Tagged: Miami

Jury selection began Wednesday in the trial of two South Florida imams accused of financially supporting the Taliban.

Hafiz Khan, 77, and his 26-year-old son, Izhar Khan, are charged with funneling $50,000 to the Taliban in Pakistan.

Both men are U.S. citizens born in Pakistan. Hafiz headed the Flagler Mosque in Miami. His son oversaw the Masjid Jamaat Al-Mumineen mosque in Margate.

Editor's note: We've been re-airing some of our favorite stories of 2012. This one is from November.  

In my 22 years living in South Florida, if there's one establishment I can't enough of--it's Tobacco Road.

Just a few miles away from downtown Miami lies a natural beach in the city’s largest park.

The 82-acre Virginia Key Beach Park remains a bit of a hidden gem. The historic beach still attracts those looking for a quiet place to relax despite one drawback.

In season, about 2,000 people visit Virginia Key Beach Park every weekend even though swimming isn’t permitted.

“It’s a disadvantage - one we’re overcoming," said Guy Forchion, head of the Virginia Key Beach Park Trust.

South Florida lost a number of notable figures in 2012.

Bee Gees singer and former Miami resident Robin Gibb died at 62 after a battle with cancer.

Tony Goldman, the developer credited with turning South Beach and Wynwood into thriving destinations, died at 68 from heart failure.

Once upon a time, snow fell in Miami.

Seems whenever the weather gets even moderately cold, someone somewhere in South Florida invokes Jan. 19, 1977 -- the day it snowed in Miami.

Not only did the snow make front page news in The Miami Herald, the front page about snow made The Miami Herald Front Pages book. 

Arnold Markowitz wrote the day's story, the beginning of which reads as follows:

Snow fell Wednesday on Miami.

This is the sad story of a very tall tree.

"This one right here," says Patrick Griffith, slapping his hand on a rough, grayish trunk, "coccothrinax barbadensis."

Griffith is executive director at the Montgomery Botanical Center, a 120-acre horticultural haven less than two miles from the more famous – yet 50 percent smaller – Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden.

"Gaping holes" in Florida's absentee voting process have undermined public faith in election outcomes, according to the Miami-Dade County grand jury in its concluding report. The grand jury also concluded those holes need to be plugged immediately.

At the top of the list of the grand jury's 23 urgent recommendations:

More than a quarter of a century after Tom Wolfe's novel The Bonfire of the Vanities looked at race relations, class divisions, greed and ambition in New York City, the influential writer has shifted his focus to the Magic City.

On his recent trip to Miami, Wolfe sat down to chat with WLRN-Miami Herald News features editor Alicia Zuckerman about his new novel, Back to Blood.