PROGRESS FLORIDA IN THE NEWS
Fla Insider Poll: Mitt Romney seen as strongest candidate to beat Barack Obama in Florida
By Adam C. Smith
St. Petersburg Times
Excerpt: Florida’s most experienced political professionals are closely divided on whether Rick Perry or Mitt Romney will win Florida’s Republican presidential primary, but overwhelmingly they see Romney as the stronger candidate to beat Barack Obama in Florida. Note: Progress Florida’s Executive Director Mark Ferrulo was among those polled.
FEATURED STORIES
Employers getting state money for jobs can go unnamed for a year
By Marcia Heroux Pounds
South Florida Sun Sentinel
Secrecy is often a part of negotiating for a new headquarters or an expansion of a company in Florida.
FDLE investigating recording within Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll's office
By Michael C. Bender
St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement confirmed Friday that investigators are looking into a possible illegal recording within Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll's office.
As Florida starts redistricting, groups offer maps of their own
By Aaron Deslatte
Orlando Sentinel
After a summer-long road show, Florida lawmakers this week are about to begin drawing the new congressional and legislative maps that will set the stage for high-profile political combat next year.
Tour stop suggestions for GOP presidential hopefuls
By Ben Montgomery and Michael Kruse
St. Petersburg Times
Related: Your guide to the Florida GOP's Presidency 5 event this week
Welcome to Florida, Republican presidential hopefuls!
Early presidential primary date is a done deal
By Aaron Deslatte
Orlando Sentinel
Florida wants to play a lead role in the Republican presidential beauty pageant with the P5 straw poll, a nationally televised candidate debate and a gathering of conservative celebrities in Orlando this week.
EDITORIAL CARTOON OF THE WEEK
By Jeff Parker
Florida Today
Artist’s commentary: Ramming speed!
FLORIDA POLITICS
GOP-led states change voting rules ahead of 2012
Associated Press
Tampa Tribune
After years of expanding when and how people can vote, state legislatures now under new Republican control are moving to trim early voting days, beef up identification requirements and put new restrictions on how voters are notified about absentee ballots.
Browning agrees to allow civil rights groups to join suit challenging voting law
By Mary Ellen Klas
St. Petersburg Times
Florida Secretary of State Kurt Browning on Friday agreed with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to allow civil rights groups and individual legislators to intervene in a lawsuit over whether the state's recent voter laws suppress minority voting.
Haridopolos shuffles committee deck, lines up new votes for prisons and casinos
By Mary Ellen Klas
Miami Herald
Senate President Mike Haridopolos released his long-awaited revamp of Senate committees Friday and made changes that are clearly intended to shape the votes on some controversial issues, particularly casino expansion and prison privatization.
Meet the next Florida Senate president
By Lloyd Dunkelberger
Ocala Star-Banner
Speaking at a meeting earlier this month, state Sen. Don Gaetz adamantly insisted that the state reject a $3.4 million grant from the Obama administration to provide family home-visiting services.
Tallahassee is now Animal House, with party boys trampling your rights
By Scott Maxwell
Orlando Sentinel
It's been said before that the Florida House is more like "Animal House": a bunch of immature party boys playing games with your rights and money.
Stop fighting each other and start fighting for party, state Democratic leader tells county group
By George Bennett
Palm Beach Post
Florida Democratic Chairman Rod Smith urged Palm Beach County's famously quarrelsome Democrats on Saturday to make nice for the next 14 months to help President Obama, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and other Dems next year.
When top officials help selves cash in
By David Smiley and Daniel Chang
Miami Herald
Unionized city employees aren’t the only ones with gaudy retirement packages. Top administrators and politicians can cash in, too.
POLITICAL RACES
Florida super committee picked to set presidential primary date
By Steve Bousquet
St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Florida Republicans don't yet agree on who should oppose President Barack Obama next year, but they agree that the state must play an early and decisive role in selecting their party's nominee.
Florida voters have big impact in presidential race
By Anthony Man
South Florida Sun Sentinel
Rick, Mitt, Ron, Michele, Newt, and all the others are swarming over Florida, just the way friends and family descend on the state when it gets cold up North.
Alex Sink to run again for governor? "Never say never"
By Janelle Irwin
WMNF Community Radio Tampa
Former gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink promoted her new non-profit, Florida Next, at the Tampa Tiger Bay Club Friday afternoon.
ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY
Will Central Florida's forests help panthers rebound?
By Kevin Spear
Orlando Sentinel
A deer hunter pleaded guilty last month to killing a Florida panther in woods not far from Atlanta, 500 miles from the animal's birthplace.
Criticism greets Department of Environmental Protection water rule draft
By Virginia Chamlee
Florida Independent
On Wednesday, the state Department of Environmental Protection held a public workshop for its version of the “numeric nutrient criteria” — a set of standards to limit water pollution in Florida.
Salty flow into Chassahowitzka and Homosassa rivers blamed on sea level rise, not overpumping
By Craig Pittman
St. Petersburg Times
The folks who live along the Chassahowitzka and Homosassa rivers have noticed a lot of changes lately.
Florida's loggerhead sea turtles won't go on 'endangered' list, feds decide
By Ludmilla Lelis
Orlando Sentinel
The loggerhead sea turtles that nest on Florida beaches won't be upgraded to an endangered species, a decision that pleased fishing groups concerned about more restrictions.
