Statewide Reports-April 30, 2002

NOTE - 
If the link to the on-line articles has changed, search the paper's archive section by date and title - Palm Beach Post links are only good for the day posted, and there is a fee to access archived articles. Same is true for some of the others although the time frame varies.

4/30/02

• $5 million in out-of-state money bolsters GOP campaign for Gov. Bush - With the power of the presidency behind it -- and the GOP intent on securing Florida for President Bush's brother in 2002 and for the president in 2004 -- half the $10 million raised by the state party has come from out of state.
  Republican ammo already is landing in living rooms, in the form of a month-long, $2 million run of TV ads touting Jeb Bush....
  With its early debut of campaign commercials, and the governor courting fund-raisers nationwide, the GOP has the ability to remain on the air, nonstop, into November. The costly air war is a pre-emptive strike against a campaign that ill-financed Democrats are forced to wage on the ground for now.
  "We will do whatever it takes," says David Johnson, state GOP executive director, eyeing a $30 million goal for his party's campaigning this year.
• GOP plans major effort in Broward for 2002-- Broward Republican Chairman George LeMieux, vowing his party would no longer concede Broward County to the Democrats, announced what he called the GOP's biggest campaign effort in Broward's history.
• Bush attends drug summit, cries 
  Jeb Bush cries as he thanks attendees for their support after his daughter's drug arrest.
• Legislature: Lawmakers get right down to budget work
  TALLAHASSEE — Despite the testimony of one of the Legislature's top economists, a Senate panel voted along party lines Monday for a bill giving businesses a $262 million tax break. Legislative leaders reached broad agreement on a budget before Gov. Jeb Bush scheduled the second special session of the year, which began Monday and runs through May 14.
• Tax cut for business gets initial okay
  In the first move of the special session, a bill is sent to the full Senate that includes a $262-million tax break for business.
• Corporate tax break keeps talks on track
   The $262 million corporate tax break essential to a fragile agreement on Florida's $49 billion state budget survived a key Senate committee by only one vote Monday, amid criticism that it siphons money from schools and health programs.
• Special session convenes
  The Florida Legislature kicked off a two-week special session Monday, drawing the outlines of the state budget, moving forward on a controversial tax break for corporations and trying hard to show that the members can get along.
• Indefensible tax cut
  With the sorry state of education and aid for the medically needy, legislators shouldn't make tax cuts for corporations a priority.
• Legislature likely to pass tax break for the wealthy - Lawmakers say that as of now the popular back-to-school-sales-tax break won't be back after a four-year run because they can't find the $28 million needed to cover for the lost revenue.-- Of the billion dollars-plus in tax cuts handed out by the Republican-controlled Legislature during Bush's term, that was one of the few that actually put money into the pockets of average Floridians.
• State budget plan includes more school funding
  Lawmakers went to work on the state's budget Monday, laying the groundwork to give more money to public schools, transfer 1,000 state jobs to the private sector and offer $262 million in tax breaks to businesses.
• Give students the breaks
  As leaders meet to work out a budget, they remain intent on investing in tax breaks, not education.
• Please respect the &*!#% schools
  Unruly students, unruly politicians.
• Bragging rights
  If Bush and Co. want to claim bragging rights for what's happening at the graduate degree level of state higher education, they must surely accept blame for some less desirable trends.---
  State House Speaker-designate Johnny Bird dropped into Gainesville last Thursday evening to pump up the local Republican faithful and promote the official fiction that under Gov. Jeb Bush and the Republican Legislature education in Florida is better than it's ever been....
• A matter of degree: Don't spread community colleges too thin
  Daytona Beach Community College is one of several two-year schools proposing to offer bachelor's degree programs, as allowed under a state law passed last year. So officials are keeping a close watch on what happens to three two-year colleges that have petitioned the Florida Board of Education to award four-year programs: Chipola, Miami-Dade and Edison.
• Special session proves costly
  Legislators said complicated issues make session costs of $25,000 a day worth it.
• Privatization has limits
  Everyone seemed convinced that government should be "run like a business," and that private businesses could do the jobs cheaper and more effectively. But, it's not always the case, state officials are quickly learning.
• Bush backs DaimlerChrysler
  Gov. Jeb Bush and economic-development officials want the Legislature to set aside $15 million to help build a DaimlerChrysler job-training center in Jacksonville.
• Cuban-Americans' clout in legislature growing
  Congressional and state legislative seats designed as majority-Hispanic districts will most likely go to Cuban candidates.
• Congressman Deutsch files suit over districts - TALLAHASSEE - U.S. Rep. Peter Deutsch is joining a growing list of Democrats and South Florida cities challenging the state's new GOP-designed congressional districts.-- In a complaint filed in U.S. District Court, the Pembroke Pines Democrat charges the new maps unfairly benefit the Republican party in ``total disregard of Florida's minority voters.''
• Proposed amendments should have price tags, Bush tells Legislature-- TALLAHASSEE - Gov. Jeb Bush is asking lawmakers to require that a price tag be calculated before voters are asked to add potentially expensive amendments to the state Constitution. -- The move comes four days after Bush criticized the sponsors of a proposed amendment to cap public school class sizes for failing to alert voters to the costs. The request also adds the issue to an already volatile special legislative session.
• Layoffs challenge may proceed
  A legal challenge to the layoff of 680 Department of Juvenile Justice employees has cleared its first procedural hurdle. But the complaint by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees is still a long way from getting the employees rehired.
• DCF informed about fired firm
  Seven months before the Florida Task Force for the Protection of Abused and Neglected Children was fired by the state, social service administrators uncovered signs that the private company was failing to perform adequate child-abuse investigations.
• Some say system turns troubled girls into criminals
  In an adult Florida prison, on her 17th birthday, brown-eyed Cautia Spencer committed suicide. The Volusia County girl had never been charged with anything worse than a misdemeanor. She broke a window with a chair once in a juvenile facility.
• Report: Florida's freshmen ill prepared for college
  FORT LAUDERDALE — About 40 percent of Florida's public high school graduates are not ready for basic college-level courses and must take remedial classes when they enroll for higher education, a state report has found. The freshmen who were not considered ready for college had to take refresher courses in one or more of three basic subjects — reading, writing and math, according to the state's Readiness for College report.
• Don't dip into preservation money
  Under Republican Gov. Bob Martinez, the state sold revenue bonds for Preservation 2000, a groundbreaking, 10-year, $3-billion program designed to buy and protect sensitive land. At the time, Floridians and investors were promised that those funds would go for environmental conservation. But legislators, facing a tight budget this year, are planning to put their sticky paws on some of the money and have already earmarked $100-million of P2000 reserve funds to be diverted to pay for general state expenditures.
• Conservation gets a boost
  Two Big Bend area groups are benefiting from a foundation's $11 million donation to promote conservation in South Alabama, Southwest Georgia and the Florida Panhandle.
• Butterworth backs effort to make polluters pay for Everglades cleanup-- Everglades advocates are not dropping their campaign to release taxpayers from cleanup costs and have a significant new ally: Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth.
• 'Polluter pays' clarification sought
  The state Supreme Court is asked to clarify its opinion on Everglades cleanup costs involving the share to be borne by sugar growers.
• Researcher questions Everglades plan focus
  The plan doesn't do enough to restore historic water flows, the water management district scientist says.
• County leaders to look at Lake Lafayette
  Lake Lafayette, hidden in the woods of eastern Leon County, is again getting the full attention of local politicians. For the third time in six months, the County Commission tonight will attempt to take another step toward establishing permanent protections for the ailing lake, which drains about 51,000 acres across eastern Tallahassee.
• County asks for Bush's veto -- SANFORD - A bill approved by the state legislature that would kick Lynx's disability transportation services to the curb, was met with stern opposition Tuesday by Seminole County commissioners.
  Commissioners voted unanimously to draft a letter to Gov. Jeb Bush urging his veto of Senate Bill 100. If signed, the bill would drop Lynx as the facilitator of disability transportation services in the three county area.
• 'Suspicious activity' prompts authorities to turn US Airways flight around
  PHILADELPHIA — The FBI told passengers on a Florida-bound flight forced to return after takeoff that their plane was rerouted because several passengers of Middle Eastern descent had purchased one-way tickets for cash that day, passengers said Monday. FBI spokeswoman Linda Vizi would not confirm the passengers' accounts but said the suspicious passengers on Sunday's flight to Orlando were interviewed and released early Monday without being charged.
• Fears delay flight bound for Orlando
  Donald David, 46, and his wife, Kathleen, remember their fellow passenger as an affable, dark-skinned man in his 20s of Indian descent, who said he was from Manchester, England.
• Bush signs breast cancer research plate, three strikes bills
  TALLAHASSEE — A new license plate will raise money for breast cancer research under a bill Gov. Jeb Bush signed into law Monday 
• Tag for breast cancer research approved
  A license plate supporting breast cancer research joined the state's more than 50 other specialty tags Monday when, surrounded by lawmakers and breast cancer survivors, Gov. Jeb Bush signed the bill creating the new tag.
• Gallagher orders Texas company to stop Florida sales
  TALLAHASSEE — A Texas-based company believed to have sold some 13,000 unlicensed health plans to Floridians must stop peddling those products in the state, Insurance Commissioner Tom Gallagher said Monday. American Benefit Plans, which has operated in Florida under more than a dozen names, improperly claimed a federal exemption from state licensure by operating "under the ruse" of various interest, trade and occupational associations, Gallagher said.
• Lee, Collier among fastest growing counties in nation 
  More than 100 years ago, Thomas Edison made this observation: "There is only one Fort Myers and 90 million people are going to find it out." During one recent 15-month period, about 36,000 of them did — or at least they found Southwest Florida. Newly released census figures tell Southwest Florida residents what they already knew.
• Rural committee approves changes to growth program
  Rural landowners in Collier County moved a big step closer Monday night to guidelines that will set the course for what they say will be compatible growth management around the Immokalee area. The Rural Area Assessment Oversight Committee unanimously approved two sets of revisions to goals, objectives and policies for a program called the Rural Lands Stewardship Area Overlay, which involves the northeastern section of the county surrounding Immokalee.
• Schools propose curbs on lobbyists
  The Orange County School Board on Monday trotted out the latest in a series of measures designed to make the district more accountable -- rules for dealing with lobbyists.
• Official reverses decision on releasing info to Council members
  Volusia County's chief financial officer on Monday reversed an order that had directed her staff not to release information to County Council members without her permission.
• Key witness fears for own safety
  Former A.S. Goldmen stockbroker Michael Lara said he'd rather go to jail than get tagged as a snitch in the $100 million mob-tinged stock fraud case involving the brokerage's Naples owner, Anthony Marchiano, and the failed Stadium Naples golf arena. Prison is where Lara appears headed: His attorney and local prosecutors with State Attorney Joe D'Alessandro's office are negotiating a plea deal that would likely include prison time in the $700,000 theft case against Lara, attorneys said Monday.
• ATM, cell phone records tripped up kidnap-murder suspects
  Following a trail of ATM purchases and cell phone calls, police captured five suspects within 30 hours of the abduction and murder of 18-year-old honors student Ana Maria Angel and the beating of her high school sweetheart, Nelson Eddy Portobanco.
• Florida Can't Find Illegal Truckers
  TAMPA - State officials cannot find more than 1,000 truck drivers who they say obtained commercial driver's licenses through bribes and payoffs in a program prosecutors say was run by a Tampa church. ...
• Gas spikes tied to lack of competition
  By Scott Shepard, Palm Beach Post Washington Bureau
  A lack of competition has allowed oil companies to reduce gasoline supplies and cause record prices, a report found.
• Independent Power Producers Rate Impartial Review Of Bids -- Florida Power & Light received 81 proposals from 15 companies to build new generating capacity and, after its own confidential evaluation, selected itself to do the work.-- Bidding on these big jobs has been required since 1994, but no independent power producer has ever won a bid responding to Florida's regulated, investor-owned utilities.
• Power restored to First Coast
  The power outage that blacked out Jacksonville last night had ended by this morning as JEA restored electricity throughout its service area by 4 a.m., allowing Duval County schools to open as usual.   
• Ugly mayoral campaign spotlights a national problem
  Those holding political power in America today are so used to going unchallenged that when it actually happens, they go nuts. Witness the campaign craziness going on in Newark, N.J., where the race for mayor has become a case study in the nationwide clash pitting a new generation of leaders against the members of an elite old guard who have outstayed their welcome and refuse to either think anew or make room for those who do.
• Bonnie Erbe: Deciding on a pet's death
  There is little in life more difficult than deciding when it is time for a terminally ill loved one to die. With all due respect to those who've traveled this road with another person, my own experience came last week in the form of deciding when it was time to put my beloved dog "to sleep." This dog was my child. I have two others (and many former dogs) but none with whom the bond of love was so pure and so strong.

