FEATURED STORIES
By Michael C. Bender
Related: Gov. Charlie Crist's Senate race decision -- Republican party or independent?
Backlash on Senate Bill 6 could hit Republicans in fall
St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Dispute on whether to budget anticipated $880 million from feds may extend session
News Service of Florida
Oil drilling comes up empty this year
Florida Tribune
Jim Greer's rise in Florida GOP was as stunning as his fall
Orlando Sentinel
Jim Greer loved to throw parties at his big, fancy home here, and he did it often.
EDITORIAL CARTOON OF THE WEEK
Orlando Sentinel
LEGISLATIVE SESSION
By Gary Fineout
Gov. Charlie Crist's dramatic decision to veto a controversial merit pay bill is already leading to rampant speculation that he may bolt his own party and mount an independent bid for the U.S. Senate.
By Jim Ash
With lame duck Republican Gov. Charlie Crist weighing an independent bid for the U.S. Senate, Democrats are more convinced than ever that a shadow captain is guiding the ship of state.
By Mary Ellen Klas
With two weeks left in the legislative session, Florida legislators will turn their attention to negotiating the budget and moving bills through the House and Senate.
By Ron Word
With the scheduled end of the Legislature in two weeks, House and the Senate conference committees had been scheduled to meet over the weekend to iron out differences on the budget.
By Brandon Larrabee
Ethics reform might yet be alive in the Legislature this year.
By Lee Logan
A proposal to allow banks to bypass the courts in foreclosure cases is likely dead this year, according to the legislation's sponsor and its primary industry proponent.
Staff Report
A quick look at what's happening this week.
Editorial
Apparently, the Republican leadership of the Florida House doesn't like legislation that would make it harder for politicians to get away with corrupt behavior.
Editorial
Pensacola News Journal
POLITICAL RACES
By Beth Reinhard
On a day when thousands of protesters took to the streets in anti-government ``tea parties'' around Florida, Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink tried on the politics of anger.
By Kim Wilmath
Florida Chief Financial Officer and gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink will visit Tampa Monday, the eighth stop of her Business Plan for Florida tour.
Staff Report
State Sen. Paula Dockery's first television and radio ads in her campaign for governor began running over the weekend, much to the relief of some supporters who said they had been waiting for an ad campaign.
By Jonathan Martin and David Cantanese
Some of Florida Gov. Charlie Crist's top fundraisers are warning that they will no longer support him if he bolts the Republican Party to run for the Senate as an independent.
By Adam C. Smith and Cristina Silva
Marco Rubio might as well take a couple of weeks off and relax.
By Michael Leahy
Republican Gov. Charlie Crist, once regarded as a shoo-in to become Florida's next senator, waded into a milling crowd.
By John Frank
Gov. Charlie Crist's stump speech transformed Saturday into a full-throated defense of his veto of Senate Bill 6, as teachers in this GOP bedrock rallied and vowed to "remember in November."
By Jeremy Wallace
The weeklong political drama surrounding an education reform bill may prove to be the tonic Florida Gov. Charlie Crist needs to fix his flagging U.S. Senate campaign.
By Beth Reinhard
Related: PolitiFact: Comparison of Marco Rubio, Barack Obama's experience Barely True
In Fla. Senate race, Romney to campaign with Rubio
Tampa Tribune
Rep. Seth McKeel Leads Mass Endorsement of Rubio In Wake of Crist's Teacher Bill Veto
Lakeland Ledger
Powerful Atwater embracing Tea Party
Palm Beach Post
Rep. Allen West raises over $2 million in race for seat
Palm Beach Post
By Laura Kinsler
Tampa Tribune
BALLOT INITIATIVES
By Marc Caputo
Despite the NAACP's opposition, two top black lawmakers supported a Republican-led constitutional amendment Friday that was drafted in response to two liberal-leaning amendments that would check Legislature's power as it draws political boundaries.
By James Call
Senate and House Republican leaders are pushing a proposed constitutional amendment that expands a pair of citizen proposed redistricting measures on the November ballot.
Editorial
Politicians will never voluntarily surrender political power. But what legislative leaders are preparing to do to thwart a pair citizen-generated proposed state constitutional amendments is nothing short of despicable.
