Miami Herald (Sunday)
Burning trees to help the planet
In lush South Florida, trees and bushes grow all year round. And that means yard waste and dead trees never stop piling up. But leaving them in a landfill is a climate-warming issue. Two South Florida governments think they have a new solution — light...
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In Canes vs. Mendoza, Miami — city and team —
Two things are true about Monday night’s Miami Hurricanes-Indiana Hoosiers game for the national championship of college football. The first is irrefutable; the second, far from that. The first is an absolute: This is the most-Miami sporting event — a...
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Affordability on Florida lawmakers’ minds as they return to the state Capitol
With Floridians facing soaring home insurance premiums, rent hikes and rising property tax bills, state lawmakers heading to Tallahassee for this year’s legislative session agree on one thing: Affordability will dominate the agenda. How — and whether...
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Venezuelans in South Florida celebrate Maduro’s capture, hope for return to democracy
Venezuelans in South Florida awoke Saturday to long-awaited, welcome news: Nicolás Maduro had been captured in the middle of the night by U.S. forces following military action in Caracas. The Venezuelan leader’s detention, announced by President Donald...
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Being mayor was good for Francis Suarez.
Relaxed and chatty on a Friday morning in November, Francis Suarez sat behind the wheel of his wife’s spotless white Tesla as the self-driving vehicle piloted itself north on 37th Avenue. Still mayor for a few more weeks, he was out for a spin to tour...
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THE HIGH COST OF OVERDEVELOPING FLORIDA’S BARRIER ISLANDS
From Miami Beach to Melbourne Beach, from Marco Island to Captiva, barrier islands are Florida’s postcard paradises. They are also narrow strips of sand that, by definition, take the full brunt of hurricanes and storm surge, stand as sacrificial...
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Lost Generation
Editor’s note. This story includes disturbing descriptions of rape and violence. The names of all rape survivors have been changed to protect their identities and prevent retaliation from gangs. There were eight of them: hooded, merciless, armed men...
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Maduro’s forces search for ‘Trump’ on people’s phones as repression grows in Venezuela
Amanda, a young worker at a tech accessories store, was terrified last week when six police officers stopped her and her boyfriend as they drove on one of the main avenues of the Venezuelan city of Maracaibo. That night, the uniformed officers did not...
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Hurricane season is a wrap. What kept storms away from Florida and the U.S.?
For the first time in a decade, every single state, including the storm magnet of Florida, escaped the entire hurricane season without a direct hit from a hurricane. Meteorologists say we owe this good fortune to an unusual weather pattern that...
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CAN A PERSON SURVIVE BEING HIT BY A BRIGHTLINE TRAIN?
Marie Mevil didn’t think twice about driving over the train tracks. Her Pompano Beach home was less than 10 minutes away. She had dropped her daughter off at the airport and then stopped to send money to a friend in her native Haiti. Her 1-year-old...
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Haunted by Brightline:
There was nothing Darren Brown could do to save the man who dove headfirst in front of his train. The Brightline was traveling at 79 mph when Brown, the train’s conductor, saw him. But trains don’t stop quickly. Brown told the engineer to hit the...
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U.S. poised to strike military targets in Venezuela
The Trump Administration has made the decision to attack military installations inside Venezuela and the strikes could come at any moment, sources with knowledge of the situation told the Miami Herald, as the U.S. prepares to initiate the next stage of...
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Overtown,
Just a few short years ago, the historic heart of Overtown, Miami’s original Black neighborhood, lay desolate and lifeless just steps from Biscayne Boulevard and downtown. There were few if any shops, few homes, not a single grocery store, but lots of...
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Deep in the Glades, this farm grows ‘artisanal oysters.’
Josh Wilkie and Fabio Galarce leaned over the side of their boat and hauled up a basket full of oysters, each just an inch or two in size. Wilkie grabbed his shucking knife, popped one open and slurped down the silky meat inside. “They’re our babies,”...
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How COO managed to embezzle millions from Miami’s public hospital charity
Charmaine Gatlin’s job was all about the money. As the chief operating officer for the Jackson Health Foundation, Gatlin had easy access to millions of donated dollars meant for Miami-Dade County’s only public hospital system — with practically no...
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MORE THAN JUST AWARENESS
Cancer survivors march during the opening ceremony of the Susan G. Komen More Than Pink Walk event at the Miami-Dade County Youth Fair and Exposition Fairgrounds on Saturday. The walk, which takes place virtually and in 40 cities around the United...
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Florida’s GEO Group plays central role in Trump’s mass deportation plan
A five-story blue-and-white office building overlooking an LA Fitness in Boca Raton is a key cog in President Donald Trump’s mass deportation plan. It’s the home of GEO Group, a 40-year-old company that operates more than four dozen immigrant detention...
