The Wackenhut Corp. overbilled Miami-Dade County as much as $6 million over three years for phantom security guards at county transit stations, according to a long-awaited audit released Thursday.
NORTHWEST MIAMI-DADE
Tavaris King could not let go of his ex-lover. He called Nicole Smith from blocked phone numbers. He pointed his .45-caliber handgun at her and her little brother. And he strangled her golden retriever puppy to death.
BOCA RATON
Detectives are combing through surveillance video from the Aventura Mall, hoping it will lead them to the killer of a Boca Raton woman and her 7-year-old daughter.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Miami commissioners agreed Thursday to pay $2.2 million to settle a grave injustice involving a mentally retarded man who spent 22 years behind bars -- for murders and rapes he didn't commit.
DOWNTOWN MIAMI
A cell at Camp 5 in Guantánamo Bay is about 10 feet long and seven feet wide -- a little bigger than a cell on Florida's Death Row. The bed is a thin plastic mat, the lights sterile flourescents. The toilet is thin steel. The ankle chains are heavier.
EDUCATION
Students in Miami-Dade County did as well, and in some cases better, than students across the state on this year's standardized writing test, according to statistics released Thursday by the state Department of Education.
KEY BISCAYNE
Growing up in Miami, David Perry spent many a summer day at Crandon Beach. It was there, 50 years ago, that he lost something precious. While he was taking his first waterskiing lesson, his gold ring from Georgia Tech's Class of 1952 slipped off his finger and into the water.
MIAMI-DADE COURTS
A Miami-Dade jury this week acquitted Troy Dumas -- the man dubbed the North Dade Stalker by police, who said he broke into the homes of up to 18 women -- in the state's first case against him, his attorney said Thursday.
They've trimmed trees, replaced poles and strengthened electrical systems at hospitals and fire stations. One of the last things Florida Power & Light workers needed to do to prepare for the upcoming hurricane season was go through a dry run of a storm.
Two young women whose car was riddled with bullets Thursday, leaving both in critical condition, have been identified by Miami-Dade police.
Miami commissioners Thursday formally approved the naming of a yet-to-be-built community center at Little Haiti Park after former Miami-Dade and Miami Commissioner Arthur E. Teele Jr.
ISRAELI STATEHOOD
Jubilation erupted at the downtown Miami synagogue. It was Friday, May 14, 1948, and during his sermon, the rabbi surprised the congregation with the news that Jews had waited nearly 1,800 years to hear: Just hours earlier, David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, had proclaimed the independence of a Jewish state in the Promised Land.
MIAMI-DADE SCHOOLS
Miami-Dade parents who want to enroll their children in a Miami-Dade County Public Schools pre-kindergarten program must register their children by May 23 to be eligible for a lottery.
MIAMI MEGAPLAN
Finding that local leaders were not illegally secretive, a Miami-Dade judge ruled Thursday against part of auto magnate Norman Braman's challenge to the government's massive downtown development plan.
MIAMI POLICE
For those who may have forgotten the controversy over Miami Police Chief John Timoney's free Lexus SUV, the department's own 2007 annual report has unintentionally refueled the fire.
PAN AMERICAN CHAMPIONSHIPS
If the Cuban national judo team was competing in, say, Cleveland, few people outside judo circles would notice. But this is Miami, a place no Cuban national team of any sport had set foot in for more than four decades.
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FOOD PRODUCTION
Earth, we have a problem. Humans are consuming fish faster than the oceans can replenish them. Scientists, who warn that overfishing could destroy the world's fish stock in the next 40 years, are seeking more commercially viable ways to increase fish production.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
One of two women involved in the notorious ''Baby Lollipops'' murder case was at her parents Hialeah home this week after being released from prison earlier this year.