Something to believe in?
Editorial
Pensacola News Journal
Prior to last year's spill, were BP and the rest of the U.S. oil industry really up to the task of safely conducting the high-risk industrial activity that is deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico?
Stay the course
Editorial
Florida Today
For more than 30 years, Florida has deliberately acquired sensitive and beautiful lands, putting them off limits forever to development much more elaborate than picnic shelters.
LGBT
Repeal of gay ban welcomed by civilian partners
By David Crary
Associated Press
After 19 years hiding her relationship with an active-duty Army captain, Cathy Cooper is getting ready to exhale.
EDUCATION
Florida Schools Learn Hard Lessons
By McNelly Torres
Florida Center for Investigative Reporting
As part of the 2009 economic stimulus package, millions of federal dollars flowed to Florida's public school districts.
Common Core standards for K-12 moving forward, despite challenges
By Marcos Restrepo
Florida Independent
A report released this week shows that the majority of school districts that have adopted the Common Core State Standards agree that new standards in math and English will improve students’ skills.
Florida's pre-K program faces tougher standards
By Leslie Postal
Orlando Sentinel
Florida's pre-K program has been graded on a curve — and an easy one.
State board considers turning USF Polytechnic into Florida's 12th university
By Denise-Marie Balona
Orlando Sentinel
Several Polk County community leaders urged a state committee today to turn a branch campus of University of South Florida into an independent university — a possibility the committee said should be investigated.
Will there be any money?
Editorial
Palm Beach Post
Florida schools need a better way to evaluate teachers. Unfortunately, the state's new guidelines - imposed by Gov. Scott and the Legislature - aren't inherently better.
JOBS, BUDGET, AND ECONOMY
State unemployment rate stuck at 10.7 percent
By Jim Stratton
Orlando Sentinel
For the third month in a row, Florida's unemployment rate remained stuck at 10.7 percent in August, as layoffs in the public sector muted gains in hiring among private employers.
Grover Norquist built the GOP's no-tax brand
By Alex Leary
St. Petersburg Times
The deal offered to Republican presidential candidates was framed as anything but a weak compromise: $10 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax increases.
Stearns criticized for inconsistency on green jobs stimulus money
By Virginia Chamlee
Florida Independent
Though Congressman Cliff Stearns, R-Ocala, is criticizing President Obama’s push for green jobs, the Florida lawmaker was happy to welcome a federally funded green jobs effort in his own district last year.
Postal service cutback could kill a piece of Florida history
By Jeff Klinkenberg
St. Petersburg Times
Nobody knows who mailed the first letter.
'Destination' casinos could hinge on court case
By Kathleen Haughney
Orlando Sentinel
Casino operators across the country are waiting on a key court ruling that could determine how hard it will be to crack the Florida market, even as lawmakers prepare to return to Tallahassee to ponder how much gaming should be allowed in the Sunshine State.
HEALTH AND SENIORS
Florida gets almost $1 million from Affordable Care Act to open new community health centers
By Ashley Lopez
Florida Independent
Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded $10 million dollars to “129 organizations across the country that would like to become community health centers.
Florida Privatized Medicaid Hits a Snag
By Les Coleman
Public News Service Florida
Florida wants to get out of the business of running Medicaid.
Familiar programs appear on Medicaid 10 percent cut list
By Christine Jordan Sexton
Florida Current
Florida's main health care agency said Friday that if lawmakers push ahead with deep budget cuts there will be a need to cut high-profile safety net programs.
State Agency Proposes Further Budget Cuts in Services to Disabled
By Eric Pera
Lakeland Ledger
Florida is poised to again reduce or eliminate services to thousands of people with autism, cerebral palsy and other developmental and physical disabilities.
Orlando man pleads guilty to running huge Internet pill mill operation
By Rene Stutzman
Orlando Sentinel
An Orlando man today pleaded guilty in Tampa federal court to helping set up and run several Internet pill mills that distributed 10s of millions of pain pills to people who never saw the doctors whose signatures appeared on their prescriptions.
Don't get sick? Don't plan to retire, either
Editorial
Pensacola News Journal
Back during the congressional debate over President Obama's health care reform plan, Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., drew cheers and jeers for quipping that "the Republican health care plan for America" boils down to "don't get sick."
CIVIL RIGHTS, PEACE AND SOCIAL ISSUES
How one GOP Senate candidate’s ‘good friend’ is fighting ‘Stealth Jihad’ in Florida
By Ashley Lopez
Florida Independent
In his campaign for the GOP nomination in the race to unseat Sen. Bill Nelson, Adam Hasner has been positioning himself as a tea party favorite on a slew of issues, but none seem as close to his heart as his long-time crusade against the supposed threat of Sharia in the U.S.
JUSTICE AND THE COURTS
'Romeo and Juliet' law offers a way off Florida's sex offender listBy Katie Sanders
St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
The facts in Terry Gorby's case aren't in dispute: When Gorby was 18, he had consensual sex with his 14-year-old girlfriend.
1 spank isn't domestic violence, Fla. court says
Associated Press
Orlando Sentinel
An appeals court says a single spank doesn't qualify as domestic violence.
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