Lance Armstrong Confesses to Doping During All Seven Tour De France Wins

In a no-holds-barred interview with Oprah Winfrey, disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong finally admitted to years of doping while riding professionally, arguing that performance-enhancing drugs are essential to succeed in the sport.

Wasting no time in the sit-down, Winfrey asked Armstrong right off the bat if he had ever used banned substances during his career. During a series of rapid-fire yes or no questions, the retired cyclist confirmed that blood transfusions and EPO usage was common during his career, particularly during all seven of his Tour de France victories.

Related: Armstrong Stripped of Tour De France Titles

When asked if he believed it was humanly possible to achieve his seven consecutive wins without doping, Armstrong replied: "Not in my opinion."

In the end, Armstrong refused to out any of his fellow cyclists in the interview. Rather, he blamed the culture of professional cycling for creating a need for underground doping in the sport. Despite this, the 41-year-old athlete took personal responsibility for his disgrace, telling Winfrey that, at the time, he didn't feel he was cheating, but now understands the magnitude of his actions.

Related: Armstrong Confession 'Riveting,' Says Oprah Winfrey

"I see the anger in people," said Armstrong of fans' reaction to his drug use. "These are people that supported me and believed in me… They have every right to feel betrayed and it's my fault. I will spend the rest of my life trying to earn back trust and apologize to people."

Last year, a report from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency led to Armstrong's downfall. The shamed cyclist was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and, until now, vehemently maintained his innocence.

Tonight's interview was only part one of Winfrey's explosive sit-down. Part two, which delves into Armstrong's reasons for agreeing to come clean (among other things), airs tomorrow night on OWN.

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Queens boy struck & killed by SUV

A Queens boy was struck and killed by an SUV tonight after running into the middle of a busy Ridgewood intersection, police said.

The 7-year-old was standing on the sidewalk near Myrtle Avenue and Madison Street with his father when the boy darted into traffic at around 6:50 p.m., cops and witnesses said.

“I saw the child lying in the street -- right on the double yellow line,” said pharmacy worker Darlyn Deleon, 22. “The father was kneeling next to the child and crying. The child looked bad.”

The boy was struck by a 2002 Toyota Highlander traveling east on Myrtle Avenue, cops said. He was taken to Wyckoff Hospital where he was pronounced dead, authorities said.

The driver remained at the scene and cops said they do not suspect any criminality at this time.

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Prices for Miami Beach luxury condos soar to records

Ultra-luxury condominiums on South Beach are fetching nosebleed prices.

On Tuesday, a penthouse at the Setai Resort at 2001 Collins Avenue closed for $27 million — the highest price ever for a South Florida condominium, according to real estate agents.

“We’re definitely seeing the market turning upward,” said Jeff Miller, of Zilbert International Realty in Miami, who represented the buyer in the sale of the palatial 7,100-square-foot condominium. “We’re seeing buyers come in from all over the globe.”

Just a few weeks ago, Ohio coal mining businessman Wayne Boich Jr. completed the sale of his Icon South Beach penthouse at 450 Alton Road in the uber-trendy South of Fifth neighborhood for just under $21 million.

The 6-bedroom, 7 1/2-bath Icon condo sparked a bidding war that drove the sale $2 million above the listing price — a level that is three times the $7 million Boich paid in July 2007 in the depths of the bust. It was a record price for a Miami Beach bayside condo.

“The luxury market is on fire in South Beach — especially the South of Fifth neighborhood,” said Dora Puig, principal of PuigWerner Real Estate Services, who was the listing broker for the Icon unit. “It’s moving Miami to totally different pricing points.”

The Setai’s record may not reign for long.

Penthouse 2 in the decade-old Continuum South tower at 100 South Pointe Drive in the South of Fifth neighborhood is on the market for $39 million.

That is a record listing price for a Miami-Dade condominium, according to Puig, who also snagged that listing.

Amid the market sizzle, Puig bumped up the asking price late last summer from $35 million.

The penthouse, which has 11,000 square feet of interior space, belongs to Manhattan real estate developer Ian Bruce Eichner, who built the Continuum project at the tip of South Beach and kept the trophy for himself.

The Continuum penthouse, which has 6,000 square feet of deck and a rooftop heated pool, boasts sweeping 13 1/2-foot ceilings that give the feel of a single-family home. The floor-to-ceiling glass walls offer a 360-degree view of the Atlantic Ocean, Biscayne Bay, downtown Miami and Miami Beach from 40 stories up.

“It looks down on Fisher Island, way down,” Puig said with a smile.

