How did your last birthday go? Pretty great? Had some drinks with your friends, got some gift cards from the parents, skipped out on work? Yeah, A.J. Francis has you beat times 10,000. Last Saturday was his birthday. It was also the day he signed a pro contract with the…
As the tale of Kiera Wilmot — the Bartow, Florida student expelled and charged with two felonies over a science project gone wrong — went viral yesterday, a wide movement to support the 16-year-old blossomed from blogs to radio shows to Change.org petitions. Best of all, though, has been a…
Five Miami Tales That Need Movie Adaptations
By all accounts, Kiera Wilmot’s science experiment gone wrong triggered just a tiny pop and a small amount of smoke at Bartow High School last week — but her tale is certifiably blowing up the Internet today. Thanks to Reddit and Reason, thousands of people have commented on Wilmot’s story,…
A 34-year-old man in Tampa did not have a damn good reason for calling 911 eighty times.
Hey, Miami-Dade voters: Looks like you’ll have a chance after all to decide whether the Dolphins — and their billionaire owner, Stephen Ross — deserve tax dollars to help renovate Sun Life Stadium. With bills to approve a hike in bed taxes stalled in Tallahassee, the NFL flew out its…
With Michael Bay’s big-screen adaptation of Pain & Gain opening atop the box office this weekend, masses of moviegoers discovered what Miamians already knew: Pete Collins’ tale of bodybuilders gone bad is one hell of a great yarn. But the Sun Gym Gang’s capers barely scratch the surface of Miami’s…
The Tampa Women’s Club thought they’d come up with a pretty cheeky way to raise some money at their big banquet last weekend: Attendees could pay 20 bucks for a champagne flute with the chance to grab the one lucky glass with a $5,000 brilliant cut diamond inside. Yet when…
In August 2010, three Miami police officers fired at least 130 rounds into 21-year-old Gibson Belizaire, who died from his wounds behind a Little Haiti shop. Belizaire was the sixth young black man killed that year by MPD under then-Chief Miguel Exposito. Belizaire’s mother then sued the city, the officers involved, and…
Top Cop Accuses Commissioner Tobin of Bending the Rules
When Portman-CMC, one of two finalists for a billion-dollar Miami Beach Convention Center renovation, unveiled plans to raze the historic Jackie Gleason Theater and replace it with a hotel, residents were not shy about slamming the idea. More than 1,200 people signed on to a “Save the Fillmore” Facebook petition…
It’s no secret that Miami Beach Commissioner Ed Tobin is tight with ex-Bal Harbour Police Chief Thomas Hunker. Tobin has known the cop since he was a kid, and in late 2011, the 50-year-old Tobin even enrolled in the Miami Beach Police Academy with Hunker’s encouragement.But did that relationship cross…
The first sign something was wrong at Robbins Camper Sales in Ormand Beach was a $1,000 discrepancy in a routine sale. After a yearlong investigation into the RV dealer’s books, though, the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office discovered quite a bit more missing, to the tune of $170,000.Police now say the…
All over the country, people are waking up, checking their Twitter feeds and then spending at least half an hour trying to figure out what the hell happened since they went to bed. In short: Police in Boston have killed one of the two marathon bombing suspects — whom they’ve…
There’s a new guy to add to the list of airport travelers you hate, right alongside the lady who can’t fathom taking off her high heels at the metal detector, the drunk salesman who pushes out into the aisle the second after the plane lands and, of course, shrieking hell-baby…
A lot of words leap to mind when you think of Miami’s roadways. Terrifying. Useless. Mad Max-ian. Unless you’ve been pounding mescaline all morning, one term that likely hasn’t popped up is efficient. But a new piece by an urban planner in Washington reveals that by one measure, Miami has…
The morning after two bombs ripped through the crowd near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three and wounding at least 145, there’s little new information about who staged the attack or why. That makes the job of Miami police, who have to protect 25,000 runners pouring into…
Dumb idea: showing your police pals your Trayvon Martin shooting target — complete with crosshairs over his heart and a pack of Skittles in the pocket of his hoodie. Dumber idea: letting one colleague take a photo of you with the target to “show his son.” A cop in Port…
In Doral and Weston, South Florida’s Venezuelans loudly celebrated Hugo Chávez’s death last month. But it appears his revolution didn’t die with him. Chávez’s handpicked successor, Nicolás Maduro, has won the keys to the presidency. With 99 percent of the ballots counted last night, Maduro was beating opposition leader Henrique Capriles by a…
Ever since police unloaded 115 rounds into a car driven by 22-year-old Palm Beach man Raymond Herisse on Memorial Day weekend two years ago — a firefight that wounded five bystanders and was caught on video — a key question has been, What triggered that onslaught of firepower? Police waited…
Get used to that headline up there, Miami. If Riptide were a lazier sort of operation, we’d copy it onto our desktop and recycle it over and over during homestands. One day after setting a new low attendance mark at Marlins Park, the Fish shattered that record last night by…
Florida History Myths: Al Capone’s Murder and an Everglades Suicide