4/29/02

• Bush's quiet run for reelection switches gears for showdown
  With sweat showing through his wrinkled dress shirt, Gov. Jeb Bush stood like an itinerant preacher on the bed of a cherry-red pickup truck parked in the shade of a sprawling live oak tree.
• Another session begins today for lawmakers
  Florida lawmakers return to Tallahassee today with one major goal in mind: try not to embarrass themselves.
• Lawmakers to try another time at budget, school issues
  It's time to try again. After failing to get its assignments completed in two earlier attempts, Florida's Legislature returns Monday for another shot at resolving a $49 billion budget, a school code rewrite and possibly job descriptions for a reorganized Cabinet.
• Legislators poised to give $262 million tax break to big businesses - TALLAHASSEE -- Florida legislators appear eager to approve a lucrative tax break sought by the state’s biggest corporations but are less likely to relieve crowded classrooms when they return to the Capitol today for a two-week special session.
• Corporations look like winners
  A corporate tax cut is popular as the Florida Legislature begins its special session.
• Medically Needy program faces changes
  Lawmakers will begin haggling over a nearly $50 billion budget as the second special session since March begins.
• Faith-based prison dorms, programs raise questions
  WAKULLA -- Inmates have no privacy and nothing much to do as they sit on their bunks in a dorm at the medium-security Wakulla Correctional Institution near Tallahassee.
• Report: Almost 40 percent of Florida freshmen not prepared for college - Almost 40 percent of Florida students must take refresher courses in reading, writing or math when they enroll in the state’s college and university system because they are not prepared for college-level work in those subjects, according to the state’s Readiness for College report.
• Problem special ed students shielded
  Educators say federal laws limit ability to handle misbehaving students.
• Blacks often in emotionally handicapped classes
  Critics say the label is inaccurate and pinned too fast on students with problems.
• Summer school still an option
  With Leon County Schools and other districts not offering any summer classes this year, students looking to repeat subjects or to get ahead are going elsewhere for their instruction.
• Protesters have a place to call home
  FSU's president says the free speech zone keeps protesters' tents from blocking access to buildings.
• State reins worry elder council-- Local advocates who investigate complaints against nursing homes and assisted living centers are holding their breath that moving under the state's aging agency won't cost them valuable volunteers.
• Church targets lawsuit attorney
  Scientology tries to end a lawsuit by having the plaintiff's attorney in the case removed.
• Reef transplant experiment under way
  Sea fan coral grown at Harbor Branch was placed where a ship scraped the reef off Key Largo.
• New bikeway keeps Keys trail on track
  Florida Keys officials gathered Saturday to mark completion of the Grassy Key Bikeway and the state park designation of the Overseas Heritage Trail.
• Reef transplant experiment under way
  Sea fan coral grown at Harbor Branch was placed where a ship scraped the reef off Key Largo.
• President's deficit: The tax cut is a decade's economic robbery
  President Bush was right: He had hardly anything to do with the recession of 2001. By the same logic, Bush had hardly anything to do with the quick recovery and Friday's announcement that the economy grew at a fantasyland rate of 5.8 percent.
  

4/27-28/02

• Senate Raids Conservation Fund - S enate President John McKay is pushing a plan to use funds from the state's program to buy environmentally endangered lands for other state expenses. Lawmakers should have nothing to do with this funding raid.-- Forever Florida, originally called Preservation 2000, has proved to be the state's most effective conservation effort, providing $300 million each year to acquire valuable natural lands.
• Graham will attempt to keep drilling plan alive
  U.S. Sen. Bob Graham will try to attach a proposal for swapping offshore drilling leases to other legislation after failing to get it amended onto the Senate's energy bill, a spokesman said Friday.
• When Moratoriums Are Essential-- I n what is wrongly termed a blow to property rights, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that a temporary moratorium on development does not require local governments to compensate landowners.-- At issue was a decision by a planning agency to stop construction around Lake Tahoe until it could be determined what was beginning to turn the clear blue water a murky green. Some 400 property owners said the building ban amounted to a taking of their land.
• Congressional redistricting plans favors Republicans
  JACKSONVILLE — With the court battles now underway over Florida's congressional districts, an analysis of the new boundaries shows Republicans gaining two new seats and a 17-8 advantage in Congress. Although Democrats outnumber Republicans by about 400,000 in Florida, the GOP, by virtue of its overwhelming control of the Legislature, was free to draw a plan more favorable to their political fortunes.
• Florida Democrats' best hope is to spotlight economy
  Whatever you think of James Carville and the man he got elected president in 1992, Carville's brilliant "It's the economy, stupid," probably was the single most effective strategy behind Bill Clinton's victory.
• Milligan Correct On New Cabinet Post-- A mong the urgent state business the Legislature has failed to accomplish this year is the restructuring of the state Cabinet.-- The task should be relatively easy. But powerful special interests are complicating the matter and lawmakers are running out of time.
• Lawmakers are still gambling with education
  In 1986, Florida residents approved a lottery with the proceeds earmarked for education.
• Lawmakers counting on Bush's vetoes -... as lawmakers begin crafting a $50 billion budget this week, suddenly they're relying on vetoes to keep Florida afloat.
• Legislature has full plate for 14-day special session
  Florida's brawling and occasionally bumbling Legislature returns to the Capitol on Monday with grand plans: to finally finish the people's work and repair its own image.
• FOCUS ON STATE BUDGET
  Tomorrow, state lawmakers will convene the third special session of the Legislature since October, with hopes of smooth sailing this time. The governor and legislators are in sync on a $49 billion budget and hope for a quick, efficient session. But other contentious issues are on the agenda -- so a charmed session is wishful thinking. Moreover, as lawmakers have shown more than usual this year, their combativeness and innate differences prevent easy consensus on even benign issues.
• Bush, Legislature hoping third session's the charm
  How optimistic are lawmakers that the special session starting Monday will be more of a love fest than the divorce proceedings viewed during the regular and special sessions earlier this year?
• Budget will raid reserves
  Lawmakers have to find funds for a state budget that will increase spending on schools and cut taxes.
• Health-care lobbyists hurry to get issues on session agenda -- TALLAHASSEE · Everyone in the health care industry, it seems, wants something from the Florida Legislature.
• Approaches to juvenile justice rely on 'Tough Love'
  A four-part Daytona Beach News-Journal investigation examines problems in the juvenile justice system. Today: Children face abusive guards, violent fellow offenders and limited avenues for help in Florida's juvenile justice system
• Broward Power
  The political fortunes of the leading Democratic candidates for governor may rest in the South Florida county, though Tampa's Bill McBride rejects the idea that victory there is vital.
• Vote change flips ethics on its head-- Are elected officials for sale?-- 
  It's no secret that developers, builders, consultants, surveyors, engineers, attorneys and a host of other professionals contribute thousands of dollars to political campaigns.-- 
  Civic duty or long-term investment? -- Elected officials well tell you they need those checks to run for office. And, they'll note, a couple of hundred dollars won't buy their vote.-- Once in office, though, those same officials typically don't think twice about routinely sending business to the same companies that contributed to their campaigns.-- It's all legal. But is it ethical?
• City takes its shot at van plant funding
  With time running short, Jacksonville leaders and Gov. Jeb Bush are preparing to ask the Legislature this week for millions of dollars to help attract a DaimlerChrysler van plant to the city's Westside, sources said.
• McCollum joins conservative think tank
  INSIDE POLITICS Former U.S. Rep. Bill McCollum has been appointed to the board of directors for the James Madison Institute. McCollum capped his 20-year congressional career as one of the House prosecutors in the impeachment trial of ex-President Bill Clinton. He was the GOP nominee for the U.S. Senate in 2000, losing to Sen. Bill Nelson.
• FCAT hurdle for special ed students
  With no special allowances, a high-stakes test could keep many from graduating.
• Government should not promote religion
  With increasing frequency, opponents of church-state separation are using the Ten Commandments as a tool for government-sponsored religion. From city councils to Capitol Hill, many public officials want to promote the religious code through state sponsorship in public schools, courthouses and other public buildings.
• The Book of Intolerance
  The Senate should not let the new school code become law until it is free of any rule that individuals or groups could exploit to promote religious intolerance.
• Nearly every Florida county found to lack adequate shelter space for major hurricanes
  TALLAHASSEE — If a major hurricane hits Florida, all but a handful of the state's counties won't have enough shelter space in wind-resistant public buildings to handle the number of people who seek it, a study says. Sixty of the state's 67 counties have shortages of space in shelters built to withstand Category 4 and 5 hurricanes, which have winds of more than 130 mph, according to a study by the state's Division of Emergency Management.
• Trusting in sex offender treatment
  TAMPA -- The pedophile scrubs pans in a family bakery and fills his week with church. Tuesday night is Bible study. Wednesday is prayer group. Thursday is choir practice. Sunday is worship.
• Plant City police chief, mayor accused of hiding evidence
  PLANT CITY — A federal prosecutor said Plant City's police chief and mayor collaborated to hide criminal evidence against police officers targeted in a federal corruption probe. Mayor Mike Sparkman paid the legal fees for accused officer Armand Cotnoir to keep him from talking to the government about crimes committed by Police Chief Bill McDaniel, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Del Fuoco.
• Amorous alligators causing anxiety
  Suddenly, the big reptiles are everywhere, wallowing in golf course ponds, lurking on suburban lawns, snapping in schoolyards.
• State low on medicine for fighting snake bites -- MIAMI -- Florida is almost out of the antivenin it needs to treat snake bites, a Miami doctor says.-- 
  Dr. Robert DelChristo said there are only 50 vials left until the end of summer when more will be produced and it takes five to 10 vials to treat the average bite.
• Ringling's Sarasota mansion renewed to former glory
  SARASOTA — The velvet curtains are rich and plush again, the gilded doorways are buffed to a luster, and the silver Tiffany vase which was John and Mable Ringling's wedding present is stuffed with fresh pink roses. Ca d'Zan, the fabled winter home of the circus magnate and his bride, is again bustling with glamorous parties and awed visitors 77 years after the terra cotta palace on the Sarasota waterfront first hosted the rich and famous.
• Federal voting lawsuit settled
  Leon County has settled a federal lawsuit resulting from Florida's 2000 presidential race, but Elections Supervisor Ion Sancho said Friday nothing will change.
• Editorial: New science, new ideas require public scrutiny
  Three stories dominated the front page of this newspaper on Sunday, April 21. One was about mitigation banking. Another was about Everglades restoration. The third was about the future of farming and residential development in the Immokalee area. They all had something in common. They all are driven by growth.
• Bush's clean-air rules upset activists-- WASHINGTON -- In developing President Bush's Clear Skies proposal to reduce air pollution, the White House rejected a more stringent alternative drawn up by his own Environmental Protection Agency.
• Here's a U.S. secret revealed: The Fourth Amendment is dead-- The USA Patriot Act, which Congress passed this past year, amends FISA so that the FBI can secretly conduct a wiretap or physical search to obtain evidence of a crime without a prior showing of probable cause for such invasions of privacy. A search or wiretap can be authorized by the FISA court simply because a person is suspected of "clandestine activities."-- 
  The Fourth Amendment guarantee of the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures" has been totally abandoned.

