PROGRESS FLORIDA IN THE NEWS
Emails show some FSU staff had concerns about Koch funding, strings attached
By Joy-Ann Reid
The Reid Report
Related: ‘Tea party’ bank BB&T flying under the radar in FSU scandal
Excerpt: Progress Florida has launched a petition drive to try and get FSU to drop the deal, though it seems the Kochs are quite nicely ideologically aligned with the Social Sciences dean, Mr. Rasmussen, while the university president comes across as downright indifferent (he wasn’t even around to sign the agreement, and it was signed on his behalf by someone else.)
AWAKE THE STATE IN THE NEWS
Groups Protest Rick Scott In Daytona Beach (includes video)
Staff Report
WFTV News Central Florida
Excerpt: The protesters said they are ticked off that Scott cut jobs in health care and education. “There's an organized group of people who disagree with him about the issues and the direction of the state,” said Rob Field of Awake the State Florida.
FEATURED STORIES
Scott Begins His First Veto Season
By Lloyd Dunkelberger
Lakeland Ledger
With the end of the annual legislative session, the power has shifted into the hands of Gov. Rick Scott.
Look for legal challenges to teacher tenure, election, abortion law revisions
By Kathleen Haughney
Orlando Sentinel
Florida's Republican-led Legislature passed a number of sweeping reform bills this past session – but the courts may have the final word on whether many of them become law.
State GOP girds for 2012 brawl
By Bill Cotterell
Florida Capital News
Gov. Rick Scott and other top state Republican Party leaders told GOP activists Saturday that the political fight for Florida in 2012 will be a bare-knuckle brawl that determines the country's direction for the next decade.
Don't call it a comeback: Scott launches campaign to tout successes
By Gary Fineout
Florida Tribune
After winning approval from state lawmakers on several of his initiatives, Gov. Rick Scott has gone into campaign-like mode in the last week to tout his achievements and possibly help change some of his lagging poll numbers.
Legislative session 'good from business standpoint'; but 'one of worst' for environmentalists
By Christine Stapleton
Palm Beach Post
Environmentally speaking, the 2011 legislative session appears to have been a smashing success - for builders and developers.
Internal FSU e-mails show academic officers were concerned with Koch's control over financial gift
By Kris Hundley
St. Petersburg Times
Under fire this week for an unusual deal that gives a billionaire donor control over some faculty positions, Florida State University president Eric J. Barron has insisted that his institution's academic freedom has not been compromised.
EDITORIAL CARTOON OF THE WEEK
By Doug MacGregor
Ft. Myers News-Press
FLORIDA POLITICS
Democrat U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown again aligns with GOP in Florida redistricting battle
By Alex Leary
St. Petersburg Times
Florida's 3rd Congressional District looks like someone crushed a giant bug in the Ocala National Forest, splattering north to Jacksonville and south to Orlando.
Ethics panel signs off on Florida Gov. Rick Scott's blind trust
By Michael C. Bender
St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
The Florida Ethics Commission on Friday said Gov. Rick Scott's investments in five national companies with interests in Florida pose no conflict of interest.
Despite ethics OK, questions endure about Scott’s finances
By John Kennedy
Palm Beach Post
The Florida Commission on Ethics unanimously approved Gov. Rick Scott’s plan Friday to put his wide-ranging financial assets into a blind trust, steered by money managers independent of the governor.
Gov. Rick Scott's former company HCA files suit in tax dispute with state
By Jim Saunders
News Service of Florida
Hospital giant HCA is suing the Florida Department of Revenue in a tax dispute that stems from the turbulent era when Gov. Rick Scott ran the company.
Gov. Rick Scott urged to veto bills
By Jim Ash
Pensacola News Journal
Gov. Rick Scott, the political newcomer whom critics say has a tin ear for open government, is the last hope for First Amendment advocates who want him to veto bills that they contend would make it harder to investigate suspicious deaths, elder abuse and wasteful spending.
