Same-sex marriages could become legal in Florida as soon as September 22, thanks to a 33-page ruling by U.S. District Judge Robert L. Hinkle last week. That is, if Rick Scott doesn’t file an appeal to stop it. Gay rights advocates, including Rand Hoch, Florida’s first openly gay judge, have…
It’s getting ugly between Florida’s solar industry and the state’s public utilities. All summer, both camps have been sniping at each other after Florida’s power companies blocked solar industry advocates from sitting in on a policy skull session at the Florida Public Service Commission. Now, the war of words is…
Never get high on your own supply. That classic piece of advice comes from Tony Montana in Scarface. But Pejman “Vincent” Mehdizadeh, a 36-year-old medical marijuana entrepreneur based out of Los Angeles, thinks the credo applies to dispensary workers just as much as cocaine kingpins. In fact, the way he…
Just when you think the Palm Beach County Tea Party can’t sink any deeper into the quicksand of gullibility, it brings in another clown act to prove you wrong. Last time around, it was an uproar over a mythical U.N. plot to subvert local government via mind control. This time,…
A 13-year-old girl was bitten by a shark as she swam in waist-deep water off New Smyrna Beach in Volusia County on Sunday. The girl, Alexandra Masterson, was bodysurfing around 4:40 Sunday afternoon when she felt something hit her in the leg. It wasn’t until she was carried out of…
According to Equality Florida, one of the state’s leading LGBT rights organizations, same-sex marriages could begin in Florida as early as September 22, if by September 21 no one appeals last week’s ruling in a federal case made by U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle. On August 21, Hinkle ruled that…
Broward County Circuit Judge (and misdemeanor drug court judge) Gisele Pollack, who was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence in early May, is now fighting to save her career after her attorneys filed a document to the Florida Supreme Court this week. The documents specifically address the investigative…
The Broward Public Defender’s Office doesn’t shy away from the spotlight. Besides being one of the more accessible public officials in the county, top man Howard Finkelstein is a well-known face on TV thanks to his “Help Me Howard” segments. But now Finkelstein’s whole office might be headed for a…
Labor Day weekend is upon us. Woo-hoo. That means three-day weekend, beaches, BBQs, and no more wearing white for the rest of the year. It also means getting totally friggin’ SLOSHED! So, there’s a DUI checkpoint being conducted by the Broward Sheriff’s Office on Friday night that you should know…
Look, Hollywood Beach was already cool. Segways, the Broadwalk, bar after bar after bar. But now? There’s a cement vessel named Usikusiku (Swahili for “twilight,” of course) that’s been sunk. It’s a part of a number of artificial reefs that Broward has created over the past 20-plus years, and divers…
A Pembroke Pines underage-sex sting netted a Miami Fire Rescue lieutenant on Wednesday after he engaged an undercover officer posing as a 15-year-old. Ramon Marti, 47, was busted after Pembroke Pines Police set up a fake classified ad back in July. Marti, police say, answered the ad and eventually got…
The battle royal over medical marijuana is going down tonight. And by “battle royal,” we mean a debate between the heads of the two opposing sides. John Morgan, the Orland-based attorney and medical marijuana advocate who has poured millions of his own money into getting Amendment 2 passed, will be…
Last month, we told you about a listener to a local sports radio program who released an excellent Miami Heat parody song called So Rude (Riley Ain’t Scared). Now, the Zaslow and Joy show on the Ticket Miami is soliciting Miami Dolphins parody songs in exchange for tickets, and the…
This week’s election was cruel to incumbents. Among the sitting Broward pols who are soon going to be looking for new jobs: Steven Feren, the jurist whose decisions in family court set the stage for Megan Everett to run off with her 2-year-old daughter, Lilly. After we published a long…
Update: One of the men Boynton Beach Police pulled over, Jack Naubert, is filing a lawsuit against the BBPD. Naubert’s attorney, Ken Lemoine, says the lawsuit alleges false arrest and civil rights violations. Naubert is the one in the video who is specifically threatened by the officer. Lemoine has sent…
AAA knows what you did last summer. I mean, not specifically you, but all of us. Red-blooded Americans. Every year, many of us use Labor Day as an excuse to not only abstain from work but to become pretty much incapacitated. While there’s a drunk driving fatality every 51 minutes…
Tampa-based Obesity Action Coalition (OAC) and a number of organizations — including the American Board of Obesity Medicine — submitted formal letters to the leaders of Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft on Wednesday. The letters ask that the companies remove fat-shaming apps the groups deem offensive. The apps — among…
Police action in the heartland! Fevers sweeping Africa! Rockets lacing the skies over the Middle East! Real estate bubbles! Rising seas! Mosquito-borne illnesses! Steroids derailing professional sports! Everywhere you look, the headlines are ballooning with more bad news. But what issue is truly itching away inside every South Floridian? What…
Cheryl Shuman likes to be called the Martha Stewart of marijuana. She runs the Beverly Hills Cannabis Club out of L.A., which sells one of the first designer brands of pot. Her product runs $750 an ounce and comes wrapped in 14-carat gold. New customers often get star treatment: Chefs…
The maps and letters fell out of an aging file folder in a dark corner of a room called the “Curious Vault” at the Patricia and Philip Frost Museum of Science. Printed on yellowing paper, they pointed the way toward remote locations somewhere near the Everglades. And in the long-faded…
In what has been a hot summer in the fight for marriage equality in the Sunshine State, the Second District Court of Appeal today asked the Florida Supreme Court (FSC) to decide whether the state’s 2008 ban on same-sex marriage is Constitutional. A clerk at the office of the Florida…
In the dark of the hotel room, the ultraviolet lamp ignited like Promethean fire. A middle-aged American with gray hair leaned low over the bed, his gaunt face glowing in the purple light. Beneath him lay a weathered canvas, its edges cracked and crumbling. The man inhaled deeply. Then, with…
