Moises Chambi needs only two tools to survive on the world’s largest salt flat: a wooden-handled pickax and a shovel beaten into a worn fold. The 23-year-old with sun-darkened skin, prominent cheekbones, and a quick, sarcastic smile grunts softly as he repeatedly slams his ax into the parched earth of…
What kind of person drunkenly slams into a biker on the Rickenbacker Causeway and then speeds away while the cyclist bleeds to death on the road?via Miami-Dade Police DepartmentIn the case of this Sunday’s horrific crash, its the same kind of person who can rack up more than 40 traffic…
via Rolling StonePolice say Carlos Bertonatti was drunk when he plowed into a cyclist on Sunday.An up-and-coming Miami pop singer with slick looks and a Sony recording contract has been charged with vehicular homicide in a horrific hit-and-run crash near Key Biscayne yesterday.Carlos Bertonatti, a 28-year-old who lives on Key…
Liao leans back in his insulated guard booth in front of a massive factory 69 miles southeast of Beijing. It’s November 30, and a cold front has blown in off the Bohai Gulf. Liao lights a cheap cigarette and stares for a minute at the buildings. Bulky columns of pale…
Don’t write Psystar’s obituary just yet. Photo by C. StilesRudy Pedraza stands in front of Psystar headquarters.Psystar, which we recently profiled in depth, has been locked in a heated legal battle with Apple since last year because the tiny Doral-based firm sells unauthorized “clones” of Mac computers, running Mac OSX…
Robert Pedraza is a 24-year-old self-taught programmer with a thin frame, spiky dark hair, gleaming braces, and squinty eyes. His brother Rudy is a year older and a quarter-foot taller. He counters the computer-nerd image with a half-buttoned dress shirt and an intense stare. Last year, the two South Florida…
via RevolicoThis hot little number didn’t even make our list. But you could buy it from Maykel for about $7,000. In this week’s feature story, you can read all about Revolico. The website — a Craigslist for Cuba — is changing the way Cubans do business in the Caribbean communist…
Mateo might just be the best mecánico in Havana, Cuba. The cars that roll into his little garage — tucked into a crumbling building amid decrepit colonials — would make an American mechanic laugh like hell. There are ’53 Chevys, lime green and the length of a school bus. Nearby…
Dennis Giardina was walking up a sun-blasted hill just outside Homestead Air Reserve Base when he spotted the monster. From the forked black tongue to the whipping tail of tightly corded muscle, the creature stretched seven feet through the dead grass. Mottled green and yellow scales glinted in the sunlight…
Yesterday, rapper Pitbull won the keys to the City of Miami for his work “traveling the country and the world sharing a positive message of Miami,” according to one city commissioner. via Wikimedia CommonsBut for all of Mr. 305’s postive-image-spreadin’ “world-traveling,” it’s a trip he’s accused of not making that’s…
Ernesto “Che” Guevara’s famous beret is gone. His iconic beard is filthy and matted against skeletal cheekbones. One bushy eyebrow arches over his half-open eyes. As a Bolivian country surgeon methodically saws off his lifeless hands, Che appears vaguely amused. Gustavo Villoldo, a stocky figure in green army fatigues, stands…
A few weeks ago, New Times brought you the story of our own black-market cigarette king, Roman Vidal. The feds accused the gray-haired Cutler Bay resident of funneling millions of illegal smokes through the Port of Miami to England and Ireland. Worse, investigators say that Vidal’s profits went to a group…
Their bags were packed. Their farewells had been said. Like the rest of the British 38th Regiment Royal Engineers, Mark Quinsey and Patrick Azimkar had shed their jeans and T-shirts for the sand and olive camouflage they’d wear during the next six months in Afghanistan. All around the barracks in…
Jeopardy time. This black market product costs governments worldwide $50 billion every year, fuels Hezbollah, the PKK and other terrorist cells and runs on global crime syndicates and hundreds of underground factories in China and Eastern Europe.via Wikimedia CommonsHeroin, you say? Cocaine? Automatic weapons?Try cigarettes. As Western countries hike taxes…
A couple of weeks ago, we brought you the story of Dahlia Canes and her fight to overturn Miami-Dade’s countywide ban on pit bulls, which has turned Broward and Palm Beach counties into a haven for hated dogs.Canes rescues a pit bull.New Times spoke to Miami pit bull owners about…
Iron wires dangle from a boat in a cool brown river deep in the Everglades. On this breezy April morning, a few hundred volts crackle through the metal strands into the water. Barron Moody sweeps a net through the murk and pulls up six bass stunned by the electricity. The…
Back in February 1989, a 7-year-old girl named Melissa Moreira was walking home on SW 18th Terrace in Miami. She had spent the evening shopping with her family. As she walked by a neighbor’s home, a pit bull ran at her and leaped. The dog tore apart the girl’s face…
Starting in 1997, Fort Lauderdale construction magnate Bob Moss decided to build stronger bridges with Florida politicians. Moss told employees to give money to campaigns “as a means of relationship building.” At the end of each year, employees would hand Moss copies of checks they’d sent to candidates, and Moss…
It’s a bright September afternoon in 2002 inside the towering Miami Center on Biscayne Boulevard. From his 21st-floor office, Charles Hazlett has a clear view of Biscayne Bay’s sailboat-speckled water, the massive cruise ships docked at the port, and Bayfront Park’s emerald lawn. The six-foot-four South Florida native — a…
The soldiers move through the wheat field, scanning the windswept plain for signs of trouble. There are six of them, dressed in fatigues and body armor, wearing the sunglasses and bushy beards popular among the Special Forces. The only thing they can hear is the rustling of wheat stalks. They…
His thin, 81-year-old frame draped in a tan suit, his sharp eyes shaded by wraparound sunglasses, Tibor Hollo stands before a rusted fence bearing a spray-painted “No Trespassing” sign. Beyond the chainlink, strewn with weed-choked bottles and crushed cans, two of the finest acres in Miami stretch to the edge…
Amanda Moran’s eyes widened as she walked from a blinding July afternoon into the cool living room of a red-roofed house just off South Dixie Highway in Coconut Grove. Piled like cheap toys in this ordinary suburban house, some tightly wrapped in Ecuadorian newspaper, were more than 160 pieces from…
