The new medical school at Florida International University is still a year away from opening, but that hasn't stopped more than 1,600 students from around the country from applying for the 40 slots in its inaugural class.
CRIME
School bus drivers. Garbage men. Jail officers. In all, 52 of 62 suspects identified Wednesday as part of an illegal OxyContin and healthcare fraud ring had their salaries paid by taxpayers.
The 2008 Beijing Olympics open on Friday, and by now, even the most casual sports fan is probably familiar with the swimming pool dramas of Michael Phelps, aiming to win a record-eight gold medals, and Dara Torres, the 41-year-old Parkland Supermom and five-time Olympian whose goggles are older than the women she beats.
LA VIDA LOCAL
About 300 posers showed up Tuesday morning to chase the dream. Bravo held an open casting call for Season 2 of Make Me a Supermodel at the Doral Golf Resort & Spa. Miami was the fourth spot in the cable channel's nationwide search. Producers have also checked out the beautiful people in New York, Los Angeles and Portland, Ore. (quite a mix).
Every Saturday, Maite Hernandez gets a French manicure and her long hair styled. Twice a month, it's time for a pedicure. And just like clockwork, every third week Hernandez heads to Forever Tan in Miami to replenish her false eyelashes.
Laptop in hand, the men drove down U.S. 1 in Miami, stealing confidential debit and credit card numbers, prosecutors say. It was part of what is believed to be the largest-ever breach of retail network security, reaching from South Florida to California to Eastern Europe.
MIAMI-DADE SCHOOLS
A day after surviving a narrow vote to fire him, Miami-Dade Superintendent Rudy Crew said Tuesday he could decide within weeks whether to quit on his own accord.
AIRLINES
Spirit Airlines tied for the most consumer complaints filed with the Transportation Department in June, while the nation's carriers were on time more often that month compared to a year ago, and overall, customers had fewer gripes about their baggage.
CAMPAIGN 2008 | SHERIFF
Scott Israel, the Democratic front-runner in the Broward sheriff's race, accepted $1,000 in campaign donations from a convicted felon and plans to return the money.
EDUCATION
Broward County parents: Don't put shopping for a school on your back-to-school list. For the first time ever in the district, it could lead to an arrest.
Freddie Mac on Wednesday posted a second-quarter loss that was more than three-times larger than Wall Street expected as a huge number of borrowers with good credit fell behind on their exotic and risky mortgages.
For a second straight meeting, the Federal Reserve has decided to remain on the sidelines and leave interest rates alone. In the opinion of many economists, that stance may prevail not only for the rest of this year but well into 2009.
Wanted: Illegal immigrants with clean records who have ignored court orders to leave the country. Immigration officials are standing by to help you leave the country. No jail. No joke.
EDUCATION
A judge ruled Monday afternoon that voters statewide should have the chance to decide two constitutional amendments that could allow more public school money to be spent on private religious institutions.
THE OLYMPICS
With four days left before the start of the 2008 Summer Games, Chinese officials have not lived up to key promises they made to win the right to host the Olympics, including widening media freedoms, cleaning up their capital city's polluted air and respecting human rights.
COUNTY HALL
When Miami-Dade commissioners return from summer break, they'll be asked to toughen ethics rules in a way that could reshape County Hall dealmaking.
UNWANTED TEACHERS
A massive teacher shortage loomed in Florida around the time Daniel Torres began college, so the Miami-Dade native figured he would easily land a teaching post once he earned his education degree.
ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN, 89
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel Prize-winning Russian author whose books chronicled the horrors of dictator Josef Stalin's slave labor camps, has died of heart failure, his son said Monday. He was 89.
A 40-year-old man on Monday accidentally drove his pickup truck into Biscayne Bay, got out, swam to shore, then watched as his truck sank.
EDUCATION
Financial and performance woes are not unique to Miami-Dade County Schools. Up the road in Broward County, there are also troubling F-graded schools, a lawsuit being contemplated for neglect of one city's schools, an unsettled contract with the district's 17,000 teachers for their raises and crippling state budget cuts.