4/26/02

• Henderson Denies Working As Agent
  TALLAHASSEE - Cynthia Henderson, while running two state agencies under Gov. Jeb Bush, also was listed as the registered agent for a subsidiary of the largest building company in the state, Florida corporation records show. ... As the registered agent for Centex Rooney/RS&H Design Builders, Henderson, a former Tampa land-use lawyer, would have been the person contacted if lawsuits were filed against the company. - Centex Rooney is a Fortune 500 company and the largest builder in Florida. RS&H Design Builders is a Jacksonville-based architectural firm. - As head of the Department of Business and Professional Regulation from January 1999 until September 2000, Henderson held regulatory power over both companies. - The governor reassigned Henderson to head the Department of Management Services, the agency in charge of state facilities. The state has paid Centex $40 million since 1999 for construction of state buildings.
• Jeb's ads: A+ for fraud
  Political ads about public education are not politicizing public education. - One of the few things Gov. Bush knows about education is this: Tell people something often enough, and they will start to believe it. A corollary: The bigger the whopper, the more times you'd better tell it.-- So his first reelection ads tell Floridians early and often that Gov. Bush has been great for public schools. He's boosted test scores. He wants a record $1 billion increase in education spending. Students who had been lagging show the most improvement.-- About that test: It's the FCAT...
• Reducing class size could be issue for voters
  Florida's chronically crowded classrooms could play a crucial role in a political year already dominated by bitter disagreements over how to fix state schools.
• Union fights new pension plan
  The union representing most state employees is urging them not to join Florida's new pension plan. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees called Thursday for a delay of the scheduled July 1 start for the optional "defined contribution" retirement plan, in which employees will be allowed to choose different stock funds or other investment vehicles for their pension money.
• Rerouting preservation dollars causes an outcry
  Environmentalists are outraged that the state budget plan takes $100-million from a land preservation fund.
• Feds approve more of Florida's new election law
  TALLAHASSEE — Federal officials have signed off on the state's plan to create a voter database, a key change made after the 2000 election debacle. U.S. Justice Department approval late last month of the database nearly completes federal authorization of the changes Florida made to fix shortcomings revealed by the razor-thin presidential race, when it became clear that several Floridians didn't have their votes counted.
• Fairness in telecommunications
  Legislators embarrassed by Gov. Jeb Bush's veto of the telephone rate increase have no one but themselves to blame. He didn't ask for the bill, the telephone lobbies did. He did his job, which was to look out for the public interest. Theirs was the same, but most failed at it. Only 21 of the 120 lawmakers voted no. The remainder are left to explain why they voted for something that would give such offense to the public.
• Nixing phone bill almost makes up for misses
  While executives of telephone companies are disappointed, consumers are rightfully applauding Gov. Jeb Bush's veto this week of a bill that would have raised basic phone rates by between $3 to $8 per month.
• Cities can't ban use of cellphones
  Few officials were surprised when Gov. Jeb Bush signed a bill Thursday taking away the power of local governments to ban driving while using a cellphone -- but it didn't stop some of them from lashing out.
• GOP House speaker wants AG to move to Democratic side
  MIAMI — Republican House Speaker Tom Feeney wants Democratic Attorney General Bob Butterworth to be forced to the other side of the courtroom in a lawsuit by Democratic office holders challenging congressional redistricting. Butterworth, the lone Democrat in a top state office and the state's top legal representative, currently sits as a defendant with the Republicans who drafted and signed the new 10-year voting boundary plan into law.
• One more time
  There is very little to be hopeful about as the Gang that Couldn't Legislate prepares to descend on Tallahassee yet again.
• High court says class size can go on the ballot
  TALLAHASSEE — A proposed constitutional amendment to reduce class sizes in Florida can go on the ballot, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday. But sponsors must have more than half a million signatures collected and verified by midsummer to get their measure before voters in November. So far they've got less than 85,000 verified — although they have another 90,000 collected and awaiting verification, according to Derek Newton, spokesman for the Coalition to Reduce Class Size.
• Public can't get 'taken'
  Land-use ruling will benefit Floridians.
• A WIN FOR LAND-USE RULES
  Local governments got a welcome boost from the U.S. Supreme Court this week with a decision that says a moratorium on development doesn't automatically amount to a ''taking'' of private property.
• A Politically Tainted Everglades Bill - T hanks to a slimy scheme by Sen. Jim King, Gov. Jeb Bush had a hard call in deciding whether to approve legislation funding the Everglades cleanup.
• Agencies fight for security funds - So as state legislators meet next week to spar over a budget already diminished by declining tourism to the Sunshine State, they will be met with open palms from local officials who want to recoup soaring public safety expenses.
• Stop meddling
  Gov. Bush should veto a Feeney bill that would hobble local transit.
• Losing Tri-Rail bidder files protest - The company whose bid to run Tri-Rail's commuter trains was disqualified last month filed a protest Thursday, calling the decision unfair and arbitrary.
• Foreign hospitality interns feel misled
  The brochure for the internship program says it seeks ambitious young people for training in a prestigious and innovative American program in the management of hotels, time shares and theme parks.
• Credit card issuer to shut Boca center
  MBNA will close by 2003, affecting 950 workers -- the largest wave of job cuts to hit Boca.

4/25/02

• Feeney: Butterworth is adversary - TALLAHASSEE - Florida House Speaker Tom Feeney wants Attorney General Bob Butterworth booted off the state's legal team, claiming the Democrat is ''at every turn'' siding with opponents of the new GOP-drawn boundaries for congressional and legislative seats.-- In court papers to be filed today in federal court in Miami, Feeney's attorneys contend that Butterworth is undermining their case by agreeing with challengers of the congressional boundaries, who say the new maps were drawn to benefit the Republican Party at the expense of minorities and Democrats.
• Who comes first?: Budget deal ignores Florida's needs
  There's not enough money to cut the crowding that plagues Florida classrooms. There's not enough money to provide pre-kindergarten for 3- and 4-year-olds. There's not enough money for adequate mental-health treatment, or environmental policing, or consumer protection.
• Phone bill override vote not on leaders' agenda
  TALLAHASSEE -- The talk in the Capitol on Wednesday focused on whether the Legislature will try to override Gov. Jeb Bush's veto of a phone rate increase during a legislative session next week.
• State workers resume cutting down Brevard County citrus trees
  PALM BAY — State workers armed with chain saws and a court order resumed cutting down citrus trees Wednesday within a 1,900-foot range of where two cases of citrus canker were found in January. The trees targeted for destruction were on the properties of about 100 homeowners who had refused to grant permission to have their trees removed. Workers plan to cut down close to 300 trees over the next few days.
• State begins cutting uninfected trees - ... Ending a 17-month ban on destroying ''exposed-but-not-infected'' citrus trees without their owners' permission, state tree cutters moved into a quiet Central Florida community Wednesday in a renewed quest to rid the state of citrus canker. Bailey's trees were not diseased. Their only sin was to be within 1,900 feet of a property that recently had canker-infected trees.
• Redistricting plan likely to stand
  Butt out. That's what lawyers for the GOP-controlled Florida House and Senate told the state Supreme Court this week.
• Union Sees USF Shift On Al-Arian
  TAMPA - The University of South Florida's president shows signs she will let a banished professor return to work, and the school will almost certainly be censured if she doesn't, according to a report for the nation's leading voice on academic freedom. ...
• Melvin owes apology for offensive remark
  It may be too much to expect state Rep. Jerry Melvin to understand why Jewish lawmakers object to religious rights language that he seeks to include in the state education code. But it isn't too much to insist that he apologize, and possibly face rebuke in the Florida House of Representatives, for his objectionable characterization of his Jewish colleagues.
• Tribe's attorney has no room for hate
  Recuperating from an attempt on his life, Jim Shore says he won't live life scared. Suspects outnumber leads.
• Parents will learn danger of syndrome
  The governor signs laws including one targeting shaken baby syndrome.
• Spot check
  Editor's note: To help voters evaluate political ads, Times reporters review and analyze content.
• Prosecutor's taste tied to game, not Strawberry
  For Darryl Strawberry's last two appearances in a Hillsborough courtroom, the man arguing that the fallen Yankees great belongs behind prison bars has made a striking sartorial choice: baseball-patterned ties.
• Officer shoots man during prostitution sting
  The Tampa police officer, using his gun to knock on the man's car window, accidentally shoots him. The man is hospitalized in stable condition and will face charges.
• Green with hypocrisy
  Lawmakers trying to add more ethanol to gasoline may seem as though they are acting out of environmental concern, but their effort is really to benefit agribusiness.
• Citrus Department upset over Sunny Delight drink
  LAKELAND — The Florida Department of Citrus has joined with nutrition and children's advocacy groups in protesting how the popular orange drink Sunny Delight is marketed, saying Proctor & Gamble pushes the product as a healthy alternative to orange juice. The "Sunny Deception" campaign was unveiled Wednesday at a Washington, D.C., press conference.
• Florida company and officers settle allegations over credit-card protection
  WASHINGTON — An Orlando, Fla., company that sold credit-card protection over the phone has settled federal allegations it lied to and bullied consumers to persuade them to buy worthless services. Under the settlement, Advanced Consumer Services and two of its principal officers, Anthony and Tracy Andrews, agreed to pay about $700,000 to consumers, the Federal Trade Commission said Wednesday.
• Florida disciplines MDs at higher rate than other large states
  TALLAHASSEE — Florida disciplined a higher percentage of doctors than any other large state last year, revoking 93 licenses and placing restrictions on the licenses of 225 others, the state announced Wednesday. The 318 revocations and restrictions mark a 23 percent increase from 2000, when 258 doctors were disciplined, according to the state Department of Health and the Agency for Health Care Administration.
• Nursing home data available on Web
  TALLAHASSEE — Floridians looking for good nursing homes will have an easier time making comparisons using data the federal government put online Wednesday. Florida is one of six states taking part in an $11 million pilot project to improve the care provided in nursing homes.
• Nursing homes report released
  A federal report released Wednesday examines nursing homes in Florida and five other states.
• State officials ban catching of puffer fish
  TALLAHASSEE — State officials banned the taking of puffer fish from the waters of several central Florida counties starting Thursday after 13 people became ill eating it. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Acting Director Vic Heller took the action Wednesday. The prohibition against catching the fish is for the coastal waters of Volusia, Brevard and Indian River counties.
• Florida's builders busiest in nation
  Despite a recession and the falloff in tourism after Sept. 11, Central Florida's new-home market continues to exude strength even as other parts of the country show signs of easing off.
• Vet charged with flag abuse, denies stomping Old Glory
  CRESTVIEW — A retired soldier who was arrested on a charge of mutilating the U.S. flag denies that he trampled on Old Glory. Alan Sampson also was charged with disorderly conduct Sunday in a confrontation with a police officer after the 22-year Army veteran had turned the flag in his front yard upside down.
• Letters to the Editor: Check on chance of error in touch-screen programs
  None of the articles I have read about the problems seen with Palm Beach County's new touch-screen voting system has covered the software programming involved.
• Critics assail plan to have local police enforce immigration laws-- Fearing its potential effects on tourism, community relations and legal immigration, opponents are rallying against a recent proposal by the Department of Justice that local police be allowed to enforce immigration laws.
• Pakistan's 'democracy'
  Musharraf has rigged a vote for himself.
  

