On Monday, an estimated 200 or so motorcycle, ATV and dirt bike riders surprised their fellow drivers — and, apparently, law enforcement officers — in Broward and Miami-Dade counties as they rode through city streets in packs. In Broward, riders were reportedly spotted in Davie, Pompano Beach, Hallandale and Fort…
In 2011, senator Bernie Sanders asked Tim Canova, who was then teaching law in California, to sit on his Wall Street-reform advisory panel alongside renowned economists like former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich and Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz. This, Canova says, gives him the right to be a bit critical…
Edward Mercer, a bearded wildlife technician with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, cracked open a series of thick, black boxes, each made of plastic and filled with lumpy, dirty pillowcases. I stood in a crowd of 14 people who surrounded him in a semi-circle. Mercer grabbed one of the…
Gary Kollin is an accomplished civil rights attorney from Fort Lauderdale who once argued in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. He was also, handcuffed shirtless and shoeless by a Broward County Sheriff’s Deputy in 2013, and on December 31 sued the department and Sheriff Scott Israel in federal court…
It’s been three years since CNN anchor Anderson Cooper called ex-Florida Atlantic University professor James Tracy’s theories about the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School “beyond crazy.” But Tracy has not forgotten, and said on his blog this week that he’d make a better news anchor than Cooper. He…
Broward County Commissioner Beam Furr is sponsoring an ordinance that will ban fracking in Broward County. The county’s water utilities “rely entirely upon groundwater sources, including the Biscayne and Floridan Aquifers, for potable water supplies,” a proposed draft of the ordinance reads. Additionally, “there have been more than one thousand…
Feral cats are everywhere — but no one can seem to agree on what to do about them. Left free on the streets, they spread disease, kill birds and small animals, and reproduce like crazy. Put in shelters, they become a burden to taxpayers. Only a fraction are adopted, and…
Minnesota Vikings kicker Blair Walsh made more field goals than any other kicker in the National Football League this year. He will not be remembered for this. Instead, Walsh will now live in Bill Buckner-esque infamy as the guy who, with one swing of his foot, blew the entire Vikings…
On Thursday, a shrill screech, like a buzz saw cutting into metal, screamed through the Gulfstream Park parking lot every few minutes. Gulfstream’s patrons seemed to have difficulty tracing the source of the noise. They squinted until some noticed that the massive, 110-foot-tall sculpture in front of them — which…
No person exemplifies Broward County’s raging clash of cultures better than the county’s top public defender, Howard Finkelstein. He is, at once, an unabashed proponent for human rights; a diminutive loudmouth; a champion for the poor and mentally ill; a tanned, ponytailed, ex-party monster; a grateful man of God; a…
The end for South Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz could come this August, in a Democratic congressional primary, at the hands of a 62-year-old mail carrier who once landed a tiny helicopter on the U.S. Capitol building’s lawn. The mail carrier, 62-year-old Douglas Hughes, who lives just outside Tampa, announced…
Suspended Broward County Sheriff’s Deputy Peter Peraza, the first Broward cop indicted for killing a civilian in 35 years, pleaded not guilty to manslaughter charges at the Broward County Courthouse at about 9:50 this morning. Just as he did after a hearing in December, Peraza emerged from a the courtroom…
Bob Renault, 59, owns RRPSI Firearms, a small gun shop in Boynton Beach. He said a panic seems to have washed over his customers as of late — his clients appear to be stocking up on weapons. He said he’s only seen them like this once before, after the December…
After contracting dengue fever — a serious, if not necessarily fatal, virus transmitted through mosquito bites — your body temperature skyrockets, you become nauseous, and your head starts to pound. Your joints swell, and excruciating pain stabs through your body when you try to move. Then, a few days after…
Per citizen, Fort Lauderdale spends more on its police department than almost any other city in the country, according to a study the finance website WalletHub released earlier this month. On the surface, that might seem like a good thing. More money should help officers do their jobs better, right?…
Nezar Hamze is a deputy with the Broward Sheriff’s Office. When he Googles himself, the top result is a post from a right-wing blog called FrontPage Magazine, which accuses Hamze, who is Muslim, of being a sleeper-cell terrorist, hell-bent on destroying the sheriff’s department from the inside. “By employing Nezar…
The jig could be up for James Tracy, the Florida Atlantic University professor who believes the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre was staged by the Obama administration. After harassing the parents of a Sandy Hook victim (to the point that said parents felt compelled to an op-ed in the Sun…
Peter Peraza, the first Broward County Sheriff indicted for killing a civilian in 35 years, emerged from a courtroom just after 10 a.m. Monday morning to a round of applause. For a second, Peraza, attending an emergency hearing to preserve the grand jury testimony that lead to his indictment, stood…
The Broward Sherrif’s Office Deputies Association has sent out text messages, email alerts and social media posts, asking off-duty officers to come to the Broward County courthouse Monday morning for a hearing in the case of Deputy Peter Peraza, the first Broward police officer indicted for killing a civilian in…
It’s winter break at Florida Atlantic University, which means its campuses are deserted. On Tuesday, the few students who could be found strolling the university’s Boca Raton campus seemed entirely unaware that their school’s least-distinguished professor, outspoken conspiracy theorist James Tracy, was, yet again, locked in a shameless fight with…
Rush Limbaugh, the nation’s best-known conservative talk radio host and most famous pile of sentient ham, is, as one would expect, something of a skeptic when it comes to climate change. This being Limbaugh — a man with a supernatural talent for turning the smallest issues into multinational conspiracies —…
