Two graduate film students at the University of Florida will be allowed to use footage they shot on a trip to Haiti since the earthquake in January in their thesis documentary. They will have to include a disclaimer at the beginning of the film that explains that the university did…
The Quinnipiac poll released Thursday shows that if the general election for U.S. Senate were this week — and if Charlie Crist opted to run as an independent — he would earn a narrow victory (32 percent) over Marco Rubio (30), with Democratic frontrunner Kendrick Meek coming in third with…
Sometimes local politics can be scintillating. This is one of those times. Broward County GOP Chair Charles John “Chip” LaMarca said this morning that he is resigning his position with the party to run against Mayor Ken Keechl. OK, not exactly. LaMarca, who is also a Lighthouse Point commissioner, told me is resigning his position…
A glance through the Friday-morning headlines:Charlie Crist’s veto of Senate Bill 6 has touched off conflict with fellow state Republicans, leading to more speculation that Crist will declare as an independent in the race for U.S. Senate. [Sun-Sentinel]The tea partiers did their tax-day thing outside federal buildings in Fort Lauderdale…
The Juice has obtained a copy of the 110-page civil suit filed yesterday in West Palm Beach Federal District Court on behalf of 242 Colombian plaintiffs against Chiquita Brands International (click here for a copy of the lawsuit). The suit, brought by Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, which has offices…
A lawyer and friend of the late Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler law clerk Julie Timmerman said that Scott Rothstein swooped in on the young bartender while she was working at Riley McDermott’s and basically offered to put her through law school in exchange for her occasional companionship. “She didn’t know the…
Remember the name Craig Porter. He is the answer to a future trivia question about the first candidate to qualify for federal office as a candidate for the Whig Party since 1850. Porter is running in Florida’s 25th Congressional District in western Miami-Dade, the current domain of Mario Diaz-Balart.Judging by…
Dennis Beach, city manager of Pompano Beach, wants to put prospective volunteers through a more rigorous training course before allowing them to volunteer on city committees. He hopes that it will help to prevent arrests like the one that occurred Monday, when a member of a city development committee, Vicente…
In a filing that’s been anticipated for months, a group of Colombian families has sued Chiquita Brands International in West Palm federal court over reports that the banana company paid a terrorist group that then kidnapped and murdered relatives of those families.The suit, in which some 240 people are plaintiffs,…
Everywhere Charlie Crist goes on the campaign trail lately, the teachers have him. Yesterday stalked him all the way to his office.And today, he vetoed Senate Bill 6, a piece of legislation that gave him an opportunity to prove with action what he’s expressed only in words: that he’s a…
Needless to say I’ve gotten a lot of feedback on my Judy Stern post yesterday, some of it from politicians named as having alliances with her. Broward County Commission hopeful Angelo Castillo wrote on the blog yesterday evening that “nobody owns me.” I heard from Broward County Commissioner John Rodstrom,…
Thirty-year-old Romeo Ramirez has worked on Florida farms for his “whole life,” he says. And despite the conditions he’s seen — stagnant wages, no benefits, and even migrant farm workers forced to work against their will — he still seems to see the state he lives in as a vast…
An open letter to Brandon Marshall:As the newest member of the Miami Dolphins, no doubt you’re looking for a place in South Florida to call home, and you may be considering a quieter life in Broward or Palm Beach counties. Don’t do it. Miami is a much better fit for…
Maybe it’s not so hard, running this “government.” George LeMieux sure makes it look easy. No matter how complex the problem, LeMieux finds a solution so simple, a total idiot could understand it. But these must be frustrating times for the Broward-born U.S. Senate appointee. First Congress failed to see…
The news in Broward and Palm Beach:In a show of support for teachers who oppose Senate Bill 6, students in two Broward County schools walked out of class Wednesday. The bill would tie teacher pay to student performance on standardized tests, leading to even more teaching-to-the-test than educators do now…
Ronnie E. Bass Sr. has lost quite a few teeth over the years. Smoking crack and spending 21 months in jail did the damage. Rock also separated the old man from his computer-whiz son, whom he hasn’t heard from since the early 1990s. Yet Pops takes in stride that his…
Around about the lunch hour in Vale, South Dakota, on February 5, a 33-year-old cattle rancher finished a morning of blogging, then stepped outside with a bottle of wine and a Flip video camera. “Hello, my name is Troy Hadrick. I’m a fifth-generation United States rancher in South Dakota,” the…
A lot of people know their local commissioners and other politicians who represent them by name. Well, maybe 20 percent of them anyway. Only a select few, however, know the names of the real powers in their towns and counties. I am, keeping with this morning’s theme, talking about the lobbyists who…
In recent press, Gov. Crist has said that he’s human. That’s what Palm Beach County schoolteachers are counting on as Crist, currently campaigning for the Senate, reviews a bill that would end tenure and hinge teachers’ pay on student performance on standardized tests, mainly the (maligned) FCAT. Crist’s decision will…
In an excerpt Fox showed from the video of Allen West’s speech last year in Fort Lauderdale, the congressional candidate talks about how he joined the U.S. Army and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel “not because the government came down and tried to make the rules to change…
