Why worry about debt from Marlins' stadium? Let's just play ball

I have put on my Pollyanna glasses -- rose-colored, of course -- and am going shopping. Looking for a nifty outfit for the big Miami Marlins stadium groundbreaking in July.

Tight wallets threaten Carrfour Housing

N annie Knight rolls her wheelchair around with ease as she answers the phones at the Carrfour Supportive Housing office. More than a decade ago she was a druggie who had lost custody of her two little girls after getting busted for petty theft and spending a year in jail.

Agents' stories have intrigue of spy novels

Cuban agent 202 was an American university professor who moved from South Dakota to Washington, D.C. -- at the behest of the Castro government -- to score a job with top-secret security clearance at the State Department.

Cutié's actions hurt many of his followers

A lberto Cutié took his collar off and walked away from the Roman Catholic Church. Snap of the fingers, that easy. Adios, muchachos!

Cuban soldier who died in Vietnam deserves highest U.S. honor

mmarquez@MiamiHerald.com B y the time Army Capt. Feliz Sosa-Camejo was 28 he had been awarded 12 U.S. military honors, including three Bronze Stars, three Silver Stars and two Purple Hearts for battles in the Dominican Republic and Vietnam.

Operation Pedro Pan, Cuban parents' agonizing decisions saved thousands

Forty years after Operation Pedro Pan ended, I was at Havana's Jose Martí International Airport after spending almost a month reporting from the communist island in 2002.

Crist's GOP tent too quick to snub Rubio

Off goes Gov. Charlie Crist to run for the U.S. Senate to replace retiring Sen. Mel Martinez. Attorney General Bill McCollum and term-limited Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson, both Republicans, may be running for the governor's seat, leaving those primo jobs up for grabs.

Defiant Cutié doesn't create any sympathy

B e a man, take it off. I'm referring to Alberto Cutié's priestly collar, which he wore during a sit-down interview on the Univisión network Friday, often showing himself as defiant as any teenager caught in the act.

Opinion: Time to retire celibacy requirement for priests

Padre Alberto's fall from Roman Catholic grace has all the makings of a TV movie and, unfortunately, all the trappings of a circus.

GOP must find the road to moderation

Jeb Bush hopes to change the GOP's tattered image from an immigrant-hating, privacy-meddling party of the Deep South to the national optimism of the Reagan years.

Group thrives on delivering clean water

B oth men were marked by a little village a world away from their cosmopolitan Miami roots but that touched their hearts in ways that changed them forever.

Cuba is a far cry from being a workers' paradise

A s Washington and Havana do their diplomatic song and dance -- more like a fire-and-brimstone limbo from Cuba's self-anointed ''retired'' ruler Fidel Castro -- Pedro Pablo Alvarez Ramos wants the world to know: Cuban workers have no rights.

Seminoles' offer is tempting but is bad in the long run

Take the money and run, says state Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla of Miami. The Seminoles' latest proposed casino-gambling deal, blessed by Gov. Charlie Crist, offers the state a quickie save during these tough times. It's fast cash in a slumbering economy. It's also bad policy.

Opinion: Without right investments, we're sunk

After two years of squeezing public schools and universities, doctors and hospitals treating poor people and abused and neglected kids in need of protection, the Florida Legislature has found the magic formula to a healthy budget:

Land deal an old story in Florida

Myriam Marquez mmarquez@MiamiHerald.com T he old Florida bait and switch -- come, buy cheap land! -- turned out to be overpriced swampland barely good enough to pitch a tent.

Absent Cuba's presence will be felt in Trinidad

Cuba's not invited to the big party in Trinidad and Tobago, but it will crash it anyway. It'll be the pesky ghost at the table, pushing, shoving and booing -- all in an effort to derail President Barack Obama's first foray Friday into Latin America

MYRIAM MARQUEZ | COLUMNIST

After Bush's tough love, it's time to give Obama's Cuba policy a try

President Barack Obama, in his typical measured fashion, took a strategic first step on Cuba policy. For me, it's worth a try after five years of Bush's ''tough love.''

Tax or fee? It's past time for tobacco

House Republican leaders in Tallahassee want to extinguish any idea of increasing the tobacco tax by a buck a pack.

Sex education must transcend just saying no

A mother's world collapses when she loses a child -- not just when the child dies, but when she's lost to the streets, to a feel-good culture of anything goes, to the poor decisions of youth and circumstances beyond any committed parent's control.

MYRIAM MARQUEZ | COLUMNIST

Lawmakers' Cuba concerns are misplaced

In Havana, the seven Democrats visited the families of the prisoners and came away inspired. The members of Congress raised concerns about human rights, lengthy prison sentences and the suffering on both sides of the Florida Straits.

Taxpayers can take a bow for wise spending

Inside the yellow cottage in a Kendall compound behind a chain-link fence, the children are waking up from their naps. Babies are learning to sit up, toddlers are naming their colors and 4-year-olds are gobbling up their vanilla ice cream with a smile.