Florida Panthers owner Vincent Viola could soon run an entire wing of the U.S. government. President-elect Donald Trump has tapped Viola, a military veteran and low-profile New York billionaire, to serve as secretary of the Army. That job requires caring for the well-being of thousands of Americans who volunteer to do the hardest jobs, and serious empathy for those who develop mental illness in the service.
Red-light camera operators are the tow-truck drivers and repossession kings of today’s drone-flying, surveillance-obsessed world. Camera companies place tiny, cheap lenses on traffic lights, wait for you to inch too far into an intersection, and cackle into the sky as they and the cities that hire them siphon a few hundred dollars from your wallet. The cameras themselves might not even be legal in Florida.
Dear Stoner: My favorite marijuana strain is Lamb’s Bread. Does that name mean anything, or is it just made up at a grower? Burt Smiley Dear Burt: Marijuana names definitely mean something, especially for the strain you mention. Lamb’s Bread is an iconic Jamaican sativa that Bob Marley reportedly liked to…
When the clock strikes midnight December 31, kiss your loved ones, pound some champagne, and give 2016 a big, hearty middle finger on its way out the door. This year has seriously sucked. Prince and David Bowie died. Donald Trump won the presidency. Racist Twitter eggs will soon dictate our…
Hey there, newcomer! ¡Bienvenido a Miami! Our beaches are a year-round paradise, and our water is tranquil. Ibiza trembles with envy at our clubs. Anthony Bourdain lies awake at night, tormented by the sheer power of our restaurant scene. Everyone is attractive as hell. Oh, and also literally no one here cares about anyone else. Probably should mention that part too!
The Miami Dolphins are an NFL playoff team. What is an NFL playoff team, you might ask? It’s a team that plays all 17 regular-season games and then plays an additional matchup in a single-elimination tournament that concludes with a game between the final two remaining teams, called the “Super Bowl.”
A wild gun battle rocked Ocean Drive this morning, with more than 30 shots blasted in the early hours near Fifth Street. Nearby streets are still closed while Miami Beach Police try to unravel a chaotic crime scene. By some miracle, no one was injured in all the gunfire…
On January 29, 2013, Nikki Beach bartender and self-described “party princess” Karlie Tomica slammed her car into a pedestrian walking down Collins Avenue. Stefano Riccioletti, a 49-year-old chef and father of three who was walking to his job at the Shore Club, died on the spot.
Florida state Sen. Travis Hutson, a Republican representing St. Johns, Flagler, and parts of Volusia Counties, wants to set up two entirely different punishments for people accused of identical crimes. The difference? Whether you’re a U.S. citizen or not when you are arrested. Under Huston’s proposal, anyone committing simple battery or assault in Florida as a U.S. citizen would be charged with a misdemeanor. Commit that identical crime as an undocumented immigrant, and Hutson’s bill would make that crime a felony.
Donald Trump owes so much of his ascendency — and his continued commitment to sowing world chaos — to Twitter that it’s appropriate the first big black eye of his White House came via some tweets. And Miami’s own A.J. Delgado, an attorney and Trump campaign advisor, appears to have…
Some Miami politicians sucked this year because they were incompetent. A whole lot of people thought longtime Miami businessman Jeb Bush, history’s least exciting royal prince, would be in line to lead the free world by this time in 2016. Instead, he blew his shot big-time, squandered hundreds of millions of dollars, and cemented his place in history books as one of the clearest cases of white-bread upper-crust mediocrity in American history. Let’s hope some rich jokester capitalist gifted Bush a coal mine this Christmas.
Christmas is all about getting cozy, so keep that in mind as visions of sugar nugs dance in your head. And nothing is cozier than Christmas cookies and cocoa, both of which you can infuse with pot.
After a series of high-profile drownings aboard its cruise ships, Royal Caribbean has begun quietly advertising positions for lifeguards. The cruise line — which is headquartered in Miami, and the county’s eighth-largest private employer — posted the job description on an onboard TV channel Wednesday.
Most people who regularly ride Metrobus are accustomed to launching horrid invectives at Miami-Dade Transit on a daily basis. Most of the tweets tend to hit some of Metrobus’ greatest hits, including questions such as “Where did my bus go?” “What’s the point in taking the bus if it’s going to sit in standstill traffic?” and “No, seriously, did the bus I take regularly to work cross the wrong river and accidentally get trapped in the haunted bathhouse world from Spirited Away?”
It’s no secret Miami likes to throw one back. South Beach is practically synonymous with $30 fishbowl cocktails. There are entire companies that will deliver liquor right to your doorstep. Last year, Match.com called Miami the seventh booziest city for singles. Now the county is taking advantage: To get free Wi-Fi on public transit, the commission might waive a rule that prohibits alcohol advertisements at bus stops and on trains.
Bank heists are a dangerous business. A skilled crew has to case a place for weeks, acquire weapons and masks, and then pull off a risky holdup within minutes before the cops show up. Of course, stealing huge piles of cash is a hell of a lot easier when you can…
Mere months ago, environmentalists were concerned that the Florida Legislature was about to take the power to regulate fracking away from local communities and instead force the controversial oil-drilling process onto the state. But after months of protests, state Sen. Garrett Richter’s proposal to outlaw local fracking bans never came to fruition; instead, areas such as Broward and Miami-Dade Counties were inspired to ban fracking themselves in retaliation.
Land developers are all but salivating to sink their teeth into the rich, fatty, unblemished flesh that is Little Haiti real estate. The Wynwood gentrification fight is over — the only people who can afford land there now are the sort who maintain Cayman Islands bank accounts, and scores of tall luxury apartments are headed to that neighborhood.
According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law has led to a massive, demonstrable increase in statewide homicides since 2005. JAMA’s November study framed the law as a clear threat to public health: Homicides were actually decreasing, on average, until the law — which lets Floridians kill in self-defense even if they themselves started the fight — took effect.
This past January, Claudia Castillo pulled over a speeding Miami-Dade cop in a video that went viral. The Miami Police’s union chief, Lt. Javier Ortiz, responded by posting Castillo’s Facebook photos and phone number and urging his social media followers to call her. Castillo received hundreds of threatening phone calls and Facebook messages, and Facebook itself removed the posts for being abusive.
The most obvious metaphor in Miami gentrification history is playing out in Wynwood this week. One of the neighborhood’s iconic murals, which bemoaned humanity’s gradual slide from paradise to urban hell, has been demolished to pave way for the neighborhood’s first high-rise parking garage.
Bad ideas have had free rein in 2016. From a Muslim registry to a taxpayer-funded Pitbull music video, there’s a lot for America to be embarrassed about in the past 12 months. But the year isn’t over yet, and neither are the awful ideas. This past Sunday, the Miami Herald published a skepticism-free story proposing something called a “civility court,” in which regular people could be forced to answer for their “bad,” but not criminal, behavior in front of a judge.
