Global Networks: Miami

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10:37 am

Erika no longer a tropical storm, loses steam over Cuba

GNN - Erika, a tropical storm that was losing strength as it hit Haiti with heavy rains and strong winds, fell apart on Saturday over eastern Cuba, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

"Erika has degenerated into a trough of low pressure," the Miami-based hurricane center said in a Saturday morning forecast advisory.

Erika's maximum sustained winds had dropped to 35 mph (56 kph), just below the tropical storm threshold.

Dominica in the eastern Caribbean was the island worst-affected by Erika, with 20 killed and some still missing.

Still posing a threat of wind gusts and flash floods, the remnants of Erika were now expected to move over central Cuba, potentially providing welcome relief from a drought, before heading out into the Gulf of Mexico and skirting South Florida.

The NHC said the weather system could still regenerate into a tropical storm before reaching the northwest Florida Panhandle.

Florida Governor Rick Scott declared a state of emergency on Friday, noting the storm could travel "up the spine of Florida." He planned to give an update on its potential impact later on Saturday.

Forecasters have described Erika, the fifth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, as unusually hard to predict due to disruption from wind patterns and interaction with mountainous terrain.

Meteorologist Jeff Masters with the private U.S. forecaster, Weather Underground, said the island of Hispaniola, which Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic, "has saved us so many times in the past", thanks to its 10,000-feet (3,000-meter) peaks.

"It's probably saved thousands of lives in South Florida over the years," he said.

Impoverished Haiti also appeared to have dodged a bullet as Erika's sustained winds dropped to 45 mph (72 kph) as it moved over the capital, Port-au-Prince, on Friday night, the NHC said.

Haiti is acutely vulnerable to landslides due to widespread deforestation of its hillsides.

After a rainy night, the city woke up Saturday to clear skies and no signs of serious damage. Normally dust-covered trees were a lush green as bulldozers cleared mud from Route 1, the main road north out of the capital.

Dominica's prime minister, Roosevelt Skerrit confirmed in a Friday night address that 20 people had died from swollen rivers and rain-triggered landslides that swept away homes, roads and bridges.

He described the loss of life and economic damage as "monumental", with some communities cut off on the small, mountainous island with a population of about 72,000.

(Reporting by David Adams in Miami and Peter Granitz in Port-au-Prince; Editing by Alison Williams)

11:16 pm

Burger King in merger talks with Canada's Tim Hortons

#GNN - Burger King (BKW.N) is in talks to combine with Canadian coffee and doughnut chain Tim Hortons Inc (THI.TO) in a deal that would create a fast food powerhouse with a market capitalization of roughly $18 billion.

The companies confirmed merger discussions late on Sunday, and said the new company would be the world's third-largest quick service restaurant. It would be based in Canada, which has lower overall corporate taxes than the United States.

The proposed deal would be structured as a so-called tax inversion transaction to move Burger King's domicile out of the United States, and could come as soon as in the next few days, according to sources familiar with the discussions.

Recent attempts by companies for tax inversion deals, which are made to avoid higher U.S. taxes and save money on foreign earnings and cash held outside the United States, have drawn the attention of President Barack Obama, who criticized a "herd mentality" by companies seeking such deals.

Walgreen Co (WAG.N) recently decided against a tax inversion deal in its acquisition of European pharmacy chain Alliance Boots ABN.UL, saying it was "not in the best long-term interest of shareholders to attempt to re-domicile outside the U.S." [ID:nL6N0QC35L]

Amid heightened political sensitivity in the United States to such tax-cutting transactions, Walgreen said it was mindful of the public reaction to a potential inversion deal and its role as an "iconic American consumer retail company with a major portion of its revenues derived from government-funded reimbursement programs."

3G MAINTAINING MAJORITY
The companies said 3G Capital, the majority owner of Burger King, will continue to own the majority of the shares in the new combined entity on a pro forma basis, with the remainder held by existing shareholders of Tim Hortons and Burger King.

3G, a New York-based investment firm with Brazilian roots, acquired the then struggling Burger King in 2010 for about $3.3 billion. It later took the company back to market in 2012 but still owns nearly 70 percent of the firm's shares, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Tim Hortons and Burger King are set to operate as standalone brands within this new entity while benefiting from shared corporate services, the companies said.

Burger King said its experience in building a large global footprint would allow it to help accelerate Tim Hortons's growth in international markets.

If a deal gets sealed this wouldn't be the first time the iconic Canadian restaurant chain moves into foreign hands. It was bought by Wendy's International Inc in 1995, but later spun out in 2006 after the fast food chain came under pressure from activist investor Nelson Peltz.

While operated from Oakville, Ontario, it kept its corporate headquarters in Delaware before moving it back to Canada in 2009. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper took some credit for the move, citing the Conservative government’s decision to cut the corporate tax rate.

