From giant African snails to tegus to peacocks, Florida is crawling with all kinds of things that aren’t supposed to be here. Probably none inspires as much fear as the Burmese python, which for years has been ravaging the Everglades and pretty much everything that lives there.
Alfredo Ballester was sitting on his motorcycle at a red light in Little Havana when a police officer suddenly pulled in front of him and jumped out of his patrol car. To the 19-year-old’s surprise, the officer hurried toward him and tore him off his motorcycle, explaining he thought Ballester would try to flee.
When the City of Miami Beach created a MiMo architecture historic district to protect its Morris Lapidus-designed, mid-20th-century buildings a few years ago, officials considered including the beachfront stretch along Collins Avenue from 53rd to 63rd Street. But there was a problem: The huge condo towers on either side of the street create “an almost continuous ‘canyon’ wall effect on both sides…”
Ryan Masti could hardly believe what he was hearing. The soft-spoken college senior who’d grown up on a farm in a speck-size New York town listened breathlessly as a World Patent Marketing rep told him the company wanted to partner with him on his invention. In fact, the man told…
In 1937, a young black man named John McBride was shot in the stomach by a car full of white men rumored to be members of the Ku Klux Klan. Hospitals in the area near the Pompano Beach shooting at first refused to admit him. A black physician, Dr. Von D. Mizell, ultimately persuaded one of them to take him in. But the hospital later insisted on moving McBride to a rundown sanitarium, where he soon died.
When a South Florida Uber driver shot and killed an armed attacker late last year, Jose Mejia thought the company should have congratulated the guy. Mejia, who’s also a local driver, couldn’t believe it when the man’s job was called into question instead, thanks to an Uber policy barring firearms.
Every morning for the past seven years, Ethel Domiguez has fed the cats living in the tangle of vegetation on the beach behind her Collins Avenue condo building. But when she went down to the beach yesterday, she was horrified by what she saw: Workers were bulldozing everything. Most…
Florida has a well-earned reputation for being a lawless swamp. But give credit where it’s due: In its 172-year history, the Sunshine State has seen fit to regulate a few things, including some truly bizarre bans.
For nearly 20 years, Memorial Day in Miami Beach has been synonymous with Urban Beach Week, an informal hip-hop event that draws hundreds of thousands to the city for a days-long party. But that changed this year.
Palmetto Bay Councilman David Singer readily admits he has a bit of a temper. In fact, the newly elected politician is suing a former opponent who posted audio of an expletive-packed tirade he left in a voicemail message.
When a North Miami church worker was found guilty of molesting a 9-year-old girl who was attending a youth program, he was sentenced to ten years in prison and registered as a sexual predator. But now the victim’s family says the church, Horeb French Seventh-Day Adventist, should be held responsible,…
Andrea Landa and two friends were sitting in her parked car one Sunday night when a trio of young police officers walked up with flashlights. The cops checked the friends’ IDs, but wouldn’t let them leave. Instead, over the next two hours, the officers toyed with their guns, told one of…
While supposedly transferring data to a customer’s new iPhone one day, an employee at a Kendall T-Mobile store decided to go on a little fishing expedition through her photos and videos. When he found some that piqued his interest — nudes and videos of the woman having sex — he took the liberty of sending them to himself and then forwarded them to a few friends.
Among the safe-sex advisories and strip-club ads that line I-95 in South Florida, one billboard has always been especially eye-catching. For the past year, the text on the double-billboard screamed “SYPHILIS EXPLOSION” above a huge glittery volcano. Sadly, that sign has been taken down. But another natural-disaster-themed STD alert has taken its place. Behold the “Syphilis Tsunami.”
On a Sunday morning about a year ago, Robert Lansburgh rode his bike across the MacArthur Causeway. The longtime cyclist was stunned by the view along the way — but also a bit shaken by the cars rushing past him. “It’s three lanes. It’s not patrolled,” he says. “You have cars that could be going 80 mph. It’s out of control. It’s great if you have a Ferrari and you want to get it in sixth gear.”
High above a leafy Westchester neighborhood, a helicopter full of federal agents zeroes in on a gated house with a red-tiled roof. On the ground, a Homeland Security SWAT team surrounds the ranch-style home on a dead-end street off the Palmetto Expressway. Scores of agents in body armor crouch nearby,…
One day in spring 2013, a 15-year-old girl didn’t show up for classes at Miami Jackson Senior High. Her parents sought help from someone who seemed trustworthy: a police officer named Juan Cecchinelli who worked at the school. The next day, the teen returned home and confided in Cecchinelli that she’d been sexually assaulted after running away.
Almost a year ago, the Florida Department of Health announced Wynwood was ground zero for Zika, the only place in the United States where the virus was being spread by mosquitoes. Soon after, the CDC began telling pregnant women to avoid traveling to the area, and a kind of panic hit local streets.
Late last year, as he served a life sentence in prison, Ernesto Behrens received a notice informing him of problems discovered at the crime lab that had examined DNA in his case. Behrens, who was convicted of armed sexual battery in Broward County in 2000, immediately filed a flurry of motions asking for the evidence to be reviewed.
Alex Martinez was surveying sea turtle nests in Miami Beach early Monday morning when a beachgoer flagged him down. On the shoreline at 10th Street and Collins Avenue was a 300-pound loggerhead turtle, dead in the sand near a freshly laid nest. A closer look at the nest revealed tire tracks and boot prints.
In case he hasn’t already done enough to ruin your 2017, President Donald Trump is coming to Miami today to personally make your brutal morning commute worse than it already is. Trump is taking a break from yelling at Democrats and Hillary Clinton on Twitter to reveal his Cuba policy during a speech early this afternoon at the Manuel Artime Theater in Little Havana.
Dr. Michael Salzhauer is many things — a famous plastic surgeon, a prolific Snapchatter, a shameless self-promoter — but subtle isn’t one of them. So when Bay Harbor Islands cited his medical office for a code violation, he showed up at a council meeting dressed in a red velvet robe and crown and declared independence from the tiny town.
