I have a bone to pick with the wordsmiths at Oxford English Dictionary. Last month, they added “twerk” to their online edition. They define it as a verb that describes dancing to “popular music in a sexually provocative manner involving thrusting hip movements and a low, squatting stance.” Company spokeswoman…
Whodunnit? And what was the motive?: Terrence McCoy’s September 12 article about the woman wrongly sentenced to death, “Set Her Free,” was incredible (and well written). Nicely done. One thing I don’t get (and maybe I missed it as I was watching Jose Fernandez pitch his final game of the…
In early August, Miami-Dade Police made a big hullabaloo about busting four county employees who allegedly pocketed about $3,100 in entrance fees to Amelia Earhart Park in Hialeah. Well, now it turns out the bigger thieves were actually the detectives investigating Jamal Sheffield, Charles Simons, Camilo Felipe and Manuel Valdes…
Miami-Dade County Water and Sewer Department Chief John Renfrow claimned yesterday that a new $77 million pipe under Government Cut set a standard by being done on time and on budget. That is hogwash, if you believe what he is reported to have said a year ago. And it masks…
The 44th season of Sesame Street premiered Monday and the show and its Muppets are still as fresh and topical as the first year they were introduced. For over four decades, the children’s show has taught children to read, share their toys, count, and deal with a number of heavy…
Uncle Luke, the man who made the U.S. Supreme Court stand up for free speech, gets as nasty as he wants to be for Miami New Times. This week, Luke gives his take on the dance that is sweeping the nation. I’ve got a bone to pick with the word…
The single animal that Miami kids grew up with is gone. White tiger Carlita, who was born in 1992 and moved to the zoo in 1994, was euthanized after a lengthy illness. She is irreplaceable. Carlita had replaced another tiger, Lucknow, who killed a trainer that same year…
Bottles of Patrón, Stoli, Cîroc, and Hennessey line the floor-to-ceiling shelves of Mac Klein’s closet-sized office in the back of the sticky floor and smoky room of Mac’s Club Deuce. Somewhere in between a wooden desk and a stack of books, newspaper clippings, and portraits of a handsome 20-something-year-old Klein…
Get this: The national engineering firm in the driver’s seat to oversee Miami-Dade’s $1.6 billion overhaul of the county’s monumentally dilapidated sewer system has a history of violating the Clean Water Act, mishandling radioactive waste, billing for phantom work, and paying kickbacks. In most places, that track record would get…
It was a case of exceedingly bad luck, amazing stupidity, and, perhaps, serious competitive zeal. A 23-year-old West Miami-Dade man named Reynel Gil was arrested Thursday after his house was broken into and police discovered 17 pot plants with about nine pounds of weed. Officers didn’t have much detail on…
A man who cashed checks for three women involved in a pair of real estate scams that ripped off 15 victims recently pleaded guilty to 13 felony counts of racketeering, grand theft, and uttering a forged instrument. For his crimes, Johnny Bou Nassar will get two years of house arrest…
When Sweetwater Mayor Manuel Maroño and his alleged bagman, lobbyist Jorge Forte, were arrested in early August on federal bribery charges, the FBI alleged the duo also collected referral fees for attempting to recruit other South Florida mayors into their scheme. Those elected officials, whom the FBI has not identified,…
Hip-Hop Central Long way to go: Both the rappers in your piece about Carol City’s hip-hop explosion (“It’s Deeper Than Rap,” Francisco Alvarado, September 5) have shortcomings: SpaceGhostPurrp is a good producer, but he’s not as lyrical as Gunplay. Either way, Miami still has a long way to go before…
Call it Farenheit 305. Ever since he released a proposed budget plan that would have shuttered 22 libraries across Miami-Dade earlier this summer, County Mayor Carlos Gimenez has been trying to put out a fire of his own making. The backlash prompted him to find a way to keep those…
A sea of University of Miami football fans and alumni dressed in white, orange, and green, (and one lone Florida Gator fan who possibly cried at the end of the game) flooded Titanic Brewery and cheered on the Hurricanes as they chomped the Gators with a 21-16 victory. Rivalry aside,…
Sometimes, you’re better off dead. But sometimes, your music is the kind of synth-pop perfection that lives through the ages, and in the end, we’re all a lot better off because you survived the ’90s. That’s certainly the case with London’s electronic forefathers Pet Shop Boys. They helped lay the…
The University of Florida Gators are coming to town this Saturday for a football game against the University of Miami Hurricanes. So now is a good time to reflect on UF’s long history of racism. For decades, the Gainesville school’s overseers were instrumental in preventing African-Americans from getting a higher…
College Complaints Bateman helps Homestead: The critics of Dade Medical College and its expansion in Homestead (“Pass/Fail,” Francisco Alvarado, August 29) fail to mention that the downtown area the college bought was a festering shithole including a crack motel that has now been emptied out. The area has improved greatly,…
Sure, you may have had some steamy flings this summer, but the one thing that scored more points on the sex-o-meter was the music — those pop hits that played during the half-naked pool parties and intense make out seshs with the invasion of European tourists. And if there was…
Uncle Luke, the man whose booty-shaking madness made the U.S. Supreme Court, gets as nasty as he wants to be for Miami New Times. This week, Luke breaks down the good ole boy history of the University of Florida. The Gator nation is always acting like they are so much…
Days following his August 6 arrest on federal bribery charges, Michael Pizzi was walking around shell-shocked and despondent. In a blockbuster moment for public corruption fighters, the Federal Bureau of Investigations had nabbed the Miami Lakes mayor, his counterpart in Sweetwater Manuel Maroño, and two lobbyists allegedly accepting payoffs in…
For at least three months, John Renfrow, director of the Miami-Dade Water & Sewer Department, knew about the $18.5 million fine CH2M Hill had to pay the federal government to avoid being prosecuted for time card fraud. Yet Renfrow didn’t stop the Colorado-based firm from bidding on a lucrative contract…
