Two pet pooches pilfered

Two adorable dogs were stolen from their masters in separate incidents — with one still missing, leaving his 7-year-old owner heartbroken for Christmas.

Marley (pictured), little Mia Bendrat’s Cavalier King Charles spaniel, was stolen from in front of a Washington Heights grocery store yesterday morning.

“He’s the Grinch that stole Christmas,” Mia said of the coldhearted thief who swiped Marley, which was tied to a pole in front of La Rosa Fine Foods on Broadway.

“When my mom told me the dog was lost, I started to cry. He’s my only dog,” she said of the pet she got for Christmas two years ago from her grandmother.

Mia, and her mother, Angie Estrade, put up 150 fliers around their neighborhood in hopes of finding Marley.

“Who would do this on Christmas Eve?” Estrada fumed.

In an another puppy pilfering, thieves in a Williamsburg, Brooklyn, home invasion stole a 6-month-old Yorkshire terrier-Maltese, stuffed her in a bag and tossed it down a trash chute, sources said.

The dog was later rescued after the super heard her barking.

“Getting the dog back was a Christmas gift,’’ said her relieved owner, who asked that his name not be printed.

The 22-year-old man said two masked men, armed with pistols and a hammer, knocked on his door and forced their way into his home at around 3:10 a.m. Dec. 15.

Jennett Leandre, 23, was arrested and charged with assault, robbery, burglary and menacing.

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Miami: We’re still busiest cruise port

Florida’s ports are steaming bow-to-bow in the race to be the world’s businest cruise ship port.

Though some publications have reported Port Canaveral in the lead with 3,761,056 million for its fiscal year ending Sept. 30, PortMiami officials Monday said they had hosted 3,774,452 passengers during the same period, putting it slightly ahead. Fort Lauderdale’s PortEverglades reported 3,689,000 passengers for the period, putting it slightly behind the others in third place.

“We’re all very close,’’ said Paula Musto, PortMiami spokeswoman.

PortMiami has slipped below its previous high of 4 million plus passengers because of changing ship deployments, she said. That number is expected to again cruise past 4 million in 2013 as several new ships homeport in Miami.

Jane Wooldridge

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Police: 16-year-old shot and killed while riding bicycle in Miami

A 16-year-old boy was shot and killed while riding his bicycle in Miami over the weekend, and on Monday his family will ask for help finding the killer.

Bryan Herrera was riding his bike Saturday afternoon, going to a friend’s house, when he was shot, according to Miami police. He was struck once, near Northwest 11th Avenue and 39th Street in Allapattah, police said.

Officers found him a few minutes after 11 a.m., after receiving a call to 911 saying a person had been shot and appeared to be lifeless on the ground.

Bryan was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center, police said, where he died. Sunday night, police said they had very little information describing the shooter.

Bryan’s family is scheduled to speak to reporters Monday at Miami police headquarters.

Investigators asked anyone with information to call Miami-Dade County Crime Stoppers, anonymously, at 305-471-8477.

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Atheist Kids and Bullying: Just an Xbox and a Football Game Away From Redemption

I’ll never forget the year my eight-year-old daughter came home from school saying she got in trouble for going to the bathroom.

“I was afraid,” she said, “that the devil was coming out of the mirror to get me…. I wanted Aya to stay with me until I was done.”

Like any parent, I sat her down and asked her to tell me why she would ever think a mirror could spawn something as terrifying as that.

“Susie told me because I didn’t believe in god, the devil was coming to take my soul.”

MORE: Bullying the Bullies: What to Do to Save the Next Amanda Todd

“Susie” as we’ll call her, was a fellow eight-year-old student at my daughter’s Catholic school. Susie attended church every Sunday with her family—the same church that many of her classmates to this day all go to.

Was my daughter being bullied for being an atheist? I quickly dismissed it. After all, these were only eight-year-old girls, and it wasn’t like we talked about god hating with our morning cereal.

I soon noticed a new pattern of my daughter: She wouldn’t enter a bathroom without a friend or parent and began wetting the bed at night for fear of our extensive collection of bathroom mirrors pulling her into almighty hell at 2 a.m.

Sure enough, the religious eight-year-old was still pressuring my daughter to consider her morality, spirituality and reason for living daily in the school bathroom.

