According to Open Secrets, the second-largest for-profit prison operator in the country, GEO Group, is one of the top contributors to Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign. Between 2013 and 2014, GEO Group gave Rubio $41,500, more than any other presidential candidate . The group is the ninth highest contributor to Rubio’s…
Last November, 58 percent of Florida voters supported Amendment 2, which would have made medical marijuana legal in Florida. Even though the majority of voters were in favor of the amendment, it wasn’t enough to pass. The vote was just two points shy of the 60 percent threshold. But the…
In lane four of the Dwyer High School track in Palm Beach Gardens, Tyrese Cooper — nickname: “Smoke” — executes his ritual. He jumps twice. He secures his lucky, never-been-washed sweatband around his forehead and kisses the gold cross dangling from his neck. He taps his forehead, chest, and then…
The latest doom and gloom climate change prediction has arrived this week — and it’s a doozy. The study, written by alarmist (but still reputable and regularly correct) climate change scientist James Hansen predicts that sea level will rise 10 feet in the next 50 years. That seems like a lot,…
One year ago, Dan Markel pulled into the driveway of his Tallahassee home, opened the door slightly, and was suddenly shot in the head. The nationally recognized, 41-year-old FSU law professor died a few hours later. His death rattled the FSU campus and entire academic legal community, down to Miami, where…
Wynwood might just get Miami’s first woonerf. No, it’s not the latest craft coffee or designer furniture craze — it’s a Dutch term for a kind of pedestrian-friendly, low-speed street. that can be walled off from cars on weekends. And woonerfs are part of a larger proposal headed to the…
Amidst all the news today about the U.S. and Cuba officially reopening diplomatic ties, it’s easy to forget how close the nations once were. In fact, Miami itself was once a hotbed of diplomacy with Havana, thanks to a Cuban consulate located right in town on North Miami Avenue. …
On June 28, Chloe Arenas woke up before the sun to pick up her mother and grandmother from an early morning flight. But the 21-year-old University of Central Florida student never reached the airport. Soon after worried friends and family called police, her car was found submerged in a retention…
Last September, Angelica Sweeting had just picked up her 4-year-old daughter from school when the little girl declared from the back seat: “Mommy, I hate my hair. I want it long and blonde like Barbie and Elsa.” The 27-year-old mother of two panicked. Sweeting and her husband Jason reminded Sophia…
On May 28, 2013, 44-year-old Anthony Lee — a drag queen who went by South Beach Wanda — went to his friend Tiffany McKinney’s house in East Tampa. He heard she was sick and came over to make her dinner. When someone knocked on the door, Lee answered it. McKinney…
Shots rang out late Thursday afternoon in Homestead. Officer Anthony Green was believed to be responding to a 911 call about a man with a gun hanging from his belt. Through the passenger window in his patrol car, Green made contact with Edward Foster, a 35-year-old father of six. There…
In 1999, two Florida tweens made headlines when they shot and killed their father’s 29-year-old girlfriend, Sonya Speights, with their father’s 9mm semi-automatic as she worked on a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle in their home just outside Cocoa Beach. Thirteen-year-old Catherine Fairchild Jones fired the first shot into Speight’s torso and…
Miami is a sweaty city. Residents stick to their leather car seats. They turn back home if they forget to roll on deodorant. The probability of pit stains determines whether anyone wears sleeves that day. Miamians tackle their secreting fluids from just about every orifice: boob sweat, crotch sweat, under-the-knee…
Juan Mullerat argues that Calle Ocho is Miami’s most historic street, but sometime between now and the 1960s it was transformed into a three-lane highway to absorb the brunt of the city’s growing east-west commuters. “I’m driving down it down and I don’t see anybody walking, just cars,” Mullerat tells…
This past February, the Palm Beach Post published renderings of Echo Brickell, a 57-story skyscraper planned for Brickell Avenue. The opulent interior looked incredible, particularly the avant-garde 12,000-gallon shark tank. In the image published by the Post, two large sharks circled a center column. The residential units, according to the…
As legend has it, in 1945, six fishermen embarked from the seaside town of Cojimar in Cuba to find the underwater monster that was devouring their fish. The crew took off in a small boat, armed only with ropes and harpoons. After they caught the creature, they spent the night…
For the last five years, justifiable-toll advocate Carlos Garcia felt like a lone crazy man screaming in the woods. “No one cared, no one was listening,” he says. But after Miami-Dade Expressway Authority (MDX) approved a new toll rebate program on Tuesday, Garcia believes the right people are finally listening—and…
David Shiffman cringes whenever he watches the Discovery Channel and finds mermaids, megalodons, or zombie sharks on air. But for the 30-year-old University of Miami graduate student, Shark Week is the worst. That’s because Shiffman has spent his career researching actual science about sharks. The way he sees it, few popular…
When a deadline passed last week, more than 250,000 Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent living in the D.R. suddenly faced the specter of deportation back to Port-au-Prince. On Thursday, hundreds from both nation gathered outside the Dominican Republic’s consulate in Brickell to protest the move, which many called racist and…
On the morning after the Charleston shooting, where nine African-American churchgoers were murdered during bible study, a group of over 30 African-Americans protested outside police union chief John Rivera’s office in Doral. They held signs that read “Black Lives Matter.” “it’s very unfortunate what happened in Charleston and whats going…
In a sea of Jeb supporters at his announcement Monday, Lucy Orlando stood out as a particularly impassioned. The 71-year-old grandmother of nine was decked in a red T-shirt of Jeb’s smiling face above “We love you, Jeb! From the Lucy Orlando Team.” “Jeb is Unique…He loves people…He loves education…
On Sunday, Miami-Dade police union president John Rivera spoke on school board member and 2016 mayoral candidate Raquel Regalado’s weekly Spanish-language show, Esta Semana Con Raquel, about mayor Carlos Gimenez’s push for body cameras in the wake of Fergusson. “He is so desperate to try to gain favor in the…
