On Wednesday, January 25, after deliberating less than 30 minutes, a Miami-Dade County jury acquitted 27-year-old Mario Barcia of attempted second-degree murder of a police officer. Miami New Times, which published three articles about the case, was a regular subject of discussion at the trial. Shortly after midnight October 24,…
Stacey Glassman, blond and enthusiastic, teetered on a stage by the pool of the Raleigh Hotel in a cotton-candy pink, Marilyn Monroe-inspired halter-dress and heels. Behind her, nine New World Symphony musicians sat or stood according to the demands of their instruments. Most were in their midtwenties and looked their…
This past May 1, Donna Halpern arrived at the Miami-Dade County Animal Services shelter to rescue a Persian cat that had been surrendered by its owner. She arrived at the shelter, walked into the sick ward where the Persian was being held, and was flummoxed by the scene. Two three-by-three-foot…
Cowboy had everything a dog could ever want. His doting owner, Anays Rodriguez-Porras, dressed him up in whimsical costumes on Halloween and took him on family vacations to Fort Myers Beach and the Keys. “Wherever dogs were allowed, I would take him there,” Rodriguez-Porras recalls during a recent interview in…
Donna Halpern sits on a beach chair outside her three-bedroom house, surrounded by a menagerie of cats. The 43-year-old founder of Fairy Tails Inc., a nonprofit animal rescue organization, spends the afternoon this past January 19 awaiting the arrival of a Miami-Dade County Animal Services enforcement officer, who is responding…
The Miami-Dade Police Department is thrilled to announce the first accused felon of 2006 is a chubby-cheeked, five-foot six-inch 23-year-old from Miami. Just 45 minutes into the new year, Juan Carlos Mendoza, who has brown hair and brown eyes, was delivered to the Miami-Dade County jail. He’s healthy and just…
In Coral Gables, the City Beautiful, toeing the line is a way of life. Mildewed roofs and sidewalks are forbidden by law, peeling house paint is verboten, and trucks are outlawed from driveways after dark. It’s here in the square capital of Miami-Dade County that a small band of independent…
Combining exotic glass with exotic plant life is, apparently, like mixing peanut butter with chocolate or rock with rap. People dig it. When the colorful, exotic sculpture of glass artist Dale Chihuly met the horticultural maze of London’s Kew Gardens last year, Brits went mad — in four months the…
The diversity is breathtaking. This year’s Miami Jewish Film Festival sprawls with four venues featuring a batch of motion pictures that seem to cover everything Jewish under the sun. Hitler and Stalin, the Holocaust and Heaven, klezmer and ska, ambitious masterpieces, family dramas, slapstick comedies, and earnest documentaries add up…
For the past 30 years Dan Benetti has been on an obsessive quest that has taken him to the farthest corners of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. He’s traveled to the Sea of Japan, the Gulf of Alaska, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, Black Sea, North Sea, and South…
The diversity is breathtaking. This year’s Miami Jewish Film Festival sprawls with four venues featuring a batch of motion pictures that seem to cover everything Jewish under the sun. Hitler and Stalin, the Holocaust and Heaven, klezmer and ska, ambitious masterpieces, family dramas, slapstick comedies, and earnest documentaries add up…
With hurricanes and high gas prices, 2005 was not a good year for South Florida casino cruises.
The extraterrestrial sits on a couch and looks up at a blank artist’s canvas hanging crookedly on the wall. Only it’s not blank. There are vague grayish shapes and blotches in the white background. “That picture is transforming right now,” Prince Mongo proclaims. “It’s the resurrection of the world. The…
Judge Alan S. Gold has had a laudable nine years on the federal bench. Since his appointment by President Bill Clinton in 1997, the former Assistant Dade County Attorney and partner at Greenberg Traurig has received accolades (such as the Greater Miami Jewish Federation’s 2003 Outstanding Jurist Award) and presided…
Shortly after 9:00 p.m. November 29, a busload of 25 recruits arrives for the first time at the gate of the U.S. Marine Corps Recruit Depot on Parris Island, South Carolina. Before the vehicle enters the two-lane causeway, a military policeman stops it, ascends the narrow steps, and orders the…
While the rest of Miami was macking under the mistletoe, gorging on chocolate Santas, or swilling their way toward 2006, the approximately 1500, um, residents of downtown’s Federal Detention Center stewed in their cells. But there was some good cheer. And it didn’t come from a bottle. Just across the…
For the past six years, Alexandria Clayton has patrolled the streets of Hialeah Gardens, a town of about 20,000 wedged between Hialeah on the east and Okeechobee Road on the west. Clayton is in the unique position of being not only black but also the only woman to serve as…
At Jimbo’s bar on Virginia Key, it was just another morning, another chance to sit under the pine boughs, stoke a smoldering log fire, and ease open another cold Schlitz. In the nearby lagoon, reflected sunlight undulated against a worn dock’s wood planks, and pelicans stood sentinel on faded fishing…
Don’t be fooled by the hoarse rustle of palm fronds or the gentle lapping of waves against the beach. Miami is a noisy city. Most people don’t give it much thought until sirens slice through REM sleep at three in the morning, a boom car or glass-pack-mufflered chopper rattles house…
On July 17, 1979, my parents and I climbed into a red four-door Toyota bound for Condega, a rural town in northern Nicaragua. We had missed the last commercial flight out of the country after the Sandinista-led revolution, so we made our getaway on the ground. In Condega, we planned…
Eric Onassis, salsa dancer turned stage producer, adamantly refuses to talk about his upcoming shows, his Miami Lakes and Palm Beach homes, or any of his celebrity friends. Nor will he comment on anything related to his yacht-tycoon-sounding name or his work with Carol Burnett. There is only one thing…
Christmas came early for Miami-Dade County Manager George Burgess when the county commission gave him a $54,000 raise at its December 21 meeting. Citing Burgess’s management of hurricanes and other events, commissioners bumped the third-year employee’s salary from $257,000 to $311,000. With a benefits package thrown in, the total comes…
