On Wednesday morning, Florida Gov. Rick Scott gave a press conference in Stuart, warning the state’s residents that Hurricane Matthew should not be underestimated and saying “protecting life is our No. 1 priority.” Scott urged those in evacuation zones to leave town before the storm hits and thanked Airbnb, which…
Tranicia and Tramecia Scipp are 32-year-old identical twins. They grew up on NW Eighth Street and attended Booker T. Washington High School as teens. All their lives, people have had trouble telling them apart. “They say I’m meaner and she’s the nice one,” Tramecia deadpans. Both women are single moms…
Hopefully by the end of wedding planning, you won’t feel like locking up your future spouse and throwing away the key. But in case you do, there’s a venue for that. Miami’s historic Black Police Precinct and Courthouse Museum is now welcoming brides and grooms who just don’t see themselves…
If you’re reading this story on a home computer, consider yourself luckier than a full third of Miami residents. This week, Florida International University took a look at internet connectivity across the country — and the startling results showed the city of Miami ranked second worst in the nation. FIU’s…
It’s a scary time to be a business owner whose employees work outside in Miami. Since Zika began spreading via local transmission in July, three employees at Wynwood Yard and one Miami Beach police officer have reportedly tested positive. Meanwhile, two pregnant firefighters were apparently reassigned to a station in…
Police lights flashed outside Churchill’s Pub in Little Haiti this past weekend during the Vote Yes Marijuana Fest, but no one seemed to mind. The officers had been hired to work the event. There were no plans to rough up any of the participants in the festivities, which included a…
In the wake of a controversial North Carolina law designed to keep transgender people from using the bathrooms of their choice, a small but growing number of progressive cities have gone the opposite way, taking steps to make public restrooms completely gender neutral. To date, cities including Seattle, Philadelphia, Austin,…
Inside a small guest cabin on the Carnival Victory, 6-year-old Qwentyn Hunter and his 10-year-old brother, Jermaine, begged their parents to order peanut butter and jelly sandwiches from room service. It was the last day of the family’s four-day trip from Miami to Mexico in October 2013, and the ship…
The stakes were high this year when Ralph Echemendia, a technical supervisor tapped by Hollywood director Oliver Stone, fought off daily attacks from malicious hackers on the set of Stone’s latest film. After all, the movie was a biopic on Edward Snowden, perhaps the nation’s most prominent computer systems analyst,…
This summer, after a heated discussion about crime, shady business practices, and general seediness on Ocean Drive, Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine asked Commissioner Ricky Arriola to meet with business owners and residents and come back with a plan of attack. Today, at its first meeting since the summer break,…
As early as 1998, the American Psychiatric Association issued a warning about conversion therapy, saying that the anti-gay counselor combined with an already prejudiced society “may reinforce self-hatred already experienced by the patient.” A host of other academic and medical organizations have since agreed, citing research showing conversion therapy can…
If you’re living in Miami Beach right now, you’re probably wondering whether to freak out about Zika. That’s certainly understandable, and if an emergency Zika meeting yesterday proved anything, it’s that even the public officials we look to for guidance don’t have all the answers. Meant to be informational, Wednesday’s…
Back in May 2014, Miami-Dade Commissioner Dennis Moss put a slightly controversial item on that month’s agenda. He wanted to investigate how the medical marijuana industry might affect agriculture in the county. At the time, fellow Commissioner Javier Souto wasn’t thrilled. “This is an item that’s causing a lot of arguments…
Five years ago, as a journalism student at Florida International University, Nicole Taylor-Lang started thinking of ways to flesh out her photography portfolio. She didn’t have to look far: just a block away from her home in Greenacres, she found the first subject of what would become a years-long passion…
With even more locally transmitted Zika cases announced this week in Wynwood and Miami Beach, officials are squabbling about who’s to blame and what we can do to end the outbreak. Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine accused Gov. Rick Scott of “blindsiding” him with news that Zika was on the…
On an August morning two years ago, Eric Cheeley arrived to work at the City of Miami’s capital improvements department at his usual time, around 6 a.m. A devout Pentecostal, he liked to get there early to read his Bible. On this day, however, he took his religious practices a…
For the past seven years, Stephanie Coats and her four children have lived in a one-bedroom apartment on Hibiscus Street in West Grove, just four blocks east of bustling CocoWalk. But their building, built in 1948, stands in stark contrast to the Starbucks and Gap stores inside the upscale shopping…
Back in 2011, Jesse Campodonico, a 27-year-old fitness trainer from New York, was thrown to the ground and Tasered by police at Ultra Music Fest. Campodonico later filed a lawsuit for police brutality against the city and the festival and ultimately Ultra paid $400,000 to settle the case. Naturally, festival organizers weren’t…
As a kid, Valencia Gunder was terrified of the pool. But one day when she was around seven years old, an uncle who was a lifeguard threw her right in. He told her not to be afraid, that everything would be fine if she could swim. And that’s how she…
A few years back, in preparation for retirement, Illinois OB-GYN Jean Alexandre began looking for an investment property in Florida he could rent out to supplement his monthly income. In October of 2013 he sealed the deal, wiring $68,000 and writing a check for an additional $2,000 to North Miami…
Remember in high school when you were supposed to finish Great Expectations for class the next morning but you left it until the last minute and were finally just like, ‘nah’? You could think of more interesting things to do, so you did what scores of sophomores had done before…
As crowds stumble along South Beach’s most iconic strip of art deco hotels and restaurants on a hot Saturday in July, the chipper sidewalk hostesses do a quick mental calculation, looking for a phrase that might lure passersby. “Table for two?” they hawk. “Happy hour!” “Two-for-one drinks!” It’s 5:45 p.m…
