Lead Stories *Only the Falcons Were More Disappointed: On Super Bowl Sunday, the St. Petersburg Times profiled local resident Joffre Leggett, age 80, as he prepared for the Publishers Clearing House prize patrol, which he claimed would be arriving at his house later that day with $31 million. He proudly…
Lead Stories *The Denny’s restaurant chain, which paid $45 million in 1994 to settle a lawsuit by black customers who claimed they were denied service, launched a two-million-dollar corporate anti-racism campaign January 12. On the same day, seventeen Hispanics sued a San Jose, California, Denny’s, claiming they were refused service…
Readers of tomorrow, welcome to Scholastic Bowl, the program that showcases student ingenuity. Our gracious sponsor today is the Miami-Dade County Public Schools from South Florida, the fourth largest school district in the nation. Special thanks to Superintendent Roger C. Cuevas and school board chairman Solomon Stinson for providing us…
Jarvis Deserved Better Tristram Korten’s “Death of a Warrior” (February 11) was a heartfelt story. What is even more depressing is that these tragic incidents take place every day, predominately affecting the children of the black community. One can clearly see a vicious cycle, but no one is there to…
Lead Stories *Joe Firmage, age 28, multimillionaire founder of the high-profile Internet consulting firm USWeb, resigned in January out of fear that the company’s reputation was being hurt by his public announcement that extraterrestrials are responsible for many high-tech inventions, such as semiconductors and lasers. According to his autobiography, which…
Here’s an old joke: Two guys are eating at an Italian restaurant in New York’s Little Italy. The first guy whispers, “Hey, see that fella over there? He’s got mob ties.” “Mob ties?” the second guy asks incredulously. “Yeah,” the first guy says, “and those ties keep getting him in…
Erratum Owing to an editing error in “Dumb and Dumber Luck” (February 4), about lottery winner Bernardo Paz, attorney George Garcia’s plea to charges of aggravated assault and witness tampering was stated incorrectly. Garcia pleaded no contest. New Times regrets the error. What a Relief: Only Two Errors! Thanks for…
Lawrence: A New Times Embarrassment Who is Jim Mullin to blast David Lawrence’s efficiency and business savvy (“Nice Guy, Wrong Job,” January 21) when it takes Mullin three pages to write what I could have written in one? Aren’t pages the equivalent of money in the news business? Mullin uses…
Lead Story *Since 1996 accused murderer and paranoid schizophrenic Eric Brown has been rendered incompetent to stand trial, but officials at Bridgewater State Hospital in Massachusetts said recently that he had made enough progress while on medication that a trial can be scheduled. In December, however, Brown demanded to be…
To Find the Real McCoy, Head South … Way South I am writing in response to Judy Cantor’s article “Home for the Holidays” (January 21). May Ochun and all orichas bless them, but the days of the Sonora Matancera and Celio Gonzalez will never return to Cuban music, in Havana…
Lead Stories *Since July the Totenko Chinese restaurant in Tokyo has been offering an all-you-can-eat luncheon buffet (that regularly costs sixteen dollars per person) to the first 30 diners each day at the price of about 30 cents per minute, measured by a time clock that diners punch when entering…
January 1, 1999, brought with it a noteworthy change in Miami’s civic landscape: David Lawrence, Jr., took leave of 1 Herald Plaza. In his nine years as boss man at the Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald, he held an exalted position of influence in this town, and as we…
StreetSmarts: Keep Them Invisible I enjoyed Kathy Glasgow’s article about StreetSmarts magazine (“Brother, Can You Spare a Byline?” January 7). I read the first issue and found it interesting and well written. How curious, then, was the reported reaction of Lynn Summers, executive director of the Community Partnership for Homeless…
Lead Stories *In November Wichita, Kansas, police removed four children from their parents’ mobile home, which was littered with animal feces. When police arrived they noticed stacks of Star Trek posters and magazines and heard the parents and kids speaking fluent Klingon, the language created for the Star Trek series…
Lorion: I Was Slimed I was flattered that esteemed New Times writer Jake Bernstein and your exceptional publication found my resignation from the formal environmental movement newsworthy enough for an article (“Resignation Indignation,” December 31). But I was sad to read that unnamed former peers question whether my opposition to…
Lead Stories *In December a deer hunter in upscale Nantucket, Massachusetts stumbled across the hatch that leads to the eight-by-eight-by-seven-foot-deep underground squatter’s apartment of Thomas Johnson, age 38. Johnson said he built the place ten years ago when he was on the lam from drug charges in Italy. His apartment…
Lead Stories *In November to improve lagging sales, the Liko-L tourism company in Kiev, Ukraine, announced a new attraction: a daylong visit to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which has been closed to the public since the catastrophic accident there in 1986. Liko-L said the government, in need of tax…
Attorneys R Us In her cover story, “Street Sweepers” (December 24), Kathy Glasgow did an excellent job portraying the difficult choices faced by homeless people, their advocates, and the police. We felt, however, that your readers should be informed of another important service available to homeless people living anywhere in…
If It Works for Tupperware, It’ll Work for Crack Cocaine Kirk Nielsen’s article “Drug Bizarre” (December 24) was excellent, and Robert Dowd’s arguments against the war on drugs seem so logical. The reason drug dealers are harder to control is that, unlike illegal vendors of cigarettes and alcohol, a drug…
Lead Stories *The November Canadian Finals Rodeo in Edmonton, Alberta, featured the very popular “Cowboy Poker,” in which four men sit at a table in the middle of the arena “playing cards,” while a particularly aggressive bull is turned loose. As the bull rushes them, the last cowboy to stay…
As Gov.-elect Jeb Bush ponders whether Miami-Dade County Commissioner Natacha Millan merits a position in his administration, he may first want to make sure the state’s travel budget can afford her. Millan loves to visit faraway places, especially when somebody else is paying. In the past two years she’s taken…
Lead Stories *A November Associated Press dispatch described the work of commercial leech and maggot suppliers who sell to hospitals for medical treatments. A Welsh firm, Biopharm Ltd., moves about 20,000 three-inch-long leeches a year at seventeen dollars each to suck blood through delicate, clogged veins to restore circulation. A…
