Miami Beach was home to the Miss USA competition for over a decade in the Sixties, and pageant owner Donald Trump announced today that the pageant will return next year to our neck of the woods for a three-year run. This time, however, it won't be held on the beach, but rather in the glamorous suburb of Doral.
As about a hundred fans were rooting on the Miami Heat on the deck of Shuckers, Miami's favorite waterside sports bar, when the structure collapsed just before halftime, at around 9:45 p.m. Twenty-four people were injured in the incident. According to NBC Miami, at least 15 have been sent to local hospitals, and so far three are listed in critical condition. 
One person may still be missing.
UPDATE: Rescuers have finished searching the water this morning. Up to 100 people fell into the water in the collapse, which sent 24 to the hospital. Two patients remain in critical condition this morning.
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Around 3 o'clock this morning, a group of friends went for a dip in the ocean off First Street on South Beach, but one member of the group didn't make it back to shore. 
He wasn't seen again until his body washed ashore a few blocks up the beach this morning.
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Tim Tracy, an American filmmaker who spent the last six weeks in a Venezuelan prison cell, has been released and is on his way back to the United States.
Tracy was arrested by Venezuelan intelligence police on April 24 while working on a documentary. Officials accused him of being an American spy and funneling money to student groups who oppose Hugo Chavez's hand-picked successor, Nicolas Maduro. President Barack Obama labelled that idea "ridiculous."
Today, Venezuelan officials gave up the ghost and admitted that there wasn't enough evidence to continue holding the filmmaker.
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Wrongly imprisoned. Reborn behind bars. It's not quite Shawshank Redemption, but when Tony Galeota walked out of a Panama City jail cell May 23, it was still a small serving of justice.
courtesy Josh Weiss Tony Galeota inside filthy La Joya prison in Panama
Galeota is no angelic Andy Dufresne, the main character in Shawshank who serves two decades behind bars for a crime he didn't commit. Instead, Galeota admits he's done bad things, such as running Miami's most infamous strip club, Porky's, for years before moving to Panama and opening a brothel. But when Galeota was arrested June 19, 2011, and charged with trafficking drugs and women, he was just as innocent as Stephen King's saintly inmate.
"Thank God I'm out," he tells New Times in his first interview since his release. "It was a nightmare in there."
See also:
- Tony Galeota: From Running Porky's, Miami's Most Notorious Strip Joint, to Rotting in a Panamanian Jail
- Sex and Drugs in the Champagne Room: The Truth About Porky's and Other Miami Strip Clubs
Miami Heat point guard Mario Chalmers is known for his steals. Thanks to quick hands and crafty defense, he was near the top of the league with 118 on the court this year. Chalmers' dad, meanwhile, excelled at a very different kind of theft, at least according to a local sports agent. David Sugarman has sued Ronnie Chalmers in Miami-Dade County Circuit Court and accused him of lifting confidential, proprietary information from Sugarman's agency so he could poach his clients.
photo by Keith Allison via Wikimedia Commons
"We know documents were taken from the office because we have video evidence," Darren Heitner, Sugarman's attorney, tells Riptide.
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Myster Holliman will attempt to break the world record for longest trip taken by skateboard by rolling his way from Seattle all the way to right here in Miami Beach. Holliman, 22, will start his trek on June 1st and hopes to complete his trek within 8 or 9 months.
In one of the most shocking twists to occur in Miami-Dade County over the past several Memorial Day weekends, nothing absolutely bat-shit insane occurred to forced locals to question the decency of the human species and the meaning of life itself. 
After the 2011 Memorial Day Weekend during which police attempted to pump 116 rounds into a man in the middle of a busy street for reasons still under debate and a 2012 incident that involved a man actually eating the face off another man in broad daylight, locals had grown accustomed to the fact that the three-day holiday weekend would mean the literal manifestation of Hell on Earth in the county's urban core. However, Miamians were left stunned that nothing excruciatingly horrible went down this time.
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The Simpson family was officially banned from Florida after Homer accidentally killing a famous alligator named Captain Jack in an 11th season episode, but apparently someone in Tallahassee lifted the ban because the Simpsons are officially moving to Florida. And they're bringing the entire town of Springfield with them.
In January, Keskea Hernandez was whisked from her cell at the Federal Detention Center downtown to Larkin hospital in South Miami. The pretty 42-year-old real estate agent had pleaded guilty to mortgage fraud a year earlier. Ever since her incarceration, however, her health had been in free fall. She was weak, vomiting blood, had difficulty walking, and had lost a third of her body weight.
Courtesy of the Hernandez family Keskea Hernandez died in prison after officials denied her request for a compassionate release
Hernandez begged prosecutors, judges, wardens, and doctors for a "compassionate release" so she could recover at home with her teenage daughter. Instead, her handwritten letters were ignored. She died alone, shackled to a hospital bed, on January 9.
When we wrote about Hernandez's case in February, prison officials didn't even return our calls. But they are paying attention to the issue now, thanks to a new federal report that slams institutions like the FDC for "ad hoc decision making that has likely resulted in eligible inmates not being considered for release and terminally ill inmates dying before their requests were decided."
See also:
- Keskea Hernandez: Death in the Federal Penitentiary
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