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Miami Herald
13-06-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
World Cup Boat Party Canceled After DHS, Coast Guard Operation
A floating soccer World Cup party attended by the mayor of Miami-Dade County and FIFA officials was canceled after a federal immigration agent joined a Coast Guard inspection of the boat in Miami's Biscayne Bay on Wednesday night. Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, a Democrat, told Newsweek that the party "had to be abruptly canceled due to a joint operation with Homeland Security and the Coast Guard," adding that the incident was "deeply troubling" and something that "should not have happened." A Coast Guard spokesperson told the Miami Herald that a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent was part of the team that boarded the vessel, the Barefoot Princess, but said it was a routine inspection and "not a targeted immigration thing." However, some attendees reported that crew members on the vessel had been asked for identification and proof of their immigration status. Newsweek has contacted the Department of Homeland Security, the Coast Guard and FIFA for comment via email. Miami is among the 16 cities across the U.S, Canada and Mexico that will be hosting the soccer World Cup from June 11 to July 19 next year. Wednesday's incident adds to concerns about how safe fans will feel traveling to the city for the tournament amid President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown. Miami-Dade County is investing at least $40 million into the tournament, with leaders hopeful that a surge in tourism will justify the cost. The party was hosted by Telemundo to celebrate the 2026 World Cup being a year away. A spokesperson for Telemundo confirmed to Newsweek that it canceled its "One Year to Go" event after "delays caused by a routine Coast Guard inspection." Levine Cava said she was not made aware of the operation beforehand, and that she was informed by organizers that the event was being canceled. The incident was first reported on social media by Thomas Kennedy, of the Florida Immigrant Coalition. Kennedy told Newsweek that several attendees had told him that staff on the boat had been asked by agents to show identification and proof of their immigration status. Lt. Nicolina Converso, a spokesperson for the Coast Guard's Seventh District, told the Herald that no action was taken from the inspection aside from citations for safety violations against the vessel. Coast Guard spokesperson Chief Petty Officer Nicole Groll told the newspaper that it was standard procedure for the Coast Guard to run background checks on the crew operating a commercial vessel and ask for identification from all crew members. Asked if crew members were asked about their citizenship, Groll said she "can't say which words were said" but added that "this was not a targeted immigration thing." Groll said the inspection "had nothing to do with the event that was happening onboard" and "everything to do with the operations and safety of the people onboard" and "to make sure the business that was this boat was operating legally and safely." Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said in a statement to Newsweek: "As our county marks one year out from the World Cup 2026 being hosted in Miami-Dade, events have been scheduled to commemorate this milestone including one hosted yesterday by Telemundo that I was invited to attend. Unfortunately, at a time our community should have been celebrating, the event had to be abruptly canceled due to a joint operation with Homeland Security and the Coast Guard. As a guest, I was not made aware of this operation beforehand; we were informed by event organizers that the event was being canceled." Levine Cava added: "Miami-Dade is a globally recognized community that is proud to welcome visitors from around the world. This incident is deeply troubling as it can cause a chilling effect for visitors to continue feeling safe and welcomed in our community, particularly as we prepare for the World Cup next year—an event that is expected to have a historic impact on our local economy. We urge a thorough review by DHS and the Coast Guard of these protocols, as this should not have happened. Ensuring that all community members feel safe and included is crucial to maintaining our county's reputation as a welcoming destination for both residents and visitors." A Telemundo spokesperson told Newsweek: "Due to delays caused by a routine Coast Guard inspection, Telemundo canceled its One Year To Go celebration event in Miami [on Wednesday]. We regret the inconvenience to our guests and appreciate their understanding. We look forward to continuing the road to the FIFA World Cup 26 and bringing this historic tournament to our viewers." Levine Cava has called for the Department of Homeland Security and the Coast to conduct a "thorough review" of their protocols. Miami will host seven World Cup matches next year, starting on June 15, 2026. Related Articles How to Buy Inter Miami vs Al Ahly Tickets: 2025 FIFA Club World Cup Discount Promo CodeTravis Kelce's Subtle Nod to Taylor Swift Spotted in New PhotosAI Will Connect Mercedes-Benz Places Residents to the World5-Star Miami Hotel Sued After Worker Allegedly Entered Woman's Bathroom 2025 NEWSWEEK DIGITAL LLC.
