Aaron Leibowitz
@aaron_leib
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Miami Beach reporter @MiamiHerald . Member @OneHeraldGuild . Mets fan. Send tips to aleibowitz @miamiherald .com
Joined October 2010
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Some personal news: Today is my first day as the city of Miami Beach reporter for the
@MiamiHerald
.
I’m excited to cover the Beach after three years as a roving local government reporter. If you know things about the city, send tips to aleibowitz
@miamiherald
.com.
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NEW: George Santos reported meals at a Miami Beach diner. The diner found no record of them.
He reported parking at a Miami Beach lot. The city says the dollar amounts would be impossible.
Retracing Santos’ steps in South Florida:
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BREAKING: Former North Miami Beach police officer Nicholes Lentz has been charged for his role in the Capitol riot, according to newly unsealed court records.
NEW: Former North Miami Beach cop went live on Facebook from inside the Capitol during riot w/
@ChuckRabin
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BREAKING: Miami Beach has declared a midnight curfew in South Beach effective tonight. Story coming.
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NEW: David and Leila Centner, founders of the Miami school that told teachers not to get the COVID vaccine, were among George Santos’ biggest donors.
They even hosted a fundraiser for him at their Long Island estate.
Now, they say they were “duped.”
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BREAKING: The historic Deauville Beach Resort in Miami Beach was just imploded.
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A 24-year-old Fort Lauderdale man is facing first-degree murder charges for the deadly shooting on an Ocean Drive sidewalk early this morning, according to an arrest report from Miami Beach police.
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Judge says he believes that, at some point, Postmaster General DeJoy “will have to testify under oath” regarding issues of compliance with judge’s orders in the case.
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BREAKING: The owners of the iconic Clevelander on Ocean Drive say they plan to replace the hotel and bar with a housing development that would be as tall as 30 stories and have 40% affordable units under Florida's new Live Local Act.
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BREAKING: Miami Beach has ordered developer Rishi Kapoor, who hired Miami Mayor Francis Suarez as a consultant, to stop unpermitted construction on Washington Ave project.
The city issued the order hours after receiving an inquiry from the
@MiamiHerald
.
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BREAKING: Two former staffers for Florida Rep. Fabian Basabe are accusing him of sexual harassment.
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BREAKING: Miami Beach is implementing a midnight curfew starting tonight for spring break. Story coming.
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About 60 people in line to vote at the library in North Beach.
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An update: After mail backlog at a South Dade post office, State Attorney
@KathyFndzRundle
calling for a search of every
@USPS
distribution facility in Miami-Dade County and the immediately delivery of ballots to elections dept. w/
@rjwile
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“Someone may have a price to pay for that,” DC federal judge Emmet G. Sullivan says re: USPS failing to comply with his order to sweep mail facilities by 3 pm yesterday.
TL;DR — the judge is pissed.
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NEW: Fabian Basabe campaigned as a moderate Republican who was pro-choice, pro-LGBTQ and pro-gun control. His votes in Tallahassee haven't reflected that.
Now, ahead of a planned protest today, he faces an allegation that he slapped an aide.
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Miami Beach commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez says every non-city resident’s car should be searched before entering the city during the third week of spring break.
Mayoral candidate and ex-commissioner/state rep Mike Grieco says that would be unconstitutional.
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ICYMI: Nicholes Lentz, an ex-Marine and a North Miami Beach cop until last summer, was arrested at his home in Boynton Beach on Friday for breaching the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
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NEW: The Miami Beach City Commission voted unanimously today, without discussion, to oppose the county's Metromover extension to South Beach. Neighborhood associations near proposed new stations have railed against the plan.
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This includes South Florida.
BREAKING: U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan orders USPS to sweep facilities for remaining mail ballots and immediately send them for delivery
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USPS, the USPS inspector general’s office, and the Miami-Dade state attorney’s office have been mum since the Fernandez Rundle request Friday that all mail facilities in the county be searched for missing ballots. Unclear at this point what additional steps are being taken.
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NEW: ‘That’s not who we are’: Ukrainians, Russians in South Florida condemn invasion
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NEW: The USPS inspector general's office says its agents found 48 ballots sitting in a South Miami-Dade post office last night, including 42 that had not yet been delivered to voters. w/
@rjwile
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It’s my one-year anniversary at the Herald! No better place to be reporting the news during these extremely normal times. Thanks for following along and keep the municipal gov’t tips coming.
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Here’s a press release about lack of vaccine access from Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernandez, who’s been railing against the county and the governor since early in the pandemic.
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NEW: Florida Rep. Fabian Basabe, who is facing allegations of sexually harassing two staffers, has a long history of accusations of bad behavior.
At least twice, the
@MiamiHerald
found, event workers have claimed Basabe bit them.
