Miami police said a 17-year old, identified by his mother as Brandon Allen,  was shot near an apartment building at NW 10th Avenue and 62nd Street, as a group of teens was walking home from school.

Another group of teens drove up, opened fire on Allen and his friends, and fled. Allen was hit a number of times, but nobody else was injured.

Chopper4 over the scene spotted the streets on both sides of the building sealed off by police cars and crime scene tape was stretched across the parking lot. The building is on the same block as the Miami Police Department’s North Station.

Allen was taken to the Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital where he was reported  in critical condition.

Officers in the area were searching for the gunman who they believe may be driving a green Nissan Maxima.

BSO spokesperson Dani Moschella told CBS4′s Maggie Newland that deputies were dispatched to the home on the 900 block of Northeast 48 Street at around 6:30 Thursday night and found a person dead in the front yard.

The man inside the home reportedly threatened officers and claimed to be holding hostages.

“It is unclear how many other hostages he has inside that mobile home,” said Moschella. “We have had intermittent contact with us he is still refusing to come out he is still making threats.”

The suspect eventually released one woman, but it is unclear what her relationship is to the suspect.

Deputies believe the suspect is still holding hostages, but they do not know how many. The deceased person on the scene has not been identified.

Story developing…

“About a-year-and-a-half into owning the TV, it started acting up,” Heermance told CBS4′ Chief Consumer Investigator Al Sunshine.

He told Sunshine that it acted erratic… not always coming on… or taking long periods to power up. That was the same complaint thousands of Samsung owners described on the Internet. Their “nearly new” Samsung TV…” was taking 30-seconds, then 30-minutes, or even longer to come on.

“So you try to turn it on and what happened after a while?” asked Sunshine.

“It would just not come on at all,” replied Heermance.

Because his manufacturers warranty had expired, Heermance figured Samsung wouldn’t help… so he paid $150 to get it fixed on his own.

TV repairman, Cliff Van Allen, showed CBS4 the tiny part causing so many Samsung TV power  failures. It’s called a “capacitor.” Basically, it’s a power storage device.

“It’s not because it’s an inferior product. It’s because the voltage (on the capacitor) is not enough to do the job, said Van Allen, who owns Video Cleaning Repair in Miami.

Rosemary’s shop has also seen a wave of Samsung capacitor problems.

“The power boards are made with capacitors that don’t hold up,” Rosemary said.

Capacitors are only a $3 to $6 part. So cheap, “Fix It Youself” videos are even on YouTube

“It seemed to be a common problem and I was surprised to hear that,” said Heermance, who owns other Samsung products.

Class Action Lawsuits have been filed in New Jersey, California and Oklahoma. Although Samsung wouldn’t tell us how many TVs are affected… CBS4 Investigates obtained an Oklahoma Court document from a hearing on February 1, 2012. It quotes Samsung’s attorney, Phillip G. Whaley, telling the court…

“Well, I think there’ll be as many as seven-and-a-half million of them out there. So it could be a big class.” (class action lawsuit).

A Samsung statement sent to CBS4 said…

“A small percentage of certain models of Samsung televisions have experienced performance issues caused by a component called a capacitor.  Since originally confirming this issue in early 2010, Samsung has voluntarily provided free repairs for U.S. customers with affected televisions.

As the leading supplier of televisions in the United States, we remain committed to delivering superior technology and excellent service to our loyal customers.  We encourage our customers to call 1-800-SAMSUNG if they experience any problems with Samsung products.

We have recently reached a preliminary settlement, subject to court approval, for a nationwide resolution of a related class action lawsuit in the District Court of Oklahoma County in the state of Oklahoma. Under the settlement, Samsung will continue to offer the free repairs that have already been extended to affected consumers.  A second class action lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey in late 2010, has been administratively terminated by that court.”

- Samsung Electronics America

Click Here To Read Preliminary List of Samsung Models

“Thank God there are people out there who say, ‘I’m not taking that!’ I paid my money. It should not die in 2-years,” said Van Allen.

Rosemary added, “I don’t fault the sellers. I fault the manufacturers. The manufacturers have to know that they’re putting crap out there. I can tell you that it’s not only Samsung.”

As our repair techs point out, no matter what brand of TV you buy, today’s TVs aren’t being made to last long.

Remember your mom and dad’s TV that lasted 15, even 20-years? They were big, boxy and remarkably reliable. Well today’s TV is NOT your parents TV.

Rosemary demonstrated using a 2009 big screen TV. As she knocked on the TV screen as if she were knocking on a door… she exclaimed, “Paper!”

Then she knocked on the screen of a 1998 TV.

“Tempered glass. You need a hammer to break that.”

She also showed us a TV that recently came into her shop and can’t be repaired. It was bought on Black Friday just two months ago. According to Rosemary, while moving it, the owner used her shoulder to brace it. The indentation on the screen is the result of a tender-leaning shoulder and nothing more.