4/24/02

• HR director placed on leave
  The woman who filed a sex discrimination complaint against top officials at the State Board of Administration was placed on administrative leave on Tuesday, less than a day after media reports detailed her 2-month-old charges.
• Leave Politics Out of Choice
  Gov. Jeb Bush could help or hurt his re-election chances, define the nature of his governorship and create a lasting legacy, for good or ill, depending on his choice of a new Florida Supreme Court justice. It will be the most important appointment he has yet made.
• Opponents relate redistricting case to Bush v. Gore
  Opponents of the Legislature's redistricting plan told the Florida Supreme Court on Tuesday that it's Bush v. Gore all over again.
• High court hears redistricting duel
  Justices sharply question Republican supporters and Democratic foes of the state legislative map.
• State high court hears legislative redistricting arguments
  TALLAHASSEE — Describing the Legislature's new congressional and legislative districts as "gerrymandered beyond belief," an attorney challenging the boundaries urged the Florida Supreme Court on Tuesday to make lawmakers redo them. Dexter Douglass, representing the government watchdog group Common Cause of Florida, said the lines were drawn by a Republican-dominated House and Senate solely for political reasons, "to maximize the number of seats that would have performance for the party in power."
• Redistricting maps challenged - TALLAHASSEE -- Arguing that the Legislature's new political districts illegally limit minority voting strength and fail to meet constitutional guidelines, attorneys challenging reapportionment maps pressed the Florida Supreme Court on Tuesday to send legislators back to the drawing board.
• Justices skeptical of district challenge
  Florida Supreme Court justices seem skeptical of a challenge to a new legislative map favorable to Republicans.
• Florida Supreme Court hears redistricting challenge
  New political boundaries for the state House and Senate are so skewed they're "eye-popping" and should be redrawn, attorneys for opponents of the plan argued before the Florida Supreme Court on Tuesday.
• Bush schedules 2nd special session to approve budget
  TALLAHASSEE — State lawmakers will be back in the Capitol next week for the third time this year to try to write a budget, Gov. Jeb Bush announced Tuesday. Through "patient negotiation" over the phone, legislative leaders have generally agreed to a $49 billion plan that will increase spending on public schools by 6 percent per student, Senate President John McKay said.
• Bush calls special session
  Florida lawmakers will return to Tallahassee next week for the fourth time in the past seven months as they try to finally adopt a new budget and finish a massive rewrite of the state's education laws.
• Lawmakers secure budget deal
  But they failed to settle the duties of the chief financial officer and differences over the state education code.
• Lawmakers roll up sleeves
  After two weeks of negotiating, arm-twisting and cajoling, Gov. Jeb Bush on Tuesday called lawmakers back into session next week to complete a raft of unfinished business.
• Governor calls another special session
  The state budget and an education code rewrite top the agenda for the session starting Monday.
• Bush kills phone rate increase
  The governor vetoes the legislature's most controversial bill and some, including fellow Republicans, say he did it to curry favor in an election year.
• Bush vetoes phone rate bill
  TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Jeb Bush vetoed a bill Tuesday that would have raised local telephone rates for millions of Floridians, saying its promised future savings might never reach the average consumer. The governor, who is seeking a second term in November, was under heavy pressure from fellow Republicans to sign the legislation. They said it would lead to more competition in the telecommunications industry and lower future rates.
• Veto of phone bill not an easy move
  Some people will accuse Gov. Jeb Bush of taking the popular, election-year route on Tuesday when he vetoed an act of the Legislature that would have raised telephone rates for millions of Floridians.
• Gov. Bush vetoes bill that allowed large hike in phone rates-- Phone executives expressed shock and disappointment at the governor’s veto. Consumer groups were thrilled, and some legislators voiced concern about political fallout from backing the measure during an election year.
• PAC Forms To Preserve Overhaul Of Education
  TAMPA - Influential supporters of Gov. Jeb Bush's education overhaul have formed their own team, aiming to kill the chance voters will restore a regents-style board for Florida's public universities. ...
• Bush TV ads focus on education
  Democrats scoff at the governor's campaign, which highlights a record voters disapprove of.
• Republican party begins television ads for Bush
  TALLAHASSEE — The television campaign in the gubernatorial race opened Tuesday with two Republican Party ads featuring former teachers of the year praising Gov. Jeb Bush's education record. The ads show Bush in a classroom talking with students combined with statements from teachers praising the governor for increasing funding for schools and helping to raise student performance.
• Setting of Bush education TV ad gives ammunition to his critics
  The Republican Party, airing costly new TV ads touting Gov. Jeb Bush's concern for public schools, filmed its commercials in a private Christian academy.
• Bush reelection ads
  The television ads were put together by Mike Murphy, who will attempt to spin Bush's questionable education record.
• Teachers union scoffs at governor's ads
  Six months before the election, the ads give Bush a head start in touting his education record.
• New Bush education ads to air
  The Republican party began touting Gov. Jeb Bush's education record Tuesday with testimonials from the past five Florida "teacher of the year" winners.
• U.S. wants Reno dropped from Miami raid lawsuits
  MIAMI — Government attorneys asked an appeals court Tuesday to erase former Attorney General Janet Reno from lawsuits claiming excessive force was used in the federal raid to seize Elian Gonzalez. Attorneys for the young Cuban boy's Miami relatives and protesters camped outside their Little Havana home want the court to allow both cases to move ahead with claims of constitutional rights violations.
• Lawyers: Reno can't be sued over Elian- MIAMI -- Justice Department lawyers argued Tuesday that former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno can't be sued for injuries during the federal raid to remove Elian Gonzalez from his uncle's home because she never authorized the use of excessive force.
• Offshore drilling swap amendment excludes Destin Dome
  PENSACOLA — A proposal by U.S. Sen. Bob Graham that would allow petroleum companies to swap drilling leases off a portion of Florida's gulf shore for sites elsewhere suffered a setback Tuesday. The Florida Democrat was unable to get a commitment from Senate leaders to consider the plan, which would affect leases in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, as an amendment to a wide-ranging energy bill expected to come up for a vote Thursday.
• Senate foils Graham on drilling lease swaps
  PENSACOLA -- A proposal by Sen. Bob Graham that would allow petroleum companies to swap drilling leases off a portion of Florida's gulf shore for sites elsewhere suffered a setback Tuesday.
• State struggles with health care bills
  Bara Bevins' plastic pill box has seven rows of four compartments each - her week, days and hours planned out in an assortment of pinks, oranges and lemon yellows.
• Leaving the light on
  FPL's former chief executive gets an $18.2 million bonus despite a $56 million first-quarter loss. Now that's power.
• County workers may staff polls
  Commissioners seeking answers about voting forced to keep their questions brief.
• Schools shed jobs to meet budget
  Targeted for the cuts are such jobs as assistant principal, technology specialist and guidance counselor.
• Schools' savings to come out of vice principals' pay
  Each assistant principal for student affairs will lose 21 days of pay over a year's time.
• Plate needs cleaning
  Food protection stalled as lobbyists dig in.
• An identifiable flaw
  Misidentification may have cost two innocent men months of freedom.
• 10 priests accused of misconduct have moved to S. Florida
  At least 10 priests have come to South Florida with something in common besides their collars and their vows— complaints of sexual misconduct that were kept secret from parishioners.
• Hispanics, Asians fuel population growth
  New Census figures show Colombians, Dominicans and Asians pouring into Florida. Jobs are among the reasons.
• Floridians should keep talking about race
  ¬ The recent 2000 Census data illustrates what many Floridians already know: Florida is one of the largest, fastest-growing and ethnically diverse places in America. What the data do not show is that this amazing combination of cultures is one of our greatest strengths - but it also can be a source of conflict. Despite years of progress, prejudice and discrimination persist.
• Détente at mixer for free speech
  Cubans, Jews, Haitians, gays, Anglos, blacks, Colombians, men and women, old and young, rich and absolutely not rich, angry and amused, suppressed and subpoenaed.
• INDICTING A COMMISSIONER
  As more than one person noted on Monday, it is a sad day for a community when an elected official is indicted -- as was Miriam Alonso, her husband, Leonel, and her aide, Alba Morales. An indictment of a public official raises worrisome issues, not the least of which is the implication of a violation of trust.
• Drug Court celebrates first class of graduates
  LARGO -- Pinellas County's Drug Court celebrated its first graduating class on Tuesday, with 49 people who have received treatment, passed numerous drug tests and landed jobs.
• FSU med school will get another review in fall
  TALLAHASSEE — Florida State University will get another chance this fall to press its case that its medical school deserves accreditation. The Liaison Committee on Medical Education has twice refused to grant accreditation to the new school and last week the university threatened to sue. The medical education panel, which is affiliated with the American Medical Association, said the school doesn't have enough full-time teachers and its curriculum lacks strong oversight.
• Want to save Florida's forests? Try using them
  With Florida's population growing by more than 700 people every day, most people imagine the worst about our environment. Drive around and you'll see forest and agriculture lands being developed to support our burgeoning population. And as our population continues to grow, so does the consumption of wood products. Each person in the United States uses about 4.5 pounds of wood each day, the highest in the world.
• Save South Florida's last open area
  That would be Martin County, and the job is hard.
• Hundreds re-enact Conch Republic's 'secession' in Key West
  KEY WEST — Hundreds waved blue Conch Republic flags and shouted "Free the Keys" Tuesday in a re-enactment of this island city's mock secession from the United States 20 years ago. The April 23, 1982 secession was prompted by a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint set up without warning five days earlier in Florida City on U.S. Highway 1, the main access road in and out of the Florida Keys.
• Fox put in a corner after his plea to Castro
  Opposition lawmakers Tuesday demanded that President Vicente Fox explain himself to the nation a day after Cuban leader Fidel Castro released a secretly recorded telephone conversation in which the Mexican president asked him to make a hasty exit from the country.
• Castro slams Mexico
  The Cuban leader lambasted its long-time ally after a vote to allow human rights inspectors into Cuba.

