Politics & Government

Roger Stone, the political consigliere, accused defamer, and alleged Russia go-between for Donald Trump, is difficult to predict. After spending decades smearing political candidates as an admitted backroom political operative, Stone had seemingly hit a lull in his career over the past decade. Remember when he was handling the campaign of a stoner comedian running for Miami Beach mayor?

David Beckham’s crew said just about everything right last night. They’d pay for their new stadium entirely with their own money. Minority and locally owned contractors would have first dibs on the construction, and then the team would create at least 50 full-time jobs. They’d offset a lack of parking with new public transit options. It all sounded great.

Look, not wanting to be associated with Donald Trump right now is totally understandable. After years of eating little but cake, overcooked flank steak, and McNuggets (and refusing to exercise due to a set of nutritional beliefs that appear to date from Elizabethan England), Trump’s brain seems so oxygen-starved that…

The GOP health-care bill, which is opposed by virtually every major health-care and hospital group in the nation and could leave 24 million Americans without insurance, snuck through the U.S. House by just four votes earlier this month. In other words, without the backing of two Miami legislators — Carlos Curbelo and Mario Diaz-Balart — it wouldn’t have passed.

Miami-Dade County Commissioner Bruno Barreiro would like to be a congressman. He announced this past week he’s officially running as a Republican to replace longtime incumbent Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a moderate GOP congresswoman who will retire this year (and likely can’t stand dealing with Donald Trump’s carnival sideshow any more days than she legally must).

Hepatitis C is not all that difficult to treat. A class of drug called direct-acting antivirals, or DAAs, has been proven at least 90 percent effective in curing the condition. Just 1 percent of the U.S. population typically lives with hep C — but that rate is far higher, up to 17 percent, among state and federal prisoners.

Unlike Sen. Marco Rubio, Miami Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart actually had the guts today to take a stand on President Donald Trump’s firing of James Comey, the FBI Director heading up an investigation into Trump’s Russia ties. Of course, celebrating the fact that Diaz-Balart even took some sort of position is an extremely…

GOP Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen’s surprise decision last month to retire wasn’t just a shock to the Miami voters who’d kept her in her seat for almost 20 years — it was also a godsend to national Democrats desperate to take back the House. But who to run? Florida Democrats aren’t…

For now, the state’s headlong rush to allow more casinos in Miami-Dade looks to be dead in the water. But Miami Beach commissioners aren’t taking any chances when it comes to slot machines in SoBe. The commission voted this morning to push forward a zoning change that would ban all gambling establishments anywhere in the city.

Not many politicians are willing to get on a stage with Scientology leader David Miscavige and heap praise upon his organization. After all, Miscavige is at the center of a firestorm of abuse allegations, and his church has been accused of widespread human rights violations.

When Donald Trump signed his January executive order banning travel from seven majority-Muslim nations, Rafael A. Velasquez threw on a blazer, grabbed a megaphone, and stood in the rain outside Miami International Airport, screaming “Not my president!” and “Refugees are welcome here!” amid a tense standoff with airport security.

Miami-Dade County State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle announced last month that her office would not charge four prison guards responsible for the death of Darren Rainey, a black inmate with schizophrenia who was thrown inside a scalding-hot shower for close to two hours and died inside. The public was outraged:…

On January 25, President Donald Trump signed an executive order stripping federal funding from so-called “sanctuary cities,” which refuse to detain undocumented immigrants in their jails on behalf of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The vast majority of the nation’s big cities vowed to fight the ban.

Miami is blessed with both a remarkably flat landscape and hundreds of days worth of tropical sunshine. In any logical universe, the Magic City would be a haven for both urban cyclists and solar power. Instead, the 305 is one of the more dangerous biking cities in America and has…

The chant echoed through downtown Miami on Saturday morning: “Science, not silence!” Thousands marched from the new Frost Museum of Science south along Biscayne Blvd. with a message for Donald Trump’s administration: Science can’t be denied when it’s politically inconvenient.

Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine loves the Clinton family. He and Bill Clinton developed a friendship a few decades ago. Levine also spent the 2016 presidential election season riding a tour bus from state to state campaigning for Hillary Clinton’s doomed campaign.

Miami state Sen. Frank Artiles unleashed a bigoted tirade against his fellow lawmakers earlier this week, in which he reportedly said state Senate President Joe Negron was a “pussy,” called two Tallahassee lobbyists “faggots,” and used the N-word to refer to six white lawmakers — in front of a black legislator. Earlier this week, he apologized, only to try to fight for his job by continuing to lob insulting letters at his colleagues.

Last September, four Miami Dolphins players joined San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick in kneeling during the National Anthem to raise awareness about police brutality and black inequality. And like clockwork, a whole host of critics got irrationally upset about a few people peacefully protesting for civil rights without hurting anybody.