Turns out that the foreign company the state picked to build and then operate I-595 has no obligation to hire local workers for the $1.8 billion rehab project. This comes as some surprise to local officials like the Metropolitan Planning Organization, which apparently doesn’t understand what’s meant by the phrase…
A judge has cleared the way for the Green Party to figure out who’s behind the Florida Five, a group of mysterious Green Party candidates who ran in contested races across the state last November. Most of the Florida Five were broke young people who couldn’t have afforded the couple…
Florida Gov. Charlie Crist is considering something of a partnership with the Fanjul sugar barons to salvage his billion-dollar plan to buy U.S. Sugar’s land in South Florida. The deal, discussed yesterday, is akin to beating Voldemort and then installing Darth Vader. Wait, that’s not quite evil enough. It’s like…
Race car driver Helio Castroneves goes on trial today in South Florida in a case filed by prosecutors who apparently don’t know that juries are incapable of convicting a celebrity. The IRS claims Castroneves conspired to commit tax fraud and, among other things, agreed to funnel money through a Swiss…
The owners of Gulfstream Park have filed for bankruptcy, causing broke gamblers who have also filed for bankruptcy to wonder where all their lost gambling money went. Gulfstream’s owner, Magna Entertainment Corp. of Ontario, promises that it will continue to operate the casino and racetrack in Hallandale Beach as it…
Prosecutors have dropped battery charges against a guy after watching a surveillance video showing that cops bum-rushed the shit out of him. The tape, which shows officers grabbing and punching Josh Ortiz, reinforces the idea that I’d better say some really nice things about Fort Lauderdale cops right now or…
The state is expected to sign a contract within a week to hire ACS Group of Spain to completely re-do Interstate 595. What this means is that state officials are putting the future of a major Broward County artery in the hands of a nation not known for construction prowess…
The White House has anointed Palm Beach resident Rush Limbaugh as head of the failed political organization called the Republican Party, which is now made up of abortion protesters, religious zealots, and aging prison guards from Auschwitz. The administration’s knighthood of Limbaugh came after he said he hopes President Obama…
Fort Lauderdale businessman John Nevin reveals in a new book that he’s actually a convicted felon from New York named James “The Goon” Young. In this article in the South Florida Times, Nevin explains that he used to be a counterfeiter and served time in prison a couple of times,…
The state wants all six Palm Beach County commissioners to testify under oath about corruption in hopes that they might teach authorities how to catch corrupt politicians. The move comes after Mary McCarty resigned under corruption charges and while two former commissioners are sharing a metal toilet with a man…
Black History Month is “extra special this year,” according to James F. Notter, superintendent of the Broward County public schools. This is true somewhat because of the whole first black president thing but also because it seems all that racism stuff is just about over in Broward County. That’s according…
There’s one constant in America when things are looking down: we can always say that at least we’re not in Detroit. But now the city famous for having whole blocks of city streets full of empty buildings has enticed a South Florida developer to go north and escape the Mad…
The staff of The Onion might have had a good laugh about this fake story about lice infecting the U.S. Senate, but Lice Solutions Resource Network Inc. of West Palm Beach says the article makes light of a very serious problem. Katie Shepherd, the resource network’s executive director, says she…
West Palm Beach Mayor Lois Frankel met with President Obama to talk about how she’d like to spend the stimulus money. Frankel, if you haven’t been following things, is the mayor who broke a bunch of shit, like downtown and city roads and the local economy. So this meeting was…
A Palm Beach rabbi tells ABC News that the Bernie Madoff controversy “gives red meat to anti-Semites” and has caused a religious divide on the island. Rabbi Michael Resnick’s comments not only fueled this online story but also a follow-up 20/20 report tonight on the town’s Holy Land-type division. Now…
Fewer outsiders are moving to Florida, and the biggest drop in newcomers is among New Yorkers. The number of New Yorkers registering to drive in Florida has dropped by 50 percent in recent years, leading to what I’m sure will be remembered as The Great New Yorker Shortage of 2009.It’d…
The mood is upbeat at a meeting of the nation’s biggest food manufacturers this week in Boca Raton. The reason: the economic downturn equals more eating in, which equals more buying of packaged food, which equals food manufacturers selling more cans of Spam with Cheese. The upbeat conference was also…
UPDATED: To read more information about nudists click here, here, and here.I’m undercover inside the 21st-annual Midwinter Festival, a huge collection of nudists in rural Palm Beach County that wraps up today. My family and I, pictured at right, were all a bit sheepish about actually getting naked, so I sewed…
If there’s anything I’ve learned from TV news, it’s that I’ve got to tease you, the reader, about upcoming things in this blog. So coming up, snakes attack at Wal-Mart! But first, a manatee tries to sneak into a golf course! And even more first than that, brides in Palm…
For the dozen years we’ve been picking the best of Broward and Palm Beach and slapping it into one issue, we’ve asked our readers to vote blindly for your favorite local stuff. Yes, we tallied it fairly, throwing out repeat ballots by the same people and even issuing the occasional…
A guy who smoked two packs a day died because he was addicted to cigarettes, a Broward County jury has found, and the ruling could clear the way for 8,000 more identical trials. The ruling comes as news to me, not only because I could quit smoking at any time…
Author Laurence Leamer fears for his safety after penning a book exposing what it’s like to live inside the opulent enclave of Palm Beach. Leamer says some nasty things have been yelled at him and somebody cut him off as he drove into the country club. But the worst of…
