A Miami-Dade correctional officer who has been with the department for 11 years has been charged with raping a woman he was supposed to be supervising while she was on house arrest.
This year’s spring break was one of the most contentious in Miami Beach history. For starters, the city saw a 33 percent increase in crowd size from 2018 despite an expensive marketing campaign aimed at fending off spring breakers. Police donned riot gear and parked prison wagons on the sand to haul miscreants off to jail. Critics accused city leaders of targeting black tourists in the crackdown.
A great deal of news coverage about America’s decades-long opioid crisis tends to focus on rural white folks in states such as Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia. But among the communities hardest hit by the epidemic, Native American tribes rank at the top.
As required for all stumping politicos, Joe Biden stopped in Miami yesterday for a meet-and-greet with Latinx voters. During an afternoon event in Little Havana at Ball & Chain, he did the requisite show of shaking hands and kissing babies. In a short speech, he spoke directly to the Magic City’s immigrant population.
Last month, the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office ceremoniously announced it would no longer prosecute misdemeanor marijuana cases. The problem, according to top prosecutor Kathy Fernandez Rundle, is Florida recently legalized the possession of hemp, a substance nearly indistinguishable from marijuana.
For the past two years, reporters have slowing been dismantling the public persona of Baptist evangelist Jerry Falwell Jr., a “family values”-style Trump supporter with major political sway among evangelical voters. Oddly, many of the stories about Falwell take place in Miami Beach…
Despite the unfortunate distinction of having some of the most devastating mass shootings in the nation, Florida remains a fairly gun-friendly place. A state law passed in 2011 actually prohibits local governments from passing restrictions on firearms that are stricter than what’s allowed at the state level.
Overnight, Hurricane Dorian has barely moved as it continues its assault on the Bahamas. Today the U.S. Coast Guard announced it will begin search-and-rescue missions in the Abacos. After confirming at least five dead so far, Bahamian officials report there are “a number of people in serious distress.”
Category 5 winds ripped through the open windows of a home in the Abaco Islands. Outside, floodwaters surged. Portions of the roof had already blown away.
Miami Beach is known around the world for its colorful art deco hotels, boozy party scene, and, on a less fun note, sunny-day flooding. In recent years, dozens of international publications, from Vogue to the New Yorker, have written about how the city — which was basically built on a sandbar — experiences extreme flooding during king tides, when the moon is closest to the Earth.
We’ve all been there: You get to Publix after a long shift at work, days before a hurricane is projected to mess up your entire weekend. The shelves are picked clean, with just a few lone bottles of Topo Chico and a single can of tuna left for grabs. Someone inevitably throws a tantrum — or a punch. You really do hate to see it.
If you’ve lived in Miami longer than, say, one week, you’re probably familiar with the South Florida weather sensation known as king tides. During a few stretches of the year when the moon is closest to the Earth, the gravitational pull causes higher-than-normal tides, prompting the hellish phenomenon of sunny-day flooding.
You haven’t truly lived in Miami until you’ve seen an iguana in the wild, had your car towed while legally parked, and paid an insane high-four-figure deposit to whatever shell company owns your condo unit. Luckily, it’s extremely possible to hit all three of these milestones during your first week…
In June, Abdulaziz Al Mana, a medical resident at Jackson Memorial Hospital, was on an American Airlines flight from Miami to Washington, D.C., to visit his wife when he noticed the woman seated beside him started to get antsy. As the plane began taxiing to the runway, the woman slipped a note to the flight attendant.
A mere six weeks ago, Surfside commissioners passed a sweeping ban of most single-use plastics, hoping to rid the town of plastic bags, utensils, and dinnerware. At the time, Mayor Daniel Dietch praised the ban as a reasonable measure that would help reduce plastic pollution in the oceanside community.
Florida is sometimes described as a so-called “purple state,” but for some reason, the Sunshine State seems to both breed and attract a huge number of folks on the far right end of the political spectrum. Internet kooks like Ben Shapiro and Candace Owens regularly visit to give speeches or produce “content” for social media, and bigoted loons like Mike Hill and Joe Gruters somehow keep getting elected to office.
Last night, state Rep. Shevrin Jones had wrapped up a legislative update for his constituents in Miami Gardens when he heard an alarming pop-pop-pop. Jones and a couple of his staffers had been talking to residents outside the meeting room at Miami Carol City Park. He barely registered the flashing light of gunfire before a youth football team that had been practicing made a mad dash off the field. Everyone ran into the building to take cover.
Every summer, people of the Jewish faith commemorate the day of Tisha B’Av by fasting and mourning. The date memorializes the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem centuries ago. In modern times, Tisha B’Av has become an annual opportunity for activism or charitable acts — a time to practice tikkun olam, the Jewish teaching of “repairing the world.”
Support for recreational marijuana in Florida seems stronger than ever. A petition to put legal weed on the ballot in 2020 passed a huge milestone last week, and a recent Quinnipiac University poll showed that 65 percent of Floridians now support allowing adults to use and possess small amounts of marijuana.
In a cramped studio inside Florida International University’s student union, two friends sit side-by-side in swiveling office chairs and sidle up to the microphone. Six spotlights radiate from above as one of them presses the “record” button.
For years, Floridians have watched from the sidelines as states such as Colorado, California, and even Michigan have legalized recreational marijuana.
Nearly two months into the 2019 hurricane season, only two named storms have emerged: Subtropical Storm Andrea and Tropical Storm Barry. Today a smaller, unnamed weather system is moving along the coast of Florida.
