He's a kompas king, a diaper-dancer and a firebrand, and he just may be Haiti's best hope for a president with more efficacy than an ingrown hair. Votes are being counted, and it's between former first lady Mirlande Manigat and our boy, Michel "Sweet Micky" Martelly. Why ours, exactly? Well, he's a bona-fide former Florida real-estate owner, before the market sent him packing. Behold a humble abode in far-slung Pembroke Pines, which may soon have presidential ties.

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Courtesy Viola Semxant-Zucker

Gregoire-Ronald Chery on an earlier, happier trip to Haiti.

​Our feature story this week tells the harrowing tale of Gregoire-Ronald Chery, who was murdered in Haiti when kidnappers came for a young girl in his family. Chery was a 17-year federal agent who worked in the Miami office of the Customs and Immigrations Service. When he was killed, federal agencies, including the embassy in Port-au-Prince and the FBI office in Santo Domingo, swept in to lead the investigation.

We've now heard from the family, though not confirmed, that federal authorities have called off their investigation. The Haitian police, as far as we know, are still pursuing the case, but the odds of doing police work in a country with minimal infrastructure are making the case grow colder every day.
More >>

Courtesy Viola Semxant-Zucker

Gregoire-Ronald Chery on an earlier, happier trip to Haiti.

​Our feature story this week tells the harrowing tale of Gregoire-Ronald Chery, who was murdered in Haiti when kidnappers came for a young girl in his family. Chery was a 17-year federal agent who worked in the Miami office of the Customs and Immigrations Service. When he was killed, federal agencies, including the embassy in Port-au-Prince and the FBI office in Santo Domingo, swept in to lead the investigation.

We've now heard from the family, though not confirmed, that federal authorities have called off their investigation. The Haitian police, as far as we know, are still pursuing the case, but the odds of doing police work in a country with minimal infrastructure are making the case grow colder every day.
More >>

Erosion -- and kidnappers -- awaited us on a road outside Port-au-Prince.

​

It was my first day in Haiti when my translator and I were nearly kidnapped. If things had gone down differently that day, the two of us may have ended up tortured and held for ransom. Or maybe dragged out of our car and beaten.

Who knows, because it ended as best as it could for all -- except for the guy we hit with our car.

I thought a lot about that day while we worked on this week's cover story in New Times about a Haitian kidnapping. Things ended much worse in that incident. Thugs killed a federal agent and held a girl for ransom for several days while her family was told she had been tortured.

First, some explanation of how I found myself nearly kidnapped in the hills outside Port-au-Prince. I was in Haiti in June 2005 to write a story about Aaron Jackson, who, at the time, had just opened his first Haitian orphanage. Jackson was living at a homeless
More >>

Erosion -- and kidnappers -- awaited us on a road outside Port-au-Prince.

​

It was my first day in Haiti when my translator and I were nearly kidnapped. If things had gone down differently that day, the two of us may have ended up tortured and held for ransom. Or maybe dragged out of our car and beaten.

Who knows, because it ended as best as it could for all -- except for the guy we hit with our car.

I thought a lot about that day while we worked on this week's cover story in New Times about a Haitian kidnapping. Things ended much worse in that incident. Thugs killed a federal agent and held a girl for ransom for several days while her family was told she had been tortured.

First, some explanation of how I found myself nearly kidnapped in the hills outside Port-au-Prince. I was in Haiti in June 2005 to write a story about Aaron Jackson, who, at the time, had just opened his first Haitian orphanage. Jackson was living at a homeless
More >>