4/23/02

• State manager alleges abuse
  The head of personnel for the State Board of Administration is alleging an atmosphere of sexual harassment, discrimination and hostility within the office, just as its governing board meets to consider promoting the deputy director.
• Historian of state politics dies
  Allen Morris, the legendary historian of Florida politics and respected mentor to generations of state legislators, died peacefully in his sleep Monday. He was 92.
• Ex-clerk of House dies at age 92
  Allen Morris was known as a House problem solver, arbiter of rules and as an adviser to members. (and the author of the wonderful Florida handbook...)
• Cutting the Medically Needy program hurts the working poor
  While a vital strand of Florida's health safety net - the Medically Needy program - was saved from elimination by the 2002 Legislature, it will be seriously frayed by proposed budget cuts. More than $70 million will be cut. That means forfeiting $45 million in federal funding. This will shift an untenable financial burden to the working poor.
• Battle over political maps pricey
  The high-stakes political battle over new GOP-designed voting boundaries in Florida is unfolding with a heavy price to taxpayers -- and a boon to lawyers, particularly those with close ties to the Republican party.
• Parties tussle over districts
  Legislators take their clash over a new map of state House and Senate districts to the Florida Supreme Court today.
• Supreme Court to hear arguments on state legislative lines
  TALLAHASSEE — Now it's the lawyers turn in the once-a-decade battle over the legislatively drawn state House and Senate boundaries. Challenges by largely Democratic Party interests to Florida's new 160 district lines passed last month by the Legislature is slated for its first hearing Tuesday at the state Supreme Court. The Democrats say the Republican-led Legislature stacked the deck in drawing new House and Senate lines to protect the GOP's dominance in Florida politics.
• Court to hear statehouse map arguments
  Florida's Supreme Court will weigh whether legislators were too political in redrawing districts.
• Issues unsettled, but special session still likely next week
  TALLAHASSEE -- Gov. Jeb Bush said Monday he still plans to call legislators back in special session next week but is still trying to work out an agreement on three contentious issues.
• Bush supports phone rate bill in part, he says
  Though it may raise local rates, he thinks it will foster competition. But the PSC's level of authority concerns him.
• Bush faces phone-rate hike decision
  Gov. Jeb Bush faces one of his most challenging political decisions this week.
• Reno gathers support from outside Florida
  About 40 percent of her money has come from elsewhere. Bill McBride has raised most of his money in the state.
• Not soon forgotten
  In Sunday's New York Times, Florida is described as a place so mythical and full of newcomers that "if Florida hasn't really learned from its mistakes . . . that is perhaps because it doesn't really remember them in the first place."
• Advice To All: `Be Prepared'
  If you thought Election 2000 was rough, as Al Jolson used to say, "You ain't seen nothin' yet!"- Election 2002 will be confusing, controversial, complicated and challenging. Start preparing now.
• Teachers tout governor's schools record in ads
  Two campaign commercials featuring teachers touting Gov. Jeb Bush's education record begin airing today in a more than $2 million effort to take the issue away from Democrats.-- Recent polls suggest that voters are not convinced Bush is doing a good job improving Florida schools. Democrats have seized on that dissatisfaction, hammering Bush's education record at every opportunity.-- The two 60-second commercials are part of a television blitz that will appear in key markets around the state for at least three weeks.... ... Bush says he is eager to publicly debate education issues with his opponents but so far he has limited his campaigning largely to raising money.
• Vice president campaigns for Florida lawmakers
  ORLANDO — Vice President Dick Cheney, hobbling on crutches from a weekend accident, touted the administration's tax cut and efforts at fighting terrorism during a fund-raiser Monday for Republican U.S. Rep. Ric Keller. President Bush's $1.35 trillion tax cut helped offset the economic slowdown and left more money in people's hands, said Cheney, who also praised Keller for voting last week to make the tax cut permanent. "We've begun to put the economic recession behind us," Cheney said. "Government doesn't create jobs but government can create an environment for creating jobs."
• Hobbled Cheney still raises cash
  A Fort Lauderdale fund-raiser brings in $500,000 for U.S. Rep. Clay Shaw.
• State asks workers to pitch in
  Capitol employees are being asked to protect the environment and help the state earn some cash. About 2,200 desktop recycling bins are being distributed to employees in the complex, state officials said during an Earth Day announcement. The state can earn up to $10,000 a year if employees recycle white office paper separately from other paper.
• CSX tracks in good standing for now
  Jacksonville-based CSX Transportation has made great strides in improving its track safety over the past two years, an official with a federal agency overseeing the nation's railroads said Monday.
• New laws ease life for crime victims
  The governor signs bills meant to aid victims of sexual assault, domestic violence and other crimes.
• Justices weigh case that could affect up to 870 on death row - The Arizona law before the court is similar to the death-penalty laws in Florida and seven other states, and a decision could affect as many as 870 people on death row in the nine states.
• Death penalty revisited
  Gov. Jeb Bush and the Legislature have an obligation to give great consideration to an Illinois commission's recommendations on the death penalty.
• County stalling on police oversight, rights groups say
  Civil rights leaders complained Monday that Mayor Alex Penelas and other county leaders are promoting differing plans to stall civilian oversight of Miami-Dade County police and demanded that commissioners approve an investigative panel immediately.
• Study: Florida elderly eligible for unclaimed benefits
  TAMPA — A survey by the National Council on the Aging has found that some of Florida's elderly may not be claiming state and federal benefits they are eligible for. The survey of about 50,000 elderly Floridians showed nearly 30 percent — around 15,000 people — were eligible for Medicaid benefits but had not applied for them.
• No begging allowed
  St. Petersburg's mayor and City Council have decided that the best way to deal with the homeless men and women who beg for money in popular parts of the city is to make criminals of them.
• Creationist booted from Panhandle Earth Day event
  NICEVILLE — Organizers of a local Earth Day event kicked out a creationism group and its erosion display for distributing written material and videos with religious messages. The group, Creation Science Evangelism, was asked to leave about noon Sunday shortly after the three-day Community Earth Day 2002 celebration began in this Florida Panhandle city.
• Globe Aviation to take over Miami airport security checkpoints-- MIAMI - Starting Friday, all of Miami International Airport's security checkpoints will be run by Globe Aviation Services, replacing beleaguered Argenbright Security Inc., an airport spokesman said.-- .... ...Globe Aviation, based in Irvine, Texas, operates in 31 states and at seven Florida airports: Miami, Gainesville, Key West, Melbourne, St. Petersburg, Tallahassee and Tampa, according to its website
• 3 worth saving
  Orange County shouldn't let environmental gems slip away.
• County may pay to search offshore for beach sand
  Somewhere out there lies a new beach for Collier County, offshore and under water, and county officials want to find it. A proposal headed to Collier County commissioners as early as next month would pay a Boca Raton coastal engineering company up to $600,000 to conduct an offshore sand search and to obtain environmental permits to use the sand to widen local beaches.
• Miami-Dade County Commissioner, husband arrested
  MIAMI — Miami-Dade County Commissioner Miriam Alonso and her husband were arrested Monday on charges of grand theft after a probe into alleged misuse of campaign funds. Alonso was taken to the Miami-Dade County Jail pending $15,500 bond on charges of grand theft, unlawful compensation and conflict of interest.
• Orlando takes aim at escorts
  Vice officers say they need more leverage to fight escort services -- many of which they say are just fronts for prostitutes who work Orlando's conventions and hotels.
• City yawns at utility's latest offer
  Hoping to persuade city commissioners to sign a 30-year franchise agreement, Florida Power Corp. executives promised Monday to improve reliability and allow the city to keep the option to buy the power system if service is poor.
• Cloudy skies: Earth Day pose vs. environmental protection
  In its first 15 months the Bush administration has worked to undermine almost every major federal environmental program. Oil wells off the coast of Florida. Get-out-of-jail-free cards for major polluters. Increased poison in the water. Increased toxins in the air.
• Price Is High For Pollution Lies
  The ocean is wide and deep, capable of hiding a lot of nasty secrets. But fortunately, it wasn't big enough to prevent Miami-based Carnival Corp. from getting caught engaging in a filthy practice, then breaking federal law by lying to cover it up.
• Ruling helps manatees
  Brevard boaters must slow down.
• Fifth crane sighted in Wisconsin wetland, but still not 'home'
  NECEDAH, Wis. — The elusive fifth whooping crane that migrated from a Florida refuge back to Wisconsin, arriving last week, has been spotted at a wetland area but still hasn't returned to the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge. The other four cranes flew into the refuge in a flock Friday evening, landing within a half-mile of the place where they first took flight as young birds last summer.
• Melaleuca-eating insects turned loose in Everglades - About 10,000 psyllids -- around the width of a twist-tie -- were released on Earth Day at Everglades Holiday Park in Broward County. Their target: the melaleuca -- an invasive tree that has basically taken over the Everglades.
• Interior secretary dedicates invasive plant research center
  DAVIE — Interior Secretary Gale Norton marked Earth Day by dedicating a $6.2 million research center for invasive plants and lauding the Everglades as a "shining example of cooperative environmentalism." Norton later released 10,000 exotic plant-eating bugs at the University of Florida's new Invasive Plant Control Facility. Scientists hope the bugs will help eradicate melaleuca trees, an Australian species infesting 400,000 acres of Florida's wetlands. "Several months ago, I had a chance to tour the Everglades in an airboat, and I saw acre after acre of the Melaleuca infestation and I knew it was going to be a serious problem," Norton said.
• Slain missionary's Panhandle parents disappointed in government
  PACE — The parents of a missionary who died along with her baby when Peru's air force shot down their airplane a year ago say they have been disappointed by their own government's response. Veronica "Roni" Bowers, 35, and her 7-month-old daughter, Charity, were killed on April 20, 2001. Her husband, Jim Bowers, also a missionary, and their son, Cory, now 7, survived unharmed, but the plane's pilot, Kevin Donaldson, was wounded.
• Ayn Rand wouldn't admire Enron
  "Businessmen," said Ayn Rand in 1961, "are the symbol of a free society - the symbol of America. If and when they perish, civilization will perish." But then, the high priestess of free enterprise never met the men of Enron.
• Protect our food
  Bills that would protect Americans against food contamination are languishing in a joint conference committee because the food lobby is interfering.
• FCC Tours Tribune, WFLA
  TAMPA - A pair of Federal Communications Commissioners visited Tampa on Monday to help them decide whether companies that own newspapers also should be allowed to own TV stations.-- The commissioners and a handful of FCC staff members toured the News Center, where The Tampa Tribune and WFLA, News Channel 8, are located. Both are owned by Media General Inc., based in Richmond, Va.--- The FCC is considering eliminating a 26-year-old rule that forbids a company from owning a television station and a newspaper in the same market.
• Pope Calls Sex Scandal A Crime-- VATICAN CITY -- Pope John Paul II bluntly said sex abuse by priests in the United States "was rightly considered a crime by society," telling American cardinals on Tuesday that there was no place in religious life for abusers.

4/22/02

• Justice expiring: Will Florida kill another innocent man?
  Courts have rules, and laws -- thick books of them, bound in leather on endless shelves.-- But in the end, it's about justice. And if it's not, then what's the point?-- It is not just -- it is not right -- to execute a man for murder when there is compelling evidence of his innocence. Brushing that evidence aside because procedural deadlines weren't met is a miscarriage of the gravest sort.-- Yet the Florida Supreme Court is ready to let a death sentence stand, merely because appeals weren't filed in time.
• New retirement plan too risky, so many stick with old choice
  Some of the best business minds in America occasionally come up with an idea like New Coke, smokeless tobacco or running Dan Quayle for president.
• In brief, fight isn't Bush's business
  Governor huffs about political districts.
• SW Florida issues on tap for justices
  TALLAHASSEE — When the Florida Supreme Court convenes Tuesday to take up the state's proposed plan to redraw political boundaries, the concerns of Southwest Florida will be included among the rhetoric and avalanche of paperwork to be considered by the court. Starting at 9 a.m., attorneys for such far-flung interests as Common Cause and three former Speakers of the House will meet in the staid chambers to make their respective pitches to the state's highest court in an effort to get at least four of seven justices to see things their way
• Governor can start to reshape high court
  TALLAHASSEE -- When Florida Supreme Court justices approved recounting ballots during the disputed 2000 presidential election, they took a dramatic step that infuriated Republicans.
• Out-of-state donors flood money into Florida governor's race - ...Bush, who has reported raising almost $4.4 million from private donors, collected $1.3 million of it from out of state.-- Since January alone, Bush drew $884,000 — a major share of the $2.4 million he raised for his campaign this year — from outside Florida. This included about $474,000 from Texans, his latest campaign report shows.-- 
  Bush has called on family and friends in his Texas and Washington fund raising. He attended a fund-raiser in January at the Texas home of Richard Kinder, a former president of the failed Houston energy firm Enron. Kinder left the company in 1996, well before Enron’s collapse, the governor’s campaign noted.  -- 
  Bush was born in Texas, where his father, the former president, made his fortune in oil, and his brother, the current president, served as governor.
• Advice To All: `Be Prepared'
  If you thought Election 2000 was rough, as Al Jolson used to say, "You ain't seen nothin' yet!"
• Democrats pondering best bet
  Cash-rich Gov. Bush presents a wealth of problems for the two Democratic candidates.
• Hardly special:Session will present a tricky path for lawmakers
  The upcoming special session will be a three-ring circus -- and the chances are high that even the most vigilant observers will miss some of the action.
• Bad news was good news for the last special-event cycle
  Whew. Another special-events season weathered.
• State backs off bids for private maintenance at juvenile centers
• Capitol will begin following recycling law
  On the books since 1988, the requirement had been widely ignored in government offices.
• Warriors for green seek fresh recruits - A study of the voting patterns of 320,000 environmentalists statewide revealed a startling statistic: The average age of an environmental activist is 62.
• Officials debate freshwater supply for Loxahatchee River - Acclaimed for its natural beauty, northern Palm Beach County's winding Loxahatchee River is southeast Florida's only remaining freshwater river still in its natural state. (but...)
• Many Missing Out On Public Benefits
  TAMPA - Throughout her life, Irene Lewis never thought about asking for government help. But now she's older, a widow, and not so secure. ...The Tampa woman went to an online site called BenefitsCheckUp.com, created last year by the National Council on Aging. She answered a series of questions about her expenses and assets, and in a few minutes received a printout listing 11 programs she probably qualifies for, including food stamps, meal programs and legal aid.
• Prison expansion upsets neighbors - The U.S. government wants to build another high-security penitentiary that would back up to the tiny Indian Oaks subdivision of retirees, and the homeowners don't want it.-- Residents, who live in single-story homes on 5- and 10-acre lots, are locked in a struggle to make the government stick to its promise not to ruin the community.-- And they're losing.
• Central Florida theme parks hiring more than 4,000 employees
  Central Florida's major theme parks are hiring more than 4,000 full, part time and seasonal workers in anticipation of a healthy tourism draw this summer. Theme parks and resort operators Walt Disney, Universal and SeaWorld, among others, say they are all looking to match summer 2001 staffing levels — good news for employees who lost their jobs or had hours cut after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks slowed tourism to a trickle.
• Florida Highway Patrol crippled by low pay, high turnover - ...“If FHP is complaining they’re underpaid, they are correct,” said state Sen. Steve Geller, D-Hallandale Beach. “It may look economical to pay them the poor salary they get, but it’s counterproductive because of what it costs to train them and lose them a year later to local agencies.”
• Paul Krugman: Wealth versus health
  The Bush administration really, really dislikes sharing information with Congress. Dick Cheney refuses to release the records of his energy task force; Tom Ridge won't testify on homeland security; and last week Thomas Scully defied a subpoena from the Small Business Committee.
• Right ruling on suicide
  Had Attorney General John Ashcroft prevailed, doctors could have lost their licenses to prescribe lethal drugs, ending aid-in-dying in Oregon.
• (check out the weekend news below)

