point should your employer intervene?

For American workers, coping with workplace stress is a year-round concern that employers are beginning to see as partly their responsibility. Three-fourths of employees believe that workers have more on-the-job stress than a generation ago and nearly half say they need help in learning how to manage it, an Attitudes in the American workplace study by the American Institute of Stress shows.

Most of us harried workers struggle with the daily pressure of time demands, but some cross over into the danger zone. The telltale sign that a breakdown is near is a complete lack of work-life balance.

“Often these are the people working 14 hours a day and expecting others to do it, too,” said Charles Nemeroff, chairman of the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. “I’ll ask them when is the last time you had fun and they look at me like are you kidding?”

Service professionals such as lawyers, financial advisors, accountants and doctors particularly are susceptible with increased client demands and technology making it more difficult to shut off job stress. Often they push themselves harder and harder to achieve.

Attorney Harley Tropin, a shareholder at Kozyak Tropin & Throckmorton, just doesn’t see that formula leading to a long career. He wants to help his lawyers strive for balance and change the way their brains and bodies react to stressors. Last month, he brought in medical experts to help them identify stressors and learn coping skills such as breathing and meditation. “It’s important to deal with stress the right way, to make a conscious effort to do something about it and not assume it will take care of itself,” Tropin says.

Tropin personally defuses the stress of arguing in court, by practicing Mindful Meditation, a widely adopted form of meditation that has become increasingly popular with business leaders. It involves focusing on your mind on the present and becoming aware of your breathing.

Alan Gold, a federal judge for the Southern District of Florida, also practices mindfulness meditation and has become a proponent of teaching practices for stress reduction to attorneys. Gold has advocated for the creation of a task force on the mindful practice of law with the Dade County Bar Association and the local Federal Bar Association.

Gold says he regularly sees attorneys shuffle into his courtroom on the brink of a breakdown. He links erosion in the degree of civility in the profession with lawyers’ inability to cope with extreme stresses.

They may lash out in anger at a co-worker, assistant, client — or even a judge.

“If you recognize you’re in this situation, the next step is to get out of it. The quickest and simplest way is to slow down and take time to focus on your breathing. This is not something that comes naturally for lawyers. It’s counterproductive to their bottom line way of doing business,” he says.

Outside of meditation, some employers are turning to on-site yoga, or just simply workload management to help employees better manage stress. At Kane & Company, a South Florida CPA firm, employees recently learned from a psychologist how to become more effective controlling their job-related stress. Suggestions included breathing exercises, exercise in general and focusing on relaxation techniques. Monte Kane, the firm’s managing director, says the workshops help his staff with everyday stress, but he makes it his responsibility to know when they have entered the burnout zone.

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Bal Harbour police chief suspended amid new allegations of misconduct

Bal Harbour Police Chief Thomas Hunker has been suspended with pay following the release of a U.S. Justice Department report that slams the small police agency for allegedly misspending millions in drug money seized from criminals. The report also fingers Hunker for professional misconduct.

Hunker, 61, was sidelined with pay while an outside law enforcement agency investigates the allegations, according to a written statement issued by Jay Smith, the village’s human resources director.

“Chief Hunker requested that an investigation be conducted, and requested to be placed on leave to ensure the integrity of the investigation,’’ the statement said.

Treppeda and Bal Harbour Mayor Jean Rosenfield did not return repeated calls for comment.

The Justice Department also is looking into Bal Harbour’s handling of millions earned from laundering the money of drug dealers as part of ongoing, undercover investigations of criminal networks around the country.

Hunker, who has been chief since 2003, is about to complete the third year of a four-year employment contract that pays him a base salary of $141,959.80 a year, and provides him with a car, health insurance and a pension plan. In Hunker’s absence, Capt. Michael Daddario has been named acting chief.

In October, The Miami Herald reported that the village police department — a small-town force previously known for writing traffic tickets — conducts undercover operations all over the country targeting drug dealers. Records show the agency doled out $624,558 in payments to informants in less than four years, and ran up $23,704 in one month for cross-country trips with first-class flights and luxury car rentals.

In a rare move, federal agents froze millions that Bal Harbour helped confiscate under the program, and the Justice Department now wants the village to return more than $4 million.

The latest allegations against Hunker are outlined in an investigative report by the Justice Department Office of Inspector General. Among the specifics:

• Hunker conducted unauthorized checks of national criminal records databases for individuals who did not have access to those systems;

• Hunker provided individuals with honorary BHPD badges and identification and has influenced potential arrests and prosecutions;

• Hunker received multiple gifts from people who may have benefitted from the chief’s influence;

• Hunker ordered a police officer out of a marked vehicle and allowed an intoxicated individual to drive the vehicle on the beach;

• Hunker’s wife received a “deal’’ on her personal Jeep after BHPD purchased several police vehicles from the dealership;

• Hunker hired the son of a personal friend who was dismissed from the Miami-Dade Police Academy for cheating;

• BHPD-documented overtime related to money laundering investigations was inflated and abused. Specifically, that [a BHPD sergeant] inflated his overtime so that his pension is currently approximately $130,000 per year;

• BHPD improperly paid its informants.

