Kenny Malone

Thursday was a big day for one of the largest publicly traded companies in South Florida.

Miami-based Carnival Corporation sent back to sea one of its more storied vessels: The Carnival Triumph.

In February an engine fire knocked out the Triumph’s power. No one was injured, but passengers complained of food shortages and a lack of working toilets.

The Miami Dolphins are one step closer to approval of a private-public partnership to renovate Sun Life Stadium after the Florida Senate passed a bill to legitimize a Miami-Dade referendum currently underway. 

Debate about the renovations has produced dozens maybe hundreds of hours of audio and video: Dolphins' press conferences, Miami-Dade County commission meetings, Florida Senate committee hearings, etc.

We're a little over two weeks away from the scheduled Miami-Dade County referendum on proposed upgrades to the Miami Dolphins' Sun Life Stadium.

State lawmakers still need to approve a local hotel tax increase and a Dolphins subsidy that would help pay for the renovations. If that happens, the public will have a chance to officially vote on the upgrades on May 14th. 

Until then, we figured we'd give our audience a different way to express their feelings on the issue:

The Dania Beach Hurricane was the largest wooden roller coaster in Florida. Depending on your definition of "is" and "roller coaster," it might still hold that title. The ride shut down in April 2011, but the monstrous jungle of lumber still looms over I-95. The track is still there. The trains are still there. The Hurricane just doesn't run anymore.

And now the coaster's owners are trying to give the entire thing away to charity. But, no surprise, that's proving difficult. (You can listen to that story above.)

As part of WLRN's Remix the News Challenge: Sun Life Stadium Edition, we're asking people (both expert and amateur) to help us hear what the stadium renovations debate sounds like to them.

ENTER OUR REMIX THE NEWS CONTEST HERE

On January 14th, 2013 the Miami Dolphins announced a controversial plan to completely renovate Sun Life Stadium. The proposed renovations to the 25-year-old facility included expanded seating, a canopy to cover fans and new high-def video screens. The Miami Dolphins promised to privately finance at least half of the cost. The remaining funding would come from a $3 million-per-year tax rebate for the Dolphins and a 1% increase to the Miami-Dade County hotel bed tax.

The squiggly line seemed to show up out of nowhere.

It happened at the Greensboro Coliseum on Sunday, March 17th.

Confetti was falling. Hurricanes were celebrating. The University of Miami had made history by winning the first Atlantic Coast Conference tournament in school history. Jeannine Edwards, an ESPN reporter, was standing by with second-year UM coach Jim Larranaga.

And then, the name graphic.

In our regular What’s Up With South Florida? feature, you decide what we investigate.  You voted overwhelmingly for an explanation of the “Inglish Gratis” sign outside of Hialeah High.  This photo had been circulating virally through email.  It was brought to our attention by  photographer Tomas Loewy.  In Episode 3 of Under the Sun, Kenny Malone set out to solve the mystery of this misspelling. (-T.S.)

Funding for this episode provided by a grant from The Florida Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

All Tuesday night, we listened to South Floridians react to the death of Hugo Chavez. Many (most) of the reactions were celebratory. Those celebrations took the form of songs, drive-by shoutings and apparently an accordion death ballad.

Below is a roundup of the most colorful reactions to the death of Venezuela's oft-beloved and perhaps equally hated leader.

Over the weekend,  more than 250 dogs competed in an American Kennel Club event at Miami-Dade County’s Tropical Park. Anyone in attendance learned that canine athletes are capable of feats humans can only dream of doing and would never dream of doing.

Yesterday was a big day for bars and restaurants in Oakland Park. After a unanimous commission vote last week, the city lifted its law prohibiting the sale of alcohol between 7 a.m. and noon on Sunday mornings.

Oakland Park is the latest in a string of cities (including Fort Lauderdale, Margate and Deerfield Beach) to repeal their so called "blue laws.”

Hooligans Rule!

You can make an argument that Oakland Park’s blue law repeal started with a group of English hooligans who wanted to watch their European soccer matches.

If you had to distill the Sawgrass Mills phenomenon into one image, it would be this: a lieutenant colonel in the Brazilian army weaving through a river of humanity while tugging around a tiny purple piece of carry-on luggage.

About 13 miles west of Fort Lauderdale, on the edge of the Everglades, is a place widely considered Florida’s second-largest tourist destination. It’s not a theme park. It’s not a beach. It’s not the Everglades. It is, according to the owners, the largest collection of outlet and retail value stores in the country.

Richard Blanco will likely be Florida International University's most talked-about graduate today.

The 44-year-old is the youngest, first openly gay and first Hispanic inaugural poet.

Blanco has a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from FIU as well as a Masters of Fine Arts from FIU's creative writing program.

If it seems like Blanco came out of nowhere, author and Virginia Tech professor Ed Falco begs to differ.

"Well FIU, first of all," he said, "has one of the best poetry programs in the country."

For the second time in less than five years, Miami-Dade County is looking to take its zoo to the next level - assuming the next level is possibly a Main Street USA theme park.

The Miami Herald reports that the county invited developers to propose plans for the vacant land surrounding Zoo Miami. "Basically," writes the Herald,"an open-ended plea for bright ideas, conceptual schemes and - this is key - private financing," 

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.

Tuesday morning, Florida's minimum wage jumps 12 cents, from $7.67 to $7.79. Florida Today  reports that since 2004, the state's minimum wage has been constitutionally linked to increases in the cost of living - one of just 10 states with similar wage mandates. 

The Florida Today story explains that the raise will affect a relatively small number of workers:

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.

Florida's war on so-called "pill mill" pain clinics  appears to be pushing the problem into Georgia.

The Wall Street Journal reports that in 2010, there were just 10 pain clinics in the state of Georgia. Today, there are more than 125 clinics  and the state's per capita prescriptions of oxycodone has tripled in the last decade.

Our friends at WUSF in Tampa have been collecting holiday stories and traditions from around the state for a series they call "Florida Holidays." The following was originally posted by WUSF reporter Dalia Colón. It came to her as an email with subject line "That's so Florida." Here's a strange tale from Anna Maria Island  resident Peggy Bode:

Our friends at WUSF in Tampa have been collecting holiday stories and traditions from around the state for a series they call "Florida Holidays." Becky Wanamaker shared this story on WUSF's Facebook page and Scott Finn, WUSF's news director, originally posted this story.

Every December, our family drives to Orlando for a little winter wonderland fun at the Gaylord Palm's ICE! show. We bundle up in those big, heavy blue coats and marvel at the beautiful sculptures that created wonderful Christmas vignettes.

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.

Fifty years ago Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. and Tony Bennett played the Deauville Beach Resort in Miami Beach. Now a handful of college students will have their day at the Deauville.

Editor Dan Grech assigned Assistant Producers Kenny Malone and Trina Sargalski to report a story about getting past the doorman at nightclubs.  With the detachment appropriate to their position, Kenny and Trina arrived at Club Space in downtown Miami ready to report on the velvet rope.

One in five Floridians - about 3.6 million - is receiving food stamp benefits and the number is rising in South Florida, according to new data released by the state..

Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties all saw increased enrollment in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in October.

The Sun Sentinel reports that the trend is particularly troubling for Broward County