Local News

A crack in a half-century old iron sewer pipe has grown and could keep leaking for up to three weeks while workers struggle to fix it, Miami-Dade County Water and Sewer Director Kevin Lynskey said Friday.

It’s been a tough summer for South Florida beaches, which have faced hot weather, seaweed and high bacteria levels.

Alan Espino didn’t discover his love for hot sauce growing up eating his mother’s Cuban cooking. 

He’s part of a growing number of Miami hot sauce makers cashing in on the popularity of the condiment. Nationally sales have increased by 23 percent over the last five years. In South Florida, hot sauces are infused with ingredients from the diverse range of cultures in the area.

“Growing up, hot sauce was just not a thing; spicy food is just not a thing. At least for the Cuban community, hot sauce is very polarizing,” Espino said.

A film now streaming on Netflix explores the massive steroids scandal that rocked Major League Baseball and its deep roots in Miami.

More than a year and a half after the tragedy in Parkland, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Public Public Safety Commission is still putting together recommendations to increase school security.

This story was updated at 3:48 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 15.

Confusion and disorganization continue to surround 29 charter schools in Broward County, over what plans they have in place for security beyond this first week of school. 

Tony Varona immigrated to the United States from Cuba as a small child. Growing up in Newark, New Jersey, he was the only person in his family who spoke English.

“I was called upon to be the family translator and to be the family representative. Whenever anybody needed to go to the immigration office or the Social Security office, I went with them,” he said. “That experience taught me about advocacy.”

Varona also navigated what he called the 'challenging task' of coming out as gay as a working-class Cuban immigrant in Newark.

Over the weekend, a crack surfaced in a 55-year-old underground sewer pipe in Miami's Oleta River.

The small crack is less than two square inches in diameter and has so far spewed about a half million gallons of raw sewage. But the flow will continue as workers race to install a bypass pipe on the aging line - work they expect to complete by Thursday night.

While less severe than originally suspected when a kayacker discovered the leak Sunday, the spill is drawing attention to a worsening problem across Miami-Dade County: polluted waterways.

Some members of Congress have plans to implement federal security recommendations that have come after the 2018 Parkland school shooting. 

U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, a Broward-Palm Beach Democrat, came to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Public Safety Commission meeting in Sunrise on Wednesday with families of the Parkland shooting victims. 

They took to a podium to talk about what Congress can do to increase school safety nationwide.

Broward County Public Schools students will get some extra lessons in combating hate and embracing diversity this year.

All 234 schools in the Broward district will participate in an educational program called “No Place for Hate” from the Anti-Defamation League, an international group that fights anti-Semitism.

Each school will form a “No Place For Hate” club, participate in a training and hold three school-wide discussions on diversity, bias and inclusion. Also, all members of the school community will sign a resolution promising to respect each other.

Four thousand years ago, rising seas decimated huge swaths of mangroves in Florida Bay.

Today, seas rising at a far greater rate, combined with increasing storms and drought, could lead to another catastrophic loss of mangroves that help keep the state from sliding into the sea, according to a new study published by the U.S. Geological Survey in the journal Nature Communications.