For nearly 20 years, Memorial Day in Miami Beach has been synonymous with Urban Beach Week, an informal hip-hop event that draws hundreds of thousands to the city for a days-long party. But that changed this year.
If Bruce Matheson wants to tank a real-estate deal, the heir to one of the richest and oldest families in all of Miami knows how to do it. Through sheer force of will, he’s successfully prevented the ultra-rich owners of the Miami Open tennis tournament from plowing over portions of Crandon Park…
Another day, another Florida Democratic Party official saying something racist, xenophobic, or otherwise offensive. Loose, extremely stupid lips have already gotten several Florida Democratic officials in trouble this year: Party Chair Stephen Bittel called the Democratic Black Caucus “children,” and the party’s second-in-command, Sally Boynton Brown, was taped saying poor…
Good news! We’ve finally found a bipartisan issue that has united Democrats and Republicans across the state of Florida! Republican Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen have signed on to support a bill alongside Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson and Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Ted Deutch, Alcee Hastings, Frederica…
Every five years, Miami-Dade County convenes a task force to propose changes to the county charter, which basically serves as the “constitution” for a 2.7 million-person metropolis. In 2012, Miami’s ultrapowerful lobbyist class was banned from serving on that Charter Review Task Force out of fear they’d introduce self-serving new…
The Republicans control every piece of machinery in Washington D.C., but they’ve been operating all that powerful hardware like a sketchy bus driver fresh off a five-martini lunch. Last night, their latest attempt to replace Obamacare collapsed. Their only remaining plan, according to Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, is to simply…
All political scandals run through Miami. The Magic City is a lawless Casablanca of sorts, a town where the world’s worst rich people all congregate, party together, and hatch crackpot schemes to defraud taxpayers and/or tip presidential races. In 2000, a bunch of GOP operatives caused a ruckus outside County…
The public has largely forgotten that Florida Gov. Rick Scott — a loose conglomeration of bats that accidentally got trapped inside a suit — once ran a hospital system that stole a record amount of money from poor, sick people. Scott ran Columba/HCA hospital system, which in 1997 got caught…
In February, Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado proposed a law banning Airbnb-style rentals in two-thirds of his city, stunning the company, which says it previously had a cordial relationship with city officials. Regalado claimed for months that the crackdown was designed to protect residents from living next to de facto hotel rooms.
Among medical professionals, there’s virtually no debate: So-called conversion therapy, which claims to turn gay kids straight, is junk science — and potentially harmful. That’s why municipalities ranging from Miami Beach to the City of Miami to West Palm Beach have already banned the dubious practice.
Earlier today, Donald Trump Jr. released astonishing email correspondence with Rob Goldstone, a Russia-tied PR magnate who brokered a secret meeting with the elder Trump’s presidential campaign to hand over documents that were “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”
If Vice President Mike Pence, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, and the rest of President Donald Trump’s team of voter-suppressing ghouls want to create an extremely creepy database of the nation’s voter rolls, the group will have to fight through Miami thanks to a new lawsuit from the Florida ACLU and Florida Immigration Coalition.
Tens of thousands of baseball fans, officials, and journalists have arrived in Miami today for one reason: to see the worst owner in professional sports for themselves. The internet swelled this weekend with think pieces about garbage can Jeffrey Loria — and that was before his walking frat-boy smirk of a team president, David Samson, rudely disinvited the mayor from an event yesterday.
July 6, about 40 protesters went to U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio’s Doral office to pressure him to vote no on the Republican health-care bill, which is estimated would boot 22 million Americans off health insurance.
With rents and housing prices soaring ever higher across Miami-Dade County, how do locals afford to live here? New Times set out to find out by talking to Miamians with varying income levels about how they make life in South Florida work for them. This is the second story in a series.
This past January 21, Luisana Perez, a Venezuelan immigrant living in Miami, traveled to D.C. to march alongside nearly half a million others protesting Donald Trump’s misogynistic comments. Later that day, she found herself in a room of like-minded women, all seeking to get more involved in local politics. They were brought together by Emily’s List…
In January, experts from the American Civil Liberties Union and elsewhere issued Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez a stern warning: If he bowed to President Donald Trump’s toothless demand to crack down on so-called sanctuary communities, they said, he’d be opening the county up to expensive lawsuits.
Few states have more at stake in the #Resistance than Florida, where immigrants are nearly a quarter of the population, hundreds of thousands would be left without insurance under the GOP’s Obamacare repeal, and climate change threatens to swallow the entire coast. Florida’s Democrats have never needed good candidates more.
Evan Ross is a little-known but well-connected lobbyist in Miami-Dade County. He’s also fairly active within the Miami-Dade Democratic Party: He’s the former chair of the Miami-Dade Young Democrats and is now a precinct captain within the local party. He’s used to operating behind the scenes and keeping a low profile in the local press.
Data shows Florida’s Stand Your Ground law is awful. The rule lets you kill anyone you want in self-defense, even if you’re the person who started a fight. In the years since the law went into effect, the state’s murder rate has shot up dramatically. The law has been used to exonerate…
These days, #Resisting Trump apparently encompasses a really broad spectrum of activities. On one hand, you’ve got your labor activists fighting for living wages, housing advocates battling for affordable homes, and a growing base of voters in both parties calling their representatives and asking them to institute single-payer healthcare. On…
Memorial Day weekend in Miami Beach this year spawned two scandals over casually racist politicians. City Commissioner Michael Grieco, who is running an embattled campaign for mayor, demanded the city cancel Urban Beach Week, the city’s largest celebration centered on black tourists, after two people were shot this year, including one killed by cops.
