The Cooler

Just a few things for you from today's SoFla mainstream media outlets in this morning's Cooler...

A- Herald: Taxi plows into a group of bicyclists on the MacArthur. The photo with the story is sickening.

A cab driver may have fallen asleep at the wheel early Sunday just before plowing into a group of bicyclists out for a leisurely morning ride on the MacArthur Causeway, Miami Beach police said.

The 8 a.m. accident left many of the riders sprawled on the pavement in the eastbound lane and sent six to the hospital.

The most seriously injured was a 48-year-old rushed to Ryder Trauma Center in critical condition.

Five others were brought to the hospital in stable condition. Some were later released.

B- Herald: More proposed cutbacks for Miami-Dade mass transit.

Mayor Carlos Alvarez and County Manager George Burgess are pushing for much deeper cuts in the upcoming fiscal year's budget.

After several years of right-sizing, and reducing more than 6 million miles of politically protected, underperforming ''dog'' routes, the transit agency is now being forced to make a lot of tough choices to cut another 4.1 million miles next year.

Unlike the low-ridership ''dog'' routes, many looming under the next wave of cuts carry substantial numbers of passengers.

The cuts would wreak havoc on the quality of service to major job centers, including hospitals, the airport and Seaport. Who will that hurt most? Third-shift blue collar workers, seniors, students and transit-dependent domestics trying to get to tonier addresses like Pinecrest and Coral Gables.

C- Herald: Florida gets its votes back.

DENVER -- Florida delegates scored full voting rights and front-row seats Sunday on the eve of the Democratic National Convention, settling a party feud that threatened to demoralize Democrats in the nation's largest battleground state.

D- Herald: Letter to the editor.

The U.S. embargo of Cuba is the last vestige of power wielded by a minority that is making our foreign and immigration policy. Who is doing business with Cuba? American farmers and cattlemen, U.S. pharmaceutical vendors, Cuban-American attorneys and businessmen via third-party countries and those sending cash to relatives on the island.

We continue to see laws and edicts from lawmakers about such inane things as Little League teams and university groups going to Cuba, travel agents booking flights to Cuba and the wet-foot/dry-foot policy though we give Cubans 20,000 visas a year and have seen Budweiser being purchased by InBev, which sells brands sold in Cuba.

State and federal lawmakers should worry more about the deterioration in the quality of life here because of traffic, sewage, uncontrolled immigration and government corruption and fraud. The embargo has not had any effect on those in power in Cuba; it only has consequences for those of us who live in South Florida.

ED BOEN, Coral Gables

E- CBS4: UM starting the football season off with a bang.

University of Miami quarterback Robert Marve has been suspended for the Hurricanes season opener against Charleston Southern. It is not known if Marve will be the starting quarterback when he returns for the September 6th contest against the Florida Gators.

The school also said that six other players will sit out the opener at Dolphin Stadium but did not identified the players or gave reasons for their suspensions.

F- NBC6: An anniversary that passed rather quietly this weekend.

Sunday marked the 16th anniversary of one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history -- Hurricane Andrew.

Andrew made landfall in South Florida on Aug. 24, 1992, with winds of over 150 miles per hour.

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