The unit has a private interior elevator, of course, and stretches over two indoor levels and two largely exterior levels.

One big plus: It has a gated entrance and sits on an expansive enclave of rolling lawns and gardens adjacent to a city park at the tip of the island.

The unit comes with an additional 874-square-foot guest quarters that would delight most mortals. “The guest unit is intended for professional quarters: the maid, the nanny, the chef, the pilot,” Puig explained.

Also included is a snazzy cabana on the beach.

Eichner has used it as a vacation home and once rented it to Tom Cruise for a couple of months while he was in Miami to film Rock of Ages.

On Thursday, Puig hosted Miami’s power brokers for a look at the Continuum penthouse over champagne and hors d’oeuvres. Next week, she plans to spend three days in New York touting the property to high-end brokers.

Such palatial properties typically are paid for in cash. But what would a monthly payment be?

With a 20 percent down payment of $7.8 million, the buyer would have to finance $31.2 million.

“I don’t know that I’d be able to find anybody willing to go that high on one unit,” warned Steve Schneider, a mortgage broker who is owner and president of Abacus Lending Group in South Miami.

If a buyer could line up a 15-year fixed rate mortgage at 3.5 percent, the monthly payment for principal and interest would be $223,043.35.

“I’d hate to see the tax bill,” said Schneider.

According to Miami-Dade County Property Appraiser records, the 2012 property tax bill on the Continuum penthouse was $264,896.17. That was based on an assessed value of just $9.5 million, less than half what the Property Appraiser listed as the market value of $19.3 million. The tax break came as a result of the state law that caps increases in assessed values on non-homesteaded property at 10 percent a year.

The condo maintenance fee for Eichner’s unit runs $7,624 a month. “I think that’s low for what you get,” said Puig.

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Scott supports review of state gun laws: ‘I want people to feel safe’

LARGO --
Gov. Rick Scott voiced his support for a broad review of Florida’s controversial gun laws by state lawmakers Wednesday, saying the state’s vital tourist economy depends on visitors being able to “feel safe” amid an increasingly well-armed population.

“We have a legislative session coming up,” Scott said during a visit to the Honeywell Aerospace plant in Largo, where he was touting his new plan to boost state manufacturing. “I think the right thing to do is go back and look at our laws.”

The father of a teacher, Scott said he would particularly support looking at ways to make schools safer. But he did not specify which other areas of existing state law might deserve scrutiny, refusing to respond to questions about universal background checks for firearm sales and a ban on assault weapons.

“I want people to feel safe in our state,” he said.

His remarks came in response to reporters’ questions on gun control, as the nation awaited an announcement from the White House on proposals to reform federal firearm regulations. President Barack Obama called on Congress Tuesday to enact bans on assault weapons and high-capacity gun magazines, and expand background checks for gun purchasers.

Scott’s statements about a review of state gun laws were a rare — if still vague — foray into the debate over gun control in the wake of the Dec. 14 massacre of 20 children and six adults by a gunman at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.

In previous public remarks, he has emphasized his sympathy for the victims’ families, rather than a legislative response. Scott skipped a conference call held by Vice President Joe Biden last week in which Biden solicited views on gun violence.

Scott’s press secretary, Jackie Schutz, later said she wanted to clarify that the governor’s support for a review of existing gun legislation doesn’t detract from his backing for citizens’ constitutional right to keep and bear arms. She said his remarks were not a “call to action” for specific legislation or reforms.

“Gov. Scott, as he has continued to say, is a strong supporter of the Second Amendment,” Schutz said. “He’s open to having a conversation, and he wants people to feel safe.”

Florida’s patchwork gun laws have subjected the state to criticism from gun-control advocates across the country. The state received a grade of “D-” in a recent review of state firearm laws by the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a San Francisco-based nonprofit.

In addition to its hotly debated “Stand Your Ground” self-defense law, Florida does not require background checks for private sales of weapons and places no limit on the number of guns a person can buy at one time. The state has issued more than a million permits to carry a concealed handgun.

Top Republicans in Tallahassee have so far balked at the prospect of adjusting those laws, though they have signaled some openness to increasing funding for school-security measures after the Newtown shooting.

Senate President Don Gaetz, a Niceville Republican, told the Orlando Sentinel this month that regulating gun access is “not something I think the Legislature will get involved in, other than peripherally.”

Asked to clarify the governor’s position on which state laws should be examined, Schutz said she could not offer specifics.

“Generally, he wants to take the [legislative] session to look at them, like he said,” Schutz said. “He wants to look at any ideas.”

Schutz declined to offer details about the governor’s ideas on school safety, or the possibility — advocated by the National Rifle Association — of placing armed guards in every elementary school.

