Baseball is America’s pastime. But it’s also an international business that sucks in scores of foreign-born players every year. Behind that business are men who secret ballplayers into the United States in exchange for a slice of their future earnings. This side of baseball tends to remain in the shadows…
In Wynwood, even the sky often seems spray-painted. On a recent evening, two young women were suspended in midair on metal scaffolding, masks over their mouths, aerosol cans in their hands. As the setting sun shifted heaven’s hues above them, the women unleashed waves of color onto a white warehouse…
Few things arouse a man’s anger like American football. When the Dolphins lose, a thousand dudes across South Florida launch their remotes in unison at their TV screens. Road rage rises and bar fights break out. But murder? That’s exactly what happened earlier this week in North Miami Beach, however,…
In Wynwood, even the sky often seems spray-painted. On a recent evening, two young women were suspended in midair on metal scaffolding, masks over their mouths, aerosol cans in their hands. As the setting sun shifted heaven’s hues above them, the women unleashed waves of color onto a white warehouse…
This is going to sound weird, but South Beach, I love you. I arrived to your sandy shores three and a half years ago: a moon-eyed Midwesterner with a century’s supply of sunscreen, regular sleep patterns, and a steady girlfriend. Now I’m a single, sun-scorched insomniac — and I couldn’t…
It’s not easy being insulted on-air by one of the internet’s most infamous a-holes. But when Mary Anne Franks found herself the target of a vicious f-bomb-filled tirade by Vice magazine founder Gavin McInnes earlier this year, she responded with grace and genius. “Why is Gavin so scared?” she coolly…
This has been a year of great uncertainty for Jameis Winston. The freshman quarterback might lead Florida State to a national championship. He might win a Heisman trophy. And, of course, he might end up in prison after being accused of rape. One thing Winston almost certainly did not do,…
Yesterday should have been a celebration for this family of Colombian immigrants. It should have been a night filled with music and art and laughter. It should have been Israel “Reefa” Hernandez’s 19th birthday. Instead, it was yet another milestone along the long path of mourning the slain teenager, who…
George Packer knows how to write. He’s won accolades for his powerful pieces in The New Yorker, inked several novels, and penned a prize-winning analysis of America’s invasion of Iraq. If anyone needed more proof of his talents it came on Wednesday, when Packer was awarded a National Book Award…
If you live in South Florida, it’s hard not to have a mega literary crush on Karen Russell. The Miami native is just 32 years old, has three bad-ass books to her name, and is a MacArthur-certified genius. More important, perhaps, is that she’s hilarious and didn’t hang up on…
Daniel Alarcón had been driving for days along one of the most dangerous routes in the world — a serpentine service road recently carved into the dense Peruvian countryside — when he suddenly sensed that he wasn’t alone. “You look around you and think, OK, up in the hills somebody…
Tonight, city council members will decide the fate of one of Miami’s most divisive issues: Walmart’s bid to build a big-box store in midtown. The mega-retailer’s plan to invade Miami has pissed off opponents, inspired passionate protests, and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars — perhaps millions — in lobbying…
Miami Police Escorted Heat Assistant Coach on the Taxpayers’ Dime
In Miami, it seems the difference between clubbing with friends and filming porn is a fake ID and a sleazy dude.
How many books could you read in 30 years? Five hundred? Three thousand? Could you break into the six figures? No matter your estimate, Miami Book Fair International likely has you beat. In its three-decade run, MBFI has featured about 7,500 authors promoting countless books — and that’s just in…
Freedom of religion is enshrined in our nation’s founding documents. But every once in a while, someone overdoses on the Holy Spirit and goes way overboard. Like the 22-year-old Tennessee pastor who exposes his congregation to deadly snakes in the name of Jesus. Then there’s the Amish sect leader who…
South Miami is a strange town. So strange, in fact, that Commissioner Bob Welsh seems to fit right in. Around town he’s known as “Bicycle Bob” for pedaling neighborhoods on a girl’s blue cruiser distributing flyers. During the Mariel boatlift, he handed out his own Spanish-language joke books to newly…
Miami Heat assistant coach David Fizdale has it all: two championship rings, plenty of money, a stunning fiancée, and a courtside seat every night to the greatest show in the NBA. One thing the 39-year-old definitely doesn’t need is a lift — from anyone, let alone a public servant paid…
A new book divides the U.S. into eleven separate “nations,” each with its own distinct culture and attitude toward violence. But bizarrely, South Florida doesn’t belong to any of them. It gets worse. SoFla is the only part of the country left out of author Colin Woodard’s eleven nations. In…
Miami Herald’s South America bureau chief Jim Wyss was detained last night by Venezuelan government authorities. Wyss, who is based in Bogota, was just across the border in southwestern Venezuela reporting on the country’s chronic food shortages when he was detained, the Herald reports. “We are very concerned,” said Herald…
This year has not been kind to Marco Rubio. It began with talk of Florida’s junior senator being the savior of the GOP. But then the prodigal son got parched on national television, and his insipid immigration reform was roundly rejected by fellow Republicans. In recent months, Rubio has begun…
Downtown Nightclub Owners Fight Wynwood’s First Megaclub
