MIAMI — Observations and other notes of interest from Monday night’s 115-111 loss to the Utah Jazz: – The upshot of the past week, be it the lack of selling off contacts at Thursday’s NBA trade deadline or Erik Spoelstra’s daily pregame words of hope, has been about living in the moment. – Playing for the moment. – The focus on the W. – Doesn’t matter if you disagree, because that is who they are. – But if they are that, then why not a commensurate personnel approach? –... Read More
Heat find way to lose to a team trying to lose, fall 115-111 to Jazz
MIAMI — The low point of this Miami Heat season? Welcome to it, when Erik Spoelstra’s team on Monday night lost to a team that was trying to lose. Given every opportunity to string together only their second winning streak since early January, the Heat disastrously declined the gift, falling 115-111 to the Utah Jazz at Kaseya Center. “It’s a game,” Heat forward Andrew Wiggins said, “we’ve got to win, no matter what.” Faced with the prospect of losing their first-round pick in... Read More
Fourth Broward Schools employee accused of fraud, theft from ‘illicit’ gym rentals
A Broward County middle school employee was arrested Saturday, accused of running “illicit basketball tournaments” at the school’s gym and keeping the money from the improper rentals, police said. Shaune Cannon, 50, a behavioral technician at Forest Glen Middle School in Coral Springs, is facing one count of organized scheme to defraud $20,000 or less and one count of grand theft of more than $10,000, according to a probable cause affidavit. He is the fourth Broward School District... Read More
Trump told Palm Beach police chief ‘everyone’ knew about Epstein, Maxwell was ‘evil’
President Donald Trump has repeatedly maintained that he had no knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex crimes. But in July 2006, just as Jeffrey Epstein’s criminal case became public, Trump called then-Palm Beach police chief Michael Reiter to tell him that Epstein’s activities with teenaged girls were well known in both New York and Palm Beach. “Thank goodness you’re stopping him, everyone has known he’s been doing this,” Trump told Reiter, according to a 2019 FBI interview with... Read More
Trump shrugs off blatantly racist trope | Editorial
Barack and Michelle Obama are not alone in deserving the apology that Donald Trump will not give. The Obamas were the objects of his breathtakingly vile video post depicting them as apes — an insult to all decent Americans. Once again, Trump disgraced the nation’s highest office. He implied that he takes us to be as vulgar and racist as he is. To be sure, there are many people like that, and he caters to their bigotry. That’s not who we are, but it is who Trump is. The government had... Read More
Postcard perfect: Expect a sunny, calm week ahead for South Florida
The weather this week looks ideal, with sunny to modestly sunny skies each day, temperatures in the mid-70s to low-80s. Evening temperatures should drop to around the 60s throughout the workweek. Winds should be relatively calm, and humidity will be moderate. Things could change a bit over the coming weekend, with chances of showers increasing Saturday night into Sunday. Conditions also will remain dry. Much of the Southeast is experiencing unusually dry conditions, and parts of South... Read More
US military boards sanctioned oil tanker in the Indian Ocean after pursuit from the Caribbean
By BEN FINLEY and MICHAEL BIESECKER WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. military forces boarded a sanctioned oil tanker in the Indian Ocean after tracking the ship from the Caribbean Sea, the Pentagon said Monday. The Pentagon’s statement on social media did not say whether the ship was connected to Venezuela, which faces U.S. sanctions on its oil and relies on a shadow fleet of falsely flagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains. However, the Aquila II was one of at least 16 tankers... Read More
Inaugural Pizza Fest at the Park in Fort Lauderdale | PHOTOS
The inaugural Pizza Fest at the Park debuted this weekend at Esplanade Park, bringing together top local pizzerias and artisan chefs for a two-day celebration in downtown Fort Lauderdale. Organized by the founders of Pummarola Pizzeria Napoletana, the event featured unlimited samples from acclaimed regional favorites, live dough-tossing demonstrations, and a vendor market. ... Read More
Put a stake in it? Fort Lauderdale vice mayor calls train tunnel a ‘zombie project’
Critics doubt a tunnel for commuter rail will ever get built in Fort Lauderdale’s downtown. Fort Lauderdale Vice Mayor John Herbst is one of them — and he thinks it’s high time for Fort Lauderdale to finally give up its fight to get a tunnel built at the New River. “This is a zombie project,” Herbst said during a recent commission discussion. “I don’t understand the purpose of continuing to drag this thing along. Put a stake in it, call it dead and be done with it. I think... Read More
South Florida’s economy shows staying power despite slower pace, trade and immigration chaos
If $10 million votes of confidence are the future currency of South Florida’s economic development, then some parts of Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties might well become the Silicon Valley replica that some planners and developers envision. Early last week, regional billionaires Steven Ross of the Related Ross development firm and Ken Griffin of the Citadel investment firm committed that amount to help accelerate the migration of relocation-minded businesses to the region. The... Read More