“You buy a 50-inch Plasma set, you probably paid $4,000 to $5,000, and you’re looking two to three years after, and you can’t fix it? Ridiculous!” Rosemary declared.

In the TV graveyards that exist at both repair shops CBS4 visited, there were stacks of expensive TVs… abandoned for what can only be called “pre-mature failure,” according to our repair techs.

“I don’t think a panel should be bad in 2 1/2 years! A panel shouldn’t be bad in 10-years. But it is,” Van Allen told us as he showed us big screen TV.

And Samsung’s not alone. Another TV was left by its owner at Cliff’s shop. Why? The repair would be more than the original cost of the TV.

“This thing should be on the guy’s wall still,” Van Allen lamented.

“In my opinion,” said Rosemary, “basically the TVs today are obsolete after two years because the parts are changed.”

That’s right. According to our CBS4 investigation, only five states require manufacturers to make parts available longer than two to three years. Those states are California, Connecticut, Indiana, Rhode Island and New Hampshire… NOT Florida.

But consumers aren’t blameless noted Van Allen. “You know, everyone wants the latest and greatest and they don’t think… will this last?”

It’s not just Samsung. Most television manufacturers have had all kinds of issues with Plasma TVs, DLP TVs, LCD TVs… and now repair shops tell CBS4 Investigates, they are bracing for customers buying the new LED TVs

Additional Statements from Samsung Electronics America:

On February 1, 2012, preliminary approval was officially granted on the settlement of Russell, et al. v. Samsung Electronics America, Inc., in the District Court of Oklahoma County in the state of Oklahoma. A similar lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey in late 2010, was administratively dismissed by the court.

The Oklahoma settlement reaffirms that Samsung’s efforts to voluntarily repair affected products for consumers since early 2010, have been appropriate for the situation.  In addition, Samsung will compensate any consumers who have already made repairs at their own expense.  A nationwide announcement will be made in the coming weeks explaining the steps consumers need to take if they believe they have an affected product.   For your information and reference we have attached the summary notice of that decision, which has been on the public record since the settlement was reached. 

As the leading supplier of televisions in the United States we remain committed to delivering superior technology and excellent service to our loyal customers.  We encourage our customers to call 1-800-SAMSUNG if they experience any problems with Samsung products.

“The problem does not affect current models so there is no need to contact retailers.”

“Affected consumers will receive a notice as provided for in the settlement agreement, once approved by the court. Per Samsung’s standard policy, in-home repairs are offered for all sizes above 32”. For 32” and smaller, products must be shipped to NJ, but Samsung will cover all costs (in both directions).”

“Also, once the settlement is approved a process will be put into place to compensate consumers who have already paid for a repair.”

.

Navy Explosive Ordinance Disposal Technicians determined the cylindrical object is no threat to surrounding areas and will be removed and towed away.

The device, with a cable or a tether attached, was found shortly after 1 p.m. and reported to the Coast Guard, which then contacted the Broward Sheriff’s Office.

As the Coast Guard worked to keep boaters away from the object, BSO closed the state park beach on the off chance the object packed an explosive punch.

No homes were evacuated.

Those who spend time on the beach say it’s not unusual to find what appears to me torpedo or bomb-shaped items float ashore. The Navy is believed to use dummy devices offshore of South Florida for training purposes.

Miami-Dade police charged John Taylor, Mayor Taylor’s husband. Demetrius Taylor, her son,  and Elvira Smith, her sister,   with 4 felony counts and one misdemeanor related to an alleged scheme to funnel money to the Mayor’s 2010 election campaign through 2 family owned business, and to later attempt to cover up illegal campaign contributions by faking documents.

Myra Taylor was elected Mayor in November 2010, and shortly thereafter, according to a statement by the Miami-Dade police public corruption unit, investigators were tipped off about alleged irregularities in the campaign.

A multi-agency investigation resulted in claims that the Mayor’s family members caused over $6 thousand in illegal campaign contributions were funneled through two companies they owned or controlled. Local campaign contributions cannot exceed a maximum of $500.

Police said a search warrant uncovered documents that showed the Mayor’s husband and son conspired to fake invoices to cover up the true source and use of the money.

Wednesday, police charged the Mayor’s family members with:
➢    Making Campaign Contributions in Excess of $500 (3rd Degree Felony)
➢    Accepting Campaign Contributions in Excess of $500 (3rd Degree Felony)
➢    Evidence Tampering (3rd Degree Felony)
➢    Conspiring to Violate the Elections Code (3rd Degree Felony)
➢    Conspiracy to Tamper with Evidence (1st Degree Misdemeanor)

Mayor Taylor was not charged, and it’s not known if investigators believe she knew of or had a part in the alleged violations, but the mayor is no stranger to legal problems.

