A highly controversial bill Florida’s Senate Appropriations Committee shot down last week could return for a vote again today, after Senator Lisbeth Benacquisto, R-Fort Myers, moved to “reconsider” her vote during last week’s meeting. The bill in question – SB 318 – may be the most widely debated bill of…
The Florida Senate Appropriations Committee voted 10-9 yesterday to shoot down a highly controversial bill that would have, in essence, banned local communities from regulating fracking, the controversial process by which water, sand, and undisclosed chemicals are pumped into the ground to extract oil and gas. The bill, SB 318,…
On Feb. 14, an unmarked cargo plane touched down from Munich at the international airport in Harare, Zimbabwe, for refueling on its way to South Africa. Ground workers noticed something strange: rust-colored streaks along one side of the all-white fuselage. When the door to the compartment was popped open, a…
This past week’s Miami International Boat Show drew more than 100,000 people and was declared “the start of what we hope to be a long and successful run,” by sponsors. It wasn’t much of a success, though, for Canadian tourist Adam Ponette. Though Ponette sailed to town in a well…
About 4,000 confidential records — the purported home addresses of police officers, lawyers, and judges — have been published on the website PBSOTalk.com, and the former owner of the website is blaming it on Russian computer hackers. Mark Dougan is a former Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office deputy. After leaving the…
Sometime during this codeine-addled horse-race of an election cycle, I lost the ability to distinguish between Donald Trump and John F. Kennedy. Last week, after a particularly stressful day, I came home around 7 p.m., threw CNN onto the television, and promptly fell asleep on the couch, only to wake…
Today”s primary vote in New Hampshire is all about the Jebster. The former Florida governor and fading presidential candidate is sunk if he doesn’t nail the New Hampshire race today — finishing at least in the top three. The right wing of the party has staged an interesting attack on…
Last summer saw the end of a five-year deal that had let the Seminole Tribe of Florida run blackjack and baccarat card games in exchange for $1 billion for Florida’s state coffers. Now that’s it’s time to renew a deal, Gov. Rick Scott has proposed a seven-year agreement with the…
A battle is heating up between rich owners of waterfront property and boaters who, instead of docking, use anchors to keep their boats cheaply in the Intracoastal Waterway. The rich have argued that boaters ruin their view — especially ones that have abandoned decrepit vessels. Many boaters, however, contend that…
In 2004, Fort Lauderdale attorney Bradford Cohen was a candidate on the second season of The Apprentice, a reality TV show in which Donald Trump evaluates candidates’ business skills and offers the winner a job within his organization. In episode two, Cohen won a challenge and so, per the rules,…
TV cameras encircled Pam Bondi outside Bennett’s Fresh Roast, a quaint shop a block from the Caloosahatchee River in Fort Myers, one more stop on a statewide tour in the fall of 2014 with Gov. Rick Scott. Bondi flashed her trademark high-wattage grin, shook her blond locks into place, and…
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…
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…
The United States constitution says that “no person… except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have…
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…
As self-described “patriots” take over a wildlife refuge in Oregon, the Southern Poverty Law Center yesterday announced its annual count of right-wing militia groups in America. There are currently 276 such groups – up from 202 in 2014, a 37 percent increase. The nonprofit organization explained that “the number represents…
Donald Trump, the leading candidate for the Republican nomination, went on a late-night Twitter taunting session against Jeb Bush late Monday, kicking things off with a photo of Jeb picking his nose. Bush’s campaign tried to fire back, but Twitter is Trump’s domain, and it only served as fuel for…
Donald Trump went after Hillary Clinton on Monday by using a term many consider to be vulgar and misogynistic. Speaking at a rally in Michigan, Trump ripped Clinton for delaying last weekend’s Democratic presidential debate when she had to use the bathroom. “I know where she went,” he said. “I’s…
Donald Trump’s image and name has been torn off from his billion-dollar golf course and housing development in Dubai on Friday. According to a report, photos show broken pieces of the GOP frontrunner’s name scattered on the ground just outside his Trump International Golf Club portion at the AKOYA by DAMAC…
Since announcing his candidacy for President of the United States, Donald Trump has managed to insult Mexicans, women, the Black Lives Matter movement, and Muslims. And in all that time, his lead has only grown in the polls. Specifically in Florida, where a recent St. Leo University poll of likely Florida…
President Barack Obama spoke to the nation during a prime time address where he spoke of the mass shooting in San Bernardino that left 14 people dead, and it’s possible connection to ISIL. This led to Obama calling on congress to address the threat of those on a no-fly list…