4/20-21/02

• GOP leader says Legislature needs to compromise
  TALLAHASSEE — If the school code, budget and redistricting haven't been elusive enough, lawmakers must still also deal with modernizing the state's Cabinet. It's already been a far more difficult task than once envisioned. The Republican-led Legislature is trying to mold a job description for the new office of Chief Financial Officer without setting off what could be an incendiary primary for the GOP.
• Tired of soft talk, will Bush reach for big stick?
  Sometimes a governor has to declare war on the Legislature.
• Bush draws attention, cash from all over
  The state GOP's share of soft money -- from Texas and elsewhere -- shows the value of having a brother who is president.
• Don't burden seniors with a political FCAT
  Bush inflates results by playing with numbers.
• Graham: Now harder to get funds for universities
  The senator criticized the educational system passed by the Legislature last year.
• Reno echoes marchers' demand for health care
  The gubernatorial candidate joins the crowd's cry to remove Jeb Bush from office.
• Lawmaker battled cancer, now ouster
  TALLAHASSEE -- It was the first week of her first legislative session as a state lawmaker, and Sara Romeo had a headache that wouldn't quit.
• Districts draw GOP into power
• Redistricting goes to court
  The Legislature has tried its hand at drawing new House and Senate maps. Now it's the lawyers' turn. The Senate District 27 drawn by legislators hopscotches across South Florida from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean, swallowing traditionally Republican Hispanic and white neighborhoods and spitting out Democratic and black strongholds.
• Senators stretch their stays
  There's an unexpected bonus to the decennial redistricting process: Some senators will get to serve 10 years instead of the eight that voters mandated in a constitutional amendment.
• Private Services Under Criticism
  TALLAHASSEE - The plan was to save money by privatizing maintenance services at the state's 25 juvenile detention centers. ...Now, however, the Department of Juvenile Justice is scrambling to keep its in- house maintenance division intact. It persuaded a joint legislative panel last week to quickly divert more than $730,000 so 45 full-time employees can remain on the state payroll.-- Turns out state maintenance workers are much cheaper than relying on the private sector.
• HMOs fined for late payments
  Almost half the state's HMOs have paid a combined $550,000 in fines for failing to make timely payments to physicians and other health care providers, officials said Friday.
• Blowing smoke
  The Legislature doesn't want to make its campaign contributors who are allied with the tobacco companies upset. So it has resisted attempts to pass further restrictions or bans on smoking in work places.
• Phone rate flap to land in PSC's lap
  A proposed phone rate increase has put the Public Service Commission in the middle of a storm of political finger-pointing.
• Scientist warns of potential damage to reefs, Florida Bay
  Brian Lapointe warns of the death of coral reefs in the Florida Keys to anyone who will listen. Those and the once-lush sea grass beds in Florida Bay — all part of the most biologically diverse system in the continental United States — have faded before his eyes during 20 years of study.
• Closing prompts dredging criticism
  The closing of a sand and gravel company in Chattahoochee is providing more ammunition for opponents of dredging the Apalachicola River.
• County panel to hammer out details of rural growth plan
  Tomato fields and orange groves — not shopping malls or gated subdivisions — stretch for miles around the rural town of Immokalee, the commercial and social center of eastern Collier County. Large landowners are proposing changes to Collier County's growth plan that they say will preserve that ruralness. Web site
• Mitigation land-banking firm finds green in being green
  Under a wide expanse of blue sky, dozens of white pelicans and wood storks rest in a shallow marsh. As if on cue, the birds take flight with breath-taking synchronization as a swamp buggy carrying Lew Lautin and his guests rounds a stand of cypress and rumbles to a stop.
• 'Glades needs money
  Without quick cash, Florida will fall beyond on its commitment to the $8.4 billion Everglades restoration plan.
• Cranes make it back to Midwest
  Five endangered whooping cranes being tracked by researchers on a migratory flight from Florida returned to central Wisconsin on Friday following a 10-day, 1,175-mile trip.
• Teamwork saved the day after Amtrak derailing
  A series of mutual aid agreements with surrounding agencies was the saving grace that helped Putnam County officials pull through and respond effectively when an Amtrak Auto Train derailed near this tiny rural town late last week.
• 'Isn't it finally time to act?'
   Ten years ago, when John Hitt came to Orlando to run Central Florida's flagship university, he thought he was arriving in a metropolitan region on the move.
• Accounting charge sends FPL Group into red -JUNO BEACH — Independent power producer FPL Group Inc. said Friday it swung to a net loss in the first quarter on a big loss resulting from new accounting rules that eliminate goodwill write-offs.
• On state's watch, 10 young lives lost
  The death of 11-month-old Versena Phillips is an example of how a stronger response from the Department of Children and Families might have saved lives.
• Abuse monitor dispute headed to court - The battle between the Florida Department of Children & Families and a private company paid $4.8 million to investigate child abuse reports will be resolved in court.-- The Florida Task Force for the Protection of Abused and Neglected Children has filed suit against DCF in four Florida counties, including Miami-Dade, alleging breach of contract. Late Thursday, DCF sued the Florida Task Force in Tallahassee, charging the company with breach of contract.
• TO PROTECT CHILDREN - The state study showing that sheriff's deputies investigating child-abuse reports complete their investigations far quicker than caseworkers at the Department of Children & Families should be at the top of the Legislature's reading list. It offers concrete proof of how sufficient resources can better protect Florida's children.
• New computer system will allow for instant case updates
  The Department of Children and Families has begun training its staff on a sophisticated new computer system that is designed to keep track of child abuse cases, and prevent the sort of slipups that marred the investigation into Versena Phillips' safety.
• Bush signs bill starting state regulation of intrastate movers - TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Jeb Bush signed a bill Friday that subjects household movers to state regulation.-- The bill (HB 893) only applies to companies that move people from one place in Florida to another, not movers who move people between states. Those movers are federally regulated
• Carnival cruise line agrees to $18 million fine for illegal dumping, court ...
• Director of Tallahassee's national magnet lab to quit - TALLAHASSEE — The scientist who persuaded Florida officials to make a long-shot but ultimately successful bid for the nation's high-tech magnet lab has decided to step down as its director. Jack Crow said Friday...
• Editorial: The legal system
  When it comes to serious crime such as drunk driving and domestic violence, the key is punishment with an eye toward stopping even more crime — including manslaughter and murder. It is vital that components of the criminal justice system work together and confront the realities of today's Southwest Florida, where Spanish is the primary language of more and more residents.
• Case could affect Fla. death sentences
  The Supreme Court will decide whether judges can impose the death penalty without a jury recommendation.
• Audit shows Panhandle priest took $83,225 from church
  MILTON — A Roman Catholic priest who was sentenced to federal prison last week on a drug charge also took $83,225 from his church, an audit shows. Bishop John Ricard of the Pensacola-Tallahassee Diocese disclosed the audit results Friday during a meeting with about 300 St. Rose of Lima parishioners in this small Florida Panhandle city.
• Conch Republic celebrating secession from 20 years ago
  KEY WEST — Residents of the Conch Republic, this island city's alter ego, will celebrate their 20-year anniversary this week with an irreverent independence celebration featuring a re-enactment of a secession ceremony. The April 23, 1982, Conch Republic secession was prompted by a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint set up without warning five days earlier in Florida City on U.S. Highway 1, the main access road in and out of the Florida Keys.
• Crash investigators focus on track
  Problems with drainage and possible damage from an earlier train are considered in the investigation of the fatal derailment.
• Fire at Key West synagogue declared arson
  KEY WEST — Arson caused an early morning fire at a synagogue this week that damaged the building and the congregation's Torah, fire officials said. There was no evidence that the blaze at B'Nai Zion Synagogue was a hate crime or an act of terrorism, but the fire was not started accidentally, the Key West Fire Marshal's Office said Friday.
• Jury acquits four Alachua County ex-jail officials of lying
  GAINESVILLE — A jury has found four former Alachua County Jail officials innocent of lying at a 1998 federal trial to hide problems at the jail that contributed to a convicted killer's escape.
• New government effort to provide information about nursing homes
  WASHINGTON — All that Anna Spinella wanted for her three elderly relatives was a place where they could spend their final years in comfort. Instead, she says she endured a nightmarish experience trying to find good nursing homes for them.
• Guest commentary: New INS rules would dissuade part-time residents
  Be careful what you wish for. We wanted laws to better protect us in the wake of Sept. 11, and our government has reacted. Recent changes in Florida law and newly proposed changes to immigration regulations, however, while arguably doing little to deter terrorism, may have the unintended effect of presenting European part-time residents with the final straw in the bundle of reasons why they should spend their time — and their money — in Spain instead of Florida.
• Hearings should be open
  The only way immigrant detainees will be assured a fair hearing is if the public can monitor the government's actions.
• Presidential Disdain For Environment -I t pulled out all the stops, including an unseemly attempt to tie oil revenues to a bailout of steelworkers, but the Bush administration failed to persuade the Senate to allow drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The defeat was deserved.
• Sorting Out Best Features Of Election Reform Bills - Regarding the election reform legislation that will shortly go to conference, the key question is just how involved the federal government should be in elections, which historically have been governed by state laws.
• For Bush, big picture gives way to smaller concerns-- During the 2000 presidential debates with Al Gore, candidate George W. Bush said his "guiding question" when conducting foreign affairs would be what was in the nation's interest.-- 
  He then offered three examples of goals that fall within our national interest: peace in the Middle East, free trade and strong relations with Europe.-- 
  Candidate Bush might not recognize President Bush now. In each of those three areas, the president's actions have been contrary to his previously stated aims.
• History repeats itself with new anti-Semitism
  I have often asked myself how the world could allow the mass murder of Jews in the 1940s. Despite the Holocaust museums I've visited, the books I've read, the films I've seen and the survivors I've talked to, the answer remains elusive. Now, however, at this very moment, I'm beginning to understand.
  

