If the size of the diamond is any indication of Hugh Hefner's love for bride-to-be Crystal Harris, it's a safe bet to say that he's head over heels.
RELATED: Hugh Hefner Gets Marriage License?
Harris revealed her engagement ring on Tuesday, via her Twitter feed.
"My beautiful ring from [Hugh Hefner]," Crystal posted along with photos of the giant sparkler.
The couple is reportedly planning to wed on New Year's Eve.
A hulking Queens drug addict accused of murdering his parents in separate attacks a year apart claims he was framed by his sister and brother-in-law using tricks they learned watching “CSI” TV shows, court records reveal.
Gregory Cucchiara made up the bizarre allegations last month as he was questioned about the homicides of Giusepina Cucchiara, 66, and Carmelo Cucchiara, 75, prosecutors charge.
During the interrogation at the 114th Precinct station house, he allegedly attacked a police lieutenant and tried to assault a detective.
“I believe my sister and her husband may have something to do with my father’s death,” Cucchiara said. “My sister felt that my father was suffering to the point of sudden death. At the same time, she did not want any of the family assets passed on to me.
“She devised a plan to make it look like I am responsible for my father’s passing.”
“My brother-in-law watches a lot of ‘CSI’ and knows how to make things look as though they may not really be,” Cucchiara said.
The Bayside resident, whose long arrest record includes a 2008 bust for assaulting a cop, struck his his mom in the head and drowned her in the family’s bathtub on May 24, 2011, authorities allege.
He was not initially charged with that killing — but was questioned this year by cops after his dad was found dead on Aug. 21 in Carmelo’s Astoria apartment.
Material found under his father’s fingernails was later tested for DNA — and a match was made to Gregory, according to court records.
“This is a horrifying case of a young man throwing his life away and betraying the trust of his family — first by allegedly drowning his mother and then, a year later, suffocating his father,” Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said of Cucchiara, who will be arraigned on the murders today.
dan.mangan@nypost.com
Q. Recently I’ve been unable to send emails from my home email address. In addition, my incoming email contains several notices of undeliverable emails that I didn’t send that are addressed to people I don’t know. I suspect that my computer is infected by some malicious software and is being used to send spam email — and that those that are undeliverable are being returned. What should I do?
Joseph Campbell Burnsville, Minn.
I agree that your PC has been taken over by hackers and is being used to send spam.
The fact that you aren’t able to send emails from your home account supports this theory, since it indicates that your Internet service provider believes you are spamming and has temporarily blocked your ability to send email to anyone.
I suggest you download and run the free version of security program Malwarebytes (go to www.tinyurl.com/cwbd73f and click “free download.”) If that doesn’t work, try Windows System Restore to eliminate recently installed software (see www.tinyurl.com/y9q9apj and www.tinyurl.com/ykgps6.) Then call your Internet service provider; explain what happened and what you’ve done to fix it. If your PC is clean, you’ll be allowed to send email again.Q. I’ve recently received a lot of spam, including some that appear to be from people I know — except that the messages come from the wrong email address. How does a spammer use a familiar name with a fake email address and send it to me?
Also, is there a way to find out the identity of the people who send spam emails? I’ve read that the email address of the sender is not always accurate.
Ginger Bramlett Rockwall, Texas
The bogus email that appeared to be from your friend, but came from the wrong email address, is from a spammer who is trying to trick you into opening the email.
Why did this happen? Your friend’s email may have been hacked and his or her address book stolen, providing the spammer with a host of addresses where an email bearing your friend’s name might be opened by the recipient.
It’s hard to find out who actually sent spam, because originating email addresses are easy to fake.
I suggest you send these emails to your spam filter so that you and others may be spared at least some spam in the future. In addition, your Internet service provider allows you to block spam that comes from a specific domain name — the part of the email address that follows the symbol, such as Yahoo.com. See www.tinyurl.com/cxmq4m7.
WASHINGTON --
Don’t expect South Florida’s congressional delegation to stray too far from party lines when it comes to dancing on the edge of the fiscal cliff, the end-of-the-year spending cuts and tax increases set to take effect if Congress and the president don’t address them.
Democrats are firmly with President Barack Obama, whose proposal seeks to raise $600 billion over a decade by eliminating tax deductions and $960 billion over the same period by raising tax rates for the top 2 percent of income earners. Many Democrats sounded as though the highly charged presidential campaign was still under way.
Republicans are just as committed to their party.
There’s been "no evidence thus far" that Republicans are truly interested in the middle class, said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, of Weston, who the president just asked again to head the Democratic National Committee.