“When the child goes to school, and encounters for the first time other kids who don’t believe the same thing, whether it’s no belief or a different belief system, that can rock a kid’s world.”

I got on the phone and made sure the principal was aware of the bullying, that the child was reported and that my daughter would hopefully make the choice not to play with her anymore. The school thought I was a little crazy. Bullying was getting punched in the stomach in a dark place behind the school, not a little girl being taunted for not believing she was going to have life eternal. This was a new place they were afraid to gain control of. The principal, a former nun, kept a tight lip.

According to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, every day “an estimated 160,000 students in the U.S. refuse to go to school because they dread the physical and verbal aggression of their peers. Many more attend school in a chronic state of anxiety and depression.”

Courtney Campbell, Professor of Religion and Culture at Oregon State University, says he encountered the same case with his own children who were told at a very early age by some of their “friends” that they were “going to hell.” Though there were no physical beatings, the “psychic bullying” may have been worse.

“There is a phenomenon of religious-bullying at an early age, though in my own view/experience with raising my kids, it’s less of an issue than lookism [obese kids], size [‘big’ bullies], or gender, or clothes, or any of a number of things that kids do to manifest power over others,” says Campbell.

He points out that in most conservative/evangelical/fundamentalist Christian traditions, kids are taught at a very early age in their Sunday schools or summer bible camps that there’s only one path to happiness and salvation. That teaching, absorbed at a young age, is on its own rather threatening to the child.

“When the child goes to school, and encounters for the first time other kids who don’t believe the same thing, whether it’s no belief or a different belief system, that can rock a kid’s world,” Campbell adds.

Blame it on fear, maybe a calling out of one’s most sacred and learned family beleifs, but this form of push and shove is only getting more sophisticated.

Rachel Wagner, Associate Professor for the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Ithaca College and author of Godwired: Religion, Ritual and Virtual Reality, says we are overlooking a major player of the religious bullying model—video games.

“If we compare video games to rituals as similar kinds of interactive experiences that are meant to shape how we see ourselves and others in the world, then we can argue something more basic—that video games (like rituals) can teach people habits of encounter—and offer youth deeply problematic models of encounter with difference,” says Wagner, who adds that in her next book, she’ll argue that religion has always had the ability to be “played” like a game, a religious encounter she coins “shooter religion.”

While Wagner admits it’s very important to remember that all world religions also have “deep and abiding practices urging compassion, understanding, tolerance, and social justice,” in today’s media-soaked society, feeling the need to retreat into a simpler world where people can be reduced to camps can be terribly tempting.

Stacy Pershall, author of Loud in the House of Myself: Memoir of a Strange Girl, says that growing up in Prairie Grove, Arkansas, in an athletics-focused, Christian bible belt, she was used to being surrounded by “Jesus talk.”

Pershall, who was bullied for being a “strange girl,” when young, unathletic and atheist to boot, now works and empowers high school and college students as a writing teacher and mental health speaker.

“Although it still makes my heart pound a little to stand in front of a crowd and admit that I don’t believe in god (as I recently did at Catholic University in D.C.), somebody needs to do it. I get to be the adult who says to kids, ‘I’m an atheist, I have morals, I have friends, I’m happy, and I care about how you feel.’ That’s a wonderful, powerful thing. I get to tell bullied kids who might be considering suicide that they’re not alone, and that they have kindred spirits. It’s what the Flying Spaghetti Monster put me on Earth to do.”

Were you ever bullied? Leave what you were bullied about in COMMENTS.

These are solely the author’s opinions and do not represent those of TakePart, LLC or its affiliates.

Related Stories on TakePart:

• 5 Things to Keep in Mind About Bullying

• A Bully’s Paradise: Hidden Halls, Dark Corners and No Supervision

• Mother Bullied to Abort Unborn Twins?

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Amy DuFault is a writer and editor whose work has been published in EcoSalon, Huffington Post, Ecouterre, Organic Spa, Coastal Living, Yahoo!, The Frisky and other online and print publications. In addition to being a former co-owner of an eco-boutique, she coaches and connects the sustainable fashion community to feed her soul. She also dreams of singing in an all-girl punk band even though she has stage fright. @amytropolis | TakePart.com

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Bethenny Frankel Separates From Husband of 2 Years

After two years of marriage, TV personality Bethenny Frankel and husband Jason Hoppy are separating.

