Just after 11 a.m. today, a former Columbia University professor, who now serves as dean of Florida International University’s Robert Stempel College of Public Health and Social Work, stood in front of a packed crowd at Miami Beach City Hall. Opening his speech, Dr. Thomas R. Guilarte thanked everyone in attendance…
If Miami’s going to stop the spread of Zika, residents have to trust that the government knows what it’s doing. That’s why it’s all the more concerning that the Florida Department of Health last week published an outright lie in a Q&A on the virus and the pesticides being used to combat…
Miami Beach residents’ protest against the controversial anti-Zika pesticide naled is quickly morphing from a spirited public debate into an all-out ground war. In protest threads on social media, some protest organizers yesterday suggested that flying drones could intercept the county’s pesticide-spraying airplanes. Michael DeFilippi, the anti-naled organizer who raised…
If you’re living in Miami Beach right now, you’re probably wondering whether to freak out about Zika. That’s certainly understandable, and if an emergency Zika meeting yesterday proved anything, it’s that even the public officials we look to for guidance don’t have all the answers. Meant to be informational, Wednesday’s…
A rowdy crowd gathered today in Miami Beach to discuss the Zika epidemic and whether the city should spray controversial pesticides from planes to fight it. But there was an odd undercurrent to that talk: Many in the crowd insisted that the whole Zika phenomenon is overblown and that the…
When the Zika virus hit Miami Beach last month, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it wasn’t even possible to spray pesticides over Miami Beach, since the buildings were too tall. But — at Gov. Rick Scott’s request — the county has changed course. Planes will start spraying…
“Got ’em on!” Mark “the Shark” Quartiano roars while his first mate stabs a shark with a gaff and hauls it out of the placid Atlantic Ocean. “In the boat, get him in the boat! Yeah, got ’em on!” Thwacking its tail and flipping over so the white of its…
Let’s be honest: Miami is a place people visit in order to have sex. Our citizens remain locked in a constant fight to expose as much skin as possible without getting arrested. All types of lifestyles canoodle in public here without reproach, young tourists wantonly stare each other down along…
Last month, an environmental supervisor at Palm Beach County mosquito control told New Times that Miami-Dade County’s 5 a.m. spraying missions for Zika mosquitoes were simply “psychological,” wouldn’t actually kill Aedes aegypti bugs, and may have just been for show. And when the Zika virus hit Miami Beach, the U.S. Centers for Disease…
Miami Beach Commissioner Michael Grieco is sick of finding cigarette butts in the sand. As he strolls South Beach’s white beaches, he regularly has to stop what he’s doing to pick them up and throw them away. In fact, he once hosted a beach clean-up that netted over seven pounds…
Almost the minute the Zika virus hit Wynwood at the end of July, Miami-Dade County Mosquito Control scrambled low-flying planes into the sky. Trails of pesticides — one of them highly controversial and possibly harmful to humans — billowed from their wings on early weekday mornings, under the assumption that…
Almost 11 years later, Wilma is still Miami’s last brush with hurricane destruction. Earlier this week, a tropical wave in the Caribbean briefly looked like it might break that amazing streak. But now, forecasters say Florida’s chances of a significant hit this weekend are nearly gone. The system, which never…
With even more locally transmitted Zika cases announced this week in Wynwood and Miami Beach, officials are squabbling about who’s to blame and what we can do to end the outbreak. Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine accused Gov. Rick Scott of “blindsiding” him with news that Zika was on the…
It can be hard for non-pregnant Miamians to gauge how much they should really worry about Zika. On one hand, a new University of Florida study predicts South Florida’s outbreak should top out at 400 locally transmitted cases and end by the winter. But another new study paints an more…
Earlier this month, a Miami-Dade County mosquito control plane buzzed over New Times’ Wynwood office building at around 11:15 a.m., wafting the organic, larva-killing bacterial pesticide Bti over the neighborhood. A nearby worker noticed a reporter taking photos and chimed in. “If you’re under the cloud, it gets on your skin,”…
When installing a bat house, which is just like a bird house except with a slit-shaped hole for the tiny flying mammals, it’s important to keep the box out of direct sunlight. Bats are notoriously temperamental, and if the lighting isn’t quite right, the home could get too hot or…
Come October, it will be exactly 11 years since Hurricane Wilma tore across South Florida. Astoundingly, no hurricane has made landfall in the state since. That’s a statistical quirk that has to end soon. In fact, it might just end early next week. A tropical wave just east of the…
Mosquito repellent isn’t trendy, plus it’s sticky and smells like floor cleaner. So for Miami adults who aren’t worried about pregnancy, it’s been pretty easy to rationalize leaving the house unprotected amidst the Zika outbreak since the virus allegedly is only harmful to growing fetuses. Bad news: A study released…
Just 14 hours after Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine stood in front of reporters and said there was “no Zika outbreak in Miami Beach,” Gov. Rick Scott announced in a press conference today that five locally transmitted Zika cases had been identified in the city’s highest-traffic tourist area. The Centers…
The Zika virus has been transmitted locally to two people in Miami Beach, Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez told New Times via phone today. The Florida Department of Health had previously assumed active transmissions were just confined to a small area surrounding Wynwood. Reading from a memo sent by City Manager Jimmy…
Last month, Florida’s Environmental Regulation Commission took the alarming step of changing state rules to allow more cancer-causing chemicals in Florida’s water. That change is currently on hold thanks to the Seminole Tribe of Florida, which sued the state over the change — and they’re far from alone at being alarmed at…
As a kid, Valencia Gunder was terrified of the pool. But one day when she was around seven years old, an uncle who was a lifeguard threw her right in. He told her not to be afraid, that everything would be fine if she could swim. And that’s how she…
