Daily Clips for May 3, 2012

FEATURED STORIES

Gov. Rick Scott shoots down Tampa's request to ban guns outside GOP convention
By Richard Danielson
Tampa Bay Times
Related editorial: Gun sense and nonsense
Saying he will not allow Tampa to disarm citizens throughout its downtown, Gov. Rick Scott shot down the city's request to ban concealed weapons outside the Republican National Convention.

Gov. Scott retreats from statement calling anti-Cuba law unenforceable
By Patricia Mazzei and Marc Caputo
Miami Herald
Gov. Rick Scott has started retreating from a controversial statement that a Cuba-crackdown bill he signed the day before was unenforceable.

Gov. Rick Scott takes aim at domestic violence group salary
By Steve Bousquet
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
For the past decade, Florida law has required that tax money to aid victims of domestic violence be controlled by a single group.

Scott's veto of planning council money hurts local governments and state's future, say critics
By Craig Pittman
Tampa Bay Times
For 50 years, the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council has been working with local governments — helping them find the best routes for hurricane evacuation, assisting them in attracting new businesses, assessing how a shopping center built in one city might affect the traffic in neighboring areas.

13 Charged in FAMU hazing death
By Lynn Hatter
WFSU Tallahassee
Thirteen people are facing charges in the hazing-death of a Florida A & M University band drum major.

FLORIDA POLITICS

Rubio winning PR war on Dream Act
By Alex Leary
Tampa Bay Times
Florida Democrats for weeks have been escalating attacks on Sen. Marco Rubio, most recently highlighting votes against the Restore Act and the Violence Against Women Act.

Knives are banned at Tampa’s GOP convention, but guns are OK
By Fred Grimm
Miami Herald
Mindful of the “potentially contentious environment” that comes with so many overwrought protesters converging on a national political convention, the city of Tampa has banned a number of items the last four days of August.

POLITICAL RACES

Poll: Florida too close to call as Romney gains, gender gap narrows
By George Bennett
Palm Beach Post
Florida is back in the presidential toss-up column, with Republican Mitt Romney moving to a within-the-margin-of-error lead over President Obama in a new Quinnipiac University poll after trailing Obama by 7 points in late March.

Gingrich suspends presidential run, supports Romney
Associated Press
Tampa Tribune
Newt Gingrich, the colorful former House speaker and fiery partisan, formally exited the Republican presidential contest today and vowed to help Mitt Romney's bid to defeat President Barack Obama.

Candidates scramble for signatures in last week to gather petitions
By Gray Rohrer
Florida Current
Those seeking office in the state Legislature have four more days to submit their petitions to the Florida Division of Elections.

Rep. Connie Mack to visit Pensacola today, tout Keystone Pipeline project
Staff Report
Pensacola News Journal
U.S. Rep. Connie Mack is scheduled to be in Pensacola today to tout his support for the Keystone XL Pipeline.

ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY

DEP moving into new areas of possible water quality controversy
By Bruce Ritchie
Florida Current
With the workload of developing new nutrient water quality rules seemingly in the rear view mirror, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection is moving forward on some other potentially controversial water quality issues.

Water district cuts may undo decade of work
By Kate Spinner
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
In its heyday — especially for thirsty cities and counties — the Southwest Florida Water Management District was the closest thing to a rainmaker.

Progress Energy raises price tag, delays start date of Levy nuclear plant
By Ivan Penn
Tampa Bay Times
Progress Energy announced Tuesday that it had raised the price tag of a nuclear plant that may never get built, and said it wants customers to pay more for an existing reactor that may never restart.

Judge allows Gulf oil spill settlement to proceed
Associated Press
Florida Current
A federal judge on Wednesday preliminarily approved a proposed class-action settlement that would resolve billions of dollars in claims against BP over the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

BP sees a return to grandeur as Gulf fishermen reel from disaster
By Rocky Kistner
Facing South
The second memorial of the nation's worst oil catastrophe has come and gone, forever linked to Earth Day and seared into the psyches of millions of Gulf residents and fishermen. 

EDUCATION

Lawmaker warns funding woes could 'erode' quality of state universities
By Travis Pillow
Florida Current
The architect of a higher education bill vetoed last week by Gov. Rick Scott warned that the quality of Florida’s universities would “erode” if the state does not find a way to shore up their funding.

Polytech's fiercest opponent to speak at commencement
By Brittany Davis
Tampa Bay Times
When Sen. JD Alexander, R-Lake Wales, pushed to break off the University of South Florida's Lakeland branch to create the state's 12th university, Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland, was the fiercest critic.

Lee County Schools to cut 50 positions; principals have final say
By Sabina Bhasin
Naples Daily News
Related: Collier Schools releases details of position, budget cuts
As student enrollment grows, the Lee County School District's budget is going in a different direction.

JOBS, BUDGET, AND ECONOMY

CEOs rank Florida as second-best state to do business in
By Jeff Harrington
Tampa Bay Times
America's corporate chieftains still consider Texas the best place to do business, but Florida is close on its heels.

As state cuts jobs and merges services, it trims $16 million in rental costs
By Bill Cotterell
Florida Current
Gov. Rick Scott, who promised to cut state rental costs by $24 million in two years, has achieved about two-thirds of his goal in less than one year of reducing state job rolls and consolidating government services.

Will Social Security Last for Gens X, Y, Z?
By Stephanie Carroll Carson
Public News Service Florida
Social Security is going broke three years earlier than last year's projection, according to the annual report by the Social Security Board of Trustees.

The gospel of selfishness
By Joy-Ann Reid
Miami Herald
Ayn Rand was not a Catholic. In fact, the favorite philosopher of Libertarians and Republican budget writers abhorred and belittled organized religion.

HEALTH AND SENIORS

State efforts to tackle drug addicted babies issue proven with study
By Sascha Cordner
WFSU Tallahassee
A newly-released study is looking into babies born with prescription drug addictions nationwide.

Feds arrest more than 100 Medicare fraud suspects in South Florida, nationwide
By Jay Weaver
Miami Herald
If you thought Medicare fraud had faded as a crime, think again.

Florida loses $63M in tobacco tax with federal law's loophole
By Marni Jameson
Orlando Sentinel
Florida missed out on $63 million in tobacco-tax revenue from April 2009 to August 2011 because of a loophole in a federal law that went into effect in 2009, according to a report released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

CIVIL RIGHTS, PEACE AND SOCIAL ISSUES

When a gun law backfires
Editorial
Pensacola News Journal
In the wake of the Trayvon Martin death, much has been said about Florida’s Stand Your Ground Law.

JUSTICE AND THE COURTS

Probe sought into judge's decision not to run for state attorney
By Stacey Singer
Palm Beach Post
Palm Beach County's Republican Party, citing an April 15 report in The Palm Beach Post, has asked three agencies to open an investigation into what caused Circuit Judge Krista Marx to decide against running for state attorney.