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Where did the students go? Fear, migration fuel steep enrollment drop at Miami schools
For the past four years, Vanessa has escorted children and their families across the street to Shenandoah Elementary in Little Havana, ensuring they arrive at school safely. But when school started this fall, the crossing guard immediately noticed...
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MIAMI MARINE STADIUM DEAL ON HOLD
The city of Miami was moving full steam ahead with a proposal to redevelop Miami Marine Stadium, scheduling a special meeting Friday to send a referendum to the November ballot, asking voters to approve the city’s choice of an operator to oversee the...
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A bold plan to save Florida’s reefs
A fully industrialized coral factory may sound far-fetched to some, but it might be the last hope for the world’s reefs, a Miami scientist says.
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U.S. deployment of warships to Caribbean rekindles memory of Panama invasion
As three Navy destroyers and three amphibious warships move toward the coast of Venezuela this weekend in an ostensible U.S. counternarcotics operation, the Trump administration’s show of force is rekindling memories of another presidency, era and...
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Cuban migrants, more vulnerable than ever, fear limbo at Alligator Alcatraz
For much of July, Pedro Lorenzo Concepción was held at Alligator Alcatraz along with dozens of other Cuban nationals in a detention camp billed as a last stop for immigrants slated for deportation — an unnerving situation for someone whose repatriation...
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Tasers and neck restraints:
The teenager was sitting in the front seat of a landscaping truck when he saw the flashing lights of a patrol car. A trooper motioned for his mother, who was driving, to stop in the middle of a three-lane road near Palm Beach Shores, surrounded by...
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Trapped by high costs and buyer’s market,
Yachts drift by on a shimmering stretch of Biscayne Bay, hemmed in by the mainland and Virginia Key. The sun breaks each dawn over the water with the saturation of an oil painting. That’s the view from Cynthia Muniz’s home on the eighth floor of her...
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Who’s in charge at Alligator Alcatraz? ‘We’ve gotten a lot of runaround’
Immigration attorneys and environmental activists — even the Mexican government and the Archdiocese of Miami — have all asked who’s in charge at Alligator Alcatraz. They say they can’t get a straight answer. “We’ve gotten a lot of runaround,”...
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BRIGHTLINE DEATH TOLL SURPASSES 180,
On a steamy summer afternoon in 2017, workers at an office near the railroad tracks in Boca Raton waited for a glimpse of the new Brightline train as it flashed by on a test run. Shonda Bambace, an insurance agent, heard the whistle and rushed to see...
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To fix budget, Miami-Dade mayor floats higher gas tax, cuts to charities and parks
With Miami-Dade County’s government facing a budget deficit of more than $400 million in 2026, Mayor Daniella Levine Cava is considering historic spending cuts, as well as increases in transit fares, tolls and the gasoline sales tax, according to...
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Buried History Unearthed
Yet another significant Native American settlement and cemetery has been excavated at a Brickell luxury condo site, but exactly what’s going on behind the construction fence has been kept largely under wraps by the city of Miami.
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Meet the folks who live near ‘Alligator Alcatraz’
Scott and Conny Randolph live on a wild piece of land they call paradise. They’re comforted by the hoots of owls and the snorts of pig frogs. They look up at night to a sky full of glittering stars. And when they get up in the morning, they look out...
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U.S. repositions B-2 stealth bombers as Iran and Israel keep up barrage on each other
Several U.S. Air Force B-2 bombers appeared to have taken off from a base in the United States and were headed across the Pacific on Saturday, as President Donald Trump was scheduled to meet at the White House with his national security team in the...
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‘What democracy looks like.’ Why thousands marched in South Florida protests
No Kings protests fanned out across South Florida and the country Saturday as thousands of people demonstrated against President Donald Trump’s policies on his 79th birthday and the day of a military parade in Washington. Surrounded by a heavy police...
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Legendary lineages:
For South Florida sports fans, few moments are as iconic as Don Shula hoisted above his undefeated 1972 Dolphins, LeBron James and the Big Three delivering back-to-back titles to the Miami Heat in a dramatic Game 7 run in 2013, or the underdog Miami...
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‘COUNTING PENNIES’
Easing herself into the sofa in her Cutler Bay studio apartment, Alida Gonzalez said she’s been trying to relax recently. But, she continued, living in a daily state of “counting pennies,” particularly at the grocery store, takes its toll. And that’s...
