Donald Trump has been the president-elect for exactly three weeks. As he has endlessly Twitter-beefed and mulled over cabinet picks, though, it seems as if he’s been president-elect since Tsar Nicholas II was assassinated. But there’s already been a darker side to Trump’s ascendency than watching the future leader of the free world go on unhinged social-media rants.
The word “basel” is actually old German for “Please help, I cannot stop belching wads of money into the sky.” Art Basel Miami Beach, which begins this week, may be America’s most frightening display of the useless expenditure of wealth. Pretty much the entirety of Manhattan and Los Angeles converges on…
Few parts of the lexicon of American politics are more brazenly undemocratic than “legalized monopoly.” The phrase conjures images of failed nation states and robber-baron America in the 1890s. Government-backed corporations abuse vital resources with impunity, hike fees and scam customers with glee as the government pretends things are cool…
It’s been a long, tough, and overall stinky sports year in South Florida. Thankfully, we have only a month left of a 2016 that has mostly brought us tears and heartache. Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh left the Heat. Jose Fernandez tragically died. But it hasn’t all been bad in Miami sports. There have been moments of greatness that make even the worst of times not so bad.
Laura Rollins, a 65-year-old fast-food worker in South Florida, has been protesting for fair wages for nearly three years. But earlier this month, she believes, her outspokenness might have cost her her job: On November 9, she was let go from McDonald’s after seven years of service.
Depending upon your income bracket, Art Basel either conjures images of yacht cruises from Martha’s Vineyard to Biscayne Bay or standstill traffic full of wailing babies on the MacArthur Causeway. Driving in Miami sucks all year, but the hordes of wealthy tourists who arrive for Basel take congestion to hellish levels.
The nation’s HIV and AIDS infection rates have steadily dropped over the past handful of years. With medication, HIV-positive individuals can now lead long, healthy lives. And through diligent self-care (or use of the preventative drug PrEP), some infected individuals even safely date HIV-negative people. But nobody, apparently, has told Florida.
Sixty years ago, Miami — or My-am-uh, as many locals called it then — was as Southern, conservative, and deeply religious as any comparably sized town in Alabama, Georgia, or Mississippi. Dade County’s population was less than a million. The city’s afternoon newspaper, the Miami News, printed a daily Bible verse on its editorial page. White males dominated the city’s political power structure, businesses, and newspapers, and the word “change” was not in their vocabulary. But change was on the horizon.
In most instances, it’s perfectly legal to record police officers in public. Yet cops regularly arrest and harass people filming them, which is why one of the most followed police-accountability websites is called Photography Is Not a Crime. City of Miami Police still haven’t figured out that they can’t pester…
When Chis Emerson rode his horse Trigger into Miami-Dade County from South Carolina last Wednesday morning, locals were dismayed. The horse was in awful condition. His mouth was pockmarked with sores, one eye was blind, and his back was so raw and abused that he’d bite anyone who tried to touch it…
I cried when my millennial daughter walked into the living room and told me, “Hey, Fidel Castro died.” The daughter of a former journalist, she offered her source: “The BBC is reporting it.”
Early this morning, Miami awoke to the sound of firecrackers popping, car horns blaring, and pots and pans clanging in Little Havana: “¡Fidel Castro,” they shouted in the street, “está muerto!” It’s an odd feeling in a metropolis where thousands of Cuban exilios have waited for nearly five decades for an end to the reign…
Two of Donald Trump’s potential Supreme Court nominees hail from the Sunshine State.
For days after Hurricane Matthew battered the coast of Haiti Tuesday, October 4, people living in the country’s most remote areas looked for ways to communicate with the outside world. With cell towers down, they couldn’t talk to faraway loved ones or send photos of the damage. Journalists from all over the world parachuted in to survey the destruction in larger cities such as Port-au-Prince, but accessing rural villages was out of the question at that point.
The Miami Dolphins have not lost a football game in 45 days. Think about that. Their last loss came to the Tennessee Titans October 9, the same day as the second presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. All that stands between the Dolphins and a six-game winning streak is the 1-9 San Francisco 49ers, the worst team in the NFL not named the Cleveland Browns.
Chris Emerson and his horse Trigger left Greenwood, South Carolina, last week and headed south. The pair passed through Georgia, into Florida, and nearly made it all the way to Key West before a TV news crew spotted them in West Palm Beach and asked what they were up to…
When volunteers discovered a roost of Florida bonneted bats in the roof of an abandoned million-dollar house in Coral Gables two years ago, it was big news. The critically endangered species numbered in the hundreds, and a roost hadn’t been found in decades.
Florida is a hotbed for football talent, young and old. Many of Miami’s high schools are basically factories for college football programs and, by proxy, the National Football League. When players retire, many of them choose to buy mansions on the South Florida coast. And because the state is crammed with retired NFL players, it’s a mecca for both football-related wealth and injuries.
If the artist took himself seriously, he might make this his creative statement: “I think it was just because I thought he was such a piece of crap.” Recently, the South Beach resident has been sticking photos of President-elect Donald J. Trump into steaming piles of dog shit. He calls the…
Paulo Berejuk’s deep voice cracks over the phone from southern Brazil. He now lives in Santa Catarina, which boasts hundreds of miles of white-sand beaches crowned with lushly jungled hillsides. But to Berejuk, it feels like a prison, worse than the federal pen in North Carolina where he finished an…
Just after 9 a.m. today, Flavia Marlene Almonte, a Latina Muslim woman who lives in Miami, pulled her car over near a police officer in Fort Lauderdale and broke down in tears. “I just need a place to vent,” she said, speaking into a Facebook Live feed…
Many unarmed motorists shot by police officers don’t live to tell their side of the story. Michael Gavins is the exception. And the story Gavins tells is disturbing. He was unarmed and says he was not resisting when South Miami Police Officer Aryo Rezaie shot him in the back…
