YouTube Announces Top 10 Videos of 2012

YouTube has just released their top 10 videos of 2012 along with one dazzling video bound to become a viral sensation in its own right.

Watch the clip to see the Rewind YouTube Style video featuring the website's biggest stars acting out a parody of Gangnam Style and Call Me Maybe. The video was shot at the new YouTube Space in Los Angeles, a place for YouTube creators to come learn, collaborate, and create great content to put up on their YouTube channels.

Check out the list of 2012's greatest YouTube moments below:

1) PSY - Gangnam Style: The Korean pop music video that surprised the world is set to hit 1 billion views and has become the most viewed video of all time in just six months.

2) Walk off the Earth: This is the most-viewed cover song of 2012, attracting 140 million views this year.

3) KONY 2012: This video contained a call to action and collected 31 million views in a single day -- the most views ever for a YouTube video.

4) Call Me Maybe - Bieber, Gomez, Pena: This video, covering the song of the summer, kicked off a trend of lip sync videos that spanned from the Harvard baseball team and celebs to Olympians.

5) Epic Rap Battles - Obama vs. Romney: This episode featured well-known Obama impersonator Alphacat, and is one of the better known instances of the 2012 trend of Obama and Romney videos.

6) Dramatic Surprise: This video, featuring a mysterious sign in the middle of a Flemish square, brought in 25 million views in its first week.

7) Why You Asking All Them Questions: Comedian Emmanuel Hudson's popularity exploded this year partly from this video that garnered 39 million views -- almost half of which came from mobile devices.

8) Lindsey Stirling: Lindsey's trademark dubstep violin styles created a lot of buzz this year -- especially in the U.S., Germany and Poland. This video, which was shot by Lindsey's fellow YouTube creator Devin Graham, has over 500,000 likes and 100,000 comments.

9) Facebook Parenting: This video taught us not to mess with Dad. Bringing in 11 million views in one day, this video was the catalyst for an international discussion about parenting and Facebook.

10) Stratos Highlights: This live stream of Felix Baumgartner's free-fall from 128,000 feet shattered previous live stream records with 8 million concurrent views.

Visit youtube.com/rewind for more.

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Killer’s data destruction: Adam Lanza smashed hard drive before massacre

Before he set off on his heinous rampage, Connecticut school shooter Adam Lanza tried to cover his deadly tracks by smashing the hard drive of at least one of his cherished computers, according to investigators.

The shattered drive was recovered during a search of the home of Nancy Lanza, the killer’s doting mom — and his first victim.

Forensics experts were trying yesterday to piece the broken hard drive together, hoping it will help reveal clues about the horrific Sandy Hook Elementary School slaughter, which left 20 little kids and six educators dead.

It is unclear whether information could be retrieved from the battered drive.

Police have declined specific comment on any evidence gathered at the school or Nancy Lanza’s home and said they were not yet ready to discuss a possible motive.

Adam’s father, Peter, a tax expert, and older brother, Ryan, 24, have spent hours answering questions for state and federal investigators but have been unable to shed any light on what sparked Adam’s deadly rage.

“In all that time, they got no real information that could help figure this out,” one source familiar with the interviews told The Post.

Nancy Lanza — who was shot in the head four times by her son before his schoolhouse massacre — gave no indication she thought he was about to snap, friends said.

Diagnosed with the autism-related Asperger’s syndrome and afflicted with a medical condition that kept him from feeling physical pain, Adam Lanza had lived with his mother since his parents’ amicable 2009 divorce.

The Lanzas’ divorce mediator, Paula Levy, yesterday said both parents were concerned about getting the best care and attention for their troubled son. Nancy Lanza got $289,800 a year in alimony and shared custody of Adam, court records show.

“The only two things I remember them saying is that she really didn’t like to leave him alone. And I know they went out of their way to accommodate him,” said Levy.

Adam Lanza, 20, spent much of his time at his mom’s home alone in one of two bedrooms he used, either reading or on his computers, friends said.

“He was always home at 11,” Nancy Lanza’s friend Ellen Adriani said. “Nancy said he was a night owl. He tended to stay up and read into the morning.

“It was unusual,” Adriani noted of the morning Lanza unleashed his evil fury, for Adam “to be up that early.”

When Adam was in high school, he was also given extra supervision by teachers and staff.

Former Newtown HS security head Richard Novia saidNancy Lanza met with counselors and administrators to find ways to keep him safe. Novia said Lanza w

as such an awkward misfit that he worried the boy would be bullied, but that he wasn’t a threat to others.