GOP lawmakers may not have reduced Fla. government, but definitely reworked it
By John Kennedy
Palm Beach Post
Florida Republican leaders said they were intent this spring on getting government out of people's lives and scaling back the broad reach of Tallahassee.
Politics got in the way' at session
By Betty Parker
Ft. Myers News-Press
Whether you call it a train wreck, a meltdown, or just the worst session ever, one thing’s for sure: It wasn’t nice.
Lawmakers want to measure everything – except their own work
By Aaron Deslatte
Orlando Sentinel
While they were beefing up required measurements for teachers and state agencies, one of the least-discussed budget decisions Florida lawmakers made this spring was weakening the office that measures them.
Freshmen lawmakers in the Florida House found strength in each other
By Steve Bousquet
St. Petersburg Tmes
It used to be that freshmen representatives in Tallahassee were to be seen and not heard.
Voting rights: Florida 'reforms' harken to ugly era
By Charles L. Zelden
South Florida Sun Sentinel
Legislation that would radically revise Florida's election laws was passed May 5 by the Florida Legislature, awaiting only Gov. Rick Scott's signature.
Is the Legislature trying to suppress the 2012 Democratic vote?
Editorial
Palm Beach Post
The Legislature has passed a bill that makes major changes to the state’s election laws.
POLITICAL RACES
GOP takes its time to search for the best candidate to challenge Obama
By John Lantigua
Palm Beach Post
How do you decide whether to run against an incumbent president, especially one who is looking stronger in the polls?
Atwater endorses Haridopolos in GOP Senate primary
By George Bennett
Palm Beach Post
Florida Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater of North Palm Beach is endorsing state Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, in the 2012 Republican U.S. Senate primary.
Jacksonville early and absentee vote total up by 51% from March election
By Jim Schoettler and Timothy J. Gibbons
Florida Times-Union
Voters packed Duval County's 10 early polling sites Sunday for the biggest daily turnout in two weeks as the last chance to cast such ballots continued a surge in voter interest.
Robaina, Gimenez lead race for Miami-Dade mayor
By Matthew Haggman and Martha Brannigan
Miami Herald
Voters are deeply dissatisfied with the field of candidates running to be Miami-Dade County mayor and cite a striking leadership void in the community as a large swath of the electorate remains undecided, but a two-person race has emerged with 10 days until the May 24th election, according to a new poll.
ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY
Once a major issue in Florida, climate change concerns few in Tallahassee
By Craig Pittman
St. Petersburg Times
Four hundred scientists gathered in Copenhagen this month to talk about the warming temperatures in the arctic.
Progress on a plan to protect the Gulf
By Kate Spinner
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Top marine scientists and oil industry representatives working in Sarasota this week made strides toward a sweeping plan to preserve vast stretches of the Gulf of Mexico in an attempt to reverse decades of damage caused by overfishing, oil drilling and pollution.
Turtle-deadly Florida fishery not worthy of eco-friendly label
By Teri Shore
Palm Beach Post
Something is wrong when a fishery that captures and kills endangered sea turtles can earn an eco-friendly "sustainable" label, particularly when it also catches and dumps dead and dying bluefin tuna and sharks overboard every trip.
Cheers, jeers for Obama’s drilling push
By Ben Geman
The Hill
The senior House Republican leading the charge for a major expansion of offshore oil drilling alleged Saturday that President Obama’s new plan for speeding up development is far too modest.
Big Oil Subsidies
The Progress Report
Think Progress
Top executives from the Big 5 oil companies -- ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips -- flew into Washington, D.C. on their corporate jets to defend their industry at a U.S. Senate hearing yesterday.
On tax fairness and loopholes
Editorial
Miami Herald
In a scene reminiscent of the congressional hearing where tobacco company executives innocently denied that nicotine is addictive, oil company executives solemnly told Congress last week that their exorbitant profits are no big deal.
EDUCATION
Years of cuts bring Florida schools to breaking point
By Leslie Postal and Dave Weber
Orlando Sentinel
The choice of classes is smaller these days at Lake Howell High School, the wait for a guidance counselor longer and the campus shabbier, with its once blue floor tiles worn to a dull gray.