"'It brings me great sadness to say that Jason and I are separating. This was an extremely difficult decision that as a woman and a mother, I have to accept as the best choice for our family. We have love and respect for one another and will continue to amicably co-parent our daughter who is and will always remain our first priority. This is an immensely painful and heartbreaking time for us," the former Real Housewives of New York City star's rep said in a statement.

Frankel, 42, also tweeted: "I am heartbroken. I am sad. We will work through this as a family."

In 2010, the couple were married and had their daughter, Bryn. Frankel and Hoppy's relationship was then documented in two reality TV shows, Bethenny Getting Married? and Bethenny Ever After...

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Afghan policewoman kills US adviser: police

AFP/Getty Images

Afghan policemen stand guard at the entrance to police headquarters in Kabul today.

KABUL, Afghanistan — An Afghan policewoman shot and killed an American adviser outside the police headquarters in Kabul on Monday, the latest in a rising tide of insider attacks by Afghans against their foreign allies, senior Afghan officials said.

The killing of the American, who worked as a contractor with the NATO command, was the first known insider attack by a woman in Afghanistan.

The woman, identified as Afghan police Sgt. Nargas, had entered a strategic compound in the heart of the capital and shot the civilian adviser with a pistol as he came out of a small shop with articles he had just bought, Kabul Governor Abdul Jabar Taqwa told The Associated Press.

Earlier, she had asked bystanders where the governor's office was located, the governor said. As many Afghans, the policewoman uses only one name.

The policewoman was taken into Afghan custody shortly after the attack but Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqi said that she refused to answer questions after hours of interrogation aimed at determining her motives for the killing.

Sediqi said the assailant shot only once, striking the American in the side of the chest. He died either on the way or just upon arrival at a hospital, the spokesman added, describing her act as a "huge crime."

A NATO command spokesman, US Air Force Lt. Col. Lester T. Carroll, said the slain adviser was a contractor whose identity wasn't immediately released. "We can confirm that a civilian police adviser was shot and killed this morning by a suspected member of the Afghan uniformed police," Carroll said.

The attack occurred outside the police headquarters in a walled, highly secure compound which also houses the governor's office, courts and a prison. Kabul Deputy Police Chief Mohammad Daoud Amin said an investigation was under way.

Nargas, a mother of four, had worked with a human rights department of the police for two years and had earlier been a refugee in Pakistan and Iran, Amin said.

She could enter the compound armed because as a police officer she was licensed to carry a pistol, the police official said. Amin did not know whether the killer and victim were acquainted.

"Her background is very clean. We don't see that she had any connection with armed insurgent groups," Sediqi said. He added that she aroused no suspicion because she frequently went back and forth on business between the compound and the Interior Ministry where she worked.

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90-year-old real estate baron Jay Kislak is forever young

Real estate baron Jay I. Kislak discovered a Fountain of Youth of sorts that springs from an inquisitive and acquisitive mind.

At 90, Kislak is wheeling and dealing in real estate, and he’s exploring history and art with the fervor of a man generations younger.

The patriarch of The Kislak Organization marked 74 years in real estate this year, 59 spent in Miami.

While he has long since appointed a protégé, Thomas Bartelmo, as president and CEO of the diverse family-owned real-estate businesses, Kislak remains chairman. And he is a regular at the headquarters in Miami Lakes.

That is, when he’s not off to Maine for the summer.

Or busy chairing a blue-ribbon commission named by the U.S. Interior Secretary to orchestrate the 450th anniversary in 2015 of the founding of St. Augustine.

Or jetting off to evaluate a possible acquisition. (Kislak recently looked at the potential for real estate development in North Dakota, booming with shale oil, but decided to pass.)

Kislak’s empire has gone through dramatic changes over the years. He built — and eventually sold — commercial banking, mortgage servicing and insurance firms.

Today, with annual revenue in excess of $28 million, his organization focuses on the commercial brokerage business started by his father, Julius Kislak, in Hoboken, N.J., more than a century ago; on owning a portfolio of apartments and other property (Kislak is on the prowl for more), and on managing funds of property-tax certificates, a niche created by the economic downturn.

Looking out his office window at a bustling interchange recently, Kislak mused: “I remember when they built the Palmetto Expressway and you could drive down it and never see another car.”

“The same thing with I-95: There was hardly any traffic,” said Kislak, a slender man with a signature mustache and a thick Hoboken accent that never faded.