“The safety of our schools — the teachers, the students, the people who work in the schools — is incredibly important,” she said.

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Commentary: Background Checks? Yes, but Leave Video Games Alone

COMMENTARY | I have mixed feelings toward the White House‘s gun violence response. I agree that background checks should be required before people are allowed to buy a firearm and that an assault weapon ban should be reinstated into law. While limiting the number of bullets in a weapon’s magazine will decrease the number of deaths in a mass shooting, the public does not need high-capacity magazines. Therefore any weapon using high-capacity magazines should be banned from public use, not just capping the magazines to 10 bullets.

But violent video games and other media images and scenes real-life violence? These media do not kill people. The shooters kill the people. Those who are mentally unstable may not understand that violent video games are not real life and should not be duplicated in real life. As long as gamers understand the difference between video games and real life, that shouldn’t be touched.

– Edmond, Okla.

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Kirstie Alley's Cheers Reunion

It's been nearly two decades since Cheers went off the air, but the onscreen chemistry hasn't changed between Kirstie Alley and Rhea Perlman, as seen in Kirstie's new TV Land pilot, Giant Baby.

On the show, Kirstie plays a Broadway diva whose life gets up-ended.

VIDEO: Kirstie Alley Celebrates 62nd Birthday with ET

"You know, we were planning this when we were doing Cheers," Kirstie said of reuniting with Rhea. "We said when Cheers isn't on the air anymore we'll do a show together."

Rhea plays Kirstie's best friend on Giant Baby, but she's also been a close friend to the Golden Globe winner in real-life, as Kirstie mentions in her New York Times bestseller, The Art of Men.

Kirstie's book, detailing her sexual exploits and struggles with drug addiction, has had so much success that it's attracted readers that Kirstie never thought would buy it.

"It never dawned on me that my dad would read my book," Kirstie said. "I didn't give it to him!"

Click the video for more.

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The price of legal pot

Last week, the board of The Fontaine, a luxury Upper East Side co-op, sued a resident over what it alleges is a constant, overwhelming smell of marijuana wafting from his apartment. This may just be a glimpse of our future.

After all, Colorado and Washington state voters just passed ballot initiatives to allow state-regulated marijuana sales. And Gov. Cuomo in his State of the State Address just suggested that pot possession shouldn’t be illegal.

But legalization raises a host of neglected issues. As one Fontaine resident complains in the lawsuit, “It is 10:45 p.m. and my apartment smells like a party was going on while I was out for the evening . . . The stench of musty pot that is lingering in my closet is unbearable.”

AP

It’s great for him: Smoking on New Year’s Eve at pot-focussed Club 64 in Denver, soon after Colorado voted to legalize recreational marijuana use.

Lots of high-end New York buildings go (tobacco) smoke-free now — surely plenty will want the same if marijuana’s legal.

What else changes in this brave new world of pot legalization?

Christopher Wildeman, a sociologist at Yale, estimates that pot consumption would rise 10 percent the first year after legalization, then edge back down to a net gain of 3 percent or 4 percent. But just who would be smoking more?

In photos of the celebrations after those ballot measures passed, we see a lot of college students having a good time, along with a few shabbily dressed grown-ups. But businessmen, doctors, lawyers, teachers and stay-at-home moms didn’t rush out into the street to light up.

Cuomo cited racial disparities in arrests as the main reason to legalize, saying, “It’s not fair, it’s not right. It must end, and it must end now.” But what about the disparate impact of legalization?

Anthony Daniels, a retired British prison doctor and psychiatrist, says that, if legalization increases consumption, “My suspicion is that it will mainly increase among people with comparatively little responsibility” — that is, the young and the poor.

He compares it with heroin. In the 1920s and 30s, it was mostly an occasional habit of the middle classes, he says, “But as it permeated into lower classes, it became a way of life in and of itself.” And the effects were devastating.

Brad Wilcox, a sociologist at the University of Virginia, worries that legalizing pot opens up a “Pandora’s box that will only create one more potential problem” for the lower classes. He explains, “The new world we live in is about freedom and choice in any number of domains. People who are well-educated and affluent can successfully navigate those choices. But Americans with fewer advantages fall into self-destructive patterns.”

Says Daniels: “For the most part, drug use is not going to rise among people who have important jobs and will not want to lose their important jobs because they are stoned.”

Nor will it affect what middle-class parents teach their children. As Wildeman notes, “Smoking [cigarettes] is legal, but if you look at the average middle-class parent, the stigma they attach to smoking is so strong that whether it’s legal or illegal has a tiny effect on that population.”