Teachers deserve better
By C.T. Bowen
St. Petersburg Times
This is what it's like to be a teacher in 2011.
Jeb Bush's education reform ideas draw national attention
By Lesley Clark
Miami Herald
Jeb Bush left the governor's office in 2007, but his influence still holds sway in Tallahassee, and now in state capitols from New Jersey to Oregon, where lawmakers are eager to adopt his education reform efforts.
Math push begins with algebra test
By Christopher O'Donnell
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
A nearly three-hour online algebra exam awaits more than 200,000 Florida public school students when they get to school on Monday.
4-day school week in Lake: Would it work?
By Erica Rodriguez
Orlando Sentinel
It's every school kid's dream world: a three-day weekend. Every weekend.
Kochs shouldn't put strings on $1.5M for FSU
By Mike Thomas
Orlando Sentinel
I wanted to go rogue and support the 'Noles.
Excellence will cost more
Editorial
Palm Beach Post
In the session that supposedly was so critical to Florida's economic recovery, the Legislature cut $30 million in corporate taxes and nearly $100 million more from the state's university system.
JOBS, BUDGET, AND ECONOMY
State Workers To Legislature: "Why Us?"
By Les Coleman
Public News Service Florida
It was a tough legislative session for Florida state employees.
Residents and businesses experience shifting tax burdens
By Doug Sword
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Full-time residents and businesses paid a higher percentage of property taxes in Florida in 2010 as snowbirds and other owners of second homes reaped a $920 million tax cut.
Endeavour fueled for next-to-last shuttle launch
By Marcia Dunn
Associated Press
NASA fueled Endeavour for a Monday morning liftoff on the next-to-last flight of the space shuttle era, confident an electrical problem that grounded the mission more than two weeks ago had been fixed.
1,942 job cuts hit Florida's Space Coast
By Jeff Harrington
St. Petersburg Times
Friday the 13th hit hard for 1,942 workers in the Titusville area.
HEALTH AND SENIORS
Florida is taking elderly down a dark, deadly path
By Scott Maxwell
Orlando Sentinel
Florida is stepping back into the dark ages when it comes to nursing-home abuse and neglect.
After delays, DOH set to finalize drug database contract early next week
By Virginia Chamlee
Florida Independent
Though Florida’s 2011 legislative session only recently came to a close, a program that emerged as one of its key successes has fallen behind schedule.
State seeks end to crisis of babies born to drug-addicted mothers
By Richard Martin
St. Petersburg Times
Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi wants to protect the youngest victims of the state’s prescription drug abuse epidemic: babies born to addicted mothers.
Devaluing the lives of poor, elderly
Editorial
St. Petersburg Times
Leaders in the Florida Legislature frequently talk about their fiscal conservative principles.
CIVIL RIGHTS, PEACE AND SOCIAL ISSUES
Grass roots effort helps uproot Arizona-style immigration bills
By John Lantigua
Palm Beach Post
In the months-long war to defeat Arizona-style immigration bills in Tallahassee this legislative session, groups in Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast sent many people, and even more e-mails and phone calls, to that embattled front.
Groups call on Obama to hold off deportations of would-be DREAMers
By Marcos Restrepo
Florida Independent
Education and immigrant advocacy organizations are calling on President Barack Obama to use his executive authority to stop the deportation of young undocumented immigrants who would be eligible for the DREAM Act.
JUSTICE AND THE COURTS
Florida Republicans Blast Gov. Scott’s Plan To Privatize Prisons: ‘We Should Never Privatize Public Safety’By Tanya Somanader
Think Progress
Last Saturday, the Florida GOP-led legislature finalized the state’s $69.7 billion budget — and business won big.
Scott urges Fla. justices to reject rule challenge
Associated Press
Tampa Tribune
Gov. Rick Scott has filed papers with the Florida Supreme Court urging the justices to reject a challenge to his takeover of agency rulemaking authority.
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