Taylor was suspended from office in 2004 after she was indicted on felony charges of defrauding the Internal Revenue Service through her Vankara schools, the same schools allegedly used in the current scheme. Taylor pleaded guilty in 2005 to a misdemeanor charge, Opa Locka voters returned her to city hall as a vice mayor in 2008. Despite her conviction, she was elected Mayor by voters in 2010.

But a new study published in Health Affairs might make me and you think twice.

It shows eleven per cent of doctors admit they told a patient something untrue in the last year.

Thirty five per cent said they did not completely agree they should disclose serious medical errors to patients and about twenty per cent said they had not revealed a mistake to a patient for fear of being sued.

But by far the biggest issue is that fifty five per cent admitted they had sugar coated the prognosis they gave patients.

Doctors trained in the U.S., where openness and transparency have been increasingly stressed in training, were less likely to tell untruths.

Among specialists, cardiologists and psychiatrists tended to fudge things the most.

The best advice according to the experts: have a frank conversation with your doctor about what you expect.

No Child Left Behind requires all students to be proficient in reading and math by 2014.

Passed a decade ago with widespread partisan support, the law was designed to help the nation’s poor and minority children.  It has been up for renewal since 2007.

But lawmakers have been stymied for years by competing priorities, disagreements over how much of a federal role there should be in schools and, in the recent Congress, partisan gridlock.

“It’s a reflection of congressional inactivity,” said Superintendent Alberto Carvahlo of Miami Dade School District. “This law should have… the no child left behind law should have been reauthorized back in 2007. People talk about how education is, but they have done very little about it.”

Carvahlo testified before Congress back in September, urging the federal government to do something about the law that he considered unrealistic.

“There is this expectation that by 2014, 100 percent of America’s children will be proficient in math and reading,” he said. “You know, I ask people, walk around Miami. We have children who arrive on our shores today. They will not be able to be proficient in math and reading and English and demonstrate so by 2014.”

Critics say the 2014 deadline was unrealistic, the law is too rigid and led to teaching to the test, and too many schools feel they are labeled as “failures.”

Under No Child Left Behind, schools that don’t meet requirements for two years or longer face increasingly tough consequences, including busing children to higher-performing schools, offering tutoring and replacing staff.

In addition to Florida, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Tennessee also received waivers.

The only state that applied for the flexibility and did not get it, New Mexico, is working with the administration to get approval, according to a White House official.

Under the deal, the states must show they will prepare children for college and careers, set new targets for improving achievement among all students, develop meaningful teacher and principal evaluation systems, reward the best performing schools and focus help on the ones doing the worst.

“It’s a huge relief now,” said Karen Aronowitz, President of the United Teachers of Dade. “It’s time to reevaluate how we’re evaluating teachers. All teachers are evaluated on one test and one test only and that test is the FCAT and so teachers are being evaluated against test scores in areas where they don’t even teach and teachers who teach our autistic children who work ESE (English as a second language) populations who work with special children have no opportunity at all to move forward or to be evaluated on the work that they’re doing.”

A total of 28 other states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have signaled that they, too, plan to seek waivers.

(TM and © Copyright 2012 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2012 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

Florida attorney general Pam Bondi said based on the terms of the deal, “that we have reached a settlement that provides Floridians with much-needed relief and reforms the mortgage servicing industry.”

Bondi had previously come out against principal reduction being forced on banks as part of the multi-state deal, according to the Orlando Sentinel.

Florida will receive approximately $8.4 billion in relief for Florida homeowners and address future mortgage loan servicing practices.

It will release civil  claims related to robo-signing, other foreclosure-related abuses, and loan origination misconduct.

The money will be broken down in Florida as follows:

• Florida borrowers will receive an estimated $7.6 billion in benefits from loan modifications including principal reduction and other direct relief
• Approximately $170 million will be available for cash payments to Florida borrowers who lost their homes to foreclosure from 1/1/2008 to 12/31/2011 and suffered servicing abuse
• The state will receive a direct payment of $350 million.
• The value of refinanced loans to Florida’s underwater borrowers would be an estimated $309 million

Currently, Florida has the nation’s highest foreclosure inventory. Approximately 12 percent of all homes with a mortgage in Florida are in some state of foreclosure. In addition, 17 percent of homeowners in the Sunshine State are 90 days late on their mortgage payments.

Based on the terms of the deal, the five largest mortgage lenders – Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, and Ally Financial – will reduce home loans for roughly one million households. The reduced loans would help homeowners behind on their payments and who owe more than the house is worth.

Plus, another 750,000 Americans would receive checks for roughly $1,800 each. But there is a catch to the settlement. The settlement would apply only to privately held mortgages issued from 2008 to 2011.

The settlement comes after countless abuses banks were guilty of following the housing bubble’s implosion. Several companies, including some based in Florida, failed to verify documents in foreclosures, or had employees sign documents they never read, or used fake signatures to speed up foreclosures.

