Ashley Lopez

The Tampa Bay Times chatted with David Plouffe, President Obama's Senior advisor, recently. While polls show the president is struggling right now, Plouffe tells the Times that he's confident Obama will make gains in Florida-- particularly among Miami Hispanics.

A parking garage in Doral collapsed yesterday killing 3 construction workers, and severely injuring others.

Looking back at a history of construction accidents in the past six years, you will see that from 2006 to 2008, the region was seeing quite a bit of crane accidents, and other common construction accidents.

Jump to 2009... 2010.... 2011, it's gets a lot harder to find some.

So what happened?

BuzzFeed has an interesting article on their site today. It's takes a look into what it's like to be a Child Protective Services Investigator in Florida.

This person is tasked with investigating calls to Child Protective Services suggesting a child might be in danger within their living situation.

As you might guess, this job gives one a lot of exposure to drugs, drug-using parents, abuse, etc. 

Our buddies over at WUSF caught a small faux pas made by Gov. Rick Scott today.

According to WUSF,

Historically, Cubans have been among the wealthiest Americans of Hispanic origin. However, according to a report from the Pew Hispanic Center, that's not true anymore.

According to a Pew report, Ecuadorians, Colombians, Peruvians and Salvadorans, all make more money than Cubans.

Ecuadorians have the highest median household income among these groups, at $50,000. The median household incomes for Colombians ($49,500) and Peruvians ($48,000) are slightly less than that.

Florida's Attorney General, Pam Bondi, says she's not backing the state GOP's effort to oust three state Supreme Court Justices.

The Florida GOP is currently endorsing a conservative effort to remove Justices Fred Lewis, Barbara Pariente and Peggy Quince from the Florida Supreme Court. All three are considered by conservatives to be the most liberal members of the Court-- and they are up for a merit retention vote this year. This means Floridians will vote on whether these judges get to keep their job at the state's highest court.

Anyone in Florida who has already gotten their absentee ballot for this year's presidential election will notice that there are a lot - A LOT - of ballot measures.

According to The Washington Post, voters all over the country will be voting on almost 200 ballot measures.

One of the ugliest primary races in the state is going on here in South Florida.

Gus Barreiro and Alex De la Portilla, both former Republican state lawmakers, are battling it out for a Florida House seat in Miami.

Their race has become a messy fight with a series of slurs against each man’s moral character.

They also have quite a bit in common.

Both men come from political families, as well as a past as state lawmakers in the Florida Legislature. 

Monroe County, and four other Florida counties,  have begun early voting for the August 14th primary. All five are protected by the 1965 Voting Rights Act. This means that any new voting law there must be cleared by the federal government.

Last year, state lawmakers passed a law reducing the number of early voting days.

“Until this year, the state has refrained from implementing those changes statewide until it had pre-clearance to do so in the five covered counties,” explains Michael Masinter, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University.

Last week, WLRN premiered part of its “Remembering Andrew” radio documentary Thursday to an audience at Miami Science Museum.

Bryan Norcross was an invited guest.  Norcross, of course, became famous for his ongoing coverage of and guidance during the storm.

During a panel discussion following the airing of the first part of the special, Norcross talked about his memories of the people he talked to during the storm and the region’s struggles afterward.

Tuesday’s race for Miami-Dade County Mayor ended on odd terms.

Even though Mayor Carlos Gimenez won by a significant margin, his challenger refused to concede.

Mayor Gimenez’s campaign spent hours at the Doubletree hotel near the airport waiting for his opponent to throw in the towel-- but that never happened.

It stands to reason that an ethics scandal should put a damper on a political campaign.

But in South Florida, that isn’t quite the case. 

U.S. Representative David Rivera has been investigated by local and state officials for various ethics violations, but that hasn't put the kibosh on his bid for re-election. 

The Miami congressman is also under federal investigation for allegations that he misspent campaign funds.

Terence Cantarella, the man behind WLRN’s Canoe Project, crossed multiple lanes of traffic yesterday– and Jose Iglesias of El Nuevo Herald got it all on video.

Listen to Terence Cantarella talk about what it is like to be canoeing through some of Miami’s canals by himself while also looking at some of the images he posted on Twitter earlier today.

Considering the amount of time we here at WLRN Miami Herald News have been talking about canals recently, due to our immersion into the Canoe Project, Arnold Markowitz, a listener, offered to us some information about an interesting characteristic of Miami canals: they have some pretty great fishing!

WLRN Miami Herald News reporter, Trina Sargalski, recently chatted with Arnold Markowitz, a local fishing expert here in Miami, about why he loves fishing in Miami’s canals.

Jose Iglesias of El Nuevo Herald has put together some great videos featuring Terence Cantarella, the man behind the Canoe Project.

In these videos Terence shows us his route on a map, what he packed for his trip and how he gets around dams.

Watch below: