It’s the height of winter harvest season in the southern reaches of Miami-Dade County. Turkey vultures swoop overhead, their sable wings lifted by winds redolent of damp grass. Hundreds of mostly Haitian bean pickers dot the leafy, rustling fields off SW 296th Street west of Krome Avenue one January morning…

Eddy Rodriguez, a stocky 50-year-old, wears a white bunny suit, a yellow vest with polka dots, and a Day-Glo green cowboy hat. Just outside the Gap clothing store on Grand Avenue in Coconut Grove, he passes a greasy-haired man with bloodshot eyes who’s kneeling on the sidewalk. “How ya’ doing…

On the Scent of a Canine Killer Filed under: News On the eve of last week’s cold snap, Sara Pizano passed through the gate leading to an outdoor wing of Miami-Dade Animal Services and began cooing to the caged pooches. “Oh! I love this one!” the petite shelter director said…

Name Game Filed under: News Martin Luther King Jr. Henry Flagler. José Martí. All are historically significant enough to have streets named for them. Add to the list strip mall magnate Raanan Katz, whose five-year eminent-domain legal battle with the City of Sunny Isles Beach was recently settled. Katz will…

A Sunday at Roberto Clemente Park in Wynwood: Working-class families cluster to hear conga drums accompanied by squeaking swings and shouts of glee. By the bleachers, sellers hawk cuchifritos — fried pork — to fans watching men play baseball. Nearby, aspiring basketball stars pack eight courts. But the shabby community…

The D-Train Leaves the Station Filed under: Sports That giant sucking sound? It was the now-familiar whoosh of baseball talent being slurped away from the Marlins. Everybody knows the biggest deal of the off-season was when the Fish front office traded the team’s two greatest players (and its only marquee…

Around dawn on April 19, the sound of rocket fire abruptly roused Eduardo Zayas-Bazán from restless dreams. He lay in a trench with a submachine gun and a .45 on Girón Beach on Cuba’s southern coast. A gray B-26 strafed Blanco’s bar, a rustic, open-air bohío just 150 yards away…

Bryan Abboud was dining among the stars that weekend in July 2006. There were last-minute reservations at celeb-heavy Spago Beverly Hills. Chef Wolfgang Puck even passed by their table. Names like Anna Nicole Smith, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and French bombshell Lydie Denier swirled around his dinner companion, movie producer David…

For almost a month, Miami Police Chief John Timoney has ignored the rules of the city he oversees. First a citizens’ panel and then a circuit court judge ordered him to fork over hundreds of pages of records related to a city probe into his free use of a Lexus…

This Land Is Their Mine Filed under: News Get ready for some major, and maybe environmentally lethal, limestone excavation near the Everglades. To the dismay of homeowner and eco-activists, five rock mining companies have filed for permits with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to extract limestone from more than…

And the Band Played On Filed under: News On a recent Thursday, a tricked-out maroon car with chrome rims revved by a clutch of gatherers outside the boxy beige North Miami building that houses U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek’s office. “That’s not Rucy,” said Diane Lawrence, the group’s leader, laughing. Soon,…

Doppelganger Goes Down Filed under: News When I wrote the tale of Thomas Barrett Stringer, a 42-year-old con man with a record of stealing identities and committing financial fraud (“My Doppelganger, the Debt Monger,” July 19), I didn’t expect law enforcement officials would ever nab him. After all, he once…

Swami Lalitananda planned to hit the gym this past March 28. But then she decided on an early-morning stroll along Hallandale Beach. She crossed A1A and watched the 15 mile-per-hour winds whip whitecaps offshore. A few minutes later, shortly after 8 a.m., the blue-eyed, 64-year-old retired teacher spotted dozens of…

Roger Vivas peels off his headphones after reading the 5 p.m. news on La Poderosa (670 AM) from the station’s offices on SW 27th Avenue. The dark-eyed 56-year-old Venezuelan, who has a Clark Gable voice and a balding head that shines under a studio light, reports on Latin America. These…

The lobby of the exclusive Big 5 Club in Fontainebleau, on SW 92nd Avenue near Calle Ocho, glowed under an eight-tier chandelier and was decorated with Oriental rugs and silk flowers one night last week. About 100 invitees — Bay of Pigs veterans, former guerrilla leaders, and Ana Margarita Martínez,…

Siomara Alonso flipped through Reader’s Digest one humid May night in 2004. The 50-year-old natural beauty with caramel hair sat alone on a suburban back patio. She couldn’t see the stars or sky. She longed for the space of her mountain farm in Venezuela and the high-ceilinged home she had…

Yo Quiero In! Filed under: Politics In his upstart race against two-term District 1 incumbent Angel Gonzalez, Mike Suarez is definitely the underdog. He’s got less money, fewer connections, and — judging from a stroll through the heart of Allapattah — a far smaller quantity of signage than his opponent…

The Debate You Didn’t See Filed under: News Mr. Griff, a middle-age man with loose cornrows and baggy brown pants, sits in a green plastic chair and orders students not to cut through the parking lot at the University of Miami campus. He’s been there since 8:00 a.m. It’s now…

Long ago Humberto Aguilar was a thief, a rich one with a Mercedes-Benz SL650 and a slew of designer Italian suits to show for it. He specialized in laundering millions of dollars pumped from the cocaine trade. Now the plump 54-year-old with a baritone voice and a Tom Selleck mustache…

Bon Voyage, Manuel Filed under: News Manuel Noriega’s swarthy, acne-scarred mug will be missed in our fair city when he is released from prison Sunday. Where else does a corrupt, militant South American cocaine trafficker really belong anyway? Certainly not France. All of his friends are here. The Federal Correctional…

Gladys Marin, a 61-year-old in snug stonewashed jeans and a gold necklace bearing her name, chomps gum to the rumble of washers and dryers at Happy Family Coin Laundry. Her cropped sable locks flecked with gray, she describes the 15 years of neighborhood gossip she’s heard while working in the…

A Fish-Stomping Spree Filed under: Flotsam Accounts of a porpoise hacked by a machete or an alligator gouged by a boat would likely elicit swift responses from state wildlife protectors. But a recent report of an out-of-control fish-stomping episode in Sunny Isles Beach failed to spur much action. Tracy Hendershott,…