Free Republic

Former Houston Police Department Chief Art Acevedo’s reputation and career were on full display in Miami on Monday during a special meeting focused on his job performance after only five months. Acevedo has been criticized for self-inflicted missteps that have not painted him or the department in a positive light

Fresh off of renewed questions about a grant given to a health organization that worked with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the National Institutes of Health is in the spotlight for giving grants to a man charged with illegally supplying high-tech medical equipment to Iran.According to a Justice Department news release, Dr. Mohammad Faghihi was charged Tuesday with conspiracy to commit money laundering, unlawful exports of goods to Iran, smuggling goods out of and into the U.S., wire fraud and making false statements.Faghihi, a former associate professor at the University of Miami who was born in Iran, was charged in...

Some things are just meant to be together. College football has seen plenty of change through the years. From world wars to racial integration to the more recent labor movement that resulted in players’ ability to profit from their likenesses, evolution has been a constant. This is to say nothing of the innovation and rule changes that brought us from the single wing to this era of wide open passing games, with the wishbone and “three yards and a cloud of dust” in between. One constant throughout college football history, however, is Alabama competing for and winning national titles. Starting...

A Georgia man “randomly” shot and killed a tourist dining outside with his family in Miami Beach, then danced over the body, cops and a witness at the disturbing scene said. Tamarius David, 22, of Norcross, Georgia, allegedly opened fire on Dustin Wakefield, 21, from close range as he was eating in the outdoor section of La Cerveceria de Barrio on Miami Beach’s famous Ocean Drive on Tuesday night, CBS Miami reported. “After the shooting, he was dancing on top of the guy,” a witness, who didn’t want to be identified, told the news station. Wakefield, who was on vacation...

A University of Miami football player was arrested after police say he beat up his pregnant ex-girlfriend during an argument over his new relationship. Avantae Williams, a sophomore safety for the Miami Hurricanes, was arrested Wednesday night and charged with one count of aggravated battery on a pregnant woman. His bond was set at $10,000. The police report states that the two had gotten into an argument over Williams 'being involved with another woman' prior to Williams leaving for football practice. 'When I return from practice you need to be gone,' Williams allegedly told the woman, who is currently 31-weeks...

A Miami intensive care unit is overflowing with unvaccinated COVID-19 patients, a local CBS affiliate reported on Tuesday. Jackson Memorial Hospital’s ICU Nurse Manager Alix Zacharski told the CBS News affiliate that the "fourth wave" of the virus isn’t going well for them, calling it "the unvaccinated pandemic." “All of them are unvaccinated,” Zacharski said of the COVID-19 patients in the unit. “We’re full. All the patients that are currently here, six of them are under 60 years old.”

Hundreds of people gathered outside Versailles Restaurant in Little Havana Sunday afternoon in solidarity with the demonstrations in Cuba protesting against the communist regime. Cuban flags, music by Willy Chirino, and T-shirts with the phrase “Patria y Vida” - Spanish for “Homeland and life” - were the common denominator during the demonstration. Protesters shouted “freedom” in unison as cars with flags drove along 8th Street, honking their horns. **SNIP** “The real intervention is what the Cuban people are doing: to get up in the streets, it is what the Cuban exile is doing to stay on their feet,” Omni said....

The mayor of Miami, Florida, has called on the US to consider military action to overthrow the Communist regime in Cuba — even if that means launching airstrikes. Francis Suarez — whose father was Miami’s first Cuban-born mayor — told Fox News on Tuesday that “what should be being contemplated right now is a coalition of potential military action in Cuba.” He highlighted previous US military action in Panama, Kosovo and Pakistan, the latter of which “probably saved thousands” of lives by killing Osama bin Laden when President Biden was vice president.

HALLANDALE BEACH, FLA. (WSVN) - A wooden boat washed ashore in between Hollywood and Hallandale Beach, and witnesses said Cuban migrants were on board. The boat washed ashore along Hallandale Beach Boulevard and A1A, at around 8:45 a.m., Tuesday. “They were like kissing the ground and celebrating,” said Dylan Holland, who works on the beach. “They came over to us. They high-fived us, and we gave them water.” Witnesses said about four or five men walked onto the beach. They said they were happy and laughing and asked for directions to Miami.

A Haitian doctor who has been a fixture in Florida for more than two decades has been arrested in Haiti under suspicion that he was one of the leaders behind the middle-of-the-night assassination of President Jovenel Moïse last week, Haiti’s police chief said Sunday. Christian Emmanuel Sanon’s name was mentioned by several of the people who are in custody in the case, Haiti National Police Chief Léon Charles said. Sanon was the first person one of the suspects called after being captured. The Haiti National Police arrested him as part of their ongoing investigation into the leadership of the group...

