Risky Business Filed under: News When the corrections counselor tells what it’s like to walk past the cell blocks at the Miami-Dade County Stockade, she could almost be describing Clarice Starling’s walk down the corridor of a maximum-security prison in The Silence of the Lambs: “As a female, you get…

Awad grew up on a cattle farm in Ethiopia, a member of that country’s underrepresented and sometimes persecuted ethnic minority, the Oromo. He had no formal schooling, though he possessed an excellent memory and was quick with figures from a lifetime of managing livestock. He knew violence: Government agents had…

Douglas Road Goes Off the (Metro) Rails Filed under: Scanner In 2003 the Miami-Dade County Commission selected Miami banker and real estate developer Raul Masvidal to build on county-owned property near the Douglas Road Metrorail station. Masvidal and his partners, Pinnacle Housing and Royal Group Investments, promised a parking garage,…

Mining the Store Filed under: Flotsam Every once in a while, Riptide hears about an average blue-collar Miami-Dade citizen engaging in some inexplicably absurd, devious behavior. One example is the criminal case against Franklin Knowles and Larry Martinez, two gents who earn their keep by stopping shoplifters and identity thieves…

Waterfront Access Is for Commies Filed under: Scanner When the Miami City Commission met this past week to discuss waterfront zoning, the exchanges went from surly to surreal. Fortunately Riptide was there to chronicle the, er, “conversation.” Pedro Martin’s lawyers and supporters came calling first, asking for a zoning change…

Poor Alex. With his baby face and soul patch, the sensitive heir to a successful Napa Valley vineyard is alone in a world of malevolent usurpers and ambitious liars. He is a dreamy optimist, the Candide of Telemundo’s 8:00 p.m. soap opera Tierra de Pasiones (Land of Passions). What he…

For a young writer, publishing a story in The New Yorker’s Début Fiction issue and locking down a book deal are the first steps toward literary Valhalla. Karen Russell, a 25-year-old Miami native, has accomplished both. Last year a story she penned, “Haunting Olivia,” was awarded with Début status. Next…

Every day fifteen wells in Northwest Miami-Dade pump more than 150 million gallons of water from the Biscayne Aquifer, South Florida’s sole source of drinking water. The aquifer is a freshwater reservoir made of limestone-bearing materials — shells, coral, and sand — that extends 100 feet deep beneath most of…

As midnight approached this past Monday, Radio Mambí host Ninoska Pérez Castellón cautioned against speculation of Fidel Castro’s death. But on Calle Ocho, no one seemed to be listening. Block after block teemed with revelers waving Cuban flags, leaning on car horns, dancing on SUV roofs. From the sidewalks, onlookers…

There was something fishy about the skinny, long-limb, shaved-head stranger who appeared in the parking lot of Macy’s at Aventura Mall one steamy Sunday last summer. It wasn’t simply that he was younger than the other weekend warriors who bike to Key Biscayne and back every week. Most of the…

Not long after noon on June 11 at the Playwright Irish Pub in South Beach, the predominantly pro-American crowd was silent. It had nothing to root for in this opening round of World Cup action. A flat-footed Team USA was unraveling against the Czech Republic, down two-zip entering the second…

Late afternoon on May 5 in a windowless, wood-paneled North Miami office, Stephen Brooks feeds his family and friends. His grandparents sit on a low pleather couch, chewing on pieces of dried mango. His father and business partners look up from a topographical map of a hill in Costa Rica…

East Caravella. It sounds like a meadow in Narnia but looks like a suburb of Phoenix. East Caravella is a complex of townhouses situated along a curved road. The streets look newly paved, but the lawns are uniformly dead. Fifteen dollars a night here gets you a two-level apartment to…

Miamians may have been surprised to see his honor Manny Diaz among a group of environmentally conscious mayors in this May’s Vanity Fair, a special “green issue” devoted mostly to ecologically minded celebrities. VF praised Diaz for “[bringing] in the private sector to help clean up the city’s waters with…

There is a certain poignancy to holding an immigration rally in a place called Homestead. The city’s name dates back to 1898, when the government opened the area south of Miami to pioneering farmers. At that time, proof of living and working on a tract of public property qualified newcomers…

South Beach is the casual-sex capital of America — or at least that’s the reputation. So it was a surprise when, this past March, a sign appeared on the glass door of the Miami Beach Planned Parenthood clinic on Sixth Street announcing it would be open only two days a…

Arainia’s parents expected a healthy baby. Her first moments of life seemed to confirm their hopes. On the outside she looked perfect, with downy strawberry-blond hair and blue eyes, ten fingers and ten toes. Perhaps it was the brief illusion of wellness — the anticipation of a new life unfurling…

Isabel’s plans have gone horribly awry. The buxom brunet, her frosty highlighted hair in gravity-defying layers, had one mission: Seduce and marry the sweetly naive Alejandro, heir to his grandfather’s highly profitable ranch. Now she listens, horrified, as the earnest young man, brown eyes shining with sincere concern, reveals what…

Stacey Glassman, blond and enthusiastic, teetered on a stage by the pool of the Raleigh Hotel in a cotton-candy pink, Marilyn Monroe-inspired halter-dress and heels. Behind her, nine New World Symphony musicians sat or stood according to the demands of their instruments. Most were in their midtwenties and looked their…