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BREAKING: Miami Beach nightclubs Mynt, M2 and Exchange have filed an emergency challenge to the city's midnight spring break curfew that began last night. There's a court hearing happening now, a city spokesperson confirms.
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NEW: In Miami Beach, investors are taking over some condo boards and jacking up costs beyond what owners can afford.
At one building, fees rose 400% to >$2K/month, pushing longtime residents out. At another, a family is struggling to pay $100K this year.
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BREAKING: The city of Miami Beach is ordering residents of a 164-unit beachfront condo tower to evacuate after engineers found significant damage to a critical structural beam. Residents were just told they have until 7 pm to leave.
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In Miami-Dade, 161,914 voters brought their mail ballots to drop boxes at early voting sites.
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In-person early voting has officially begun in South Florida. Please share photos/info about lines, wait times, and how it goes. Reply, DM me, or email aleibowitz
@miamiherald
.com 🙏
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NEW: In a last-minute change ahead of spring break, the Miami Beach City Commission votes to close city garages and lots entirely in South Beach during two weekends in March, except for residents and employees. Also expands $100 rates to Mid-Beach.
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NEW: Former North Miami Beach cop went live on Facebook from inside the Capitol during riot w/
@ChuckRabin
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NEW: Miami Beach is considering legislation that would have homeless people face arrest for sleeping outside if they decline a shelter bed.
"It amounts to saying you can’t be homeless in the city of Miami Beach," UM law professor says.
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NEW: Investigators discovered a backlog of about 180,000 pieces of undelivered mail at the Princeton Post Office in Miami-Dade. A total of 62 ballots have been found, and postal workers were still sorting today. w/
@rjwile
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According to Miami-Dade elections, 27,765 voters countywide placed their mail ballots in drop boxes at early voting sites yesterday. That's more than in the entire August primary, when 19,055 voters used drop boxes in Dade.
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“When I became a Miami Beach police officer, my dad cried. He cried because of the history of the way Black people were treated in this city,” Wayne Jones said today as he was confirmed as the city's next chief.
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NEW: The building that collapsed was starting its 40-year recertification process. Structural building reviews aren’t required in Miami-Dade until the 40-year mark.
One expert says: “I think we need to do a better job in our inspections.” w/
@Blaskey_S
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Today marks two years for me at the
@MiamiHerald
. I knew it would be interesting but not this interesting. Thanks for reading and subscribing and following, even though I’ll never be verified.
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NEW: Miami Beach just passed a controversial ordinance subjecting homeless people to arrest for sleeping outside if they decline a shelter bed.
The city has designated shelter beds in Miami, but none in Miami Beach.
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NEW: Florida data shows voters who are young, Black, or Hispanic are having their ballots flagged for possible rejection at disproportionate rates. Here’s a look at the data, including South Florida county breakdowns, with a big assist from
@electionsmith
:
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!
Some personal news: Today is my first day as the city of Miami Beach reporter for the
@MiamiHerald
.
I’m excited to cover the Beach after three years as a roving local government reporter. If you know things about the city, send tips to aleibowitz
@miamiherald
.com.
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NEW: Hialeah Councilman
@PaulBHernandez
switched his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat on Jan. 6.
"Looking at my son and wife, I just thought, I'd be ashamed to tell my son that I was somehow related in any way, shape or form to this."
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BREAKING: Opa-locka Mayor Matthew Pigatt resigned in the middle of tonight's city commission meeting. Story coming.
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NEW w/
@RodriguezRene
: The mayor demanded a commissioner be muted. One commissioner fell asleep. Another logged off to go to bed. Then, around 2 AM last night, North Miami Beach approved a 30-year land deal for a $1.5 billion project.
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NEW: Miami Beach officials took $3,000 tickets to Carbone Beach, a lavish party by Major Food Group and Boucher Brothers — who are also eyeing a partnership at the Nikki Beach site.
Experts say they potentially violated state ethics laws.
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NEW: Over 20,000 people in Miami-Dade, 3% of mail voters, requested replacement ballots by Saturday’s deadline, up from 2.2% in 2016.
In one concerning case, an elder-care facility says USPS wasn’t delivering mail to its 120 residents for about a week.
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Owners of M2, a nightclub set for grand opening this week (a.k.a. Miami Music Week) on Washington Ave in South Beach, say they plan to file a class action lawsuit and lead a protest by business owners at Miami Beach City Hall today over plans to reissue a curfew next weekend.
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NEW: Nearly a year after the Champlain Towers collapse, Florida's safety rules for coastal condos have barely changed. Miami-Dade County is trying to take the lead — but experts say it's not enough. w/
@conarck
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In a letter to Gov. DeSantis today, Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber suggests Florida's recent guidance against taking the new COVID booster is "entirely based on the politics of the Republican primary and not on what’s best for your Florida constituents."