Miami Herald
12-06-2025
- Miami Herald
Miami-Dade mayor was at World Cup party that broke up after Border agent arrived: ‘Troubling'
A federal immigration agent arrived Wednesday night at an exclusive World Cup party on Biscayne Bay attended by Miami-Dade County's mayor, who is calling the incident 'deeply troubling' and a potential warning sign that international soccer fans won't feel safe traveling to Miami next year for the global soccer matches. 'This should not have happened,' Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, a second-term Democrat, said in a statement Thursday. 'Ensuring that all community members feel safe and included is crucial to maintaining our county's reputation as a welcoming destination for both residents and visitors.' The floating soiree, which was put on by Telemundo to celebrate the 2026 World Cup games being a year away, ended early after a Coast Guard boat conducted what an agency spokesperson said was a routine inspection of the barge that was the night's exclusive party spot. The Coast Guard spokesperson said one Customs and Border Protection agent was part of the federal team, and partygoers reported that authorities asked crew members of the party vessel, the Barefoot Princess, for identification that would prove their citizenship. No action was taken from the inspection beyond citations for safety violations against the vessel, said Lt. Nicolina Converso, a spokesperson for the Coast Guard's Miami station. She did not have details on the violations. 'This was a routine boarding,' she said. 'Sometimes we will randomly go and check on boats in the area.' In a later interview, Coast Guard spokesperson Nicole Groll emphasized that the Coast Guard's purpose for the vessel boarding was a safety check. 'This had nothing to do with the event that was happening onboard,' she said. 'This had everything to do with the operations and safety of the people onboard. And to make sure the business that was this boat was operating legally and safely.' Groll said the vessel in question was boarded earlier in the year and that safety issues were found then. She also said that it's standard procedure for the Coast Guard to run background checks on the professional crew operating a commercial vessel. 'They were talking to the captain and the crew,' she said. 'It's the same as if you get pulled over by a police officer.' Asked if federal agents asked crew members about their citizenship, Groll said she couldn't say for sure. 'I can't say which words were said,' she told the Herald. 'This was not a targeted immigration thing.' Telemundo, a Spanish-language network that broadcasts World Cup games, said it opted to cancel the event after the Coast Guard inspection delayed the start of the pre-sunset festivities. The statement did not address the immigration-enforcement concerns raised by Levine Cava. 'Due to delays caused by a routine Coast Guard inspection, Telemundo canceled its One Year to Go celebration,' the network statement said. 'We regret the inconvenience to our guests and appreciate their understanding.' The incident was first publicized on social media by Thomas Kennedy, an immigrant advocate in Miami. He shared with the Miami Herald a text message he said he received from a person at the party. 'They came on board, did an inspection,' the message read. 'A border control agent was also on board asking the boat staff specifically to show identification and proof of citizenship. This was while guests were already onboard…including the mayor.' Levine Cava did not say whether she saw anyone being asked for identification, but the owner of a different boat company told the Herald it is typical for the Coast Guard to ask professional crew members about citizenship during a stop. In her statement, Levine Cava said the Coast Guard boarding could be a black eye for the Miami area as it prepares to be a host of the 2026 World Cup games. Miami-Dade is contributing more than $40 million to subsidize the summer games, with hopes of a surge of international visitors and spending to offset the public expenditures. 'Miami-Dade is a globally recognized community that is proud to welcome visitors from around the world,' she said. 'This incident is deeply troubling as it can cause a chilling effect for visitors to continue feeling safe and welcomed in our community.'
Forbes
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
2025's Best-Looking Retro Platform Game Finally Gets Release Date
'Ruffy and the Riverside' has all the hallmarks of an indie GOTY, and it lands next month. One of the most charming indie games of the year finally has a release date. Ruffy and the Riverside, which draws on classics like Banjo-Kazooie and Super Paper Mario, will officially arrive on June 26 for PC, Xbox, PlayStation, and both Nintendo Switches. When I checked it out earlier this year during a surge of indie demo showcases, Ruffy and the Riverside immediately stood out for its inventive but nostalgic gameplay and gorgeous presentation, blending colorful, hand-painted visuals with core mechanics unlike anything you've ever seen in a platformer, either modern or retro. At the heart of the game is the SWAP system, a clever feature that allows players to copy and paste environmental textures and alter terrain in real time. It's an ingenious mechanic for puzzle-solving and exploration, letting you transform waterfalls into climbable vines, ice into lava, or steel into wood. Players take on the role of the titular Ruffy, a wide-eyed and perpetually positive protagonist dubbed the 'Chosen One,' who starts his journey to save the World Core from the sinister Groll. Ruffy and the Riverside is set across seven distinct regions, with quests and areas alternating seamlessly between expansive 3D sections and side-scrolling 2D sequences. FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder Naturally, its missions are heavily influenced by your god-given ability, while countless collectibles push you to think in a whole new way and experiment with your surroundings. All the while, you're surrounded by a cast of funny, quirky NPCs, daft side quests, and a bunch of mini games, including one that draws on fellow summer release Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. 'Ruffy and the Riverside' purportedly clocks in at 25 hours, making it a great summer investment (if ... More it's as good as the demo, of course). Ruffy and the Riverside has been developed by Zockrates Laboratories, a team of artists in Nuremberg. It's a labor of love they've been quietly polishing since 2017, and the long development time has translated into the wider experience, which boasts a 25-hour playtime. It also marks the first release for publisher Phiphen Games, a new interactive media division of indie film and TV house Phiphen. If the demo's anything to go by, Ruffy and the Riverside will smash it this summer — and despite a year that's already given us the likes of Blue Prince and Despelote, it could be a sleeper selection for indie game of the year.
