Mi Casa Is Not Tu Casa

Let's get one thing straight: The protesters who gather outside the El Sol Day Labor Center in Jupiter every Saturday morning don't hate immigrants. They hate illegal immigration.

"America was built by immigrants," concedes a man who gives his name only as Bob. He is a former Marine, a self-described patriot, and a commercial diver. "We're opposed to illegals getting paid but then not contributing to Social Security, not paying taxes. They're taking benefits but not contributing to society. It's important to get that fact out."

That's the main... full story»

Moving the port will cost $600 million, take 20 years, and leave broken promises in its wake

It was, like the Euclid Corridor before and the Medical Mart after, the Plan to Save Cleveland: In 2004, the city adopted a grandiose strategy to finally make use of the valuable yet murky shoreline that lies to the north. It was the culmination of a 32-month process, the city boasted, that brought 5,000 people to more than 200 public meetings.

But less than four years later, the plan is clinging to life, gasping for air like a three-eyed walleye on that underutilized shore. There's no West Shoreway boulevard. No lakeside golf course. No picnic tables. The only thing left is a... full story»

Becoming a Renaissance Faire Lady

King Henry VIII was on the throne, working his way through Anne Boleyn on his wife-littered path to notoriety. The village of Scarborough, England, was under siege, not from power-hungry French or Spanish kings but from a virus of unknown origin. Without warning, entire families turned into zombies, gnashing at each other until every household was infected. And Whiskey Grimes, monster hunter in training, was on the front lines of the resistance.

Grunting and groaning like the achy-breaky undead that they were, a family of newly minted zombies staggered toward spry warrior... full story»

Juggalos Band Together at Primos

Two nineteen-year-old girls hold up their T-shirts to show off the matching tattoos on their lower backs. The tats are the logo for Primos, the kerosene-and-tire shop where they've hung out, sometimes for hours at a time, every day since they started high school. "I just showed up for a barbecue one year and never left," Bethany says. "I've never had a big family. It's been nice having this instead."

Bethany and Lindsey are juggalettes, and that means Primos is home.

A couple dozen juggalos and juggalettes — many dressed in red, one in a hooded cape and black... full story»

Hallmark cares enough to send the very best ... jobs to China

Everybody knew what the e-mail meant. It went out last fall to employees of the Production Art Division of Hallmark Cards. It said that manager Lee Burner had scheduled a mandatory meeting for the next day. Somebody from HR would be there.

Production artists were told to report to a conference room in the Rice Center, a section on the south side of Hallmark's Crown Center headquarters. The Rice Center is often the place for fun times at Hallmark, where the company hosts motivational speakers, including Ami James, a tattoo artist from Miami Ink. But the employees figured... full story»

The Shooting of Estefano

Fabio "Estefano" Salgado drove his midnight blue Aston Martin convertible down Biscayne Boulevard, across the Venetian Causeway, through the tollbooth, and into the driveway of his $7.5-million San Marco Island mansion. He passed the 12-foot-tall aluminum gate and entered the white modern two-story home with a commanding view of downtown Miami. Then he removed his shirt and shoes. Wearing only white cotton pants, he padded around the house and checked his e-mail.

Estefano, a trim, handsome man with a curly mop of dark hair, was just two weeks shy of his fortieth birthday. He had... full story»

Like the housing industry, real estate “guru” Mark Bosworth is in crash mode

The widow and the man who cheated her out of hundreds of thousands of dollars come from large Mormon families and lived in the same west Phoenix neighborhood back in the '70s.

Martha Mow, whose maiden name was Judd, is about 13 years older than Mark Bos­worth and didn't know him then. But she remembers babysitting young Berne Fleming, cousin to Alan Davis, a man who would later marry one of Bosworth's sisters.

Fleming and Davis are now the managers of GoRenter.com, a property-management company founded by Bosworth that is the biggest of... full story»

Score!!!

On a recent Saturday morning, a crew of aging former professional soccer players from Latin America huddled around Salvador Lopez, who drilled them on the strategy of how their team, El Farolito, would win the 10:40 game in Golden Gate Park.

Seizing the championship in the Papy Soccer League is always the goal for Lopez, and for three of the last four years, the team named for his Mission taqueria has delivered. But three ties this season had got his rivals gossiping. The league's snarky newsletter had called his lineup "almost-dimmed stars," so Lopez wasn't in the mood for an... full story»

Bad Buzz: King Bee building residents have turned on downtown St. Louis developers Sam Glasser and Dave Jump

Six years ago, downtown developer Sam Glasser introduced Jill Holtrop to the King Bee building, a turn-of-the-century millinery warehouse on the western edge of the Washington Avenue loft district.

Holtrop, a saleswoman who was living in Chesterfield, eyed the King Bee's maple flooring and thick, curvy support columns. Her interest was piqued. "I had never considered living downtown," recalls Holtrop, a 57-year-old woman with finely arched eyebrows and a pouf of blond hair. "I just thought it would be an adventure."

Holtrop and her future husband, Jim, sold their... full story»