Condo Collapse, Fired Police Chief, Bitcoin: Top Miami 2021 News

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MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, FL – With the New Year on the way, here are some of Southeast Florida’s top titles starting in 2021.

Surfside condo collapse kills 98 people

The Champlain Towers South condo building in Surfside made international headlines when it collapsed on June 24, killing 98 people. It is the third biggest construction failure in the history of the United States.

Find out what’s happening in Miami with free, real-time updates from Patch.

For weeks, rescuers and rescuers searched the rubble for victims.

There are still questions about the future of the site, which has been approved for sale. Victims and their families will receive compensation of at least $ 150 million, a judge said.

Find out what’s happening in Miami with free, real-time updates from Patch.

The collapse of the condo tower also called into question the safety of aging residential buildings in South Florida.

Miami Police Chief Art Acevedo Sacked After 6 Months

After six months of hard work, city commissioners unanimously voted to fire Miami Police Chief Art Acevedo in October. The former Houston Police Chief has been hired to replace retired former Miami Chief Jorge Colina.

During his brief stay in the city, he was embroiled in multiple controversies, including insulting someone in public, hinting in an interview that Miami police would be forced to be vaccinated against COVID-19. and joking that the city was run by “Cuban mafia.”

City manager Art Noriega also said he asked Acevedo to create a comprehensive police plan for the city, which the chief failed to do.

2am alcohol ban backed by Miami Beach voters

Voters in Miami Beach have shown their support for a last city-wide booze call, according to unofficial results of a straw poll of the 2021 ballot in November.

The non-binding referendum calls for increasing the cut-off time for alcohol sales from 5 a.m. to 2 a.m. every day, effectively closing local bars and clubs a few hours earlier.

A majority of voters – 7,301 residents – voted in favor of the time change, while 5,616 voted against, according to the Miami-Dade County Election Supervisor’s Office.

Wrong number leads to 20-year friendship, callers finally meet

Twenty years ago, poorly-dialed phone calls turned into an unlikely friendship between a South Florida woman, now great-grandmother, and a Rhode Island man in his mid-twenties who was then now his own family.

They spoke regularly for two decades thanks to those bad calls, but they never got a chance to meet in person – until last week when Mike Moffitt, 46, surprised Gladys Hankerson, 80. , at her Delray Beach home the night before Thanksgiving. .

Their appeals began in 2001, when one of Hankerson’s sons died of cancer. She was trying to reach her sister in Maryland to share the sad news with her when she accidentally called Moffitt, who lives in South Kingstown, about half an hour south of Providence.

Baby with COVID-19 antibodies born to vaccinated mother in South Florida

In March, a pregnant healthcare worker in Boca Raton who received the COVID-19 vaccine passed antibodies to the virus to her newborn baby.

Two Palm Beach County pediatricians, Dr Paul Gilbert and Dr Chad Rudnick, believe the baby girl is the first child born with the antibodies after a mother is vaccinated.

The mother received her first dose of Moderna COVID-19 vaccine when she was 36 weeks pregnant. Three weeks later her daughter was born

Missing woman rescued from storm sewer twice in 2021

A Delray Beach woman was found naked and stranded in a storm sewer in March after being reported missing almost three weeks ago. She told authorities that she got lost while walking through the sewers.

An individual passing by the storm drain, located near the intersection of West Atlantic Avenue and SW 11th Avenue, called 911 when he heard the woman screaming, shared Delray Beach Fire Rescue on Facebook.

At the end of May, she was rescued from a storm sewer a second time, this time in Texas, where she was staying in a drug rehabilitation center.

While looking for her, the police saw her near a stream not far from her drug rehabilitation center, and she went down into a storm sewer as she approached her.

South Florida leaders ban local COVID restrictions by governor

After Governor Ron DeSantis signed an executive order suspending local emergency orders and restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic in early May, leaders in South Florida – which has been hardest hit by the virus – have slammed the measure, which took effect immediately.