Hunker referred all questions to his criminal defense attorney, Richard Sharpstein, who said the report reads like an irresponsible work of fiction, and that all the charges against the chief will be disproven.

“It’s shocking and extremely disappointing to think that the Justice Department would release these allegations, which are nothing more than the misdirected and misguided ranting of some obviously disgruntled individuals,’’ Sharpstein said. “They’re going to have egg on their face.’’

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Massive HP conference draws 10,000 attendees to ogle products, speakers, presentations

By Suzy Hansen

More than 10,000 customers, partners and attendees flocked to the Hewlett-Packard Discover conference in Frankfurt, Germany, this week to learn about HP’s latest products, exchange ideas, swap business cards and basically examine whether HP can improve the way their companies are run. The event was held at Messe Frankfurt, one of the world’s largest trade exhibition sites.

CEO Meg Whitman acknowledged in her speech on Tuesday that HP has gone through some rough times this past year. HP’s stock price has been nearly halved during her tenure. Whitman, however, pointed out that HP has $ 120 billion in revenue and is the 10th-largest company in the United States. In Q4, HP has generated $ 4.1 billion in cash flow.

“We are the No. 1 or No. 2 provider in almost every market,” Whitman told the crowd in Frankfurt.

Whitman emphasized  executives’ increasing concerns about security and said that it will be addressed by “a new approach”: HP’s security portfolio, with Autonomy and Vertica, which helps “analyze and understand the context of these events.” Executive Vice President of Enterprise Dave Donatelli spoke about converged infrastructure, or bringing together server, network and storage; their software-defined data centers; and their new servers, which “change the way servers have been defined.” George Kadifa, executive vice president of software, said 94 of the top 100 companies use HP software. HP is the sixth-largest software company in the world, with 16,000 employees in 70 countries, Kadifa added.

Also at the conference was Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of DreamWorks and an old friend of Whitman’s from their Disney days, who roused the crowd with a fun speech about his long relationship with HP. Katzenberg showed an old video of himself onstage with a lion, which nearly mauled him. This time, he appeared onstage with a guy in a lion suit. The lesson was to learn from past mistakes and move on.

“If I am smart enough to say ‘scalable multicorps processing,’ I am smart enough to not put myself onstage with a real lion again,” he joked.

The Discover conference is a key vehicle for HP to show off products it’s offering in the coming year. Among them were the latest ProLiant and Integrity servers, the 3PAR StoreServ 7000 and the StoreAll and StoreOnce storage systems. At the HP Labs section of the conference, attendees could learn about the cloud infrastructure or test HP’s new ElitePad 900.

Throughout the three-day event, which saw attendance grow by 30 percent this year, attendees wandered the enormous halls, milling around displays, watching videos, listening to speeches and participating in workshops. People gathered on clustered couches and chatted with new acquaintances, frequently stopping to plug in their various devices and recharge themselves with coffee. With people coming from all over the world, you could hear many languages spoken, from Arabic to French to the most bewildering of them all: the language of technology. Despite the large crowds, it was hard not to notice there were very few women among the thousands in attendance. In fact, when asked about this phenomenon, one female HP employee said, “Trust me, you aren’t the first person who has come up to me asking about this.”

Indeed, the Discover conference was like a forest of men in suits. The few women stood out like rays of sunlight. 

Regardless of their presence at this conference, women are making big strides in information technology. Among the leaders are HP CEO Whitman, who also led eBay; Carly Fiorina, who ran HP before Whitman; Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer; and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. Were the women at the Discover conference surprised by the low female turnout?

“No, for IT this is standard,” said Stefanie, a 30-year-old product manager from Germany. “Many are afraid of all the technical stuff, and you have to prove that you are capable of it. You get more women in retail and distribution but not in high-tech areas, at least not in Europe. In America there are more women in management positions and in general.”

Americans might assume that Europe, with its generous social programs that include free daycare, enables more women to ascend the corporate ladder. But that still doesn’t mean that a woman trying to balance a high-tech career and a family is always accepted in European society.

“There is still a lot of emphasis on the family,” Stefanie said. “It’s easier to move up in the U.S., where there is a culture of ‘having it all.’ It’s quite a fight to get there here.”

Still, the IT industry might seem inhospitable to women. Could this male-dominated profession be male-dominant because women have a hard time breaking in?

