Dear punk-ass Miami Beach bike thief:On March 20, you rolled up on my ’80s Italian-made Univega road bike tied to a street post near the Raleigh Hotel on Collins Avenue. It had a dope iridescent purple-and-blue paint scheme, a chrome yoke, and neon-green hand grips. It took me close to…

Galata Inc., a Homestead social service agency that received a no-questions-asked $500,000 county grant in 2008 to pay off a mortgage, is now seeking private donations to help pay down another loan. In January, the Miami-Dade Inspector General’s Office criticized Galata officials for misusing $99,000 from the grant to pay…

Brad Stonesifer thought he’d found the perfect Ultra Music Festival party pad for himself and five pals. The 41-year-old electronic dance music aficionado from York, Pennsylvania, booked a four-night stay at the Residences at Bayside, directly across from Bayfront Park where his crew planned on enjoying the second weekend of…

Close to 1,000 former Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald staffers descended on One Herald Plaza Wednesday afternoon. Reporters. Advertising executives. Printing-press mechanics. Bookkeepers. Publishers. Janitors. They all came to pay their final respects to the place that has defined journalism in this city for the last 50 years. Sometime…

The bluesy track starts with eerie piano chords and a spooky fiddle. Then a deep, raspy voice croons, “They stole my money, they took my home. Left me on the street, to die alone. I live in paradise, so they say. Things shouldn’t be this way. Paaaaaiiinnn, pain and gain.”That’s…

Driving on Krome Avenue is a journey through old Florida’s last frontier — a place before suburban sprawl, crippling traffic congestion, and overdevelopment choked our wonderful, incredible ecosystem.Whenever Banana Republican has to hop from North Dade to South Dade, we take the two-lane road so we can enjoy the blissful…

At first Banana Republican was torn. We didn’t know whether to curse or congratulate a gaggle of Hialeah police officers who trampled an impromptu “Harlem Shake” video shoot. Do we side with the two dozen young shakers, including a man dressed in a banana suit, who gathered in front of…

This much is clear: Miami’s sewers are deteriorating, and millions of gallons of wastewater are polluting Biscayne Bay. The county has proposed a $1.5 billion fix, but one local environmental group has now filed suit in federal court to stop the plan.Key Biscayne resident Judi Koslen and the environmental group…

Real estate developer Craig Robins is going all in to transform the Design District into the flossiest destination in Miami. He’s investing $312 million to bring in the biggest names in high-end luxury fashion, from Louis Vuitton to Hermès to Céline. To protect that investment, Robins spends 1 million bucks…

As hundreds of Venezuelans converged in Doral to celebrate the passing of the Bolivarian revolutionary Hugo Chávez, Miami’s number one Cuban exile radio provocateur, Armando Pérez Roura, spent yesterday afternoon proselytizing how Chávez’s death was a major blow to the Cuban government. The Radio Mambí commentator, in true spook form, told his…

Joseph Louis, executive director of Galata Inc., a Homestead social services agency, is challenging the findings of an audit that accuses his nonprofit organization of misspending part of a $500,000 Miami-Dade County grant. In January, Miami-Dade’s inspector general claimed Galata took $77,307 to settle unpaid payroll taxes with the IRS…

As his Hialeah sugar company burned through cash and failed to pay employees, vendors, and landlords, Alexander I. Perez gave plum jobs to former drug-trafficker buddies and raised bundles of cash for Danilo Medina, president of the Dominican Republic.Two weeks ago, Perez’s Banah Sugar filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, reporting…

Florida has some of the nation’s toughest anti-marijuana laws. For instance, anyone caught growing at least 25 plants in their home can be charged with a second-degree felony and face a maximum sentence of 15 years. Even the feds aren’t that draconian. They at least give you 99 plants before…

A former drug trafficker who found a lucrative career in Medicare fraud shortly after his release from prison is getting another 14 years in the slammer. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga sentenced Armando “Mandy” Gonzalez for orchestrating a $63 million Medicare scam between 2004 and 2011. He…