Forget politics, corruption, and crime. This week, it’s about sports. You and I have the wild-card Marlins in the playoffs and the Dolphins coming off two big wins. That’s right, Jack McKeon is smoking, Jeff Conine is barking, and Ricky is running. It’s too sweet, but think of this: If…
Two years after the attacks on America, the populace still doesn’t know the truth about terror ringleader Mohamed Atta’s entry into the country. It was illegal. Immigration agents shouldn’t have admitted the Egyptian national at Miami International Airport on January 10, 2001. Records show he was allowed to enter as…
When Pompano Beach water plant operator George Mitchell walked into work at 7:30 a.m. recently, fellow employees were waiting for him with a fresh copy of the Sun-Sentinel. “You’re not going to believe this,” one said to Mitchell, a 25-year city veteran who makes $65,000 a year. They directed him…
With his education system under attack, Jeb Bush has begun selling a revolutionary idea: Failure is good. The Florida governor is piping that message into our homes as part of a massive state-funded advertising campaign called “Read to Learn.” The ads are aimed at families struggling under the stigma of…
You need some powerful fog lights to navigate the political landscape in Hollywood these days. Direction is fleeting, and suspicion reigns among those who want to unseat Mayor Mara Giulianti in the March election. The would-be usurpers of the crown seem to trust one another less than they do Giulianti,…
Our man in Baghdad has made his mark on Iraq. And that is to be expected, since Andy Martin always makes his mark — even if sometimes he’s the only one who can see it. Martin, a U.S. Senate candidate who calls Fort Lauderdale home, claims he has all but…
Standing in a bleak parking lot behind a piece of downtown Hollywood’s run-down history, Jerry Mintz — with his Roman Polanski build, Ted Koppel hair, and Norman Mailer eyes — doesn’t seem so threatening. As he talks about saving the Great Southern Hotel, he sounds more like a thoughtful scholar…
Our eyes met across a crowded room. I was speaking. She was listening. Her yellow bouffant hair didn’t move a wit as she nodded and smiled at almost everything I said. It helped. About 60 people had shown up at the Sun-Sentinel building in downtown Fort Lauderdale for a panel…
The County Commission meets at 10 a.m. July 8 at the Broward County Governmental Center, Room 421, 115 S. Andrews Ave., Fort Lauderdale.
Doodle sings: “We have a friend in Bob Gra-ham, That’s what everybody’s say-in, All across the good ol’ USA. From the Atlantic to the Pacific, We all say — he’s terrific. That’s why America needs Bob Gra-ham to-day.” The Democrats in the large Iowa warehouse met the song with eerie…
The Broward County Health Department is on the case, but I wonder if officials will find the obvious: Pompano Beach city officials falsified a report and hid serious chlorination problems from both residents and regulators. Broward County environmental czar Howard Rosen has begun an investigation based on a March 13…
It was like putting a perfectly decent child into the world only to see her pimped out on the street or, worse, soullessly shilling for the man in some sterile corporate suite. I had hoped that my May 8 column on Congressman Mark Foley, which stated that the Lake Worth…
When I outed Congressman Mark Foley in my last column, I knew it would raise some hackles. I figured some would question whether the Palm Beach County Republican’s sexual orientation was politically relevant. And I expected the mainstream media would leave it alone, even though it’s inevitable that the issue…
When I called the Christian Coalition of Florida last week, the organization’s deputy director, Carolyn Kunkle, answered. “Hi,” I said, “my name’s Bob Norman with the New Times, and I’m doing a story on Mark Foley’s run for the Senate.” Without missing a beat, Kunkle said, “I imagine you’re calling…
I was desperate for some relief from the Iraq war on cable television. All those generals — along with quasi-governmental CIA creeps like James Woolsey — made me feel like the entire world had been taken over by the worst of my former gym teachers. Fox News Channel was worse…
Editor’s note: This is the second of a two-part series on the 2001 murder of 3-year-old Kyle Venter. The boy was killed by his mother as revenge against his father, Anthony Venter. Dunitse “Dee” Venter is currently free on bail while facing a second-degree murder charge. Anthony, after two bitter…
When Anthony Venter saw the crime-scene tape and police outside his estranged wife’s apartment, he bolted from his car toward the door. Thinking only of his son Kyle, a bright-eyed, blond-headed 3-year-old, he questioned the first policeman he came to. “I’m the kid’s father,” Venter recalls telling the officer. “Well,…
As he watched the Iraq war on television, John Komyakevich had no idea he was about to become a casualty of the conflict. The 33-year-old Russian immigrant sat inside Margarita’s, a hole-in-the-wall neighborhood pub he managed on Federal Highway in Lake Worth. The clock was approaching 11 p.m. on Sunday,…
The voice seethed: “You need to get a life, man. You are a sick individual. All this shit you are spewing all here all over the paper and this frickin’ front cover is an absolute disgrace,” said the man, who didn’t leave his name. “Why don’t you just move to…
Out on the Crawford ranch, the president morphs into Dirty George. He gets that swagger down, walking with his spurs about four feet apart. His arms he keeps bowed out like he might draw a pistol. He’s the cowboy-hatted Bush who appeals strongly to his rural white base. Sometimes he…
When Nicholas Hoffman worked for the City of Pompano Beach, his duties ranged from the menial to the monumental. He didn’t just clean the bathrooms; he made sure the water in them — and throughout the entire city — was safe to drink. Hoffman, a 24-year-old student with spiked black…
Valerie Silidker, a 28-year-old student with black John Lennon sunglasses and blond Glenn Close hair, spent a recent Saturday bobbing between thick rows of traffic on Sunrise Boulevard, handing out antiwar fliers to drivers waiting for a green light. Most of them were happy to take one. Some weren’t. “Fuck…