Stefanie disagreed. “No, they actually like working with women,” she said. “They want to.”

One male conference attendee, who asked not to be named, was less certain.

“There’s a lot of ego and testosterone,” he said. “It can’t be easy” for women.

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Ariel Winter's Mom Sues for Alleged Defamation

Chrisoula 'Crystal' Workman, the mother of Modern Family's Ariel Winter, has sued one of her daughter's associates for alleged defamation, according to The Associated Press.

RELATED: Ariel Winter's Sister Continues Temporary Custody

The news source reports that the defamation suit cites an online comment that actor Matthew Borlenghi allegedly made, referring to Workman as an "abusive monster."

Winter, 14, is currently under the temporary custody of her sister Shanelle Gray, 34. The trial to determine whether Gray will gain permanent custody of her sister is set to begin Wednesday.

Workman lost custody of Ariel in October after court documents were filed, claiming that Ariel "has been the victim of ongoing physical abuse (slapping, hitting, pushing) and emotional abuse (vile name calling, personal insults about minor and minor's height, attempts to 'sexualize' minor, deprivation of food, etc.) for an extended period of time by the minor's mother ..."

Crystal denies the allegations, telling ET, "I love my daughter. I want to reunite our family. All allegations are false. Please pray for my family."

Earlier today, the AP reported that Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Levanas added more days of testimony (January 8 and 9), saying that he was doing so to "allow time for the testimony of a witness, [Jonathan Hay]."

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Cops hunting Bronx rape suspect

A sicko followed a young woman into a Bronx apartment building and brutally raped her, cops said today.

The creep stalked the 21-year-old woman as she walked on East 143rd Street in Mott Haven around 1:30 a.m. Sunday, cops said.

He forced the woman into a stairwell, where he raped her.

The suspect is described by cops as a black man in his 20s, about 5’7” tall and has a bump on his left cheek.

He was wearing black sweatpants, a black hooded sweatshirt and a Yankees cap.

Sketch of Bronx rape suspect.

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AutoNation: Back in the fast lane with expansion, higher sales

Despite an agonizingly slow economic recovery, the country’s largest auto retailer, Fort Lauderdale-based AutoNation, is thriving again as demand for vehicles expands.

The company, one of Florida’s largest, is posting increasingly strong profits and revenues. Just last week, in a sign of confidence, Autonation announced a major acquisition — buying six large auto stores in Texas — that will add about 700 employees to its national payroll of 19,400.

In announcing the deal Tuesday, which is expected to provide AutoNation with $575 million in additional revenues next year, the company’s CEO and chairman, Mike Jackson, expressed optimism about the prospects for continued growth in vehicle sales.

“You want to know what I’m thinking, look at what I do,” Jackson told viewers on CNBC’s Squawk Box program.

No information was released on the cost of the transactions, but in recent years auto dealerships sometimes sold for three to five times revenue, which would represent a significant investment for the company.

Tough times

To be sure, AutoNation has struggled through some tough times. It was battered by the Great Recession, which depressed sales and pushed the company into a $1.2 billion loss four years ago. As sales began to improve in 2010 and 2011, it was blindsided by a shortage of Japanese-made cars last year after the earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 shut down Japanese manufacturers of some essential components.

Since then, however, AutoNation has rebounded. Unit sales, revenues and profits all performed well in the first three quarters of this year, and the company expects new vehicle sales to continue their recovery nationwide, rising to the mid-14 million units this year, up from about 12.7 million in 2011. In the third quarter of 2012, AutoNation’s new car unit sales grew by 21 percent over the same period in 2011, doing better than an estimated 15 percent increase industry wide. November’s sales of new vehicles increased by 21 percent over November 2011 .

The big dealerships acquired sell Audi, Porsche, Volkswagen and Chrysler products in the Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth markets. They are expected to sell 14,000 new and used autos this year, and will add substantially to AutoNation’s future sales.

“We are in the right industry at the right time,” Jackson said during an interview. “The recovery in new vehicle sales is being driven by replacement demand,” added Jackson, who has 42 years of experience in the auto business. “The average age of the light vehicle fleet in the country has increased to 11 years, and even though cars and trucks last longer today, they can’t go on forever. About 12 to 13 million vehicles are scrapped every year and need to be replaced.”

Other factors are contributing to stronger demand for vehicles. “The population is growing, interest rates are low, there is ample credit available and manufacturers are producing a wide range of new models that offer attractive styling, power and greatly improved gas mileage,” said Jackson, who took over as AutoNation’s CEO in 1999. “Auto financing is more available than it has been in recent years. A little known fact is that people are more likely to default on a mortgage than on a vehicle loan.”

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