Yahoo
13-03-2025
- General
- Yahoo
How these Jewish genealogists are repairing Nazi ‘dirty deeds'
Genealogists volunteering for the Looted Books Project recently returned a volume to a 103-year-old Holocaust survivor in Florida who was given the book in 1930 as a gift for her good performance in Hebrew school. It's rare that books the Nazis stole from Jews during World War II end up with their original owners. There aren't many actual Holocaust survivors alive anymore. 'This is really special in 2025 to be able to do this,' said Karen Franklin, director of outreach at JewishGen and director of family services at the Leo Baeck Institute, both in New York. JewishGen is a website for Jews and others seeking out their ancestors, similar to FamilySearch or Ancestry. It started as a bulletin board in the 1990s before the internet. The Baeck Institute is a research library and archive focused on the history of German-speaking Jews. Franklin and Avraham Groll, vice president and executive director of JewishGen at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York, were in Salt Lake City last weekend for the RootsTech family history and technology conference, which drew 20,000 participants. While in Utah, Franklin and Groll met with leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Family History Museum, FamilySearch and Ancestry to share the projects they're working on. Franklin's and Groll's passion for their work was evident in the meetings. Franklin also sat down for an interview as part of the Deseret News' 'Yellow Couch' series. 'For us, doing our research is not just about finding names on a page or on a tree but really recreating a line to the past that in many cases was severed during the Holocaust,' said Franklin, a world-renowned expert on German Jewish genealogy. 'This is for us a sacred task, and also a very satisfying and rewarding one.' That sense of satisfaction and reward came through with the return of the book to the 103-year-old Holocaust survivor. The genealogist who tracked her down had her great nephew present the book to her. Up to then, she had shared little with her family about her experiences. 'They did not know much,' Franklin said. 'At that moment when she received the book from her great nephew, she told the family stories that they had never heard before, that they had never known. And now she has opened up after all these years.' The Looted Books Projects started about 30 years ago in Nuremberg, Germany, where 10,000 books were found in the library of Julius Streicher, a notorious Nazi who founded and published the virulently antisemitic newspaper Der Stürmer. Nazis mostly looted the books from Jewish homes. Streicher was convicted of war crimes and hanged in 1946. About 2,000 books contained the name of the original owners and half of them were returned to their families. More recently, genealogists at JewishGen and the Baeck Institute volunteered to help search for the descendants of the book owners. They've managed to return more than 100 books in the past few months. Their work helps correct an injustice. 'When they heard about this project, I believe they were all inspired by a concept called tikkun olam — to repair the world. They all wanted to repair the world in their little way," Franklin said. 'This is really a wonderful way to use genealogy research in really helping others.' It's not just Jewish genealogists volunteering with the project. Franklin spoke last year at a conference where afterward an evangelical Christian college student asked how she could get involved. She became an intern for the project. 'That was so meaningful because it showed to me the universality of the desire, that it's not just within our own community, but others understand respect and feel the joy in participating,' Franklin said. Just last month, Amos Guiora, a University of Utah law professor, received four books that belonged to his grandfather, Shlomo Natan Goldberg, who died at Auschwitz in 1944. The leather-bound volumes that contain explanations and interpretations of Jewish law found in the Talmud were embossed with his grandfather's name in Hebrew. Guiora, whose Hungarian parents survived the Holocaust but never talked about it, knows little of his grandfather and has never seen his picture. Receiving a tangible link to his ancestors left him overwhelmed and speechless. Franklin doesn't have to look too far to understand how a book recipient feels because she is the recipient of one herself. Several years ago in Nuremberg she received an Alfred Lord Tennyson book in German that belonged to a cousin. 'It was a wonderful feeling,' she said. But Franklin adds that receiving a book often raises as many questions as it answers. What was my ancestor like? What were her interests? How did he get this book? How did it get from my ancestor's hands to Streicher's library? What was its journey? Who took it? How did it get saved? The genealogists recently came across a book with an inscription written by a young boy: This prayer book is 200 years old and sometimes I think about what its journey was for the last 200 years and where will it be 100 years from now. 'And 100 years from now, it was returned to his son in 2025,' Franklin said. Why the Streicher kept books belonging to Jews isn't clear, especially considering the Nazi campaign in the 1930s to burn books that opposed Nazism and later kill all the Jews in Europe. 'In a way, they're spoils of war, proof of the dirty deeds that they did,' Franklin said, adding there is story that the Nazis wanted to build a museum of the extinct race to show what they accomplished 'How ironic it is that we have these books now as testimony to their dirty deeds and to the destruction that they wrought and that we can return them now.' Franklin it's not only a rewarding project but an 'in your face' to those who sought to wipe out Jewish culture and heritage. 'To return these books is a way of defeating those who not only tried to take away lives but also to take away history and connection,' she said. 'So we're reversing that with the ability to restore all of these things to the descendants of those who perished.'
