Willie Jones says that being a police officer was never about the number of tickets he wrote or arrests he made. His main concern was that citizens were getting the help they needed. He says that this philosophy of “community policing” has driven him for nearly four decades in his…
When you meet someone new, you scan their features. If the eyes are narrow, brow prominent, and jaw square, you recognize the person as male. If the eyes are rounder, nose slimmer, and chin pointier, you register the person as a female. According to Dr. Vartan Madirossian, gender detection happens…
Just as snow birds fly south for the winter, spring breakers head here when its cold. This species of Fort Lauderdale tourist mostly originates in Midwestern universities. Each March, they travel in flocks to our beaches for one week only. An invasive species, the Fort Lauderdale spring breaker wreaks havoc…
What’s the truth about Florida black bears? State officials last year believed populations to be so high that they authorized a bear hunt. But today, a coalition of scientists and non profit groups is attempting to override the state’s position. They sent a scientific petition to the U.S. Fish and…
I am a 23-year-old Hillary Clinton supporter and for the last few months I have camouflaged myself among my peers, who all seem to be Bernie Sanders enthusiasts. It was pretty easy. I look like them: a white, college-educated liberal. My friends are activists. I work at an alt-weekly newspaper…
Mark Dougan is a former Palm Beach County Sheriff’s deputy who says he left the department because it was corrupt, and in 2008 set out to air grievances on a forum he created — the website PBSOTalk.com. On it, Dougan published documents such as the probable-cause affidavit in a lieutenant’s pain-pill…
Global warming is an inevitable threat. By 2045, sea levels are expected to rise at least a foot and Miami has been called ground zero for global warming. No one’s quite sure how the rising foot of water will effect South Florida and the millions of people who live and own…
Back in 2003, building a streetcar in downtown Fort Lauderdale seemed like a great idea. Las Olas Boulevard and the Riverfront area were growing more and more popular. It looked like it was only a matter of time before the city was overrun with people and, inevitably, more traffic. A…
For two years, Rowzee Ryburn worked at a needle exchange program in Melbourne, Australia. She’d tally the inventory and provide clean syringes to anyone who came in. Then, two years ago, the 35-year-old moved to Lake Worth to be closer to friends. She currently works as a landscape artist, but…
Horseshoe crabs shimmy around in the sand on 10 legs that are hidden under a brownish shell, long tails dragging behind them. These creatures, which look headless, have been there for the last 450 million years, doing the hibbety-dibbety on our Atlantic beaches like teenagers. They’ve been spotted on the…
Herb Smith, a lanky 23-year-old, drove a slick crimson Audi through the streets of Fort Lauderdale while a friend rode shotgun. At 4 p.m. last October 7, they caught a red light. A Broward County Sheriff’s patrol car stopped beside them at the intersection. When the officer glanced over, he…
Cynthia Muniz opened her pole dancing studio in 2010. Back then, pole dancing was still stigmatized as a stripper’s sport. But over the next six years, as pole dancing became recognized as a form of exercise, Muniz grew KittyKat Pole Dancing studio in Midtown, Miami as a gym (albeit one…
In 1984, Ulf Erlingsson was a Ph.D. student at Uppsala University in Sweden, studying physical geography. There, he designed a device that could measure sediment to a tenth of a millimeter. He patented the invention, and 36 years later Erlingsson, now 55 runs his company Lidorm from Medley, Florida. It…
Last month, the World Health Organization declared the Zika Virus a public health emergency. It has been diagnosed in 153 people in the U.S. since January. The disease, passed by infected mosquitoes, causes fever, joint pain, rashes, and red eyes. It’s rarely deadly, but if contracted during pregnancy, can lead…
Julia Negron is cheering in her bed in Venice, on the west coast of Florida. She has her laptop propped on her bed watching the live stream of the Florida House vote on the Infectious Disease Elimination Act in Tallahassee. It would create the first needle exchange program in Florida…
It all started out as a scenic way to lose weight. Andrew Royston lived near Fort Lauderdale Beach and figured an early morning beach walk before work would be good for his health. Royston would bring his iPhone with him and couldn’t resist snapping a few photos of the sunrise…
The South Florida Wildlife Center’s mission is to take in animals that can be rehabilitated and later released in the wild-like opossums and hawks. But over the years, the facility began taking in domesticated animals, mostly small exotic reptiles and bunnies, which cannot be released in the wild. So the…
If Mean Girls was anything like real life, blonde cheerleaders would wear pink on Wednesday, date football players, and definitely not ask a young man with autism to prom. But that’s apparently not what blonde cheerleaders are like at Park Vista High School in Lake Worth. Senior Mikal Barostik, a…
Dalia Dippolito claims she was acting when she asked an undercover Boynton Beach police officer, acting as a hitman, to kill her husband, Michael. Six years later, she says she didn’t actually want to hire someone to kill her rich husband, but that it was all part of an acting…
Angie Fernandez got Linda, a mini Schnauzer puppy, when she was 12 years old. Fifteen years later, Fernandez is now a second grade teacher, and the dog still barks whenever anyone walks through the door as though she is protecting the members of her family. Last Wednesday, though, a handyman…
World renowned five-star chefs and people who pay exorbitant prices to munch on finger food have flocked to our city for the ultra-luxe, big-bucks Taste Fort Lauderdale events — a part of the South Beach Wine and Food Festival taking place this week. The City of Fort Lauderdale has welcomed…
This past December 3, a somber 21-year-old with long blond hair stood on the limestone outdoor stage at the center of the University of Miami’s Coral Gables campus. When her name was called, she approached the microphone and detailed a violent rape she said had occurred three years ago at…
