FIU Study Aims to Find Out Why Few LGBT Hate Crimes Are Reported

Besiki Luka Kutateladze couldn’t believe the statistics: Between 2015 and 2016, the Miami-Dade Police Department — the country’s eighth-largest force — reported just one hate crime. Kutateladze’s interest in the numbers was both professional and personal. For years, he has led research on criminal justice issues. But he and his husband were considering moving from New York to Miami, and just months removed from the Pulse shootings, they wanted to know that they and their four young children would be accepted.

GOP Tax Bill Could Make 873,000 Floridians Drop or Lose Health Insurance

The GOP tax bill passed today! And it repeals the “individual mandate” written into the Affordable Care Act, AKA the Obamacare provision that mandated that all people buy health insurance. Though Obamacare was far from a perfect program, the mandate repeal that’s sneakily included in the draconian, monstrous “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” today is expected to destabilize all sorts of insurance markets and ultimately force millions of people off of their health plans.

Five Gifts South Florida Sports Fans Want for Christmas

It’s been a tough year for fans of South Florida sports teams. From Dwyane Wade taking his talents to Cleveland, to the Marlins selling off everything of value, to the Dolphins’ season doomed from the get-go after they lost Ryan Tannehill before training camp even began, it’s been a rough 12 months. If not for the resurgent Miami Hurricanes, this year would have been a total loss.

Hero Florida Mosquitoes Migrated to D.C. and Are Biting Lawmakers, Study Says

You would be forgiven if you assumed New Times was a staunchly anti-mosquito news outlet, what with all the stories its reporters have written about battling tropical diseases such as Zika, chikungunya, and dengue. But as of today, New Times is now ardently pro-mosquito: According to Yale researchers, a group of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes somehow migrated all the way to Washington, D.C., and has been biting residents “near Capitol Hill” for the past six years.

Somalis in South Florida Deported by ICE on “Slave Ship” File Class-Action Suit

In the early-morning hours of December 7, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in Louisiana woke up 92 Somali detainees and shackled them by their wrists, waists, and ankles. The Somalis were then loaded onto a chartered airplane that was supposed to return them to Somalia. But then, for reasons the government has not yet explained, the plane landed in Dakar, Senegal. It sat on the ground for 23 hours and then headed back to the United States, landing in Miami.

Hialeah Ranked Worst City in U.S. for Christmas

The concept of Christmas is strange in Miami. Children are fed baffling images of a heavily clothed, bearded man pulling large deer-like creatures through some sort of white substance on the ground while listening to hours of music celebrating mysterious concepts such as “cold weather” and “fireplaces.”

Miami’s Ten Craziest Crime Stories of 2017

From long-lost cocaine lords found hiding in Orlando to steroid-slinging gym owners to a truly Satanic plot to robocall millions of phones with spam messages, 2017 ended up as a 1. FCC Fines Miami Man $120 Million for Making 96 Million Robocalls in Three Months Yesterday the Federal Communications Commission…

Miami-Dade County Says It’s Investigating Allegedly Illegal Frat-House Ring Tied to Local Judge

For the better part of a year, a group of more than 50 residents in the Glenvar Heights area of Miami-Dade County say they’ve been trapped living next to off-campus dormitories and frat houses illegally housing trash-spewing, beer-chugging University of Miami students. As New Times reported last week, the predicament in which these residents find themselves bears an extremely striking resemblance to the 2014 Seth Rogen comedy Neighbors.

The Five Worst Ideas From Florida Politicians in 2017

The Florida legislature is run by cold, dead-eyed lunatics, lecherous men, and vampires without the parts of their brains that let them feel empathy. Tallahassee is such a horrid place that it’s barely even news when someone proposes letting people openly carry shotguns while riding mountain bikes, or putting a…