"We need to continue to focus on rebuilding our economy from the middle class out," she said during an appearance on MSNBC.
"President Obama talked eloquently and passionately during the campaign about making sure that we can get a handle on this deficit, that we can rebuild our economy from the middle class out, that we can focus on creating jobs and getting the economy turned around," she added.
Equally firm: South Florida Democratic Reps. Alcee Hastings, of Miramar and Frederica Wilson, of Miami. Both are members of the Congressional Black Caucus, which released a statement of principles this week calling for the Bush-era tax cuts to expire on the wealthiest Americans.
Social Security should be completely off the table, the caucus warned, and it said it would oppose any plans that change the eligibility for Medicare or cut Medicaid, the statement said.
Some Democrats made conciliatory moves, however. Sen. Bill Nelson said that during his campaign, voters told him they want consensus and an end to partisan gridlock.
"They want bipartisanship," he said in a video message. "They want to stop the ideological rigidity."
It’s the only way to rebuild the economy and reduce the federal deficit, while preserving Social Security and Medicare, he said. He called on people of both political parties "to reach across the aisle and work together so America doesn’t go over the cliff."
That’s unlikely to come from his Republican counterpart, Sen. Marco Rubio, who along with former vice presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin was featured in a speech this week in Washington.
Rubio blamed the "complicated and uncertain tax code" for "hindering the creation of middle-class jobs." He gave no hint he would be interested in supporting the president’s tax proposal on the wealthiest Americans.
"You can’t open or grow a business if your taxes are too high or too uncertain. And that’s why I personally oppose the president’s plan to raise taxes," Rubio said. "This isn’t about a pledge. It isn’t about protecting millionaires and billionaires. For me, it’s about the fact that the tax increases he wants would fail to make even a small dent in the debt but it would hurt middle-class businesses and the people who work for them."
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, of Miami, was one of the few Republicans from South Florida to suggest she’d be open to tax reform, saying there needs to be a review of the tax code "to remove special interest tax loopholes used by the wealthy."
But she warned that the country’s debt exists "not because tax rates are too low, but because government spends too much."
Republican Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, also of Miami, said he was less optimistic about a resolution now than he was right after the election.
He said he feels as though Republicans have moved closer to the president without getting credit for it.
"I’m very disappointed with the president’s response," he said in an interview.
"The speaker put forward a proposal, and whether you agree with it or not, there are a couple of things beyond debate: He’s gotten closer to the president’s position."
Even those on their way out of Congress made no move to cross party lines. Republican Rep. Allen West, of Plantation, who was ousted by Democrat Patrick Murphy, warned constituents in a letter that he didn’t think there was a true plan to reduce spending.
Rep. David Rivera, a Republican who lost his re-election bid and who will be replaced by Democrat Joe Garcia, did not respond to a request for comment.
Will Smith and his son Jaden haven't shared the big screen since 2006's The Pursuit of Happyness. Now the father-son duo pair up once more for M. Night Shyamalan's post-apocalyptic thriller After Earth, and we're showing you the new trailer.
RELATED: Will Smith Surprises Jada on The Talk
In the film, opening June 7, 2013, a father and son crash land on a now-abandoned Earth. While the father, General Cypher Raige lies dying after the accident, his 13-year-old son Kitai must play the soldier, searching for the rescue beacon -- their only chance to be saved.
Watch the video for more.
The Australian radio station accused of fueling a British nurse’s suicide says it won’t risk doing the same to the two “very precariously balanced’’ shock jocks who pulled a hoax on her.
Station spokeswoman Sandy Kaye said the question of firing DJs Michael Christian and Mel Greig, who convinced the nurse they were royalty and entitled to confidential information about pregnant Kate Middleton, hasn’t even come up.
“They haven’t been able to address that because of the fragility of the [DJs’ mental] health,” Kaye told The Post. “Our primary concern is to look after them.
REUTERS
GRIEF: Benedict Barboza and daughter Lisha mourn wife and mom Jacintha Saldanha yesterday.
Supplied by INFphoto.com
The DJs, using phony British accents, last week called the hospital where Middleton was being treated for severe nausea, and told nurse Jacintha Saldanha they were Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles.
Saldanha transferred them to the nurse at Middleton’s bedside, who also fell for the trick and gave them details of the duchess’ condition.
“They’re not fit to work,” Kaye said. “They’re very precariously balanced. They’re in an incredibly fragile state and receiving intense psychological counseling.”
