miami-dade

After a month of online voting for the United Way of Miami-Dade's first Inspire305 grant competition, two local nonprofits won a combined $35,000 Thursday night to jumpstart learning opportunities for communities of color and bring music to ailing or aging Miami residents. 

And, in a last-minute twist, at the ceremony for the announcement a donor decided to add $5,000 to each of the prizes.  

The annual Miami-Dade Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade will go on, despite calls from some in the community to cancel it after last year’s parade festivities ended in gunfire.

The parade’s organizers say it will be a day of family fun and the community should not be concerned.

“We are not going to let it fall apart because someone wants to destroy it,” said Gigi Tinsley, one of the event's organizers, referring to the shootings last year. 

In a sign of the challenges facing brick-and-mortar retail, Macy’s announced Thursday morning that its downtown Miami store will close.

The downtown Macy’s, at 22 East Flagler Street, is one of 11 stores around the nation that the department store giant said would be getting the ax. The others are in California, Indiana, Idaho, Michigan, Ohio and Vermont. In Florida, the Macy’s story in Oaks Mall in Gainesville will also be closed.

Miami’s yearlong sizzling temperatures were enough to beat a chilly end to 2017, tying the record for the hottest year on the books.

Democratic state Sen. Annette Taddeo was one of the first to call for the resignation of Sen. Jack Latvala. We spoke to her about the upcoming legislative session and the air of discomfort around the capital over numerous claims of sexual harassment. She also told us she was once the victim of sexual harassment when she was younger. 

This fall, a Miami man was trashing the U.S. government and its anti-terrorist actions around the world while a confidential informant listened to his every word.

Vicente A. Solano told the informant that he wanted to carry out a terrorist attack at a crowded Miami-Dade mall on Black Friday, the big Christmas shopping day after Thanksgiving, according to federal authorities. The informant said he could introduce Solano to someone who could assist him but he needed proof that his intentions were for real.

Earlier this year, Octavia Yearwood was talking with her good friend Najja Moon about how hard it is to meet other lesbian women in South Florida.

“I was sitting on a stool, she was sitting on a swing chair and we were like,  'Yo, for real, where are all the lesbians in Miami?' "

Moon didn’t quite have the answer, but she wanted to explore how to make those connections. Together, the women launched Lunchbox Miami, a monthly meet-up for lesbian, bisexual and queer women.