A short-lived campaign to recall Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago seemed to fizzle this week after Miami-Dade County’s Elections Department said the group had failed to get the required number of signatures to put it on a ballot.

It may not be dead. Both Maria Cruz, the longtime Gables activist who started the recall, and attorney David Winker, representing her political action committee End The Corruption, have said the petitions that were deemed ineligible may have been planted by Lago lackeys in an attempt to thwart the effort. Especially since there was more than one petition purportedly signed by Cruz, who only signed one petition.

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The runoff in the special election to fill a vacancy on the Miami Lakes Town Council was won by attorney Bryan Morera, but one could say that three council members also won Tuesday.

Morera, who took 57 percent against Esther Colon‘s 43 percent, had been endorsed and/or supported by council members Marilyn Ruano, Luis Collazo and Josh Dieguez. Both he and Colon, the former manager of Lauderdale-by-the-Sea who beat the supposed mayoral’s favorite candidate to get into the runoff, are longtime town activists who have served on a bunch of committees and the all important Blasting Advisory Board, which addresses the issue of the quarry blasting, which is probably the biggest issue in Miami Lakes (maybe tied with the 170th Street bridge and the taxing districts).

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In his second video as Gino the Magnificent, Miami-Dade sheriff candidate Jeffrey Giordano — a long shot poking fun at the November election and some the 17 candidates in the clown car — manages to offend women, blacks, short people, union members, seniors and even phlebotomists.

It’s Part 2 to his first posted video as Gino, a take on Johnny Carson’s skit where he portrayed Carnac the Magnificent. In the first video, posted in February, Giordano took pot shots at candidates Ignacio Alvarez, Jasper Bishop, Ruamen de la Rua, Alex Fornet, Joe Sanchez and retired MDPD Lt. Rickey Mitchell, calling the funeral home owner “Grim Reaper Mitchell,” and “the only candidate who will profit from multiple deaths in Dade County.”

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The extreme six-week abortion ban goes into effect in Florida Wednesday, so it’s a perfect time to remind voters that Donald Trump and the rest of the MAGA Republicans, like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, are the ones responsible for ripping away women’s reproductive rights.

And just in time for the presidential election, the Democratic National Committee launched a bilingual billboard campaign across the state to bring attention to the connection between Trump and the Draconian abortion bans sweeping the country. Abortion is now banned in every state across the south except Virginia. Both in English and Spanish, the DNC billboards are to be located in high-traffic areas in the cities of Tampa, Orlando, Gainesville and, yes, Miami, putting the number of miles between the women there and safe abortion procedures in Virginia.

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Lawyer claims ethical violations in special election

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