New Times obtained this e-mail sent from the Miami Herald Publishing Company to its employees: “For this year’s Annual Meeting video, all MHPC employees are invited to participate in a group shot scheduled for Tuesday, January 18 from 3:30 to 4:00 p.m. We will be closing off NE 14th Street…

For more than a year bail-bond agents throughout Miami-Dade County have watched their business plummet. Some bondsmen estimate that their client volume has dropped as much as 70 percent. “This has paralyzed many people’s business,” says Nathaniel Sala-Suarez of Coconut Grove Bail Bonds. Adds Jack Benveniste, President of All Dade…

The last burnt-orange light of day dissipates over the dusty buildings as I drive along North Miami Avenue looking for prostitutes. Really, just one in particular. This takes place during the fevered buildup to the holidays and I’m thinking it’s an appropriate way to mark the season. I’m not alone…

Carlos Suarez de Jesus was thrilled his article about Miami’s money-inflamed art world was appearing on the cover of Street Weekly’s January 7 issue. It was the freelance writer’s first feature-length story, on a subject the paper prided itself in covering. But any hopes the assignment would lead to more…

The Miami Herald and Knight Ridder executives have closed Street Weekly, the free youth-oriented tabloid that was meant to engage young readers and compete directly with Miami New Times. Late Wednesday staff members were informally told that the issue appearing on Friday, January 7, would be the last. Human resources…

Since taking office as our new county mayor on November 16, Carlos Alvarez has played principal for a day at two elementary schools, addressed an assembly of high school students, and attended the opening of a Burger King with Magic Johnson. For a tough-talking former police chief who now heads…

At a strip-mall Starbucks near Miami International Airport, a government employee sits sipping a pumpkin spice latte and nervously shuffling through a sheaf of papers. “There’s a lot going on that I think you should know about,” says the employee, who works for the federal Transportation Security Administration (TSA). By…

From afar, the folks who make up the Miami-Dade County Commission appear to organize themselves along the lines of a high-school student body. There’s Joe Martinez the jock; Katy Sorenson the “A” student, raising her hand to answer every question; Dennis Moss the earnest student government geek. And then there’s…

This past August, during the Republican primary for Miami-Dade State Attorney, the Christian Family Coalition asked candidates to sign a form pledging that, if elected, they would use their powers as public officials to oppose gay marriage and support a religious agenda. “Running for a quasi-judicial office, I did not…

The race for mayor of Miami-Dade County is over. And none too soon. We’re done with million-dollar ad campaigns trying to convince us that our savior would emerge on election day. We won’t have to watch any more caustic debates or listen to partisan speeches about who will lead us…

The similarities to an actual divorce are remarkable: The bitter fights. The name calling. The locked doors. You got the sense they were staying together simply for appearances. And in the end I think we can all agree splitting up is for the best. I am referring, of course, to…

As an Episcopalian pastor, the Rev. Wilifred Allen-Faiella has a reputation for being an outspoken advocate of social justice and Christian compassion. As the top administrator of her Coconut Grove parish, which includes an expensive and elite elementary school, Allen-Faiella has a somewhat different reputation — that of an autocrat…

Katherine Fernandez Rundle is running for re-election as the Miami-Dade State Attorney. She says don’t vote for her opponent Al Milian because he’s a tool of the Police Benevolent Association, which wants someone in office it can control. In addition, she adds, he lacks experience and has a hot temper…

Katherine Fernandez Rundle is facing the most significant election challenge of her eleven-year tenure as Miami-Dade State Attorney, and she saw it coming. Eight years ago she ran unopposed. Four years ago political newcomer Al Milian came within eleven percentage points of defeating her. Backed by the county’s powerful police…

Carlos Alvarez is running for county mayor based on his record as director of the Miami-Dade Police Department. He hopes that, because he wore a uniform, voters will see him as more trustworthy than his opponent. Alvarez has the support of the Police Benevolent Association, the county’s largest police union,…

Viola Drees, Lorain Enright, and Clara Lewis never knew one another while they were alive. But they had a lot in common. All spent their adult lives in Miami. All of them had been married, but had no children. All lived into their nineties, widows left to grow old in…

It’s safe to say that as John Kerry and George Bush lay their heads down upon their pillows late Saturday night two weeks ago, they had never heard of Miami-Dade Police Ofcr. Keenya Hubert. And no doubt, as the 26-year-old Hubert arrived at the Intracoastal substation to begin her 11:00…

Most people know the popular refrain: “Let him rot in jail.” Most people also know it’s just a metaphor for punishing a criminal. It isn’t meant to be taken literally. Convicted criminals aren’t supposed to putrefy and physically decompose while incarcerated. Right? I just wanted a reality check, especially after…

My July 29 column about the clash between the county ethics commission and Inspector General Christopher Mazzella sent paper clips flying and fax machines buzzing. The conflict centers on threats by the ethics commission’s chairman and executive director to curtail Mazzella’s criminal investigations into public corruption. Knowledgeable people responded with…

The Miami-Dade Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. I like the sound of that. Such a hopeful name for such a severe agency. If you get into serious trouble, all is not lost. You can always be rehabilitated. I’m talking about the staff, of course, not the inmates. At corrections, there…

Last week Miami-Dade Inspector General Christopher Mazzella stood beside State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle during a press conference announcing the arrest of nineteen people charged with stealing hundreds of thousands of gallons of jet fuel from the airport. Rundle gushed over Mazzella and the Office of the Inspector General (OIG)…

It was right before midnight on July 3 when the dispatcher at Florida International University’s police department reported a disturbance at the Panther Hall dormitory. Some students trying to enter were “disregarding the check-in policy.” So goes the life of an FIU police officer in the middle of summer patrolling…