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DeSantis donor’s hotel is ‘closed’ to the public, open to the governor’s friends
In the shadow of Florida’s Capitol, a supposedly closed boutique hotel has become an exclusive retreat for Gov. Ron DeSantis’ closest allies and top advisers — with a major supporter of the governor acting as gatekeeper. Ostensibly closed for...
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‘I’m super honored’:
One student created a Special Olympics soccer and football team at his high school. Another student created an organization that gives menstrual pads to girls in homeless shelters and schools in Jamaica after learning that a lack of access to sanitary...
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Climate change is coming for Florida’s real estate. Why don’t prices reflect it?
As a University of Miami doctoral student studying climate change, Mayra Cruz knew more than most about the risks of sea level rise and wetter storms and hurricanes. So when she and her husband bought their first home in 2021, they picked inland...
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Former federal prosecutors lay out possible crimes in Hope Florida saga
A Republican lawmaker shocked Florida’s political world when he accused representatives of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration of committing federal crimes by diverting $10 million from a Medicaid settlement to political activities last year. No one...
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DeSantis says Hope Florida didn’t get Medicaid money. Experts question the state’s logic
Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration this week released its most detailed explanation to date of its legal reasoning behind diverting $10 million in Medicaid settlement money to the Hope Florida Foundation. In short, only $57 million of a $67 million...
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FSU shooting suspect was at center of years-long custody battle, documents show
In 2020, Christian Gunnar Eriksen went before a judge in his Navy Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps uniform and testified that he wanted his name legally changed to Phoenix Ikner. The 10th-grade Honor Roll student at Lincoln High School cited a...
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Where do your property taxes go in Miami-Dade?
Firefighters Jared Lago, left, and Bibich Zabaleta help put away a fire hose at Dolphin Station 68 in Sweetwater on April 3. Lt. Veronica Cordoba is in the background at right, and firefighter Chris Carlson is on top of the truck. Their department...
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Hundreds of South Florida condos are now on a secret mortgage blacklist
A secretive quasi-governmental condo blacklist is growing exponentially, making it difficult for owners in scores of troubled buildings in Miami and South Florida to sell or get loans for repairs, even as their associations face a fiscal and time...
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Overcrowding strains Krome Detention Center amid Trump’s immigrant crackdown
Hundreds of people swept up in the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration are being kept at an overcrowded detention center in Miami, sleeping on cement floors amid the stench of body odor and raw sewage — conditions that lawyers, families and...
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In ‘unusual’ move, ICE is detaining Cubans during their immigration appointments
Federal authorities in South Florida have recently detained at least 18 Cubans during their scheduled immigration appointments, local attorneys say, highlighting that a group that has historically enjoyed special immigration benefits is not immune to...
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New tactics, routes arm Haitian gangs. Florida a key to illicit flow of guns and ammunition
The Miami shipper’s list of 134 items headed for the Caribbean looked pretty tame: tires, bicycles, refrigerators and mattresses. But buried inside the container were a militarygrade Barrett .50-caliber sniper rifle with silencer and an Uzi machine...
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‘Never stopped fighting for freedom’: Hundreds honor Lincoln Díaz-Balart at memorial
Hundreds gathered inside a packed church on Saturday to honor the life and legacy of Lincoln DíazBalart, the Cuban-American Republican politician and former congressman who died on Monday after a battle with cancer. A memorial Mass for Díaz-Balart was...
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Florida’s Surfside law helps developers as condo owners face spiking fees and foreclosures
An influential group of real estate lawyers that advised Florida lawmakers after a residential tower partially collapsed in Surfside saw an opportunity to rein in condo associations while realizing their advice would lead distressed unit owners in...
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State study found Florida insurers sent billions to affiliates while crying poor
While Florida insurers claimed to be losing money in the wake of hurricanes Irma and Michael, their parent companies and affiliates were making billions of dollars, according to a study obtained by the Herald/Times. The start of the state’s insurance...
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How Coral Gables became a key end point
In Coral Gables, the treecanopied streets remain as pristine as ever, the Mediterranean-style homes just as grand, and the city’s police officers make regular rounds through the neighborhoods. It seems an unlikely place for a human smuggling...
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SUPER BOWL
From the halftime show to the commercials to the celebration of the NFL champion, we have Super Bowl LIX covered.
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A MIAMI GEM
How the University of Miami’s Special Collections library came to possess one of its rarest, most valuable works — three volumes of engravings of roses commissioned by Empress Josephine Bonaparte of France that’s a masterwork of art and science — is a...
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Fatal shooting prompts move for Miami-Dade to reform how police handle mental illness calls
The killing of a mentally ill West Kendall man by a MiamiDade police officer — as his horrified mother watched him bleed out on her kitchen floor — has elicited a pledge of reform by county leaders eager to lessen the danger of encounters between...
