The City of Miami just declared another “state of financial urgency” last week. Credit agencies have been slapping down the city’s bond ratings like mosquitoes. Mayor Tomás Regalado has a $40 million budget gap looming and no clear ideas on how to close it.But there are still 737 city employees who…
That cocaine you’re planning to enjoy this weekend — because really, how else can you appreciate those amazing beats blasting on Lincoln Road — might contain more than coca. Actually, a new study says if you’re snorting it in Miami, it’s probably chock full of a compound that will eat the…
Miami Heat minority owner Raanan Katz sues an anonymous blogger
Hey, remember how we’re giving the Marlins a free baseball stadium because of the fiery, raging passion for baseball down here in Miami-Dade? Honestly, when you have the kind of fan base that bleeds teal-and-blue like the 305, nothing make more sense than investing hundreds of millions in … wait,…
Douglas Betancourt sat quietly in a back row straight through a service in a Little Havana church yesterday evening. After the mass, Pastor Hector Silva and his worshipers gathered in the back to eat a late meal together. Betancourt, a 25-year-old transient, approached the group, whipped out a knife and…
Last August, Gibson Belizaire died under a hail of bullets in a grimy corner behind a Little Haiti body shop. Five cops — including two with troubling records of violence — blasted more than 130 rounds at the slight 21-year-old, killing him instantly after he’d run from a roadblock and…
In Sunny Isles Beach, Raanan Katz has a street and an official day named in his honor. His company, with its omnipresent “RK” basketball logo, seems to claim every other strip mall in North Miami-Dade. He’s also a minority owner of the Miami Heat.Yet Katz apparently believes he’s not a “public…
The orishas must be looking out for Carlos Valdes. We wrote this week about the local Santería priest’s legal battle with Kellyd Rodriguez — a man Valdes says has stalked his family for four years because he hates the Afro-Cuban religion.Yesterday Rodriguez, who was out on bond on the stalking…
Nevin Shapiro and his Coral Gables attorney, Maria Elena Perez, have the national media eating out of their hands these days. Shapiro is trying to bring down UM’s football program, and Perez — who’s not in jail — has helped him by making TV appearances. But the pair wasn’t all…
Santeria stalker
So Yahoo! Sports dropped an ass-seeking clusterbomb all over the University of Miami last night with a mammoth exposé about Nevin Shapiro’s (alleged) hooker-buying, yacht-lending, abortion-funding services for Hurricanes athletes. The story doesn’t spend much space on a basic question, though: Who in hell is this gelled-hair clown burying Miami’s premier…
Julio Cesar Garcia had a problem last week. He was sick of his job at Miami International Airport, and he was ready for a promotion. Sadly, his bosses weren’t quite so interested in bumping him up the food chain.So Garcia did what any good Santeria true believer would do –…
What police termed a “melee” erupted at South Beach’s Nikki Beach club early this morning, right in front of two off-duty Miami Beach cops. It left one man seriously injured with multiple stab wounds and the alleged attacker in police custody.”We haven’t determined a motive yet,” says Det. Juan Sanchez,…
The Florida Marlins would have you believe they abruptly demoted fan favorite Logan Morrison after last night’s loss to the Giants because his batting average dipped below .250 — an excuse so blatantly untrue that Jeffrey Loria must have been cackling in his Hamptons mansion as he helped ghost-write the…
Yesterday, jollily bearded fellow Edmund Barksdale set the AP’s Poop Alert Newswire® ablaze with his bizarre tale of getting Tasered while taking a dump in a Destin park. Yet he’s far from the first fecal-matter felon to snag Florida headlines.If George Orwell put thoughtcrime on the map, the Sunshine State…
Have you heard the one about the well-endowed Playboy model who got a big-name football coach in hot water after posing racily in his locker room — and then topped it off by getting arrested for carrying a loaded gun into an airport? No? You’ll be shocked to learn that…
Conchita Transit jitney company torn by family feud
The morning after the police union overwhelmingly voted to back a recall of Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado, union lawyers are drafting a lawsuit to force the city to figure out how to make it happen. The problem, according to union chief Armando Aguilar, is that the city charter specifies officials…
An early-morning beachgoer called Miami Beach Police shortly before 7 a.m. today to report a disturbing find: a body lying near the sea around 68th Street.The dead man had a gunshot wound to the head, Det. Juan Sanchez, a Miami Beach spokesman, tells Riptide. “Early indications are that it’s self-inflicted,”…
A few days before Christmas 2008, Abraham Gil had just finished handing out routes to Conchita Transit’s fleet of jitney drivers when his brother Rene bumped into him in a hallway. Rene, who owns 40 percent of Hialeah’s dominant jitney firm, wasn’t happy with the assignment Abraham had just given…
Club 90 Degree first etched out a niche downtown as the Latin dance spot for the non-Calle Ocho crowd, with reggaeton, salsa, and merengue nights; lately, they’ve added hip-hop nights and had Power 96 broadcasting live from the floor on Saturdays.Last night, police say, at least two gunmen opened fire outside…
Poor Miami Edison Senior High. Just a couple weeks ago, Superintendent Alberto Carvalho had to roll into Tally guns blazing just to keep the Little Haiti institution open; despite big gains from an F to a C ranking, the state could have forced Edison to close or become a charter…