Editorial
Legislators love their rituals. For the ruling majority in Tallahassee, none more so than the once-in-a-decade exercise that lets them draw voting districts.
ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY
By Bruce Ritchie
Related: Outlook for environmental and energy issues
Proposal to drill for oil off Florida's coast tabled for 2010 legislative session
Naples News
Time for Florida to tap Gulf energy resources
Tampa Tribune
Health care success bodes well for climate change legislation
Washington Post via St. Petersburg Times
Four good reasons not to drill
Panama City News Herald
LGBT
By Bob LaMendola and William E. Gibson
President Obama's order that hospitals must stop denying patients visits from gay, lesbian and unmarried partners defuses a bitter dispute, but may not solve it, officials on both sides said Friday.
By Lona O'Connor
Activists in Palm Beach County were delighted Friday by President Obama's move to issue new rules covering hospital visitation by gay and lesbian partners, even though a county ordinance provides similar protections.
By Stephen Thompson
Picketers from a small but well-known Kansas church gathered outside the St. Pete Times Forum on Saturday to warn those going to a Bon Jovi concert that their godlessness was leading to their doom.
By Lise Fisher
Picketers from the Westboro Baptist Church were met by counterprotesters who held signs, wore costumes and chanted against the group Sunday.
By Louis Cooper
Wherever Phillip Ware-Ehlers goes, he carries a book of legal documents in his car.
Editorial
President Obama struck a blow for simple fairness and common sense when he ordered hospitals that get Medicare and Medicaid money (few do not) to grant the same visitation rights to same-sex couples that they grant to heterosexual couples.
EDUCATION
By Matt Dixon
Two out-of-state companies that offer education testing paid a lobbying firm where state Sen. John Thrasher was a partner between $60,000 and $190,000 over a two-year period, state records indicate.
By Hannah Sampson
Educators, parents and students cheered and then took a collective sigh of relief when Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed a bill that would have upended the current system of paying and firing teachers.
By Dave Weber and Denise-Marie Balona
Orlando Sentinel
Lawmakers move to give Board of Governors power to impose student fees
St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Editorial
Gainesville Sun
Crist should sign SB 4 education bill
St. Petersburg Times
JOBS, BUDGET, AND ECONOMY
By Paul Flemming
There were 1.14 million Floridians out of work in March, a new record-high 12.3 percent unemployment rate.
By Bill Cotterell
State employees and retirees feel targeted as Florida legislators scrounge for money to patch together a recession-stricken state budget in the final two weeks of their 2010 session.
By John Frank
State Rep. Rick Kriseman is a reluctant expert on property insurance.
By Don Brown
The state Office of Insurance Regulation has announced that another Florida domestic homeowners insurer (Northern Capital Insurance Co.) "is insolvent."
By Kate Bradshaw
Today, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) began a three day march from Tampa to Lakeland.
By Anika Myers Palm and Sara K. Clarke
Florida's appliance rebate fund ran out of money late Saturday.
By Mark Albright
Florida appliance dealers reported doing "huge business" Friday, but shoppers eager to cash in on Energy Star appliance discounts did not grab quite all the rebate money.
HEALTH AND SENIORS
By Carol Gentry
Medicaid patients in traditional fee-for-service care get some services at two to three times the frequency of those who are in managed care, especially HMOs, a preliminary report from state officials suggests.
By Dale Ewart
Nursing home industry CEOs, lobbyists and their friends in the Legislature are on the brink of permanently rolling back protections to Florida's most vulnerable citizens, and undoing one of the Legislature's most successful reforms.
The Associated Press
Most of Florida's 2.7 million Medicaid recipients in all 67 counties would be placed in private managed care plans under a pair of bills up for a House vote.
By Jim Saunders
Trying to win votes in the House and prepare for negotiations with the Senate, architects of a proposal to overhaul Florida's Medicaid system agreed to changes Thursday that could help defuse concerns of doctors and hospitals.
By Carol Marbin Miller
One of the largest providers of inpatient psychiatric care for Florida foster kids successfully pushed for an amendment to a bill that will make it easier for group homes and treatment centers to medicate foster children without the consent of a parent or judge.
CIVIL RIGHTS, PEACE AND SOCIAL ISSUES
By TaMaryn Waters
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