Hello from South Dade Landfill, where $millions in brand-new medical ventilators were dumped & destroyed.... infuriating some who know the need for the most serious #covid19 patients.
It’s here On video (*salty language alert*). Also, threading what we’ve learned
@WPLGLocal10⏩ 2/ The stamp on the crate shows the ventilator manufacturer is a 35yr old company in Beijing: Aerospace Changfeng Ltd.
The shipment likely came through US Customs last May.
@WPLGLocal10

#Florida Cong. Matt Gaetz is now tied to shill candidate in a state senate election. This thread shows how *that* ghost candidate is directly connected to two So Fla shills we busted last Nov.
It’s in the money trail that led to Frank Artiles arrest.
Here we go:
@WPLGLocal10 The three shill candidates planted in three #Florida state senate races last November are:
Celso Alfonso (in D39 #MiamiDade), Alex Rodriguez (in D37 #Miami Dade), Jestine Iannotti (D9 Central FL - no pic) ....

@WPLGLocal10

🚨🚨Coming for arrest right now🚨🚨
Ex-#Florida Sen. Frank Artiles (in lawyer’s car) for planting & funding a fake candidate, manipulating Nov2020 elections
*illegal campaign $$$
*conspiring to do it
*False swearing-in
First stop: #Miami Dade Co. jail
More coming @WPLGLocal10 His car drive right past the jail entrance when he saw our camera. But eventually, they had to U-turn and come back.
Here’s the seriously quick right through @WPLGLocal10 :
local10.com/news/politics/…

We heard the shots, a dozen or so .. right here on Biscayne Boulevard .. dozens of police already here investigating an earlier shooting near Bayside ran toward the gun fire…
1/
@WPLGLocal10 Shot in the leg ... we are now seeing two people detained, possibly a third. Biscayne is closed between NE 1st & 2nd Streets

@WPLGLocal10

(Thread) We are waking up to the sad news that Don Ryce has passed - the man whose life in is defined in South #Florida by an unrelenting push for justice for his son Jimmy’s abduction & murder. It took 19 years from that 1995 crime to his killer’s execution in 2014 ...

1/ ... one of the first cases I covered from its beginning to its end, including as a witness to the execution.
I wrote this personal look-back the night before. I hope you will take the time to read it, now as a tribute to Don Ryce.
I hope he is resting In peace.

2/

🚨We have some answers on the #Florida Vote By Mail ballot that boomeranged for 7 weeks through the US mail, from a North Carolina post office to a #MiamiBeach home, and ultimately cost a resident her votes.

The headline: human error.
This thread has the rest:

@WPLGLocal10 1/ 2/ “I was furious my ballot wasn’t counted”
Laura Quinlan mailed from NC 3wks before the Aug #Florida primary. It landed at her home Tuesday “returned to sender” & “insufficient address”, tho clearly it’s the preprinted envelope destined for #Miami Dade Elections HQ
@WPLGLocal10

1st full #Miami Dade School Board meeting since virtual school meltdown- now 3hrs into parent & teacher comments.
A sample: “disaster”, “injustice”, “useless platform”, “malfeasance” & “show cause why board should not be on unpaid leave along with superintendent “
@WPLGLocal10
1/ 2/ Meeting started, as usual, at 1pm. A budget hearing is scheduled at 6pm. Six items added late to the agenda are meant to figure out what went wrong & fix the disaster.
Question: Will any of it get done today?

We took it to the top-
the case of the bullsdozed #Miami home that outraged the community.
Turns out, Mike Hamilton’s family home had been going through Miami’s unsafe structures process >1yr - but his cousin/owner, who lives out of town, never responded..
1/
@WPLGLocal10
⏩ 2/ Here are the more-than-a-year’s worth of notices posted by the City of #Miami on the house with no power, no water, damaged by fire, with broken windows & doors ...

@WPLGLocal10

🚨Chaotic scene in Brickell/1 Ave @ SE 8-10 sts...
accident at a building construction site involving several workers and “collapsing rebar”
Steer clear .. stay tuned
@WPLGLocal10 More.... Significant injuries here, just learning -a bundle of rebar being hoisted somehow fell on 6 workers...
Two of them were impaled… All at trauma center now…
(pic of rebar looks like👇🏼)

@WPLGLocal10

The big focus of the state’s #covid19 plan has always been to protect seniors who live in elder care, the most vulnerable.
So how did a new Covid-only Isolation Center come to open in a wing at the residential Tamarac Rehabilitation & Health Center?
⏩
@WPLGLocal10 1/ 2/
Here are the locations of the 19 Covid Isolation Centers around the state. The Tamarac facility was added to the map today.

