"This time the revolution is for real," declared Fidel Castro after his troops marched into Havana on New Year's Day, but 50 years later about all that is left is a sclerotic regime and a ponderous movie about a T-shirt icon. At four hours, the Steven Soderbergh film "Che" is almost as long as a Fidel speech, and almost as exciting. ...more

March 7, 2009

It's reassuring that local law enforcement appears intent on keeping the lid on gang crime. Last week, some 75 suspected gang members were arrested in a joint operation conducted by the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, Tampa Police Department, Florida Highway Patrol, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Marshal Service. ...more

February 28, 2009

Prescription drugs now kill more Floridians than heroin or cocaine, yet the state does not monitor the prescribing and dispensing of deadly painkillers, such as oxycodone. ...more

January 6, 2009

Carolyn Aviles won't call it an accident. A pickup hit her side of the car as she was pulling into the street from a parking lot. A mishap, she said. That's all. ...more

August 3, 2008

Carolyn Aviles sums up her addicted son's fatal overdose this way: "I blame the doctors. I blame the system. I blame — I should blame him, but I don't. You can't blame a person that is out of control." ...more

August 1, 2008

If you can't beat it, tax it. That seems to be the axiom in New York these days, where Gov. Eliot Spitzer, struggling to close a $4.4 billion budget gap, has proposed making drug dealers pay taxes on their stashes of illegal drugs. The new tax would apply to cocaine, heroin and marijuana, and could be paid with pre-bought "tax stamps" affixed to the bags of dope. ...more

February 18, 2008