FEATURED
STORIES
Will George Zimmerman Bring Down a Governor?
By Beth Reinhard
National Journal
Rick Scott couldn’t do much worse among black voters than in 2010, when only six percent backed him for governor.
Gov. Scott skips out on governing
Editorial
Tampa Bay Times
Gov. Rick Scott HAS BEEN missing in action. While the governor spent five days in New York and bounced around the Florida Panhandle and Tampa Bay boasting about bringing new private sector jobs into the state, firestorms were breaking out all over state government.
Stand Your Ground law targeted at Trayvon Martin rally in Miami; about 500 march, hear call for new civil rights movement
By John Lantigua
Palm Beach Post
About 500 people at an impassioned rally in downtown Miami, part of a nationwide day of protest in response to the Trayvon Martin verdict, heard that the time has come for a new civil rights movement.
FLORIDA
POLITICS
Rubio: Jesse Jackson's talk of Florida boycott 'outrageous'
By Mike Synan
WOFL Fox 35 Orlando
U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida called Jesse Jackson's talk of a boycott of Florida "outrageous" and "divisive" Friday during a stop in Orlando.
President Obama will visit Jacksonville Thursday
By Andrew Pantaz
The Times-Union
A White House official says President Barack Obama will visit Jacksonville Thursday for an event related to the economy.
POLITICAL
RACES
Dems eye taking back Florida where Gov. Scott looks vulnerable
By Michael LaRosa
MSNBC
It’s been more than a decade since Florida has elected a Democratic governor, but party leaders are seeing the next 15 months ahead of the 2014 elections as a chance to oust one of the most unpopular incumbents in the country—Republican Rick Scott.
GOP looks for its racial identity
By William March
Tampa Tribune
Should the Republican Party be the party of white people?
Stand Your Ground for voters: Pols fired up to make it an issue in 2014
By John Kennedy
Palm Beach Post
Florida’s “stand your ground” law has emerged as a powerful political symbol in the wake of the George Zimmerman case, with Democratic-allied activists looking to carry the issue into next year’s elections as a sign of Republican leadership working to oppress minorities.
ENVIRONMENT
AND ENERGY
Scott should intervene on key Everglades project
Editorial
Palm Beach Post
A year ago, South Florida had too little water. These days, South Florida has too much water. Worse, South Florida also is saturated with water politics.
Florida legacy campaign, A chance to guarantee water and land protection
Editorial
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
There was a time when protecting and preserving Florida's natural treasures was a proud piece of our state's public policy.
Looming development spells trouble for commuters
By Mike Salinero
Tampa Tribune
More than 1,000 people in Bloomingdale have told county leaders they were surprised and angry to learn a new big box store would be bringing traffic to their neighborhood soon - and angrier still there was nothing they could do about it.
Federal help for sugar industry shows no sign of drying up
By Jonathan Mattise
TCPalm
Given a chance to scale back federal help for the sugar industry, Florida’s congressional lawmakers almost all had the same recent response: No thanks.
GLBT
St. Petersburg politicians increasingly embracing gay community
By Anna M. Phillips
Tampa Bay Times
Down the street from the community center where Mayor Bill Foster recently debated a rival in the city's mayoral race, a half-dozen of his campaign signs stood in the grass next to Georgie's Alibi, a well-known gay bar.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen speaks for LGBT youths in proposed Student Non-Discrimination Act
By Steve Rothaus
Miami Herald
As the House of Representatives considers an education bill, Equality Caucus members from both parties pushed to amend the bill to include lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students.
EDUCATION
Decision to pad school grades shows Bush-Scott split
By Tia Mitchell
Tampa Bay Times
The state Board of Education's decision last week to inflate school grades for a second year was widely praised by parents and educators, but it also exposed a hard-to-miss rift between the closest allies of former Gov. Jeb Bush and those who back Gov. Rick Scott.
School-grade sanity
Editorial
Miami Herald
State Education Commissioner Tony Bennett gets a B+. Based on a task force’s concerns, he recommended that the formula used to calculate letter grades schools receive after their students take high-stakes, standardized tests be revised.
What's in a grade? Plenty for Volusia, Flagler schools
By Linda Trimble & Annie Martin
Daytona Beach News-Journal
The waiting game is on to see how Volusia and Flagler schools will fare on their state report cards this year after Florida schools got a last-minute break for the second year in a row from the scoring rules on the state's highly-touted A-to-F grading system.
Switch to Common Core national reading, math standards alarms some parents
By Dave Weber
Orlando Sentinel
With Common Core standards in reading and math just a year away for Florida schools, some Seminole County parents are questioning the planned switch to the uniform national academic standards for instruction and testing.
