As a story about heart disease fades from the screen, WTVJ-TV (Channel 6) news anchor Jennifer Valoppi gazes at the camera in front of her, glances at her notes, then looks back at the camera. “And coming up in just a little bit — well, actually right now — we’re…

In the South Florida equivalent of the Ice Bowl, with the temperature hovering in the low 40s at kickoff Saturday, the Gwen Cherry Bulls lost to the Goulds Rams 8-0 in the championship game of the 80-pound weight division of the Greater Miami Pop Warner football league. “We’re a better…

Xavier Suarez’s first incarnation as Miami mayor didn’t go that well. The Harvard-educated lawyer came into office in 1985 with a host of proposals and a promise to control the city commission’s notoriously circuslike meetings. But he neglected to bring along the ability (or perhaps the willingness) to patch together…

Miami Beach’s South Pointe neighborhood, the area below Fifth Street, has really taken off. The Portofino group of companies headed by German bad boy Thomas Kramer is fulfilling its vision of towering condominium projects lining some of the most pricey waterfront real estate in Florida. Renowned architect Helmut Jahn has…

Info: Coming of Age on the 50-Yard Line Most of the boys who play in Gwen Cherry Park’s pop warner football program live in the Scott Projects, but they do their growing up on the gridiron By Robert Andrew Powell What politics is to the Cuban community, football is to…

For such a tiny theater, the Calusa Playhouse boasts a long history. The 100-seat former coconut plantation dormitory, erected in 1917, is the second-oldest structure on Key Biscayne, after the Cape Florida Lighthouse. It has seen incarnations as a church, a hurricane shelter, and a school. For the past four…

On the sidewalk lie seven cats, completely motionless. They appear to be dead cats, their bodies slumped flat as puddles, each a pool of cat hair and decomposing cartilage. It’s puzzling to see so many dead cats in one place. Perhaps, in an amazing coincidence, all seven chose the same…

Info: Dumb Luck In 1992 Bernardo Paz hit the Lotto, bought himself a brand-new BMW, and headed down the road to ruin. This year he finally got there. By Robert Andrew Powell If Bernardo Paz felt lucky on April 24, 1992, it didn’t show. In fact, the 36-year-old Cuban immigrant…

Picture the Florida Marlins playing home games against the Atlanta Braves in a brand-new stadium in downtown Miami, protected from early-evening rain showers — and always in front of a sellout crowd. Marlins president Don Smiley has imagined just such a scenario, and he’s attempting to make his vision a…

Robert “Chick” Weiner is a veteran Coral Gables attorney. Like more than half of all his fellow attorneys in Dade County, he reserves a portion of his practice for clients who can’t afford legal services. In fact, Weiner is somewhat of an overachiever in the pro bono arena, having been…

It takes more than 27 felony counts to knock Humberto Hernandez out of politics. The former Miami city commissioner, who was removed from office by Governor Chiles last week after his federal indictment for bank fraud and money laundering, immediately went on Spanish-language radio to defend himself and to begin…

Moscow to T. Over.” Larry Turnbow, leader of the Miami chapter of the Guardian Angels, pulls a black walkie-talkie to his goateed lips. “T. Over.” “Yeah, you don’t have an extra beret in your car, do you? Over.” “No, my friend, I do not. Over.” “Okay. I forgot where I…

The Man and His Titles “This is the Order of Cordon Bleu. And that’s the Order of Signum Fidei — run by the Prince of Lippe-Biesterfeld. He is the brother or cousin of Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands. Prince Bernhard was the husband of Queen Juliana, who was a darling.”…

The pun is unavoidable: Firehouse Four was once the hottest restaurant in Miami. In the late 1980s, the South Miami Avenue singles joint, located inside a restored City of Miami firehouse, sizzled with lunchtime traffic from the banks and law offices on nearby Brickell. After work, yuppies returned for a…

Aubrey Johnson nailed the written test. The City of Miami police patrol officer had studied diligently for the sergeant’s exam, and when the results of the written portion were posted he knew the cramming had paid off. Out of a testing class of 275, he’d finished second. But there remained…

Angel Usategui owns a videotape of the good days. He keeps it in a cabinet in his Kendall ranch house, in a Florida room just off the foyer. He likes to play the tape for visitors, to show them the pageantry and grace of paso fino horses while — as…

For someone whose diploma from Havana’s Villanueva University was constructed with a photocopy machine, a bottle of Liquid Paper, and a calligraphy pen, former Miami city manager Cesar Odio was a stickler about academic credentials. When he learned in December 1995 that job training supervisor Fred Hobson claimed to have…

Jean Dorce sees it quite clearly: He was laid off from his City of Miami job because he is Haitian. To him, no other explanation makes sense. “They laid off all the Haitians,” says Dorce, referring to himself and two other Creole-speaking job counselors who lost their jobs in December…