“He would have an episode, and she’d have to return or come to the high school and deal with it,” Novia said, noting that Adam Lanza would sometime completely withdraw from tasks.

“We were worried about him being the victim, or that he could hurt himself” Novia said.

Meanwhile, Adam’s former childhood babysitter, Ryan Kraft, recalled that Nancy Lanza was insistent that he watch her quiet, introverted son like a hawk.

“[She said] to keep an eye on him at all times,” Kraft told CBS. “To never turn my back, or even to go to the bathroom or anything like that.”

Additional reporting by Jennifer Bain, Josh Margolin and

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American Airlines adds new agreements, flights in South America

In a nod to the importance of Latin America for its business, American Airlines on Monday announced new codeshare agreements with airlines in the region as well as new routes.

American has agreed to codeshare with TAM Airlines, based in Sao Paulo, and LAN Colombia, both part of LATAM Airlines Group.

The airline also said that it will add new routes in late 2013 between Miami and two destinations in Brazil: Curitiba and Porto Alegre. American also plans to add service between Dallas/Fort Worth and Bogota late next year.

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Sperm whale dies off Pompano Beach coast

The carcass of a 40-foot sperm whale that apparently died as it neared the shore off of Pompano Beach on Sunday afternoon later drifted back out to sea, ending a drama that had drawn the attention of beachgoers and scientists alike.

The whale was spotted about noon offshore near the 600 block of North Ocean Boulevard, according to the Broward Sheriff’s Office.

Read the full story at Sun-Sentinel.com.

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O: ‘these tragedies must end’

President Obama last night told the stricken residents of Newtown, Conn., who lost 20 children and six educators to a madman’s gunfire, “We can’t tolerate this anymore.”

“These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change,’’ he added, grimly noting it was the fourth time in his presidency he’d spoken to the nation about a mass shooting.

“The fourth time we’ve hugged survivors,’’ he said. “The fourth time we’ve consoled the families of victims.”

He did not mention the mounting calls for stronger gun controls in the wake of the tragedy, but noted, “There have been an endless series of deadly shootings across the country, almost daily reports of victims, many of them children. Much of the time, their only fault was being in the wrong place at the wrong time.’’

AFP/Getty Images

SORROW:

The president addresses the devastated community
of Newtown, Conn., at a
vigil yesterday
for grieving
families.

Reuters

Shocked kids clung tightly to plush toys donated by the Red Cross.

He predicted, “We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and that is true. No single law, no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society. . . .But that can’t be an excuse for inaction.”

He added, “If there is even one step we can take to save another child or another parent or another town . . . surely, we have an obligation to try.’’

He vowed to “use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens . . . in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this . . . We can’t accept events like this as routine.’’

The president asked, “Are we really prepared to say that we’re powerless in the face of such carnage, that the politics are too hard? Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is the price of our freedom?”

He told his grief-stricken audience, “I can only hope it helps for you to know that you’re not alone . . . that all across this land of ours, we have wept with you.”

Loud sobbing was heard from the audience throughout the speech.

The president cited the heroics of the six Sandy Hook Elementary School educators who gave their lives trying to shield the children.

He closed by reading of the names of all those murdered.

Before speaking to about 1,000 people at the interfaith service in the auditorium of the town’s high school, Obama met privately with relatives of about 15 of those killed by 20-year-old Adam Lanza.

Additional reporting by Lia Eustachewich and Julia Marsh in Newtown, Conn., and Gerry Shields in Washington, DC

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Five years after the recession, a slow recovery plods on

Five years ago this month, the Great Recession began. Which leads to this question: How much longer until South Florida can erase the damage?

Officially, the recession ended in June 2009. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the national economy began contracting in December 2007 and did not grow again for 19 months. Using taxable sales figures, it’s probably safe to say South Florida experienced a longer downturn. Overall spending contracted for the first time in South Florida in March 2007 and didn’t post a year-over-year gain until February 2010.

“Miami was at the forefront of the housing boom and bust,’’ said Karl Kuykendall, an economist who follows South Florida for IHS Global Insight. “It’s no surprise Miami was early into the recession and somewhat late coming out.”

But whatever the actual duration of the downturn, it doesn’t take much math to realize the economy still feels shaky. South Florida lost its first net job in more than two years in October, when a tiny decline of 300 payroll slots interrupted 26 months of consistent expansion. The upcoming November report out Friday will show whether the losing streak continues.

