Ruth Morris

Five years ago, Peter Zalewski was working as a business journalist, but he jumped into real estate before the condo crisis hit and founded Condo Vultures. His provacatively named real estate firm has grown by leaps and bounds, helping buyers to sift through the foreclosure stats and find steals in South Florida’s real estate collapse. Last year, he also appeared in Michael Moore’s

South Florida is becoming a freediving hub, thanks in part to renowned Czech diver Martin Stepanek, who founded Freediving Instructors International in Fort Lauderdale. His partner Niki Roderick– also an accomplished free diver– teaches courses too.

Norberto Jimenez is a low-wage migrant worker who joined the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in their battle against Burger King and the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange.  We sent Ruth Morris into the tomato fields of South Florida to find out more.

When Rev. Jean-Mary Reginald learned about the massive earthquake in Haiti, he reflexively walked to his church– Notre Dame D’Haiti Catholic Church in Little Haiti– and opened the doors.  People began to arrive immediately.  The church, he says, “is the living room” of the Haitian-American community in South Florida.

“Eleven-Eleven” was designed by Herzog & de Meuron, the architectural firm that produced the “Birds Nest” stadium in Beijing, and is also behind the new Miami Art Museum.

Developer Robert Wennett wanted to build a garage that would challenge assumptions about what a garage can be, and he wanted to make money off restaurant and retail leases. But he also wanted to create a public space.

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Miami Herald photographer Patrick Farrell has been traveling to Haiti for years.  In fact, it was has evocative work about the victims of Haiti’s disastrous 2008 storms that won him the Pulitzer Prize.

While I was reporting on the earthquake in Haiti, I was often taken aback by people singing. Walking down the street, a nun stretched her palms to the sky and seemed to be singing a question to the heavens.  And on my last night in Port-au-Prince, I recorded quake survivors singing at 3 a.m., as they danced around a tent camp– no toilets, no air conditioning, little food– singing.

Gracia Desille is 57, a grandmother and a dry cleaner.  After Haiti’s earthquake,  she became one of thousands of Haitian-Americans in South Florida desperately searching for news about their families back home.

“I try try… call. I buy (phone) cards. I buy cards. So many cards…” she told me. “Nobody answers.”

The day after Haiti’s devastating quake I walked into Notre Dame D’Haiti church in Miami to find people singing hymns, their palms turned to the sky, their rosary beads swinging gently.  Some knelt, slouching over the pews in front of them, heads buried– a posture that suggested grief as much as prayer.

Little Haiti seemed to be moving in slow motion as people first grappled with the magnitude of the destruction in their homeland.

We caught up with hip-hop artist Mecca aka Grimo at a recent TPS rally. TPS (Temporary Protected Status) is short-hand for a legal shield that allows immigrants to remain in the United States temporarily, while their home country recovers from natural disaster, or unrest. Haiti has seen plenty of both, but Haitians have never received the protection.

Perhaps more than anyone else, writers understand the need for a safe place to pursue their craft. Unfortunately, in some countries a poem or an essay can lead to persecution, arrest, or worse.  Find out how writers like Russell Banks, Salman Rushdie and