Since coming to power in 2006, the Conservatives have cut Canada's corporate tax rate to 15 percent. Public companies also have to pay provincial corporate taxes that then bring their combined federal and provincial tax rate to about 25 percent or higher.

Tim Hortons and Burger King said they do not plan to comment on this potential deal further unless and until a transaction is agreed, or discussions are discontinued.

Burger King, founded in 1954 and headquartered in Miami, Florida, operates over 13,000 locations in nearly 100 countries and territories across the globe. It has a market capitalization of about $9.55 billion.

Oakville, Canada-based Tim Hortons operates more than 3,500 system wide restaurants in Canada and over 850 in the United States. Its U.S. market cap stands at about $8.4 billion.

(GNN)(Reuters)(AIP)(Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak, Olivia Oran and Mike Stone; Editing by Leslie Adler, Stephen Coates and Ryan Woo)

2:11 pm

Amateur explorers claim to find lost Army fort in Florida Everglades

(GNN) - A team of amateur explorers say they found the site of a lost U.S. Army fort buried deep in the Everglades that once served as a restocking post for troops during a series of guerilla-like battles with Seminole Indians.

Nestled into the dense, waterlogged swamps 60 miles (100 km)from the coast, Fort Harrell, built in 1837, was one of nearly a dozen forts across Florida used in the early and mid-19th century.

“It was a critical fort during that period of time, which was the costliest war that the U.S. had been involved in, Indian-wise,” said Shawn Beightol, a Miami public school chemistry teacher who learned of it in a book more than a decade ago.

Beightol, a longtime Everglades explorer who has kayaked across the wetland, found a trio of maps from the 1850s and began talking to local park rangers and fisherman in hopes of finding the 170-year-old site.

This spring Beightol and a group of explorers that included Tony Pernas of the National Park Service and Chris Harris, a computer engineer, began overlaying old maps with global positioning satellite coordinates.

Throughout the spring and summer they, along with others, launched five trips into the Everglades, spending more than 100 hours searching sites that seemed to match descriptions of the fort’s location.

On July 26 the trio set out looking for one site on a 1940’s aerial map and found post holes in the damp ground and limestone that may have supported a wall, Beightol said. About 100 yards (91 meters) away buried in the mud they found a weathered 20-foot (6-meter) Cypress log carved into a long beam.

“We couldn’t prove what it is, but it’s clearly something very old,” he added.

They took the find to the National Park Service and Robert Carr, a south Florida archaeologist who has excavated and studied 2,000-year-old Tequesta Indian sites found in the heart of downtown Miami.

“We have to begin the scientific examination of the site to see whether the post holes were man-made, and whether there are any artifacts,” Carr said.

If it is authentic, Beightol said he would like to see the site memorialized and linked to kayak and bike routes connected to the two-lane highway that runs out of Miami and across the wetland.

“I want the public to be aware of what they have. It’s right within reach,” he said.

(Reuters - AIP)(Editing by David Adams and Lisa Shumaker)

5:47 pm

Florida imam gets 25 years in prison for aiding Pakistani Taliban

MIAMI:A 78-year-old south Florida imam was sentenced to 25 years in prison by a judge on Friday for funneling more than $50,000 to the Pakistani Taliban. Hafiz Kahn was convicted in March on four counts of providing money and support to the group, which the United States considers a terrorist organization. He faced a maximum of 60 years in prison and prosecutors sought a 15-year sentence.

A U.S. citizen born in Pakistan, Khan was the imam at the Flagler Mosque, one of Miami's oldest mosques. He was arrested in 2011 along with two of his sons.

Prosecutors said Khan sent money to family and friends in Pakistan between 2008 and 2010 that was funneled to the Taliban and some of the funds were used to buy weapons.

Evidence against the elder Khan included bank records and wiretapped phone calls in which he solicited money and expressed support for Pakistani Taliban efforts to overthrow the Pakistani government and attack Americans. Khan, however, said the money was intended to help support relatives, war victims and a school he had founded in his hometown in the Swat Valley in northwest Pakistan. Prosecutors dropped charges against one of Khan's sons last year citing a lack of evidence. A judge acquitted the other son for the same reason after prosecutors finished presenting their case in court in January.

Khan testified in court that he lied about supporting the Taliban because he wanted a $1 million donation from a purported Taliban sympathizer, a man who was actually an FBI informant paid by the government.

The Pakistani Taliban was formed by extremist militants in 2007. The U.S. State Department declared it a foreign terrorist organization three years later.

The group has been connected to a December 2009 suicide attack on a U.S. military base in Khost, Afghanistan, that killed seven people. In 2011, the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for suicide attacks that killed more than 80 people in northwestern Pakistan.(Reuters) (GNN)