And while unemployment is off near-record highs set in April 2010, more than 180,000 South Floridians were listed as officially out of work in the last count. That’s almost 90 percent more than the 98,000 people listed as out of work in the first month of the recession.

Tourism posted an early recovery, particularly in Miami-Dade, where foreign visitors helped hotels shake-off a sharp drop in U.S. vacationers and business travelers. But the recession lingers in Broward’s tourism industry, which is just now retiring past records.

Housing suffered the most dramatic crash throughout the recession and was also the last of the major indicators to begin its recovery. The Case-Shiller real estate index pegs May 2006 as the peak of the bubble in South Florida. Although each neighborhood is different, the average South Florida house worth $200,000 that month would have fallen down to $97,600 by the time the market hit bottom just over a year ago, in November 2011.

Values have recovered 9 percent since then, meaning the same house should be worth just over $105,0000. That’s a loss of 47 percent over six years.

Recovering from that kind of crash takes time, and five years clearly isn’t enough. To give a hint of the progress underway, Business Monday checked into businesses and residents on the frontlines of the recovery. The reports follow:

Housing

After fending off a foreclosure and battling to get out from under an onerous option ARM mortgage, Marie and Wilson Destin recently worked out a loan modification on their 4-bedroom, 2-bathroom house near Miami Lakes.

With the help of Neighborhood Housing Services of South Florida, a nonprofit agency that helps people navigate the Byzantine home financing landscape, the Destins cut their monthly mortgage payment to $1,500 from $1,900 under a new fixed-rate loan.

In 2006, when the housing market was booming, the Haitian-American couple had taken out an option ARM loan on the property, which they had owned for several years.

“Somebody came to the house and approached me with an option ARM loan,’’ said Wilson Destin. “They said I would pay less.’’

The option ARM — which has triggered financial woes for thousands of homeowners during the downturn — allowed for flexible payments and negative amortization, practically encouraging people to defer payments.

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7-year-old in critical condition after accident

Police were investigating an accident involving a 7-year-old who was struck by a vehicle in a Lauderhill neighborhood late Saturday, Lauderhill Police spokesman Rick Rocco said.

The vehicle and its driver, who has not yet been identified, remained on scene after the incident near the intersection of Northwest 27th Court and 56th Avenue.

The child was transported to Broward Health Medical Center in critical condition immediately after the incident, police said.

Details of the accident were not immediately available.

This post will be updated as we receive more information.

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Riveting Details Emerge from CT School Rampage

As morning turned to afternoon on Friday, further details continued to emerge from Newtown, CT, a tight-knit community shaken by a massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School that took the lives of innocent students and teachers, in addition to the gunman, reportedly identified as Adam Lanza.

RELATED: President Fights Tears as He Addresses Nation

As President Barack Obama touched on in his tear-jerking press conference, this is not the first time the nation has witnessed a tragedy of this kind. The recent mass shooting at an Aurora, CO movie theater is just one instance of such violence. Columbine High School and Virginia Tech also resonate as prime examples.

Hollywood's biggest stars were quick to react to the news on Twitter and made an outcry for stricter gun control regulations.

Watch the video for ET's complete coverage of today's biggest headline.

RELATED: Celebs Tweet Reactions to CT School Shooting

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The lesson of ‘Zero Dark Thirty’

The Osama bin Laden manhunt thriller “Zero Dark Thirty,” which comes out Wednesday, has already received several Best Picture awards from film critics’ groups, including the one in New York. But that’s no reason not to see it.

Director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal’s follow-up to their Oscar winner “The Hurt Locker” is far superior to the earlier film — a gripping work but also a painstakingly detailed one that is more intellectually and morally serious about the War on Terror than any other Hollywood film yet made.

It lays out how a female CIA agent, named “Maya” and played by Jessica Chastain, pieced together information from a variety of sources, including al Qaeda prisoners who had been waterboarded, to learn of the existence of the bin Laden courier who ultimately led to his boss’s death.

Courtesy of Columbia Pictures

This scene from “Zero Dark Thirty” was made possible by the waterboarding of terrorists.

AP

“Zero Dark Thirty” is so drenched in procedural detail that its message may appear ambiguous at first glance, and the hacks are already calling it a “Rorschach test” that will confirm whatever view of torture you held going into the theater.

It isn’t. Not if you’re paying attention.