But among the lower classes, it’s a different story. In a 2006 study, a Harvard economist found that more than a third of Americans with a ninth- to 11th-grade education smoked, compared to only 7 percent of people with a graduate degree. The lower life expectancy of poor people has been tied to higher smoking rates.

Yes, tobacco smoke is far more toxic than pot fumes. But marijuana still has detrimental effects. As Wilcox notes, “If pot is indeed a kind of drug that makes people more likely to become kind of docile, if it saps the will to go out and make your mark on the world, then it’s the last thing we need to give to working-class and poor men.” They are already “dropping out of the labor market” at alarming rates. Pot may only “accentuate the problem.”

As for the rest of us, we can just head to the Upper East Side.

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

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Miami Dolphins bill would bring state money to aging stadiums

A bill drafted by the Miami Dolphins would give Florida sports teams $3 million a year in state money to improve older stadiums, provided the owner pays for at least half the cost of a major renovation.

Under the law, the stadium would need to be 20 years old and the team willing to put in at least $125 million for a $250 million renovation. That’s less than the $400 million redo of Sun Life Stadium that Dolphins owner Stephen Ross proposed this week, which he hopes will win state approval thanks to his offer to fund at least $200 million of the effort to modernize the 1987 facility.

Miami-Dade and Florida would fund the rest through a mix of county hotel taxes and state general funds set aside for stadiums. Sun Life currently receives $2 million a year through the program, and the Dolphins want to create a new category that would give them an additional $3 million.

While the Miami Marlins and Miami Heat both play in stadiums subsidized by county hotel taxes, the Dolphins receive no local dollars. The bill would change that by allowing Miami-Dade to increase the tax charged at mainland hotels to 7 percent from 6 percent, and eliminate the current rule that limits the money to publicly owned stadiums. Sun Life Stadium, in Miami Gardens, is privately owned but sits on county land.

The bill pits enthusiasm for one of Florida’s most popular sports teams against a lean budget climate and lingering backlash against the 2009 deal that had Miami and Miami-Dade borrow about $485 million to build a new ballpark for the Marlins. Ross also must navigate a Republican-led Legislature that has twice rebuffed his requests for public dollars.

“I would be surprised if that bill even got a hearing in committee,” said Mike Fasano, a Republican representative from the Tampa area and a critic of tax-funded sports deals. “I’m a big Dolphin fan, and have been for years. But with all due respect, we’ve got people who are struggling throughout this state right now . .. The last thing we should be doing is giving a professional sports team or facility additional tax dollars.”

While the bill would open up the $3 million subsidy to other the teams, the Dolphins see it as unlikely that another owner would be willing to put up as much money for renovations as Ross, a billionaire real estate developer.

If the bill were enacted today, any stadium opened before 1993 would be eligible for the money, provided it could show the proposed renovation would generate an additional $3 million in sales taxes.

Ross and his backers are pitching the renovation as a boon to tourism, with Sun Life a magnet for the Super Bowl, national college football games and other major events. The National Football League is considering South Florida and San Francisco for the 2016 Super Bowl, and the Dolphins say approval of renovation funding is crucial to winning the bid.

Sen. Oscar Braynon, D-Miami Gardens, who sponsored the Senate bill, said the funding makes sense because when Sun Life hosts a Super Bowl, the entire state benefits from both tourism dollars and publicity.

“It’s a small price to pay for economic development, and for all the shine we get from major sporting events,” said Braynon, whose district includes Sun Life. Rep. Eduardo “Eddy” Gonzalez, R-Hialeah, is the sponsor on the House side.

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Support mounts to allow unlimited political contributions in Florida

TALLAHASSEE --
Florida’s campaign finance system is so riddled with holes that a state ethics watchdog group will urge lawmakers Wednesday to open the spigot and let an unlimited amount of campaign cash gush into campaign coffers.

Integrity Florida, a non-profit, independent ethics advocacy organization, will tell the Houses Ethics and Elections Committee that the state should allow no-limits campaign finance in exchange for public disclosure of all donors.

Disclosure would be made within 24 hours of every check deposited to any state or local campaign account and every expenditure paid. The group also wants the elimination of powerful political slush funds that whitewash funds and shield donors, known as Committees of Continuous Existence.

“There is no evidence that caps on contributions are effective,’’ said Dan Krassner, executive director of Integrity Florida. “The money is going to find its way into the system. It is broken in every possible way.”

House Speaker Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, who has made eliminating CCEs a political priority, told the Herald/Times that he is “open to considering” the removal of contribution limits.