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In Miami Beach, more than 40% of people arrested in 2024 were homeless
More than four in 10 arrests by Miami Beach police in 2024 were of homeless people amid the city’s crackdown on outdoor sleeping and escalating efforts to get people off the streets. According to data from the Miami Beach Police Department, 42% of all...
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‘Soul Man’ Sam Moore, the Miami R&B legend who sang for six presidents, has died at 89
Sam Moore, the towering tenor of the Sam & Dave soul music duo whose mid-1960s hits “Soul Man” and “Hold On, I’m Comin’ ” soundtracked the lives of countless fans and then was heard in film and TV for generations, died Friday at a Miami hospital, his...
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Billionaire Ken Griffin was 2024’s top political donor in Miami-Dade County government
In a year in which Miami-Dade County’s mayor and commissioners raised $11 million for their political committees, no individual gave more than a Miami newcomer: the billionaire Ken Griffin. His $500,000 donation in June to Mayor Daniella Levine Cava’s...
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Dr. Feelgood
To this day, the MiamiDade state attorney does not know how the key witness in a high-profile sex trafficking case wound up dead. It’s been a year and a half since Gina was found floating face down in the Little River Canal near the village of El...
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WRECKED JUSTICE
The clues that alcohol was a factor in a catastrophic boat crash that drowned one teen and permanently disabled another emerged immediately. The captain, a wellconnected Doral real estate broker, admitted to drinking that day. The severely injured...
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Sordid details emerge about Alexander brothers’ alleged rapes. Parties in Hamptons and Mexico
The three Alexander brothers charged with sex trafficking usually exuded only arrogant contempt for the women they assaulted and raped over the course of 20 years, according to court files documenting new sordid details about their “playbook” for...
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How Cuba fooled the U.S. to get millions of dollars from Miami for its armed forces
The Cuban government has been fooling U.S. sanctions by concealing the true nature of the company that handles money sent by Cuban Americans to their families on the island, a Miami Herald investigation shows. The Trump administration imposed...
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Miami Beach’s Bass Museum celebrates 60 years during Miami Art Week
In Miami Beach, it took a day to build a mountain. Silvia Karman Cubiñá, the Bass Museum of Art executive director for the past 16 years, recalled the rainy day in 2016 when “Miami Mountain,” a towering rainbow totem of six stones by artist Ugo...
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They wanted justice for their murdered sons
Derrick was the firstborn, the only boy in a family of seven girls. Brandon was the baby in a large family. The teenagers died in a spray of gunfire, one toppled over the other, on a sidewalk next to an ice machine in Liberty City. The 2009 shooting,...
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Clients say Miami lawyer disappeared, Florida Bar didn’t warn them of his past
When Bobbie and Terry Downs hired Coral Gables attorney Jay Farrow last fall, they thought they were getting a bulldog who would finally put an end to their lengthy dispute with the landlord of their St. Petersburg gokart racing track. The couple took...
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Over half of Miami-Dade voters opposed recreational marijuana. What happened?
Miami-Dade may have a reputation as a party destination, but across the county on Tuesday, a majority of voters rejected allowing recreational marijuana to become part of the attraction. While almost 56% of Florida voters supported Amendment 3, only...
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THE HIGH STAKES OF AMENDMENT 3
To defeat recreational marijuana at the ballot box, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state Republican Party have aligned with companies that are already selling high-potency cannabis to Floridians over the counter and online, according to a...
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Police investigating man’s claim that Florida legislator drugged and raped him in 2003
Michael says he remembers the night vividly. On a weeknight in late 2003, he and a friend went to an exclusive nightclub in Los Angeles. There, he met Fabian Basabe, who is now a Florida state representative but was then just beginning to gain...
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Cuba fails to restore electricity, suffers second nationwide blackout after power grid collapse
Cuba’s electrical grid shut down again early Saturday, leaving the island without electricity after authorities tried but failed to restore power following an earlier nationwide blackout on Friday. The island’s state company Electric Union reported a...
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Gulf Coast residents evacuated for Milton. That saved lives
As Hurricane Milton barreled toward Florida’s Gulf Coast, Primitivo Cesario planned to ride it out with his family in their trailer home in Ruskin, on the eastern shore of Tampa Bay. But he heeded dire warnings from public officials and evacuated to a...
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A fake Florida candidate scheme was broad. Does ex-senator’s conviction end the case?
Four years after a network of political operatives orchestrated a scheme to recruit and promote straw candidates to siphon votes away from Democrats in Florida Senate races from Miami to Orlando, five people have taken plea deals or been convicted —...
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