News

When devastation on the scale of what we are seeing in Oklahoma City hits, the whole world feels the pain.

Especially in Miami, where we have had our city leveled and destroyed at various times in our history, notably Hurricane Andrew in August of 1992, which we recently revisited in a radio documentary.

Like many young professionals, 30-year-old Chad Scott had second thoughts about his job.

He was a CPA with accounting giant Ernest & Young for more than six years before becoming an internal auditor with Miami-based Burger King International. But something was missing.

"I wanted a life I could live without anxiety," said the Pembroke Pines native, recalling all the times he was chained to a desk during tax season and wouldn't see the sun for days.

Gov. Rick Scott on Monday signed a $74.1 billion budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1 and vetoed $368 million in projects.

Scott vetoed 3 percent tuition increases for universities and state colleges and also rejected numerous spending proposals, including $14 million sought by Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, for a project at Gulf Coast State College in Panama City.

In a budget message, Scott touted that the spending plan includes $480 million to raise teacher pay.

Did you know that if you dig deep enough into the property records of any piece of real estate in the state of Florida you will find that all the land originally belonged to the Spanish Crown?

But ever since the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1821, land ownership has been like a hot potato, changing hands incessantly.  Indeed, taking a deep look into any one piece of property (likely where you live, included) will reveal a surreal story for the ages.

Earlier this spring, a typical school day turned into something a lot more memorable for one student at Dr. Michael M. Krop Senior High School near Aventura.

It’s April. Natalie Hoberman was sitting in her advanced placement government class.

“It was one of my hardest classes," she said.

In their first fully fleshed-out presentations on Tuesday, the developers competing to redevelop the Miami Beach Convention Center area described a vibrant new urban district of interconnected green spaces and cultural opportunities anchored by cutting-edge designs — even as they crossed swords over which plan would yield more benefits to the city at a better cost.

In a wide-ranging interview back in February, Florida Power & Light President Eric Silagy addressed a number of issues facing the state's largest utility.

The responses prompted a slew of feedback on topics ranging from storm preparedness and climate change to renewable energy sources.

Nuclear Power

Mary Jane Saunders has quit.

The president of Florida Atlantic University says bad publicity splashed across national headlines was too much.

Next month would have been Saunders’ three-year anniversary as president.

While the university is showcasing her string of accomplishments, there was no way to get around a spate of missteps in recent months.

If the city of Santa Clara has its way, the International Swimming Hall of Fame in Fort Lauderdale may move to California.

That's right, Santa Clara, the city that just built a new stadium for the San Francisco 49ers and is neck-n-neck with South Florida in a bid for Super Bowl L.

Santa Clara says it plans to raise $2 million for an endowment to support the swimming hall as well as $10 million to move it to the West Coast.

The hall has also received inquiries from England and China.

The roseate spoonbill -- often mistaken by confused tourists for the non-native flamingo -- is one of Florida's great iconic species. Dubbed "one of the most breathtaking of the world's weirdest birds" by naturalist Roger Tory Peterson, the gangly creatures are an increasingly rare sight in South Florida. 

According to a feature in the May-June issue of Audubon Magazine, spoonbills have been vacating South Florida in droves, heading north to more hospitable (read: often less developed) lands.

Journalist Tim Padgett spent nearly a quarter of a century covering Latin America and the Caribbean for TIME and Newsweek magazines.

But he's always been envious of the way foreign correspondents deliver the news for NPR.

"They're giving listeners a richer sense of the sounds and the colors than perhaps I'm able to do as a print reporter," he says.