“We already have a system that allows for unlimited money,’’ he said.

Republican Party Chairman Lenny Curry said he supports any proposal “that creates more transparency,” but would leave it to lawmakers to work out the details.

Democratic political consultant Steve Schale said ending donation limits and requiring fast-track disclosure “is the only way to get rid of the fiction of limits and open the gates of sunshine.”

The proposal was unanimously supported by the board of Integrity Florida, which includes the president of the Northwest Florida Tea Party Mike Hill, the executive director of the First Amendment Foundation Barbara Petersen, and retired associate editor of the St. Petersburg Times, Martin Dyckman.

For about two decades, Florida has required political contributors to limit donations to candidates to $500 in the primary and another $500 in the general election. But those limits have been outmatched by a flood of money pouring into the system in the era of Super PACs and the 2010 landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision to recognize corporate contributions as political speech.

In the 2011-12 election cycle, Integrity Florida found that $230 million of the $306 million raised — about three out of four dollars — went to parties and political committees, which skirt the campaign finance limits and were subject to fewer disclosure rules.

Many of those CCEs are controlled by legislators and used to raise money, which they transfer to other campaigns or use to pay for meals, travel, car expenses and even gifts. The process has allowed the Legislature’s most powerful lawmakers to amass more clout during the election cycle as they transfer funds to the campaigns and committees of other members in an attempt to consolidate power.

In the last cycle, lawmakers who have risen to the most powerful posts in the House and Senate, raised more money in their political committees than most special interest groups in Florida. Most of the money was transferred to other accounts, leaving the public no clear trail to follow the money.

The Senate Ethics and Elections Committee chairman, Sen. Jack Latvala, R-St. Petersburg, said he wants to close those spending loopholes by banning the use of CCE funds on gifts and meals. But he does not want to eliminate CCEs. Latvala is also not a fan of removing the contribution limit because he believes the $1000 per-cycle contribution cap is working fine.

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Tablet Too Small? Try Lenovo’s 27-Inch ‘Table PC’

Google’s aptly-named Nexus 7 tablet made a splash when it debuted last year, at $ 199 and with a screen 7 inches across. Apple soon released its own iPad Mini to join the increasingly crowded world of miniature tablets, which — at about half the size of a regular iPad — are so small as to be pocketable.

Other manufacturers, however, aren’t taking the “smaller is better” route. Microsoft‘s Surface tablet debuted with a 10.6-inch screen, almost an inch across more than the iPad. And now at the recent Consumer Electronics Show, at least two companies were showing off “tablets” the size of an HDTV.

The “IdeaCentre Horizon Table PC”

That’s the actual name of Lenovo‘s new product, which Lenovo is calling an “interpersonal PC” (yes, that is an interpersonal Personal Computer, in case you were wondering). It’s a Windows 8 tablet, with a screen 27 inches across. It can apparently serve as an iMac-style, all-in-one desktop just fine, but Lenovo wants people to use it flat on their tables, like in a promo video which evokes the original Microsoft Surface.

A $ 10,000 bathtub

That’s basically what the first Surface amounted to — the Microsoft prototype of years ago, which never saw widespread use. It was a super-expensive, bathtub-sized table, with a Windows Vista PC inside and a camera array which optically scanned its top surface. It wasn’t a true touchscreen, in other words, so much as an expensive hack that was mostly just good for demos and reminding people of the desks in “Tron.”

Lenovo’s “Table PC” is smaller than that Surface, but will also be a lot cheaper when it comes out “beginning in early summer,” at $ 1,699. And like in those giddy tech demos, it’s designed for multiple people to use it at once; for things like sorting through vacation photos, or even playing animated digital board games, using physical accessories like special dice. (Lenovo calls this sort of hybrid activity “phygital,” a name which probably won’t catch on.)

What about the games and apps?

Thanks to Microsoft’s push for developers to make tablet apps, the Windows Market is starting to fill with touch titles. Lenovo is mostly pushing its own shop, however, run in partnership with Intel, which has “5,000+ multi-user entertainment apps.” It’s not clear how many of those are actually designed for the Horizon Table PC, but it comes with a selection of entertainment and children’s titles, and with the built-in BlueStacks player it should be able to run certain Android apps as well.

Is 27 inches a little too big?

The Asus Transformer AiO, also shown off at CES, is based on a similar concept. It’s an 18.4-inch all-in-one Windows 8 PC, where the screen can detach and become a huge (but not as huge) tablet. Most of the hardware is in the base station, but it can connect to it wirelessly inside the home, Wii U style. It also converts to an Android tablet, for use separate from the base station.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.

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