Miami-Dade County Mayor Danielle Levine Cava condemned the order in a statement, saying, “I am deeply concerned about this decision. We are still in a public health emergency and our economy has not turned down. completely recovered from the crisis.

Miami mayor Suarez is easily re-elected

Miami mayor Francis Suarez easily defeated his opponents to be re-elected on November 2.

Suarez got nearly 79% of the vote, beating his four challengers, according to the supervisor of the Miami-Dade County Election Office.

“You are my bosses, and guess what? The magic is back,” Suarez said during a speech to supporters on election night. “Today we begin a new chapter, a journey together to complete what we started to create the most… successful city in our country, to create the model that can be turned into an agenda for America, bringing prosperity and peace not only to Miami, but to this entire nation. “

Miami baseball player third American to win summer and winter Olympic medals

Although the United States lost 2-0 to Japan in the men’s baseball game for the Tokyo Summer Olympics in August, Miami baseball player Eddy Alvarez entered the history by winning a medal at the Summer and Winter Olympics.

After winning the silver medal on Saturday, he is now only the third American athlete to accomplish the feat of winning medals at the Winter and Summer Games.

Alvarez was also an Olympic speed skater who won a silver medal in the 5,000-meter relay at the 2014 Sochi Winter Games.

Al Capone’s South FL home toppled, sold for $ 15.5 million

The former Miami Beach mansion of late gangster Al Capone was saved from demolition in October when its new owners toppled the house for a profit of $ 5 million.

The Chicago gangster bought the 7,500 square foot Palm Island home in 1928 for $ 40,000. He died in the house in 1947 of a heart attack.

In late August, developer Todd Michael Glaser and his business partner, Nelson Gonzalez, bought the estate for $ 10.75 million.

MiamiCoin ‘Bitcoin Yield’ will be handed over to city residents

Miami Mayor Francis X. Suarez has long touted cryptocurrency, even pledging to become the first elected official in America to accept his salary in bitcoin. Now he plans to create digital wallets for everyone in the city and give them their own bitcoin.

Speaking with Coin Base TV, Suarez said Miami has earned more than $ 21 million on its new MiamiCoin since its launch in August.

Smashed Mushroom Shooter Kills South Beach Diner

A young father visiting Colorado in August was randomly gunned down while dining with his family in the outdoor section of a South Beach cafe.

Filming took place at La Cerveceria de Barrio on Ocean Drive near 14th Street. The victim, later identified as 21-year-old Dustin Wakefield on social media by a parent, was eating with his wife and child when the shooting took place.

Witnesses said the gunman opened fire in the cafe, shooting Wakefield several times, then danced over his body.

Newly adopted dog lost near Everglades, found 9 days later

After going missing near the Everglades on April 20, a newly adopted dog was found alive a few weeks later after wandering the swampy area alone for nine days.

Theo, a brown and white mixed-breed dog, went missing after a transport van bringing him to his new family in Alpha, New Jersey, crashed into US 27 between Miami and Belle Glade.

The NJ family found the puppy abandoned in Homestead on April 14 while on vacation there. Ashley Tirado, who adopted Theo, said he was walking alone, walking along a road next to a farm, not far from their Airbnb rental.

Overtown Hope Mural Celebrates Black Culture at TECO Property

With the completion of the new Overtown mural, a 1,200-foot-long piece celebrating the black community, in May, the artwork immediately won the title of Miami’s longest mural.

The Overtown Hope Mural has even surpassed Wynwood’s infamous public art projects.

Painted on TECO Energy’s property in the 60 NW 17th Street neighborhood, the project was carried out by the Moving Lives of Kids Community Mural Project (MLK), an arts organization that focuses on youth development and education.

South Florida teacher who sued for ivermectin dies of COVID-19

A Palm Beach County kindergarten teacher at the center of a legal battle to treat her aggravating symptoms of COVID-19 with ivermectin, a drug not proven to treat the virus, has died.

Tamara Drock, 47, from Loxahatchee died in November, 12 weeks after being admitted to the intensive care unit at Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center.

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