‘This is not a place where anything goes’: Miami Beach starts crackdown on rowdy spring break

Miami Beach is taking a more aggressive strategy to manage this year’s large Spring Break crowds on the island city. Calling its new operation “Alpha Bravo”, the city is adding 80 more officers from its police department and another 70 from other jurisdictions this weekend. In all, there will be 371 officers this weekend, according to the city. Some of the officers will be outfitted in riot gear. On Thursday, officers riding ATVs were confiscating alcohol on the beach. The changes come... Read More

Anchor city: Free ride for boat squatters to end

Four derelict boats mar the pretty view, turning the watery cove into a nautical junkyard. And when those four boats are hauled away, more will move in to take their place, critics say of the never-ending cycle that’s been going on for years at Broward’s North Beach Park. Some of the boats are on their last sea legs but become lifeboats for squatters. Nearby homeowners have complained for years about liveaboards using the waterway as their own personal septic tank, dumping buckets of... Read More

Monroe County: Our top challenge is the lack of affordable housing for Keys workers

Monroe County adopted its strategic plan for the next five years with an emphasis on providing more housing that is affordable for the workforce that sustains the island chain’s tourism-based … Click to Continue » ... Read More

Britain Uses Violent Bible Verses to Deny Iranian Convert Asylum

It’s not the first time immigration officials have deployed Scripture to keep former Muslims out. The British government has been using the Bible against Christians seeking asylum after converting from Islam—most recently, citing verses from Leviticus, Exodus, and Revelation as evidence that the faith was not more peaceful, as one Iranian convert claimed in his application. Anglican leaders and other advocates for refugees condemned the immigration department’s decision to... Read More

Stoneman Douglas Principal Ty Thompson is under investigation

Ty Thompson, the principal of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, is now under investigation and will have a new job at the Parkland school. It’s the latest in a string of administrative shakeups since a former student murdered 17 people at the school Feb. 14, 2018. Stoneman Douglas added a second principal last spring and transferred three assistant principals in November to jobs while investigating their roles in the massacre. Now Thompson, who has led the school since 2013, will give... Read More

Man acquitted of murdering his father in buried body parts case

A Fort Lauderdale man on Thursday was acquitted of murdering his father, but he was found guilty of abusing a body — his father’s dismembered remains found in Boca Raton. James Scandirito II’s dad was 74-year-old James “Skip” Scandirito Sr., a former Michigan judge. The younger Scandirito, 50, testified his father died of natural causes but he panicked because he’d been drinking and using drugs. As a result, he said he used a saw to carve up his father’s body in a garage... Read More