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Remember how Surfside Mayor Shlomo Danzinger took a secretive trip to Dubai in October to meet with the Champlain site developer? ()
I requested all records related to this trip: plane tickets, receipts, photos, messages, etc. The town now says none exist.
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UPDATE: Judge David Miller says the Miami Beach spring break curfew is “reasonable” and rejects the nightclubs’ challenge. Midnight curfew continues tonight.
BREAKING: Miami Beach nightclubs Mynt, M2 and Exchange have filed an emergency challenge to the city's midnight spring break curfew that began last night. There's a court hearing happening now, a city spokesperson confirms.
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Hialeah received $7M from the U.S. Treasury for additional rent relief for residents, approved by the city council last night. Details to come on how it will be distributed. (Miami recently received $14M.)
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Reporting on the collapse of Champlain Towers South was one of the most challenging and important assignments imaginable. Proud of this team of journalists who did it with determination and empathy. The work continues today.
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Tuesday was another big day of in-person early voting in Miami-Dade County: 41,925 voters. That’s after 43,396 on Monday.
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Miami Beach officials are encouraging individual schools to observe LGBTQ history month, despite the Miami-Dade school board’s vote last week to reject it.
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“We’ve been trying to reach you about your car’s extended warranty”
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Miami Beach City Commission approves $64,000 for "electronic timers" to deactivate electrical outlets on Lincoln Road so homeless people can't use them to charge their phones. Outlets will be deactivated except when restaurants are using them.
Details:
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Santos’ big Miami donors also include family members of billionaire attorney John Ruiz, who say their powerboat company hired Santos’ company last year.
Ruiz says he knows nothing about it. His ex-wife and adult children didn’t respond to our inquiries.
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Miami PD says officer violated policy by wearing a Trump mask at a polling place. In June, Miami-Dade PD said officers violated policy by simply posing with Trump signs.
We are aware of the photograph being circulated of a Miami Police officer wearing a political mask in uniform. This behavior is unacceptable, a violation of departmental policy, and is being addressed immediately.
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NEW: The owners of the Clevelander submitted plans to the city of Miami Beach today to transform the famous Ocean Drive party spot into an 18-story workforce housing development under Florida’s Live Local Act.
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Miami Beach is declaring success for this year’s spring break. Mayor Steven Meiner will honor local and state law enforcement agencies at a ceremony on Tuesday and present them with a “Law and Order Award,” the city says.
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People are mistakenly showing up to early voting sites this morning to try to drop off their mail ballots. Volunteers from the Miami-Dade Dems are redirecting them to one of four locations.
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The City Commission just passed this item on final reading, meaning possession of small amounts of marijuana in Miami Beach is a criminal offense with no option for civil citations.
Miami Beach officials are looking to remove an option for police to give civil citations for possession of small amounts of marijuana. They say it’s part of efforts to “shut down the party” for spring break.
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NEW: USPS data shows some ballots in FL (and all over the U.S.) arrived late due to mail delays.
Anecdotal evidence tells a similar story — like the Miami-Dade voter who could *see* his ballot in an informed delivery email, but never got it. w/
@rjwile
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Miami-Dade elections says 648 mail ballots have arrived after the Election Day deadline. In the August primary, that number was 4,691.
Elections officials attribute the relatively low number to drop boxes (1/3 of all mail votes in Dade) and education efforts about mailing early.
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BREAKING: Miami-Dade County’s midnight curfew will be lifted next Monday, April 12, Mayor Daniella Levine Cava announces.
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Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber issues a video message about the curfew.
"The volume of people in our city, the unruly nature of too many, and the presence of guns has created a peril that cannot go unchecked."
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NEW: In the months before a bill was filed that could deliver a casino to the Fontainebleau, the hotel's billionaire owner made a flurry of PAC donations to Miami-area lawmakers, new filings show. w/
@anaceballos_
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Through collective action, we won:
-Salary floors💰
-Guaranteed raises 📈
-Paid parental leave 👶
-Better mileage reimbursement 🚗
-Protections against outsourcing 🏝
-Much more (new holidays, guaranteed severance, commitment to diversity in hiring…)
Unionize your newsroom!
🚨BREAKING:
@OneHeraldGuild
and
@BHnewsguild
members voted unanimously to ratify our first collective bargaining agreement. Member turnout was strong with 93% of members in Miami and 100% in Bradenton casting a vote.
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NEW: The FBI agents killed in Sunrise this morning were Dan Alfin and Laura Schwartzenberger, both of whom had a history of investigating child exploitation cases. Alfin, for example, worked on the case of former Miami mayoral aide Rene Pedrosa.
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The implosion led to a huge cloud of smoke blowing south, sending people scrambling on the beach. Seems to have set off a smoke alarm in one nearby building.
