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Sweetwater, the Miami-Dade city best known as the home of Florida International University, is equally famous for a corruption scandal by its former mayor, who was sentenced to prison in 2014. But now, the city is bearing the burden of yet another ex-mayor’s misbehavior.

Miami is utterly sweltering today. Earlier this morning, WeatherUnderground reported that — with humidity taken into account — the temperature felt like 115 degrees Fahrenheit outside. Yet tons of immigrants are stuck in the heat this week at South Florida’s main Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Miramar, where ICE keeps immigrants waiting outdoors in what is essentially a caged pen for hours at a time.

In 2018, the Florida Democratic Party said it would stop taking donations from private, for-profit prison firms. So, after New Times first reported last month that the party had accepted a $10,000 check from inmate-transport company G4S Secure Solutions — a company that also runs private prisons in other countries — activists cried foul. Now, the party says it will return the money.

Miami summers have a way of defeating the weak-willed. Locals, who already don’t go to the beach that much, truly stop sitting by the ocean. You start ordering takeout for dinner every night because it’s too hot to carry groceries outside. Walking your dog for 15 minutes will annihilate any hairstyle and force you to take a shower before doing anything else that day.

A contingent of Parkland moms was outside the Arsht Center in Miami Thursday night.

New York politics and Miami politics are not the same. This may seem like an obvious statement. But at a rally today for striking workers at Miami International Airport, New York City mayor and 2020 presidential candidate Bill de Blasio broke the most obvious rule of Miami politicking.

The scene outside the Arsht Center last night was, predictably, a circus. As part one of the 20-candidate Democratic presidential debates got underway, the Proud Boys, a Q-Anon guy, and several proud “deplorables” mingled with Twitter castaway Laura Loomer on one side of Biscayne Boulevard. On the other side stood the Miami Democratic Socialists of America, climate activists in swim goggles, “Hands Off Venezuela” folks, and a guy with a sign comparing abortion to the Holocaust.