Kislak moved to Miami in 1953 to grow the mortgage business, but his world view hardly dates to 1950s Florida. Already a book lover, he began pulling on a thread of Florida history, soon broadening his interest to the early Americas.

Over the decades, Kislak, bankrolled by a stream of brokerage commissions, mortgage fees and apartment rent, grew into a prominent collector of rare books and maps, manuscripts, artifacts and art to feed his fascination with the pre-Columbian era and the European exploration of America.

His wife Jean Kislak shares his passion for collecting. They met at a party for Andy Warhol; it would be her second marriage, his third. Their quest for art, history and collecting has taken them to all continents, even Antarctica.

“We don’t quit [collecting]. But we are going to quit,” said Jean, a former corporate art director. “Acquisition has always been a part of my life. I don’t know if it’s a sickness.”

In 2004, Kislak gave away much of the treasure. His foundation donated more than 3,000 rare maps, manuscripts, paintings and artifacts to the Library of Congress. The gift, estimated to be worth in excess of $150 million, is housed in the ornate Thomas Jefferson building in an exhibit that bears his name. Kislak also funds fellowships for studies of the collection, part of his diverse efforts over the years to support education. Among other things, his family foundation endowed the Kislak Real Estate Institute at Monmouth University, in West Long Branch, N.J., and has provided key support to a real estate program at Florida State University.

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Gov. Scott working on syllabus for Florida colleges: Less expensive and more practical

TALLAHASSEE --
Gov. Rick Scott went to college with one goal: make money.

He didn’t join a fraternity or become active in student government. He took only the classes he needed for his degree and not a credit more.

Married when he attended community college, he paid for a bachelor’s degree at the University of Missouri-Kansas City with help from the G.I. Bill. And he worked full time in a donut shop he purchased with a friend.

The boy who grew up wanting to be rich knew from the start he wanted to become an attorney.

For Scott, college was a means to an end. Now he wants Florida colleges and universities to have the same razor-sharp focus — rein in tuition costs and create cheaper degrees that can get graduates jobs.

It’s an approach to higher education that has put Scott at odds with educators who argue dollars and cents aren’t the only factors determining the worth of a degree.

But Scott is convinced his ideas are best for the bottom lines of both the state and students.

And he’s got his personal history to prove it.

Cost is cornerstone

As a kid, Scott’s family didn’t have much. He vowed to become an adult who didn’t have to worry about money.

Becoming a lawyer, however, meant earning degrees his family could not afford. So he figured out a way to pay for it himself.

“I think junior college cost $200 a semester and the university cost $255 a semester. ... I could work 40 hours a week and be able to pay for my school,” said Scott, 60.

He spent a couple of years in the Navy as a radar technician, using his spare time to pass correspondence courses that earned credit toward an associate’s degree. That military experience made him eligible for financial aid through the G.I. Bill.

He returned home and attended the University of Missouri-Kansas City to earn a bachelor’s degree in 1975. But he also worked full time running a donut shop and set aside money that, along with his federal financial aid, paid for a law degree from Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

As governor, cost is now the cornerstone of Scott’s higher education policy. He worries that tuition increases are putting college out of reach for working-class families like his.

“My wife and I put ourselves through college. We would not have been able to do it with tuition as high as it is today,” Scott said in a recent weekly radio address. “We must make our colleges more affordable for Florida families.”

He called on universities to halt tuition increases and vetoed a bill last year that would have allowed top-tier schools like the University of Florida and Florida State University to charge whatever they wanted in tuition.

More recently, state colleges have lined up to meet Scott’s challenge to create bachelor’s programs that cost $10,000 or less.

Universities have told Scott they are willing to hold the line on tuition, but only if the state agrees to contribute additional funding.

“I actually believe what Gov. Scott is saying about keeping tuition low is great,” said FSU President Eric Barron. “But that means then that the state has to fund the universities if we’re going to maintain the quality that the citizens in the state of Florida deserve.”

Pushing ‘practical’ degrees

But it’s not just the cost of degrees.

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News summary: Nintendo’s TVii replaces the remote

TVii LAUNCH: Nintendo if flipping on its TVii service Thursday, a month after sales started for its Wii U game console. The service turns the GamePad controller into a TV remote control, channel guide and Web video surfer.

