Miami Book Fair International’s street fair is coming this weekend, and to celebrate, Riptide called up Dennis Lehane, author of best sellers turned box office hits Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone. A graduate of Florida International University, Lehane will speak about his newest critically acclaimed novel, The Given Day,…

Watch out for floating bodies. It wasn’t all that long ago that we were slapping each other on the back and toasting an entire month without a murder in Miami. Well, it looks like its high time to welcome everyone back to the Magic City we all know and love,…

Courtesy David Fisher It’s like a skyscraper that moves, man. A PR flak in New York left a cryptic voicemail on Riptide’s machine late last week: Florence-based superstar architect David Fisher is planning a “major press conference” in Miami on Tuesday, she said, to announce plans for a project here…

TS Paloma. The World Series is history, President-elect Barack Obama is waiting in the wings, a blizzard is blowing into North Dakota — aren’t we supposed to be about done with this hurricane business? Yeah, yeah, it’s still technically hurricane season, blah blah blah. This summer’s just been so quiet…

Barack Obama cranked on Tuesday, so we’re cranked. And he took Florida too. Wow! It’s history, baby! But then we looked more closely at the results and, well, the Diaz-Balart brothers proved that while negative campaigning didn’t work across the nation, South Florida lapped it up. Miami Dade College lost…

Dim evening light streams through towering clusters of gray-blue Chinese bamboo, green spikes of Colombian guadua, and snaking tomato vines that bloom with quarter-size blue petals. De Hull walks stiffly through his front yard, wide belly leading the way. The 62-year-old, whose first name is pronounced Dee, rubs his gray…

Tim Elfrink Sarah Palin sheds a single tear, then melts away forever. 11:04 p.m. The TV’s may have had electoral maps instead of ESPN, but it was just another South Beach party atop the swank Gansevoort Hotel until 11 p.m. — bass thumped from the speakers, beautiful people lounged in…

Tim Elfrink The general feeling at McCain HQ, as summed up by a pickup truck in the parking lot. 7:45 p.m. The crowd is still small — maybe 20 or 30, wrapped in blue and gold McCain-Palin signs, plastered with ‘Joe the Plumber’ stickers, waving American flags. But clustered around…

Vote for the Emperor of the Galaxy. Who is this guy? 5:15 p.m. You’ve got to give Elian Misael credit for bringing something different to Election Day. “No Obama! No McCain!” Miseal screams, dressed head-to-toe in black and pacing the sidewalk in front of Versailles as rush-hour traffic hums past…

Chavez and Fernandez. Photo via Getty Images. It took seven days of deliberation, but Miami’s latest foray into international politics via the federal court system ended today with a guilty verdict in the “Suitcase Trial.” The case, which you can read about here, hinged on accusations that Venezuelan President Hugo…

Illustration via Rolling Stone The first case brought against a U.S. citizen for committing torture abroad ended with a guilty verdict today from a federal jury in Miami. The verdict marks the end of Charles “Chuckie” Taylor Jr.’s long strange journey from suburban Orlando teenager and wannabe rapper to leader…

Let’s hope Al Gore doesn’t believe in history repeating itself. For the first time this election season, the former Democratic nominee for president and recent Nobel Prize Winner is hitting the trail for Obama. And he’s heading — where else — for Palm Beach and Broward Counties, the epicenters of…

Barack Obama cranked on Tuesday, so we’re cranked. And he took Florida too. Wowsa! It’s history, baby! But then we looked more closely at the results and, well, the Diaz-Balart brothers proved that while negative campaigning didn’t work across the nation, South Florida lapped it up. Miami Dade College lost…

Ready for South Florida courtroom drama to screw up another presidential election? That’s exactly what Miami-Dade is asking for this year, even as mile-long lines of voters cast thousands of early ballots for president, says Ion Sancho, Florida’s patron saint of fair voting. “They’re risking a lawsuit on Election Day…

Still waiting for a verdict on Chavez’s alleged plot to funnel money to Fernandez. Photo via Getty Images. After two months of drama and international intrigue in Miami’s federal courthouse, the Herald reports this afternoon that a jury hasn’t been able to reach a verdict in “the suitcase trial.” The…

For once, Florida’s election officials have made the news recently for doing the right thing. The same week that the NAACP sued the governor of Virginia for not doing enough to accommodate the millions of voters expected to cast ballots this year, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist declared an emergency and…

Illustration via Rolling Stone Miami’s chapter in the implausible saga of Charles “Chuckie” Taylor Jr. will soon come to a sordid end. Lawyers for Taylor and the prosecutors are scheduled to begin closing arguments today in a case that’s drawn international interest for its horrifying accusations and its legal implications…

Say it ain’t so, Zeke’s. After weeks of terrifying financial news every day — The Dow is down 800! The NASDAQ has plummeted 30 percent! Jim Cramer’s brain has literally melted! — I’ve started to get a little burned out on the whole recession business. Until it affects my life,…

Chavez stands accused of funneling $800K to Fernandez, via a Miami resident. Photo via Getty Images. Like all great federal trials in Miami, the case a jury is expected to begin deliberating on this morning has a name worthy of a the best cheap paperback thrillers: The Suitcase Trial. The…