UPDATE: Ceresta Smith has gotten a temporary reprieve. Miami-Dade Public Schools administrators will not be asking the school board to suspend her today. Spokesman John Schuster says the school district is reviewing the matter.Miami-Dade County Public Schools is railroading another good, outspoken teacher. Today the school board will consider suspending…
Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado’s insistence that Gov. Charlie Crist appoint a replacement for suspended Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones is getting ugly.Over the weekend, Regalado and commission chairman Marc Sarnof pressured Angel Gonzalez — who resigned yesterday as part of his guilty plea deal with prosecutors — to come to city hall for…
Moving Units is a weekly column on Crossfade tracking the best-selling albums at South Florida independent record stores.Uncle Sam’s, South Beach1. Kaleidoscope, Tiësto2. Get Salted Vol. 2, Miguel Migs3. Where the Wild Things Are [Soundtrack], Karen O & The Kids4. Lungs, Florence and the Machine5.This Is It, Michael JacksonRadio-Active Records, Ft. Lauderdale1. Ultraviolet,…
A few months ago, New Times Broward-Palm Beach announced that we would be giving away $4,000 to local artists through our first-ever MasterMind Awards, sponsored by the Amplitude Academy of Musical Arts, a new music school in Boca. This past Saturday, winners were announced at the Artopia event at Crobar@Exit…
Michelle Spence-Jones, wearing a red-and-black dress, black stockings and no shoes, stood in the middle of her Liberty City home’s wood-floored living room.It was close to 1 p.m. this past Friday the 13th. Fourteen friends and family members gathered around her and listened raptly. She spoke authoritatively, gesticulating with both…
Eater GreeterWhile I was away, Lesley Abravanel and Eater Miami gracefully traipsed into our incestuous little food blog world. So far it has been an interesting and visually arresting blog, a bit of original snark sandwiched between the sort of local linking that South Florida Menu Pages Blog used to…
Early this morning, in front of the Richard E. Gerstein Justice Building at 1351 NW 12th Street, after reading from a prepared statement asserting her innocence, Michelle Spence-Jones grew testy with some of the Miami media horde chronicling her surrender to law enforcement officials.When WPLG’s political reporter Michael Putney asked…
Why does aging Cali club kid Steve Aoki always seem to be everywhere all the time? He’s like some kind of superhuman funhouse mirror, multiplying his slick indie-slouch image a million and one times throughout the mediated universe. It’s kinda creepy … Wherever I look (music mags, dark alleys, The…
La Baguette, the sandwich counter that recently opened up shop at 427 SW Eighth Street on the outskirts of Brickell, may be new, but its concept isn’t. So says Olivier Farrat, owner of South Beach’s La Sandwicherie, a favorite of New Times restaurant critic Lee Klein. Farrat says the new…
A Miami Police Internet message board is throwing out names on who will be the man to replace John Timoney. One thing is certain: it doesn’t appear that his loyal deputy chief Frank Fernandez (pictured here to the right of Manny Diaz and Timoney) will get the top post.Fernandez, along…
Back in the 1990s, Ann Louise Bardach — who speaks Sunday at 11 a.m. with Gerald Posner at the Miami bookfair, made herself infamous in Miami by scoring a huge interview with Fidel Castro for Vanity Fair. Later, she nailed American hypocrisy toward terrorists when talking with Magic City mad…
Park ‘n’ Slide Stay Away from the Grove: Gus Garcia-Roberts’ November 5 story, “Park or Die Tryin’,” hit the nail on the head regarding parking in the Grove. I’ve lived in Miami for eight years, and love all of the outdoor “mall” type of places like Bayside, Lincoln Road, etc…
Hey, lost soul. Word is, you’ve been searching for some kind of trippy party shaman to lead you on a spirit quest to the center of your very own inner outer space. True? OK, then, it’s totally time you took a tab of that Space Voodoo Crystal stuff. Hence, today’s…
Well, that didn’t take long. WSVN and the Miami Herald report John Timoney is hanging up his Miami Police uniform. He’ll be gone by the beginning of the new year. Esquire once dubbed him “America’s Best Cop.” Miami New Times crowned him the nation’s worst cop. But rest assured, Timoney will…
*The party Heat_r is back up and running, bringing indie electro back to Fort Lauderdale, now at Exit 66. We heard it was pretty well-attended. The party’s ostensible web site, though, which was at heatrparty.com, seems to have been subsumed by a catch-all nightlife site called Nightcure.com — which hasn’t…
The morning breeze whips John Timoney’s rosy cheeks as he settles into his rowboat moored at the Miami Beach Rowing Club. He pushes off the dock and begins paddling up Indian Creek, soaking in the dry, mild November weather, pondering where his next gig will be.Maybe he’ll roll through Tomas…
A couple months ago, the City of Miami’s budget was about as well-balanced as Gary Busey on PCP. The Commission, Mayor Manny Diaz and the city’s three unions staged a vicious tug-of-war over who would feel the most pain in plugging a $118 million hole. But as Tomas Regalado prepares…
Our sister paper, New Times Broward-Palm Beach has done some pretty amazing reporting on the Scott Rothstein mess. Among the fallout from the alleged $57 million the Broward lawyer allegedly stole in a Ponzi scheme: South Beach.Gianni Versace’s former mansion on Ocean Drive, where a big buck restaurant and hotel…
Police arrested a Miami Southridge Senior High School teacher today on charges that he molested a 14-year-old boy on multiple occasions. The teacher, Frank Matthew Galatas, allegedly performed oral sex on the boy twice last month, says Officer Jeffrey Giordano, a spokesman for the Miami Police Department. Galatas, who is…
After Sleepless Night in Miami Beach this past Saturday, Crossfade’s Twitter friends (let’s follow each other, I’m at @Crossfade_SFL) and, uh, real-life people were raving about a performance by MASS Ensemble. This Malibu, California-based quartet performs a sort of global, downtempo trip-hop kind of thing, but the musicians do so…
When John Timoney swooped into the Magic City six years ago, watching him play up to the local media was like seeing Robert Duvall play Lt. Colonel Bill Kilgore in Apocalypse Now. The sight of Timoney on his police bike taking out demonstrators during the 2003 Free Trade Area of…
Moving Units is a weekly column on Crossfade tracking the best-selling albums at South Florida independent record stores.Top 5 Albums for the week of November 1 – 7Sweat Records, Miami1. No Seasons [LP], Jacuzzi Boys2. Hearts [CD], Awesome New Republic3. Embryonic [CD], Flaming Lips4. Operation Spacetime Cyderblock [LP], Kreamy ‘Lectric…