Teachers, principals finding new learning standards are anything but common
By Allison Ross
Palm Beach Post
Santaluces High School was abuzz this week with thousands of summer school students getting a few extra lessons before the start of classes this fall.
JOBS,
BUDGET, AND ECONOMY
Business groups endorse Internet sales tax legislation
By Tia Mitchell
Tampa Bay Times
The Florida Chamber of Commerce, Florida Retail Federation, Associated Industries of Florida and Florida TaxWatch have banded together to endorse closing the online sales tax loophole.
Study touts Internet tax gains
By Lloyd Dunkelberger
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
In the latest move to generate support for an Internet sales tax, business groups are touting a national economic study that shows Florida could gain some 107,000 new jobs over the next decade if the tax advantage that out-of-state retailers now enjoy is eliminated.
Jobless rate in Metro Orlando up to 6.9 percent
By Jim Stratton
Orlando Sentinel
Unemployment in Metro Orlando rose to 6.9 percent in June, as the region lost about 4,600 jobs and the number of people reporting they were unemployed – calculated from a separate survey – rose by about 3,800, state officials reported Friday.
State lawmaker finds living off minimum wage is barely living
By Frank Cerabino
Palm Beach Post
“So what’s for dinner tonight?” I asked. “I’m looking at that box of cereal again,” said state Sen. Dwight Bullard, D-Miami, who was seeing what it was like last week to live on the minimum wage.
HEALTH
AND SENIORS
Answers to Obamacare questions
By William E. Gibson
Orlando Sentinel
With major provisions of Obamacare less than six months from kicking in, millions in Florida already are seeing some benefits, yet questions remain about its full impact on consumers and their pocketbooks.
U.S. relaxes health law income, insurance status rule for exchanges
By David Morgan
Reuters
Days after delaying health insurance requirements for employers, the Obama administration has decided to roll back requirements for new state online insurance marketplaces to verify the income and health coverage status of people who apply for subsidized coverage.
Miami docs are employing cost cutting model spawned by Affordable Care Act
By Mary Ellen Klas
Miami Herald
Patient Robert JAfter suffering two heart attacks within one month in 1997, Robert Rivera sees a cardiologist regularly, and a nephrologist for an unrelated kidney disorder.
HCA chain to buy three Tampa Bay hospitals
By Letitia Stein
Tampa Bay Times
The nation's largest for-profit hospital chain, HCA, announced Thursday it is buying three Tampa Bay hospitals — Palms of Pasadena Hospital, Memorial Hospital of Tampa and Town & Country Hospital.
IMMIGRATION,
CIVIL RIGHTS AND SOCIAL ISSUES
Sit-in demonstration in Florida Capitol enters fifth day
By Kathleen McGrory
Miami Herald
Despite steady rain, three dozen people showed up outside the Florida Capitol on Saturday to show support for the Dream Defenders, a group of young activists who continued their five-day long occupation of Gov. Rick Scott's office.
House Republicans must deal with immigration
Editorial
Tampa Bay Times
By now, the House should have passed the Senate's immigration reforms and President Barack Obama should have signed the legislation into law.
Why did four children the state knew about die within three months?
Editorial
Palm Beach Post
When Sen. Eleanor Sobel, D-Hollywood, holds a hearing in September on how four children known to the Department of Children and Families died in three months, former DCF Secretary David Wilkins won’t be there to explain why state workers failed those children.
JUSTICE
AND THE COURTS
As its Capitol vigil continues, Dream Defenders gain allies
By Michael Van Sickler
Tampa Bay Times
Dream Defenders, a statewide group of college students and young professionals that met Thursday night with Gov. Rick Scott, won’t be abandoned as they continue to push for a special session to end racial profiling, said Adora Obi Nweze, president of the Florida State Conference of the NAACP during a Friday rally at the Capitol.
Let's talk "stand your ground" law and its flaws
By John Romano
Tampa Bay Times
If reasonable doubt is the threshold, then consider it reached. You can believe wholeheartedly in the Second Amendment and still have reasonable doubts about Florida's self-defense laws.
Hundreds rally for Trayvon Martin
By John Woodrow Cox and Keeley Sheehan
Tampa Bay Times
The girl in braided pigtails, her bright eyes wandering, led the marchers up Third Street S in St. Petersburg.
Trayvon’s father decries ‘senseless violence’ at Miami rally
By Marc Caputo, David Smiley and Kathleen McGrory
Miami Herald
Demonstrators rallied in about 100 U.S. cities Saturday, chanting, singing, sign-waving, and demanding justice in the shooting death of Miami Gardens teenager Trayvon Martin.
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