After seeing it, I can report that it is a clear vindication for the Bush administration’s view of the War on Terror. Moreover, “ZD30” subtly presents President Obama and by extension the entire Democratic establishment and its supporters in the media as hindering the effort to find bin Laden by politicizing harsh interrogation techniques and striking a pose against them that was naive at best.

Since the film is based on unpublished interviews with primary sources, it is unusually difficult to fact-check. But as information about the reality behind the story emerges, so far “ZD30” is standing up factually and is consistent with relevant statements by former CIA Director Leon Panetta and lawmakers with access to classified information about the raid.

The left is alarmed. Glenn Greenwald, without even having seen the film, wrote a piece headlined, “Zero Dark Thirty: New Torture-Glorifying Film Wins Raves,” then finished up by comparing Bigelow to (of course) Hitler’s favorite director Leni Riefenstahl.

Does “ZD30” glorify torture? No, because no one is tortured in it. The worst procedure shown is waterboarding, and while this is an extremely unpleasant process (it’s not even easy to watch a movie simulation of it), it isn’t torture.

Any reasonable definition of torture must exclude procedures that sane people would undergo on a lark. Journalists such as Kaj Larsen and Christopher Hitchens have volunteered to be waterboarded in exchange for nothing more than a cocktail-party anecdote and some copy. (Indeed, Larsen paid $800 for the privilege.) A mixed-martial-arts trainer named Ed Clay volunteered to be waterboarded because he was upset about the general tenor of discussion during a Republican presidential debate and wanted to prove something or other.

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

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Miami in spotlight at AVCC, other entrepreneurship events

Entrepreneurs from around the world took the stage during this packed week of entrepreneurship events in Miami: Florida International University’s Americas Venture Capital Conference (known as AVCC), HackDay, Wayra’s Global DemoDay and Endeavor’s International Selection Panel.

The events, all part of the first Innovate MIA week, also put the spotlight on Miami as it continues to try to develop into a technology hub for the Americas.

“While I like art, I absolutely love what is happening today... The time has come to become a tech hub in Miami,” said Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos A. Gimenez, who kicked off the venture capital conference on Thursday. He told the audience of 450 investors and entrepreneurs about the county’s $1 million investment in the Launch Pad Tech Accelerator in downtown Miami.

“I have no doubt that this gathering today will produce new ideas and new business ventures that will put our community on a fast track to becoming a center for innovative, tech-driven entrepreneurship,” Gimenez said.

Brad Feld, an early-stage investor and a founder of TechStars, cautioned that won’t happen overnight. Building a startup community can take five, 10, even 15 years, and those leading the effort, who should be entrepreneurs themselves, need to take the long-term view, he told the audience via video. “You can create very powerful entrepreneurial ecosystems in any city... I’ve spent some time in Miami, I think you are off to a great start.”

Throughout the two-day AVCC at the JW Brickell Marriott, as well as the Endeavor and Wayra events, entrepreneurs from around the world pitched their companies, hoping to persuade investors to part with some of their green.

And in some cases, the entrepreneurs could win money, too. During the venture capital conference, 29 companies —including eight from South Florida such as itMD, which connects doctors, patients and imaging facilities to facilitate easy access of records — competed for more than $50,000 in cash and prizes through short “elevator’’ pitches. Each took questions from the judges, then demoed their products or services in the conference “Hot Zone,” a room adjoining the ballroom. Some companies like oLyfe, a platform to organize what people share online, are hoping to raise funds for expansion into Latin America. Others like Ideame, a trilingual crowdfunding platform, were laser focused on pan-Latin American opportunities.

Winning the grand prize of $15,000 in cash and art was Trapezoid Digital Security of Miami, which provides hardware-based security solutions for enterprise and cloud environments. Fotopigeon of Tampa, a photo-sharing and printing service targeting the military and prison niches, scored two prizes.

The conference offered opportunities to hear formal presentations on current trends — among them the surge of start-ups in Brazil; the importance of mobile apps and overheated company valuations — and informal opportunities to connect with fellow entrepreneurs.

Speakers included Gaston Legorburu of SapientNitro, Albert Santalo of CareCloud and Juan Diego Calle of .Co Internet, all South Florida entrepreneurs. Jerry Haar, executive director of FIU’s Pino Global Entrepreneurship Center, which produced the conference with a host of sponsors, said the organizers worked hard to make the conference relevant to both the local and Latin American audience, with panels on funding and recruiting for startups, for instance.

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