4/19/02

• Jeb Bush lashes out at National Governors Association
  WASHINGTON — Trying to counter criticism of his brother's White House, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush lashed out at the normally bipartisan National Governors Association for pushing state interests at the expense of the president's agenda. The attack came after the NGA issued a news release sharply critical of the recently enacted economic stimulus bill, a big win for President Bush that included nothing for struggling state budgets.
• Bill limits who may challenge development
  By Jim Ash, Palm Beach Post Capital Bureau
  Environmentalist say the change steps on their rights. Builders say it cuts costly delay.
• Senator offering growth protection---The Sierra Club will be especially hamstrung by the bill because the club is incorporated in California, not Florida. Sierra Club members will have to incorporate in every county where they intend to mount a legal challenge if the bill becomes law.- And the bill's requirement that a group has to be incorporated for a year before it can challenge a permit will hurt homeowner groups, many of which organize after they learn about a development.
• GOP ready to blanket state with TV ads, starting in Miami - Television ad-buyers for the state GOP have ordered a sizable share of TV time in Miami starting Tuesday... The Republican Party, declining to comment on its ads, has the ability and the money -- more than $10 million raised since January alone -- to advertise on behalf of Gov. Jeb Bush's re-election. Bush, who is seeking his second term this November, has helped raise money for these ads.... The early run of Republican ads in Miami will cost nearly $500,000, the Democrats' buyers said -- a purchase substantial enough that the average viewer in Miami will see the party-sponsored ads eight to 10 times a week. They will be followed soon by ads in Tampa and Jacksonville, the Democrats said.
• State GOP launches pricey Bush ad blitz
  By Brian Crowley, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
  Gov. Jeb Bush's campaign is spending more than $2 million for a series of ads statewide.
• Democrats turn on one another in public feud
  Florida Democratic Party Chairman Bob Poe said Thursday longtime Leon County boss Jon Ausman is helping re-elect Gov. Jeb Bush because the party wouldn't hire him.
• Bush awaits signal to call session -TALLAHASSEE -- How far have Florida legislators come in resolving their differences over state spending, a school-code rewrite and even what to work on when they return for a special session?  ... Despite weeks of talking and frenzied lobbying by Gov. Jeb Bush and Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan, House and Senate leaders have sealed no agreements on the major issues unresolved from the regular session.
• Bush set to summon special session
  The convening of legislators in May is another try at hammering out the state budget and a new education code.
• In politics of redistricting, is turnabout fair play?
  For the first time in our lives, the Republican Party is in charge of drawing Florida's political districts for the next 10 years. That is because Republicans have the most votes in our Legislature.
• McBride makes a start at being the anti-Jeb!
  Brogan response shows administration denial.
• Governor signs bills on flags, animal cruelty
  TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Jeb Bush signed a bill Thursday that makes it clear that people can fly American flags regardless of homeowners' association rules. The new law will let any homeowner display a portable American flag in a respectful manner — "regardless of any ... rules or requirements dealing with flags or decorations."
• State sues consultant over abuse case work
  Officials say a company's shoddy work on child abuse cases amounted to false billing for work not completed.
• State to eliminate restriction for child caregiver funds
  TALLAHASSEE — Starting in July, Florida will provide funding to caretakers with children placed in their permanent custody, even if they are not related by blood to the youths. Gov. Jeb Bush signed a bill this week that will eliminate a previous requirement of the $26 million a year Relative Caregiver Program, which gives funding to help keep siblings from troubled families together.
• Guest editorial: Politicians, too, should be accountable
  By now, it should be apparent to just about everyone that Florida's educational system has been declining, especially in relation to the educational systems of other states. Another study by the research arm of the Florida Chamber of Commerce released last week, confirmed what had been reported previously:
• Anti-smoking drive says it has even more petitions
  TALLAHASSEE — Sponsors of a proposed constitutional ban on most indoor smoking at work and in restaurants said Thursday they've collected enough signatures to get on the November ballot. The group said it has 650,000 signatures, well more than the 488,722 needed to get their measure before voters.
• Rising costs imperil water plant
  Pinellas support is drying up for a plant that would allow the continued use of the preferred disinfectant chlorine in a mix of ground and river water and desalinated seawater.
• Florida's first case of mad cow disease suspected
  A 22-year-old Florida woman who spent much of her life in Great Britain is thought to have the nation’s first known case of mad cow disease, state and federal health officials announced on Thursday.
• Condemned killer wins state Supreme Court appeal; another loses
  TALLAHASSEE — A condemned killer who once faced nine murder charges in Miami had his only two convictions overturned Thursday by the Florida Supreme Court. But the state's high court dismissed an appeal in another capital case in a decision that dissenting justices warned could be a "serious miscarriage of justice."
• Remains found near Menorah Gardens
  State authorities say the bones were in a remote area of the cemetery.
• Reforms Needed - And Quickly
  People should have a right to expect that when they die their remains will be treated in accordance with their wishes and those of their loved ones.
• Former aide to Rev. Henry Lyons indicted for false tax returns
  TAMPA — A federal grand jury has indicted a one-time assistant of former National Baptist Convention leader Henry Lyons. The Rev. Frederick T. Demps is charged with three counts of filing false tax returns, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Tampa. He surrendered Wednesday to U.S. marshals in Jacksonville.
• Molly Ivins: Studies in moral clarity
  AUSTIN, Texas — When in the course of the usual reasoned, civil debate on public affairs — conducted always with courtesy and good cheer — one finds one's self snarling, "Oh, shut up!" one has, I fear, been reading too much George Will. Being instructed what to think by the peerlessly pompous Mr. Will, perched upon his superiority and apparently in a permanent state of dudgeon over everybody else's stupidity, is reminiscent of being bullied by a snotty teacher.
• Bush's oil drilling plan defeated
  The plan to open an Alaskan wildlife refuge to oil and gas exploration goes down in defeat.
• House OKs tax cut bill
  The House GOP approved a bill making last year's $1.35 trillion in tax cuts permanent.

4/18/02

• St. Joe selling off more Panhandle land
  TALLAHASSEE — The St. Joe Land Company will auction off thousands of acres of timber land for new development near Tallahassee and Panama City in the next few weeks. The company is the state's largest land owner. It used to harvest timber on hundreds of thousands of acres in north Florida, but is no longer primarily in the lumber business.
• Legislature: Special session unlikely until last week of April
  TALLAHASSEE — Lawmakers are unlikely to be called back to the Capitol for another special session until the last week of April at the earliest, Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan said Wednesday. Legislators didn't write a budget for the fiscal year that starts in July during the regular 60-day session, which ended March 22.
• Feeney's friends
  'Dear friends' and transportation changes don't mix.
• Votes reflect political divide
  By Scott Shepard, Palm Beach Post Washington Bureau
  Votes on President Bush's tax cut and oil and gas exploration set up debates for fall elections.
• Governor's 'quiet time' profitable
  With the Legislature stymied over a $50 billion budget and a spat over religion in schools, Gov. Jeb Bush's campaign for reelection has been forced underground.
• Jeb's education effort fails those most in need
  After hearing how Dommerich Elementary was a great school, I was shocked to find an old, weathered campus littered with portables.
• Voucher program draws another big donor
  A South Florida CEO commits $1-million to the state's controversial scholarship program for low-income children.
• A voucher marketplace
  By ignoring growing allegations of impropriety at six new voucher schools, state officials also ignore the education needs of poor and disabled schoolchildren.
• Law lets nonblood kin keep kids-- TALLAHASSEE · In what could amount to an increase in child-welfare spending in Florida under Gov. Jeb Bush, the state will eliminate in July a requirement there be a blood relationship between a caretaker and the abused or abandoned child put in their custody.
• Appeal court rejects union health plan's intervention
  MIAMI — An appeals court Wednesday upheld a trial court order keeping a union's health plan out of a landmark lawsuit that produced a record-breaking $145 billion verdict against major cigarette makers. The Southeastern Iron Workers health plan asked to intervene just before the verdict ended a two-year, three-part trial in a lawsuit brought on behalf of sick Florida smokers.
• Sponsors of drug-treatment drive give up on November ballot
  TALLAHASSEE — Sponsors of a petition drive to let low-level drug offenders avoid jail time by entering treatment programs have decided against trying to make the November ballot. Instead, the Campaign for New Drug Policies has set its sights on the 2004 ballot, its Florida chairman said Wednesday.
• Drug amendment effort ends
  TALLAHASSEE -- Organizers of a ballot initiative that would have steered some nonviolent drug offenders to treatment instead of to prison have abandoned their effort, complaining that Florida's legal process is dysfunctional. The Campaign for New Drug Policies, the national group behind the measure, said it will pursue similar ballot initiatives in Michigan and Ohio for the November election. The group hopes to put the measure before Florida voters in November 2004.
• Amendment madness: one bites the dust
  Today at the Old Capitol, Smoke-Free for Health will rally supporters of its constitutional amendment to ban all smoking in virtually all workplaces in Florida.
• Desal foe: Goliath is winning
  Save Our Bays, Air and Canals says it takes beaucoup bucks to challenge projects these days.
• Brevard manatee speed zones upheld in administrative challenge
  TALLAHASSEE — A judge gave the green light Wednesday to new boating speed limits proposed to save the lives of Brevard County's manatees. Attorney David Guest, representing the Save the Manatee Club, called the ruling by Administrative Law Judge Fred Buckine "a major victory, a milestone in the protection of Florida manatees."
• 13 sickened from Indian River Lagoon puffer fish
  MIAMI — The puffer fish that have poisoned at least 13 people may be more toxic than normal because of high algae levels in the Indian River Lagoon, officials said. Three people in New Jersey, one in Virginia and nine in Florida have suffered neurotoxin poisoning from puffer fish caught in the lagoon, said Bill Pareizek, spokesman for the state Department of Health.
• Northward whoopers head for Illinois on trip to Wisconsin
  One of the five whooping cranes being tracked by researchers on a migratory flight from Florida to Wisconsin separated from the other four, but all were reported to be on the move Tuesday, heading from Indiana toward Illinois. The Operation Migration Web site provided updates on the endangered birds as they retraced the route they followed last fall, when they were led south by ultralight on a migration from central Wisconsin to Florida.
• Prison nurses file inmate sex harassment suit in Panhandle
  CHIPLEY — Thirty women, mostly nurses, have alleged sexual harassment by male inmates in a lawsuit against the state's prison system. The suit was filed here Tuesday on behalf of past and present health care employees at Washington Correctional Institution in this Florida Panhandle town and at least four other prisons around the state.
• Agents raid plot adjacent to Menorah Gardens
  MIAMI — State investigators searched land Wednesday bordering a Palm Beach County Jewish cemetery where relatives say bodies have been desecrated and lost. About 20 Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents arrived at Menorah Gardens Cemetery with a sealed warrant and began digging with hoes and other equipment, agency spokeswoman Paige Paterson said.
• State investigating new allegations against Damiano
  FORT LAUDERDALE — State investigators are looking into allegations that a crematory accused of sending bodies for embalming without family consent was operating after its licenses were revoked. Lonnie Parizek, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Business and Professional Regulation, said Tuesday the state was notified of the alleged crime by Mark Grochowski of Fort Lauderdale.
• City opts to replace Andersen
  The city of Tallahassee wants to replace Arthur Andersen LLP as the investment adviser for its pension fund before the troubled accounting firm sheds its consulting business.
• Daytona looks at curbing events-- DAYTONA BEACH · A majority of city commissioners in this tourist mecca are showing interest in scaling back their famous special events such as Bike Week, Spring Break and Black College Reunion.
• Dale McFeatters: Springtime in Washington means demonstrations
  The Constitution guarantees the right of the people to assemble and petition Congress for the redress of grievance, and, making for a lively time in Washington, D.C., they do so. Demonstrations are a recurring natural phenomenon in the nation's capital even though the evidence is scarce that they ever actually accomplish anything.
• Guest editorial: Free speech in cyberspace
  The Supreme Court's ruling on Tuesday striking down a federal ban on "virtual" child pornography sent a clear message to would-be censors: The government must be scrupulous, when regulating obscene material, not to infringe on protected speech. The decision is especially welcome now, as a three-judge court in Philadelphia is poised to rule on a federal law that seeks to force libraries to censor the Internet use of their patrons.
• Guest editorial: Messing with the Constitution
  President Bush has resurrected a bad idea — a victims' rights amendment to the Constitution. It's no accident that this feel-good approach to crime surfaces during election years. The amendment was last an issue in 1996 when it was endorsed by candidates Clinton and Dole. Once the campaign was over, this needless tinkering with the Constitution was quietly and mercifully forgotten. Now it's back.
•  