Moïse’s death and the lack of a functioning government also serves as a clear cut signal that the U.S. must play a greater role in Haiti’s future, starting right now. It’s clear that Haiti will need both immediate and longer-term guidance to move forward in a democratic way. This is a country that started out with weak institutions, and they’re now virtually non-existent. The U.S., as Haiti’s biggest donor, has no choice but to take the lead — with international partners and, importantly, Haiti’s own civil society — to stabilize Haiti. An international coalition could do immense good very quickly...

President Joe Biden traveled to Miami, Florida to appear with Gov. Ron DeSantis and local officials on Thursday to signal support after the disastrous Surfside condo collapse. “Again, this is your show, we just want to make sure that whatever you need, including… anyway, I’m talking too much…” Biden said in his opening statement before turning the rescue and recovery efforts briefing over to local officials for comment.

Former President Donald Trump is rejecting pleas from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to postpone a campaign-style rally this weekend some 200 miles from the Miami suburb where an international search-and-rescue mission is excavating bodies from the site of a collapsed seaside condominium. DeSantis’s office has "made a direct plea” to the former president’s team, calling on it to postpone the Saturday event in Sarasota. One Florida Republican bluntly said Trump and his team need to “read the room.” “The governor is getting tested here as to how far he's going to be pushed before he breaks ranks with President Trump....

"Don't let the fearmongers win..." That's part of the message on Twitter today from Republican US Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. Paul noting a death rate of .08 percent for the "Delta Variant" of COVID-19 among the unvaccinated... Yesterday Republican US Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin involved in a news conference with families of those injured by COVID-19 vaccines... Maddie de Garay suffering from abdominal, nerve and muscle pain and a host of other issues including loss of feeling from the waist down. Maddie hospitalized three times for a total of two months. She is now confined to a wheelchair....

Experts suggest vulnerability of south Florida to rising seas could lead to destabilization of further buildingsThe shocking collapse of a 12-storey building in the Miami area last week has raised questions as to the role played by the climate crisis, and whether the severe vulnerability of south Florida to the rising seas may lead to the destabilization of further buildings in the future.The exact cause of the disaster that befell the Champlain Towers South building in Surfside on Thursday has yet to be fully determined, although a 2018 engineering report on the structure warned of “significant cracks and breaks in...

Washington Post reporter Hannah Dreier published a series of misleading tweets over the weekend accusing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis of fumbling the state’s response to the recent building collapse in the town of Surfside. On Saturday, Dreier posted a screenshot of FEMA’s response to the recent building collapse, claiming that it took DeSantis a full 24 hours to approve any form of emergency assistance for the affected area. “There’s a saying in emergency management: The first 24 hours are the only 24 hours,” Dreier stated. “FEMA was ready to deploy to the condo collapse almost immediately, and included the crisis...

There is a lot of misinformation floating around FR on the Miami condominium collapse. As a high-rise condominium manager, this story hit home. So here is a quick primer to help people combat fake news.First, this is not an apartment complex. In an apartment complex, an investor or group of investors owns the building and everyone is a transient tenant. It is a for-profit business. If there are major repairs needed, landlords can raise the rents to cover repairs.This is a condominium. Each unit has a separate owner, they purchase it with a mortgage or cash. Every month, unit pay...

The partially collapsed Florida condo building, which has left at least four dead and 159 people missing, was flagged as having “major structural damage” in 2018, according to reports. A lack of proper drainage on the pool deck of Champlain Towers South condo, which sits above the building’s parking garage, was the source of the “main issue,” wrote engineer Frank Morabito, according to the Miami Herald. Years of standing water had seriously damaged the concrete structural slabs below the deck, a problem Morabito warned would be “extremely expensive” to fix. “Failure to replace waterproofing in the near future will cause...

A resident missing in the Surfside apartment collapse told her son the building was making loud “creaking noises” a day earlier, he said. “She just told me she had woken up around 3, 4 in the morning and had heard like some creaking noises,” her son, Pablo Rodriguez, told CNN on Thursday after part of the 12-story building tumbled to the ground. “They were loud enough to wake her.” “It was like a comment that she made offhand, like that’s why she woke up and she wasn’t able to go back to sleep afterwards,” he added. “Now, in hindsight, you...

Paraguayan Foreign Minister Euclides Acevedo told local media that six people from the South American country are still unaccounted for after the collapse. They are Sophia López Moreira, the sister of first lady Silvana Abdo, her husband Luis Pettengill, her three children and the family’s assistant, according to Paraguayan authorities. President Mario Abdo’s activities were cancelled for Thursday and Friday so that he can be with his wife while she waits for word on the fate of her sister and her family, Paraguay’s government announced.