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Curfews And COVID-19 In Miami-Dade, Tallahassee Takeover, Miami’s Jewish Film Festival

Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava gives a thumbs up after getting her first dose of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine from Capt. Will Hall, COVID-19 Vaccine Branch Director for the county, Wednesday, March 17, 2021, at the Miami-Dade County Tropical Park COVID-19 vaccination site in Miami.
Wilfredo Lee/AP
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AP
Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava gives a thumbs up after getting her first dose of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine from Capt. Will Hall, COVID-19 Vaccine Branch Director for the county, Wednesday, March 17, 2021, at the Miami-Dade County Tropical Park COVID-19 vaccination site in Miami.

Miami-Dade is lifting it's midnight COVID imposed curfew beginning April 12. Plus, two new bills shift power to regulate businesses from municipalities to the state. And the Miami Jewish Film Festival kicks off next week.

On this Thursday, April 8, episode of Sundial:

Curfews And COVID-19 In Miami-Dade

Miami-Dade County is leading the state in COVID-19 vaccinations, with more than 850,000 people receiving doses as of Thursday.

“We've been assured by the president that everybody who wants a vaccine will be able to get a vaccine,” said Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava. “We were told that we would be able to get additional vaccines, so we have the capacity to deliver over one hundred thousand shots a week, and that's what we need to do to really move forward.”

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Increased vaccines combined with a slowdown of COVID-19 spread has led Levine Cava to lift the midnight curfew on businesses across the county beginning April 12.

“We have good precautions in place across our businesses and hospitalization rates are down, death rates are down and we are moving in the right direction. With the proper protections, we can open up a little bit more,” Levine Cava said.

It’s a welcomed change in policy for restaurants and bars who’ve been forced to send home spring break crowds in the evening. But public health experts have warned that COVID-19 variants are spreading rapidly in Florida, and individuals should not relax their pandemic precautions.

04-08-2021 SUNDIAL SEG A MDC Curfew.mp3

Tallahassee Takeover

Local governments in Florida normally have control over how business works in their communities, such as licensing who can do work on your home to zoning where new businesses can be opened within communities. Two new bills in Tallahassee would strip those powers from municipalities.They’re part of a series of new bills filed this session that move power away from local governments and into the hands of the state.

“I would be very hesitant to talk about this in strictly partisan terms, there’s a lot of local elected Republicans, who feel strongly about this in the opposite way that the people in Tallahassee feel about it. A lot of Republicans are very concerned about this, and they like local government. It's a pretty foundational conservative ideal. They want to hold on to that,” said WLRN reporter Danny Rivero.

His work is part of our series looking at how state leaders have wielded influence over Florida’s local elected officials and voters called Tallahassee Takeover.

04-08-2021 SUNDIAL SEG B State Control.mp3

Miami’s Jewish Film Festival

Growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, Dr. Henry Panion knew the story of the 16th Street Church bombing all too well. Although he was four years old when it happened, the explosion that ended up killing four young girls in 1963 was a seminal point in the battle for civil rights.

Now, more than 50 years later, the longtime musical composer has released a documentary film that tells a different story about the church — about a concert featuring violins that were recovered and restored from the Holocaust.

“Violins of hope are instruments that were recovered from the Holocaust,” said Panion on Sundial. “When the Jewish community in Birmingham thought about presenting these, they thought there might be an opportunity where these two pivotal moments in our history came together.”

DREAMS OF HOPE Trailer | Miami Jewish Film Festival 2021

The documentary film “Dreams of Hope” is part of this year’s Miami Jewish Film Festival beginning next week. The festival will be the largest in its history featuring an array of outdoor, drive-in and virtual screenings. Another film screening at the festival that’s set to have a wide release is “Tango: Shalom”, a comedy about a rabbi who wants to learn the tango. Director Gabriel Bologna explained how the bizarre story was tangentially connected to reality.

“The script was written by the Laniado brothers. Jos and Claudio Laniado. It’s really an autobiographical piece. Jos teaches in a Hasidic school and is obsessed with tango. He and his brother are refugees from Egypt and they ended up in all places, Argentina. And they would hear this incredible tango music, they play it in the streets, ” said Bologna on Sundial.

You can find more of this year’s film festival entries and information here.

04-08-2021 SUNDIAL SEG C Miami Film Fest.mp3

TANGO SHALOM Official Trailer

Chris knew he wanted to work in public radio beginning in middle school, as WHYY played in his car rides to and from school in New Jersey. He’s freelanced for All Things Considered and was a desk associate for CBS Radio News in New York City. Most recently, he was producing for Capital Public Radio’s Insight booking guests, conducting research and leading special projects at Sacramento’s NPR affiliate.
Suria is Sundial's fall 2020 high school intern and a production assistant.