In addition to the mortgage write-downs and payment, the deal is said to try and fundamentally change mortgage lending guidelines to make it easier for those at risk of foreclosure to make their payments and keep their homes.

The deal breaks down as follows: $17 billion will go towards reducing the principal that homeowners owe on their mortgages; $5 billion will be placed in a reserve account for various state and federal programs; and $3 billion will help homeowners refinance at 5.25 percent.

The settlement will still allow other probes of the banking industry to go forward, including a New York attorney general’s investigation over mortgage securitization and possible misconduct in the packaging and sale of residential mortgage-backed securities, which helped to cause the housing bust.

For more on the settlement, click here.

(TM and © Copyright 2012 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2012 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

“He was choking me, and I couldn’t breathe and I obviously was concerned for my life,” said 18 year-old Frank Acosta in a Thursday interview with CBS4′s Gary Nelson.

Mauricio Padron, 17, was stabbed or cut several times Tuesday and was air-rescued to Jackson Memorial Hospital with what proved to be minor wounds. He was released from the hospital the next day.

Acosta was charged with possession of a weapon on school grounds and with aggravated battery.

Acosta said the incident began with a verbal confrontation with Padron in the school cafeteria over who would get a carton of orange juice. He said Padron became enraged and was later lying in wait for him in a school stairwell.

Frank Acosta, 17, demostrates with his hand the size of the pen knife he admittedly used to stab his classmate Mauricio Padron. Acosta claims he was defending himself. (CBS4)

“He was there, shirtless, with some friends,” Acosta said. “He hit me in the head and I fell to the ground.”

Acosta, with a thin, slight build, was set upon by the much larger Padron. A Facebook photo of a shirtless Padron reveals a muscled physique like that of a linebacker.

“He grabbed me by the neck,” Acosta said, pointing to bruises about his neck consistent with having been throttled. “I couldn’t breathe, and I obviously was concerned for my life.”

Acosta said he reached for a tiny pen knife, scarcely two inches long, that he kept on his key ring.

“I didn’t want to do it, but I thought he was going to kill me,” Acosta said.

Acosta said he knew Padron from seeing him around campus and that the two had not previously sparred.

In his report on the incident, Schools Detective Steven Hadley wrote that video surveillance and witness accounts corroborated that Padron was “clearly the aggressor.”

Acosta’s attorney said the arrest report does not support the aggravated battery charge against his client.

“The law in Florida is clear that you have an absolute right to defend yourself,” said attorney Frank Gaviria. “The only thing that Mr. Acosta did was protect himself, and he should not be charged with aggravated battery.”

The attorney said it’s also not clear that the tiny pen knife Acosta was carrying would even qualify as a weapon.

On the day of the incident, schools Police Chief Charles Hurley said both students appeared “culpable” in the incident and that Padron might face a charge of some sort as well.

Most women expect to be wowed on Valentine’s day, and if you’re wondering how to plus up the wow factor, CBS4′s Lisa Petrillo stepped in to help out, and in the process, picked up a few ideas for herself.

Valentine’s day is one of the biggest sales days for chocolates, and the good news is there are lots of special choices that go beyond the drug store heart filled with chocolates.

Try the Schakolad Chocolate Factory in Davie, one of a number of locations nationwide. While they are part of a big company, chocolatiers make every piece in house at the Davie store, and the selection is mind-boggling. If you can’t find something for your special person here, look harder.

http://www.schakolad.com/

Like candy, but your sweet can’t handle the sweets? Give Hershey kisses anyway, with Hershey’s Kiss Diamond Necklaces at Maurice’s Jewelers. They also have I Heart You necklaces and more at www.mauricesjewelers.com/

As this is a holiday about love, Lisa found intimate wear at, where else, Intimacy, at Aventura Mall, can help nervous guys find something that will help heat up the night, and if going into the shop makes you anxious, you can shop online. www.myintimacy.com

That’s the place to go for the Charli Outfit ( Yoga pant, tank top and Shrug) worn by Lisa Petrillo, and a Ruby and topaz necklace: try facebook.com/EmiRoseJewels

Your special someone would be nowhere without some protection for their digital bling; hey, that stuff is expensive! At Bloomies Lisa checked out a Kate Spade Ipad sleeve and Marc Jacobs Iphone case. Stop in at Bloomingdale’s Aventura or go online at www.bloomingdales.com

At Ted Baker in the Aventura Mall, Lisa found a little crimson thing to have and hold, and it was not your heart. Try the Ted Baker Clutch with silver heart clasps. Check it out online at www.tedbaker.com

Still can’t see your way to a great gift from this collection? Maybe you need glasses; sunglasses for her from Vogue and Persol. You can pick from a huge selection of eye candy at Sunglass Hut, at the mall or online at www.sunglasshut.com