Greig and Christian gave their own interview to Australian TV show, “Today Tonight.’’
“There’s nothing that can make me feel worse than what I feel right now,” a crying Greig said.
The nurse’s husband, Benedict Barboza, wrote on his Facebook wall yesterday, “I am devastated with the tragic loss of my beloved wife, Jacintha, in tragic circumstances.”
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.”
The suspect arrested in connection with Friday’s chase through the streets of Miami-Dade in a rental U-Haul truck appeared in front of judge Sunday morning.
Darrell Conyers, 45, made his first appearance in bond court.
Conyers faces a number of charges including grand theft, fraud and resisting arrest with violence.
During the hearing, the judge noted that the only charge before her was driving with a suspended license. For that she set bond at $2,000. Conyers will return to bond court at a later time for the additional charges.
Conyers was scheduled to appear in court on Saturday but was unable to do so because he was still in the hospital being treated for injuries he sustained at the end of the chase which apparently started as an attempted robbery at a tool shop on South Dixie Highway.
For 45-minutes the U-Haul truck weaved in and out of city streets, jumping on and off the Palmetto Expressway and headed in different directions along Southwest Eighth Street and Flagler Street.
The chase finally came to an end 12:45 p.m. next to Miami Senior High in Little Havana on Flagler Street and 26th Avenue.
When officers moved in to apprehend the driver, an unidentified Miami-Dade Police officer was injured when he was pinned between the U-Haul truck and a police vehicle. He was transported to Jackson Memorial Hospital where he was treated for a broken leg.
Another Miami officer cut his hand from broken glass. Police say that happened when officers had to break the glass on the U-Haul truck to get the suspect out of it.
Police said Conyers has had previous run-ins with the law and has convictions for firearm violations, fleeing police and carjacking.
The remains of a private plane carrying singer Jenni Rivera have been found in Mexico with no survivors following a suspected crash.
Gerardo Ruiz Esparza, Mexico's Secretary of Communications and Transportation, confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that, on Sunday, officials found the remains of an airplane that was carrying the Mexican-American superstar and her entourage who were traveling from Monterrey to Toluca, Mexico.
Video: Remembering the Tragic Loss of Aaliyah
The small jet had been carrying seven passengers (Rivera included) and lost radio contact with the airport a few minutes after departing in the early hours of the morning following a concert, reports THR.
The singer's father and brother later confirmed to Telemundo that Rivera died in the crash.
With the sad news, Latin artists all over the world took to Twitter to express their heartbreak.
Gloria Estefan mourns, "Our deepest sympathy to the family & fans of @jennirivera & those that accompanied her on what was to be her last voyage. Rest in peace."
Ricky Martin says, "This is sad. A bit in shock. Much peace to your family." (Translated from Spanish)
Eva Longoria writes, "My heart breaks for the loss of Jenni Rivera & everyone on the plane. My prayers go out to her family. We lost a legend today."
William Levy tweets, "My heart goes out to the families. I wish them all the strength in the world." (Translated from Spanish)
Paulina Rubio mourns, "My friend! Why? There is no consolation. God help me!" (Translated from Spanish)
Pitbull writes, "I highly respected #JenniRivera 4 being a gr8 performer but more then tht being real & gr8 example 4 us all que dios la bendiga &may she RIP"
Rivera, 43, was currently a featured coach on The Voice Mexico. A California native, the singer earned several Latin Grammy nominations and recently signed on to star in an American sitcom with ABC titled Jenni.
New York’s senators yesterday laced into the feds for withholding aid for ailing and injured Sept. 11 first responders.
“It’s shocking that the Victim’s Compensation Fund hasn’t been paid out yet. We’ve worked too hard. I don’t care how complicated it is — it’s been two years since the bill was signed. It’s outrageous!” Sen. Chuck Schumer fumed in response to an article in yesterday’s Post (pictured).
Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand sent a letter to Sheila Birnbaum, special master of the fund, demanding the money be allocated by Christmas.
Birnbaum blamed the holdup on incomplete forms submitted by ailing first responders.
She said she hopes to begin making payouts in January.
Congress allocated $2.7 billion to the fund, which was to dole out $875 million in the first five years, beginning in 2011, and the rest in 2016.
So far, not a dime has been granted.
“On September 11, an urgent call went out, and New York City’s police officers responded quickly and decisively and did their job,” said PBA boss Pat Lynch.
“Why the fund can’t do the same is mind-boggling. People are sick and dying while they wait for help.”
mmcnulty@nypost.com
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