The Florida Clemency Board’s decision last week to reinstate an archaic felon voting ban has set off a storm of protest. The new rule, which requires nonviolent felons to wait five years after completing their sentences to apply for voting rights, can easily be seen as a tool to disenfranchise…
The Palm Beach Lakes High School gym was packed. About 1,200 shouting fans crammed in to watch the game against rival Dwyer High. The air was dense with the smell of sweat and rubber as the basketball thwacked against the varnished floor. Riviera Beach Vice Agent John Toombs sat in…
This week’s New Times cover story is an in-depth look at the corruption scandal that has rocked the Riviera Beach Police Department in the past two years. Veteran Detective Lee Ann Schneider is now awaiting trial for allegedly helping a supervisor pad his overtime, while Sgt. Michael Dodson has been…
Remember the 2000 election debacle, when Florida became the laughingstock of the nation? It wasn’t just punch-card ballots that caused our fair state such embarrassment. It was the wrongful purging of thousands of voters from the rolls because they were misidentified as felons.That mishap brought to light the painful fact…
The newly resurrected Bamboo Room is throwing open its doors to the masses tonight, suspending its cover charge so everyone can see how the downtown Lake Worth blues venue has grown.Local bands Memphis Soul Revue, Matt Farr, and DWHAS will take the stage in the spacious, airy bar, where the…
Life is so tough for a multimillionaire sex offender. First, Jeffrey Epstein was convicted of hiring teenage girls to massage and service him at his Palm Beach mansion. Then he was questioned, in a public, video-taped deposition, about the allegedly “egg-shaped” appendage that landed him in trouble.Now, he’s getting grief…
Here’s a depressing thought to kick off your week: Every year, a Gallup poll asks American adults about their quality of life, then sorts the results by geographic area. The queries include things like, “Did you experience feelings of happiness during a lot of the day yesterday?” and “Are you…
It’s not often that a government official bothers to read — much less publicly praise– this rag. Politicians usually construct dart boards out of our cover stories and grumble about needing extra security to protect them against columnist Bob Norman.But a recent issue of The PIP Source — an unabashedly…
To earn a living collecting insurance money from clients injured in car accidents, doctors and lawyers often cooperate. They refer patients to one another, and when a lawyer sues an insurance company to get a patient’s medical expenses covered, the lawyer can earn a hefty fee.New Times explored this phenomenon…
Three years ago, signs of trouble began to emerge at the privately run Thompson Academy juvenile detention center in Pembroke Pines. Gordon Weekes, head of the juvenile division at the Broward Public Defender’s Office, wrote a letter complaining that his clients there were showing up with “chipped teeth, deep cuts,…
At the Lake Worth Street Painting Festival, renowned artists crouch down on the asphalt alongside high school kids and amateurs, everyone covered in chalk and happily sunburned. This weekend, the city’s streets were filled with crowds guzzling funnel cake and beer, watching wide-eyed as the artists coaxed magic from the…
It’s no coincidence that Jigme Norbu was on his way to West Palm Beach when he was killed last week on State Road A1A. Norbu, nephew of the Dalai Lama and an activist for Tibetan independence, visited West Palm Beach often as a child because his father was friends with…
There’s very little New Times columnist Bob Norman hasn’t told you about infamous Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein, but it’s still fun to see the whole debacle accompanied by horror-flick music and narrated in solemn tones by Stacy Keach. Tonight, Rothstein will star in an episode of the CNBC series American…
After a car accident killed Jigme Norbu as he walked down State Road A1A last week, his friends and supporters have continued their 300-mile walk for Tibetan independence along Florida’s east coast. The group, which has been joined by Norbu’s brother and two of his sons, plans to end its…
Youth Services International, the for-profit operator of the juvenile detention center in Pembroke Pines where teenagers allege they have been physically and sexually abused, has faced similar complaints at a lockup in St. Augustine. Staff at St. Johns Juvenile Correctional Facility and Youth Academy used excessive force on inmates, failed to…
In December, Gov. Rick Scott’s transition team proposed a massive overhaul of Florida’s juvenile justice system, which would eliminate some prisons and put children convicted of misdemeanor offenses in community-based programs, instead of lockups. Scott then appointed Wansley Walters — a reformer with a track record of reducing juvenile arrests and…
Rachel Kijewski has spent the last four days camped out 30 feet above ground, in the branches of a cluster of pine trees off I-95 in Palm Beach Gardens. She and other members of the environmental group Everglades Earth First are protesting a plan to build a Scripps Research Institute…
Before he was killed last night in the gathering darkness on State Road A1A, Jigme Norbu had walked or biked 7,800 miles to support his people in Tibet.Norbu, 45, the nephew of the Dalai Lama, lived in Indiana but traveled all over the country raising awareness about the suffering of…
Miami Beach state Rep. Luis Garcia Jr. last week got a rare glimpse inside the Pembroke Pines juvenile detention center, where teenagers allege they were physically and sexually abused.Touring the cinder-block, industrial-gray building that houses Thompson Academy, Garcia was not impressed. He saw walls that appeared to be freshly painted…
Auto insurance fraud has been in the news a lot lately. Last month, the Sun-Sentinel and the Miami Herald published lengthy stories about the fraudsters who stage fake car accidents and the lawyers who earn hefty fees fighting insurance companies over personal injury claims. Yesterday, the Palm Beach Post reported…
As the Obama administration calls for an incremental transition of power in Eqypt and South Florida protesters join the rallying cry to overthrow President Hosni Mubarak, it’s becoming more and more difficult to understand what ordinary Egyptians think about the massive uprisings in their country.One Facebook page offers a unique…
Thirteen separate cases of child abuse were reported at the Thompson Academy juvenile detention center in Pembroke Pines last year. Teenage boys at the 154-bed lockup said they endured a range of horrific incidents — one was choked by a guard, another sexually assaulted by a male counselor, one forced…