SALES HOPES: Nintendo hopes the free service boosts sales of the console after recording 425,000 sales in the first week since its Nov. 18 launch.

HEAD START: It’s the first time a game console maker has put live TV controls into a device, but analyst Michael Pachter says competitors will copy the function soon.

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Buzzmakers: New X Factor and Miss Universe Winners

What had ET readers buzzing this week?

1. 'The X Factor' Crowns A Winner!

And the $5 million recording contract goes to…

Tate Stevens! The 37-year-old country crooner beat out runner-up 13-year-old Carly Rose Sonenclar for the top prize Thursday night. 35 million votes were cast Wednesday to determine victory for L.A. Reid's mentee.

Near tears, the Raymore, Missouri native thanked his fans for their overwhelming support.

"This is the best day of my life," said an emotional Stevens.

Girl group Fifth Harmony, mentored by Simon Cowell, placed third in the competition. Earlier in the night, the holiday themed finale saw performances by One Direction and Pitbull.

Auditions for an all-new season of The X Factor USA have already begun online. In-person auditions will start on March 6, 2013 in Los Angeles.

The celebrity judging panel has yet to be announced, but L.A. Reid has already taken himself out of the running. Spears has expressed interest in returning to the show for season three, but nothing has been confirmed.

2. Miss Universe 2012 Crowned

Beauties from 89 countries strutted their stuff Wednesday night in pursuit of the Miss Universe crown, but only one woman would earn the coveted title.

In the end a panel of ten celebrity judges, including Cee Lo Green and U.S. Olympic gold medalist Kerri Walsh Jennings, appointed Miss USA Olivia Culpo the winner.

The 20-year-old Rhode Island native beat out Miss Brazil (Gabriela Markus) Miss Philippines (Janine Tugonon), Miss Mexico (Irene Sofía Esser Quintero), and Miss Australia (Renae Ayris) for the distinction.

Culpo follows in the footsteps of Miss Angola, Leila Lopes, who earned the crown in 2011.

The two-hour show was broadcast live from Las Vegas with musical acts One Direction and Train lending their talents to the annual extravaganza.

3. Exclusive: Arsenio on His Late Night TV Return

Break out the Woof! Woof! fist pump: Arsenio Hall is coming back to late night TV in the Fall of 2013 after a 17-year break from the game, and only ET is behind the scenes with the timeless talk show host as he shoots his first-ever promo for The Arsenio Hall Show!

"[This is] the first time America will see anything on television about the show," says Arsenio. "Instead of a commercial where I do something like say, 'I'm baaaaack' -- and everybody's, 'Ugh' -- they've come up with a real, unique, creative angle that -- actually, I looked at dailies, and it scared me. I looked at the dailies and I frightened myself."

The trailer-length promo from CBS Television Distribution pays homage to horror movies and begins airing today on all Arsenio Hall Show affiliate stations, kicking off the campaign for the new late night syndicated talk show that will be seen all across the country next year.

"I'm real excited about this; so many things have changed in pop culture since I left the air," says Arsenio about his return to late night. "I can't wait."

The Arsenio Hall Show premieres on 9/9/13. Look for much more with Arsenio between now and then, only on ET!

4. Claire Danes Gives Birth

It's a boy!

Homeland star Claire Danes and her husband Hugh Dancy welcomed their very first child together on Monday, December 17, her rep confirms to People Magazine.

The proud parents named their bouncing baby boy Cyrus Michael Christopher Dancy.

Danes, 33, wed Dancy, 37, in 2009 after two years of dating.

5. President Obama is Time's Person of the Year

For 2012, Time Magazine has selected President Barack Obama as their Person of the Year.

"For finding and forging a new majority, for turning weakness into opportunity and for seeking, amid great adversity, to create a more perfect union, Barack Obama is Time's 2012 Person of the Year," Time's Managing Editor Richzard Stengel explained.

He also cited both of the president's re-elections, snagging over 50 percent of the popular vote, as one reason he received this honor.

This is the second year Time has tapped Obama as their Person of the Year -- he previously was selected in 2008 for becoming the first black president of the United States.

Time previously named the eight finalists for 2012's Person of the Year. They included: Bill and Hillary Clinton, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Malala Yousafzai (the Pakistani girl who was shot by the Taliban for her crusade for better girls' education), Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer, Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi and the three scientists who discovered the Higgs Boson particle.

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