@WPLGLocal10

Takeaways from @JacksonHealth CEO Carlos Migoya to #Miami Dade Commish cmte:
“Can we stay 3-5 mo’s? Yes, but challenge is, can we long term?”
Can handle 50% #covid19 patients with no census change, eliminating elective surgeries, using offsite recovery facilities
@WPLGLocal10
1/ 2/ urges ..(demands) public responsibility:
“Some say shut down? That is not answer... We shut down for 8 weeks & the moment we opened, everyone went out w/o masks (etc) & that’s where we are today. We have a behavioral issue. People are not complying...”

Blowback underway on this first day of indoor restaurant #covid19 re-closures in #Miami Dade.
Following this wrap from our newscast👇🏼, a thread of the demands for data & pleas for @MayorGimenez to rethink the order...
@WPLGLocal10 1/ ⏩ 2/ The @doralchamber started this in-line petition to rescind the #Miami Dade indoor restaurant closure.
Find it here: bit.ly/323By8C
@WPLGLocal10

🚨More than a dozen Miami-Dade cities just announced a “mask in public” rule ...
(Announced by #Miami mayor, who is battling public outcry at social media photos of him out in restaurants that were violating mask & distancing rules)
@WPLGLocal10 More than 1/2 the population of #Miami Dade Co. live in its 34 cities, under mandatory mask-wearing in public as of today.

@WPLGLocal10

WATCH LIVE NOW: @GovRonDeSantis coronavirus news conference at @FIU
⏩local10.com/news/local/202…
@WPLGLocal10 2/ New trend: Median age of positive #covid19 cases is going down. Median age from today’s results:
#Broward 33yo & #MiamiDade 41yo
Per @GovRonDeSantis 62% of positives today are <45yo , expects that trend to continue. Many of those testing positive are asymptomatic
@WPLGLocal10

Me to @WPLGLocal10 :
“Our assignment? Covering the reopening of #MiamiBeach today?
Twist my arm...”
🏝⛱🌞🌴🌊
#miamibeach #florida #covid19 #mask #socialdistancing #happyplace 2/ ... threading the new rules for your #Miami Dade #MiamiBeach Back to the Beach convenience: The most obvious involve masks and social distancing.. Here they are 👇🏼
@WPLGLocal10 🌴⛱😷🌊

Rolling out!
The Compassion Caravan is a different sort of protest... part #Black #Miami history lesson, part field trip, all-in protest against injustice ... (with social distancing)
@WPLGLocal10 #MIAMIPROTEST #sunday 2/
This is the route👇🏼for the Compassion Caravan protestors.
Some on this journey live within just a few miles of these historic neighborhoods, tho are seeing & learning about them first-hand for the first time today.

@WPLGLocal10 #MiamiProtest #Sunday

🚨Confirmed : US Bureau of Prisons Riot Squad checked into The Grand in #Miami.
County brass says they “told them to go home”
@WPLGLocal10 #MiamiProtest 2/ #MiamiDade Mayor told the commish there was no federal law enforcement in #Miami ... said news reports were wrong. Request is in about whether / why he was not briefed by Trump administraton prior to Riot Squad’s arrival ⏩
@WPLGLocal10 #MIAMIPROTEST

#MiamiBeach is officially open for business, still in a limited way, with #COVID19 rules & regs in place.
Live from Lincoln Road
⏩
@WPLGLocal10 #MiamiBeach has split Phase1 reopening:
1A (today 5/20) Museums, Retail, Offices, Salons
1B (Wed 5/27) Restaurants
Each comes with a long list of #COVID19 rules and mandates for businesses & customers.
Read it all here:
miamibeachfl.gov/reopening/

@WPLGLocal10

Just had an extended convo with Jonathan Satter, who took over the #Florida unemployment process 10 days ago, about what is (and is not) happening for countless people out of jobs and out of income - trying to file ...
This thread is some of what we spoke about:
@WPLGLocal10 1/ The reason the system was taken off-line over the weekend? Not for a “fix“, but to use all its capacity/speed for payments.
(From Fri-Mon, % of payments doubled).
That’s why the site is now “open” 8am-8pm. From 8p-8a, they process applications & payments with 100% capacity
2/

Cots where cows would have been:
Your first look👇🏼at the 252-bed field hospital in the livestock tent where @miamiyouthfair would’ve been today.
State contractors built it in a week for #Miami Dade Co. as a just-in-case option ...

@WPLGLocal10 #COVID19 #coronavirus #florida
1/ 2/ The field hospital can be functional with 2 days heads-up. They’ll bring medical equipment, doctors & nurses already hired & on standby (not local).
All in food service from a mobile kitchen, a laundry, living space for staff on site ...

#Miami Dade County is preparing to be one of the first to do scientific “surveillance”, a field study, to get a clear picture of where #COVID19 exposure is located in the county.
Threading here details from a convo with @MayorGimenez
@WPLGLocal10 #coronavirus
1/ 2/ #MiamiDade is expecting a shipment of 10,000 blood test kits from an American company in China. They are currently in Charlotte, NC - due to arrive in the next day or two.