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NEW: Bodycam video shows Miami Beach City Commissioner David Suarez telling a boater he isn’t “man enough” and grilling a marine patrol officer about boating laws — an incident emblematic of his harsh approach with residents and city staff.
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Results from 646 of 866 precincts in Dade are now in. Biden up 53.5% to 45.8%, a big disappointment for Dems.
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We go above and beyond every day because we care about our journalism and our community.
@mcclatchy
knows it. Today, we’re demanding respect in return.
🧵 THREAD 🧵
Today, the journalists of the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald are demanding a fair contract and WORKING TO RULE. Our members will work the hours and roles we were hired for and nothing more.
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Quite the coincidence that when
@OneHeraldGuild
demands paid parental leave, minimum salaries, new holidays, IRS mileage rates …
@mcclatchy
implements them exclusively for non-union workers 🤔
🧵 As we and
@BHNewsGuild
return to the bargaining table today, we are thinking about the many ways
@McClatchy
has turned our demands for better working conditions into bargaining chips over the past two years.
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Finally verified after getting rid of my
@OneHeraldGuild
avi and showing my face. (We’re still fighting for fair wages and a fair contract, though.)
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NEW: Miami Beach is considering far-reaching measures to fight the Clevelander housing plan and Florida's Live Local Act, including the possibility of suing the state and reducing allowable building heights in much of South Beach.
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NEW: Supreme Court prospect Brown Jackson was ‘star in the making’ at Miami’s Palmetto High. w/
@jayhweaver
&
@BryanLowry3
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BREAKING: The city of North Miami Beach has ordered residents of a five-story, 60-unit apartment building to evacuate after receiving an engineer’s report that said it was structurally unsound.
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A class-action lawsuit was filed late last night against the Champlain Towers South condo association. Seeks over $5 million in damages. Cites a statement by the condo association’s attorney that “repair needs had been identified” for certain structural issues.
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USPS attorneys say this morning that all 180,000 pieces of delayed mail at the Princeton Post Office have now been searched. They say 62 ballots is the total number found.
NEW: Investigators discovered a backlog of about 180,000 pieces of undelivered mail at the Princeton Post Office in Miami-Dade. A total of 62 ballots have been found, and postal workers were still sorting today. w/
@rjwile
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USPS puts lots of caveats on this data, says that just because mail hasn’t been scanned as delivered doesn’t mean it wasn’t. Still, there are important questions here. Will be addressed at the 12 pm hearing.
🚨BREAKING: New USPS data appears to show a failure to deliver mail ballots from voters across the country on Election Day. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan will hold a noon hearing over USPS' non-compliance with his order yesterday to rush deliver all remaining mail ballots
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The 2020 MLB season ends, fittingly, with a player learning he tested positive for COVID, then hugging his teammates and holding a trophy they will all touch.
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53% of Miami-Dade voters rejoice.
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All of South Beach is under a midnight curfew tonight. Details here:
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It’s a relatively quiet spring break night on Ocean Drive, but there are dozens of officers, including state troopers, at a vehicle checkpoint along 5th Street. Some cars being searched, saw one driver arrested.
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USPS is also giving "all clear" reports for all retail/delivery mail facilities in Florida's 10 largest counties, meaning no outstanding ballots. Those reports aren't in yet for USPS processing plants but should be by early afternoon.
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Surfside Mayor Shlomo Danzinger, frustrated that Commissioner Nelly Velasquez interrupted him, asked: “Does anybody know how to speak Spanish to tell it to her?”
Velasquez, who speaks fluent English, says the comment was racist. via
@catherinecodom
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Miami Beach Commissioner David Suarez shared an image of this story on Facebook and Instagram that featured a doctored headline.
“Boat dwellers” became “Boat squatters.”
NEW: People who live on boats in Miami Beach are protesting after the city blocked access to a public dock they use to get food and water at Publix.
A city commissioner who pushed for it says it's a "creative" way to push live-aboards out of city waters.
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The head of Florida's Division of Emergency Management, a former Democratic state rep, tweeted and then deleted this apparent dig at the new "anti-riot" bill signed today by
@GovRonDeSantis
.
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Short lines at Government Center in Miami. All waiting is happening inside as it rains steadily outside.
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NEW: The Miami Beach City Commission voted, 4-3, to give initial approval to an ordinance that would subject homeless people to arrest for sleeping outside if they refuse a shelter bed.
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Three women who worked with Miami Beach mayor candidate Steven Meiner at the SEC, including two former interns, say he made unwanted advances toward them. One reported it to supervisors, records show. Meiner denies the allegations.
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NEW: The landlord for a 102-unit, co-op style building in Miami Beach is threatening to evict everyone, arguing the unit owners — not their association — are individually responsible for maintenance issues.
Residents, mostly seniors, are panicking.
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