4/17/02

• Law that makes it easier to fire state workers upheld by judge
  TALLAHASSEE — A state judge dismissed the final count of a lawsuit Tuesday challenging a law that makes it easier to fire some state workers. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees sued Gov. Jeb Bush last August over the law, adopted last year, which Bush called "Service First."
• Service First plan approved
  A circuit judge approved Gov. Jeb Bush's Service First personnel plan Tuesday, dismissing a union complaint that the system unconstitutionally infringes on collective bargaining rights.
• Ex-tech chief to reject deal
  Roy Cales, the governor's tech chief who quit last year after being charged with felony theft and forgery, will reject a deal that would, for the second time, wipe his record clean.
• Feeney's office refuses to detail calls
  The records of calls made on staffers' state cell phones are 'not in our possession,' aides say.
• Bush: Court should reject Butterworth's redistricting challenge
  TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Supreme Court should reject Attorney General Bob Butterworth's claim that new state legislative boundaries were drawn without standards, Gov. Jeb Bush's top attorney argued Tuesday. Charles Canady, the Republican governor's general counsel, urged the court to "give the Legislature the respect and deference the constitution requires" in creating new boundaries for the 160 state legislators.
• Governor enters growing battle over redistricting
  He says the attorney general is asking a court to trample on the Legislature.
• Redistricting maps suit GOP
  Gov. Jeb Bush and the Republican leaders of the House and Senate weighed in Tuesday on what a Bush lawyer calls Attorney General Bob Butterworth's "radical" proposal to throw out the state's new redistricting maps.
• Collier group wants one firm to run child welfare services
  A Collier County group that's helping to decide the fate of a state plan to privatize child welfare services decided Tuesday that one agency should be hired to serve Southwest Florida. Child welfare includes protective services, foster care, adoption placement and legal services for children found living in abusive or neglectful home environments.
• Police procedures questioned because of Tallahassee search
  The Supreme Court will weigh whether officers must tell citizens of their rights before a voluntary search.
• Nurses sue over prison harassment
  They accuse corrections officials of failing to stop male inmates' behavior at several sites, including Zephyrhills.
• Accountability for state's colleges urged
  A Board of Education member says universities should set their own evaluation criteria, but without monetary penalties.
• Three colleges vie for four-year status
  Giving community colleges the ability to offer four-year degrees is being met with criticism.
• Edison optimistic on degree plan
  PORT ORANGE — They went, they spoke, they found new hope. And Edison Community College's district officials said Tuesday that the Florida Board of Education returned the courage they lost last month after a state screening and review panel denied their quest to confer four-year baccalaureate degrees. The college still has one more hurdle: The state board, which has the final say, won't vote on the baccalaureate proposals until May 14. But state board members left the Edison officials feeling optimistic.
• Study: Foster parents need more information
  Children in foster care have a lot of needs - and so do the people who open their homes to them. But many foster parents aren't given basic information about the children in their care, such as background on abuse or neglect, according to a new study.
• Florida House speaker aspirants raise unlimited money
  TALLAHASSEE — Rep. Allan Bense started Friday in his hometown of Panama City. By Monday, he'd driven and flown all over Florida. Along the way he hit Titusville, Vero Beach, Naples, Palm Beach, Miami and Tampa, meeting with political candidates, all in a quest to become speaker of the state House of Representatives three years from now.
• Group gives up fight against ballot question on smoking
  TALLAHASSEE — A group fighting a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban smoking in restaurants shut down its campaign Tuesday saying it was unable to raise enough money to win the battle. Despite backing by tobacco companies, the Committee for Responsible Solutions will no longer pursue a ballot question that would allow smoking to continue in restaurants under current restrictions
• Everglades fight over; on to Everglades fight
  'Polluter pays' ruling lets cleanup continue.
• Hillsborough County man dies from bee stings
  ODESSA — An 83-year-old man working in his yard died after a swarm of bees stung him hundreds of times. Albert Wellner, of Odessa, was found dead Monday near a nest that held as many as 10,000 insects, according to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office. Wellner's wife, Eleanor, found him lying face down near his lawnmower close to their Hillsborough County home, 19 miles northwest of Tampa.
• Katherine Harris raises $1.7 million in race for Congress
  SARASOTA — Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, who gained national attention during the 2000 presidential election recount, has raised $1.7 million in her campaign to replace outgoing U.S. Rep. Dan Miller. That's just short of the $2 million Harris has pledged to raise in her race against a field of political novices.
• Orlando board hears about proposed gay ordinance
  ORLANDO — Dozens of gay-rights activists urged a city panel Tuesday to recommend an ordinance banning discrimination against homosexuals while religious leaders warned the proposal could bear the wrath of God. More than 300 residents crammed the City Council chambers for a public hearing on a proposal to insert sexual orientation into Orlando's anti-discrimination ordinance.
• Who votes for this stuff?
  Did anybody vote for this stuff? I mean, aside from Congress. Just to make Tax Day even more exciting than it usually is, we have been treated to a series of recent reports that the IRS is busy cracking down on poor folks, while letting an estimated 1 million rich folks and corporations move to Bermuda to avoid taxes.
• Insurance company canceling many Florida condos
  Plaza East, a 20-story oceanfront condo in Fort Lauderdale, is being canceled by its insurance company just as hurricane season begins — one of about 1,400 condo associations in Florida insured by the same company and caught by continuing fallout in the insurance industry from the terrorist attacks in September.
  

4/16/02

• Most ex-welfare mothers still in poverty
  Women making the transition from welfare to work are earning more money, but their families aren't necessarily any better off. That's the finding of a four-year study tracking more than 700 single mothers in Florida, Connecticut and California conducted by researchers from Columbia, Stanford and Yale universities and the University of California.
• Three judge panel sets deadlines for redistricting challenge
  JACKSONVILLE — A three-judge federal panel set deadlines Monday so that challenges to boundaries drawn by the Legislature for Florida's 25 congressional seats can be resolved quickly. Three black members of Congress from Florida — Alcee Hastings, Carrie Meek and Corrine Brown — filed a challenge to the districts in Broward County Circuit Court saying they boundaries are racially biased, but the case was moved to federal court.
• Redistricting battles may bump election schedule
  JACKSONVILLE -- A three-judge federal panel trying to resolve challenges to Florida's 25 new congressional districts confronted the possibility Monday that election deadlines might be in jeopardy
• U.S. districting ruling requested in time for filing
  Hoping to avoid another national embarrassment at the polls, an attorney for Secretary of State Katherine Harris on Monday urged a federal panel considering the first challenges to the new GOP-drawn congressional boundaries to wrap up the review before the campaign season officially opens in June.
• Trial date set for redistricting challenge
  A federal appeals panel set a tentative June 3 date to review Florida's new congressional district map.
• Temple Terrace opposes new lines
  Redistricting would put the small city in two state House districts, two Senate districts and three congressional districts.
• Investment probe
  Maybe Grady can pick up answers about Enron and Azurix, too-- Federal investigators of Enron say they will follow the evidence wherever it leads. That would be welcome news in Florida as well as a Naples lawyer with a track record of successful sleuthing teams up with a Tampa counsel to look into how a statewide pension fund for public employees lost $300 million on Enron stock — some of it bought after Enron started to tank.
• The public's right to know again serves citizens well
  Journalists are fond of singing the praises of government-in-the-sunshine laws and open records. Though normally the context is the legislative branch of the public's business, the courts come into play as well. Look no farther for an example than Stadium Naples.
• Delete spampaigning
  Jeb's backers latest to show the problem.
• The Dems' long road ahead
  If the Democrats are going to succeed, they can take nothing for granted.
• Democrats facing reality in wake of state pep rally--  ...as they return home and reality sets in, Democratic leaders face a bleaker situation. The party's next generation of potential leaders are struggling to get needed early attention because of uncertainty about how legislative district boundaries will ultimately be drawn. 
• Guest editorial: Unleashing the loyal opposition
  The gathering of Democratic hopefuls in Florida this past weekend was widely interpreted as the beginning of the next presidential campaign — Al Gore & Co. shoving off onto a 31-month election season. But the former vice president achieved something more important than hinting he's back in the race. In the scene of his most devastating loss, Gore roused Florida's dispirited Democrats, reminding them that half the job of the loyal opposition is opposing.
• Insurance premiums soar for bridges
  Because of the Sept. 11 attacks, states are paying more than twice as much, raising their deductibles or dropping coverage for terrorism.
• State officials warn stores of tainted puffer fish
  TALLAHASSEE — Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson urged state residents and visitors on Monday to stop consuming puffer fish, also called blowfish, caught in the Titusville area. Three people in New Jersey have suffered neurotoxin poisoning from puffer fish caught in Florida, state health officials said.
• Line between cast, fans blurs at cult film classic
  There are some things some of us have to do on a regular basis.
• College dropout rate puzzles state educators
  The state Board of Education tries to figure out why most high school graduates do not receive degrees.
• Unreal success
  Shifting so many students into special programs gives false results.
• Seniors may get final exam
  A comprehensive final exam is being considered to test everything students learn in high school.-- PORT ORANGE -- If you think Florida's public school students are stressed out over FCAT, just wait.--Now state education officials are talking about requiring yet another high-stakes test, this one a new final exam in 12th grade to measure just how much they learned in high school.
• Educators contemplate new exam
  Some Florida educators are pushing for new mandatory graduation exams for 12th-graders.
• FPL to buy N.H. nuclear plant
  The Juno Beach-based company will buy the controversial Seabrook facility for $837 million.
• Power plant urged to cut pollutants
  A coalition of environmental groups is asking Leon County to pressure the Southern Co. to clean up pollution at its power plants in the Southeast.
• Florida State may sue to get medical school accredited
  TALLAHASSEE — Florida State University threatened Monday to sue the American Medical Association, which has refused to accredit its new medical school. The university's Board of Trustees on Monday authorized President Sandy D'Alemberte to take whatever action he feels necessary to win accreditation.
• Florida leads nation in number of police assaulted
  GAINESVILLE — Florida has the highest rate of assaults against police officers in the country, according to recent FBI statistics. About 8,960 of the state's 36,049 law enforcement officers, or 26 percent, were assaulted on the job in Florida during 2000, according to FBI statistics. About a third of those were injured.
• Florida Highway Patrol getting 'fun' cars — new Camaros
  PANAMA CITY — That's not "Magnum PI" or a "Miami Vice" detective in the sleek sports car, but the comparison isn't lost on the state trooper behind the wheel. Dale Whiddon is one of the first troopers driving 200 Chevrolet Camaros that the Florida Highway Patrol is purchasing. "It's a fun vehicle, but you still have to be an example to the public," said Whiddon, who got his Camaro on Friday. "It's not for joyrides." Troopers haven't had so much fun since the mid-1990s when the patrol's final Ford Mustang, another muscle car that went into service as a cruiser in the 1980s, was retired.
• State troopers must watch weight to get proposed bonus
  MIAMI — Florida Highway Patrol troopers will have to keep an eye on crime — and their weight — to get a proposed yearly bonus. Under a plan in next year's unfinished budget, any trooper who is more than 15 pounds above agency weight limits will not be eligible for the $500 performance bonus.
• Guest editorial: For fairer tax enforcement
  If the Internal Revenue Service hired a consultant to tell it how to maximize tax revenues and minimize tax fraud, the advice it would get is obvious. The government should focus its investigative resources on taxpayers who are most likely to underreport income and on the cases where the total dollar amounts to be recovered are greatest. Flip that around, and you get the current nonsensical and unfair enforcement policies of the IRS.

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