It couldn’t have been much closer in Miami Shores. At yesterday’s village council election — which was tinged with county-wide significance because of the village’s recent high-profile spat over gay marriage rights — the top vote getter only beat the bottom by 143 votes: According to unofficial results, Alice Burch won…
Laura Collins didn’t used to have to worry so much about making ends meet. With a factory job at pencil maker Atlas Pen & Pencil Co., the $11.75 per hour she brought in was enough to cover basic essentials, like healthcare and car insurance payments. When Atlas’ Hollywood, Florida, facility…
Barack Obama announced today that he’s removing Cuba from the State Department’s official list of state sponsors of terrorism; an action that will go into effect in 45 days barring any congressional action. The move is seen a key step to fully restoring relations between Washington and Havana, with Cuba…
Outside Miami’s Freedom Tower on Monday, it was hard to hear Marco Rubio announce his aspirations to become president of the United States. In an overflow site where a Jumbotron was set up for those who didn’t make it inside the tower, a feisty group of pro-immigration activists upset by…
Marco Rubio is scheduled to speak at the Freedom Tower today, and news that he’s told donors he will run for President is already out of the bag. Comparisons to the current president have followed Rubio since he burst on to the national scene in 2010. He’s been dubbed “The…
From the moment he rode a Tea Party wave to topple the then-mighty Charlie Crist in a 2010 GOP Senate primary, Marco Rubio has always been the next big thing in waiting for conservatives. A campaign credit card scandal couldn’t slow him down. Neither could his ex-best buddy David Rivera’s…
George Zimmerman. Michael Dunn. Marissa Alexander. Curtis Reeves. To most Floridians, those names bring one thing to mind: our state’s troubled “Stand Your Ground” law, which has brought more legal headaches, bad press and miscarriages of justice to the Sunshine State than even Gov. Rick Scott could dream up. To…
Until five years ago Florida has the most draconian anti-gay adoption laws in the entire country. Even a single, celibate gay person was banned from adopting in the state. That law was struck down in 2010, but the Florida House is intent and brining back some homophobia to the state’s…
He was finally sent back. Yesterday Carlos Vides, the former Salvadoran general, war crimes perpetrator, and central Florida resident was deported to El Salvador after being held for weeks at an immigration detention center in Louisiana. For Vides’ thousands of Salvadoran victims, and for the lawyers and activists in the…
For more than three decades, Cuba has joined such nefarious characters as Iran, Sudan and Syria on the U.S. State Department’s list of countries that support terrorism abroad. Even as Havana has become a well-traveled international tourism hub sharing little in common with Tehran or Damascus, the designation has remained,…
Florida isn’t a red state or a blue state. You could call it a purple state, but really it’s more a gradient state. With a few notable exceptions, the deep red of the north fades into the deep blue of the south. So it’s really no surprise that Miami Gardens…
What do “I just flew in and boy my arms are tired,” “Take my wife …please” and The Florida Democratic Party have in common? They’re all worn out jokes whose punchlines have been told too many times. With the exception of the reelections of Senator Bill Nelson (a holdover from…
For months leading up to last year’s vote on Amendment Two, which would have legalized medical pot in Florida, polls consistently showed huge margins in favor of reform — and we all know how that turned out in the end. Still, the numbers are eye-opening in the latest survey out…
Annette Taddeo seemingly has all the elements of a successful Miami political candidate: A compelling immigrant narrative, a self-made business success tale, a charismatic presence fluent in Spanish and English. Yet Taddeo has so far come up short in bids for U.S. Congress, the Miami-Dade County Commission and last year…
Just when it seemed like Florida was ready to take a slight, if not technical, step forward, it somehow ended up ready to take one giant Indiana-style step backwards. Last month, the Florida House passed a bill that would overhaul the state’s adoption and foster care laws, but that bill…
As Jeb Bush has learned on the turn of April Fool’s Day, it’s never too early in a presidential campaign to have a rough week. With Bush backpedalling on his support for Indiana’s hotly contested gay discrimination law and rival Ted Cruz riding a surge off his official announcement, Jeb’s…
Former Mayor Lakes Mayor Mike Pizzi is about to pull a Michelle Spence-Jones. Like, the former City of Miami Commissioner, the ex-mayor was removed from office after being hit with corruption charges, beat the charges, and has now won a favorable ruling in a lawsuit to return to his seat. …
There’s a surprisingly large number of Florida Republicans considering a run for the White House right now: Former Governor Jeb Bush, Senator Marco Rubio, Arkansas Governor turned Florida resident Mike Huckabee, and Florida-based neurosurgeon turned conservative figure Ben Carson. The funny thing is that most polls so far have shown…
Kratom, a plant in the coffee family from Southeast Asia, is the latest craze for those looking to get a little high legally. It’s been used for thousands of years for both medicinal and recreational purposes, but its exact effects are not well studied nor understood. Thanks to the internet…
Like all the other GOP presidential candidates except for Ted Cruz, Sen. Marco Rubio hasn’t officially announced that he’s making a bid for the White House — even as he banks millions in fundraising and sets up sophisticated ground games from New Hampshire to Iowa. But that could change next…
Gay marriage has been perfectly legal through out the Sunshines state for two and a half months now, and you might notice that society hasn’t collapsed, the end of days has not descended upon us, and most straight people continue on about their life virtually unaffected. In fact, a new…
The state of the 2016 Florida senate race is in a precarious place. Senator Marco Rubio currently holds the seat and there’s no indication he wouldn’t cruise to an easy re-election, but Rubio is hinting that he may indeed run for President instead that year. Most Florida political power players…
