Florida News - April 1-30, 2003 Help support Whoseflorida

NOTE - 
If the link to the on-line articles has changed, search the paper's archive section by date and title - i.e. Sometimes Palm Beach Post links are only good for the day posted, and there is a fee to access archived articles. 

Apr 30, 27-21, 20-16, 15-11, 10-9, 8-7, 6-4, 3-1

4/30/03

State workers left out of bill on travel-expense payments
Employees of local governments, school boards and state courts could get more relief from expenses incurred while traveling on government business - but state employees would not - under a bill advanced by the House on Tuesday.

Bush urged to shun Glades measure
Bill inadequate, congressmen say
Four influential congressional leaders, including Rep. Bill Young, the Florida Republican who heads the House appropriations committee, are urging Gov. Jeb Bush to abandon his support for a controversial sugar-industry-backed Everglades cleanup bill.

Governor, lawmakers under fire for Sunday meetings
Bush says gatherings 'impromptu,' not secret
Florida's three most powerful politicians came under fire Tuesday for a series of secret weekend confabs that open-government advocates say broke the law.

Dispute brewing over butterfly ballots' fate
Some want the infamous ballots preserved; others want them destroyed
Another dispute is brewing over Florida's infamous "butterfly" ballots and hanging chads - whether more than 6 million votes cast in the nation's most disputed presidential contest should be destroyed or preserved for their historical significance.

Budget cuts spark e-mail ire
Court spending debate leads to fiery exchange
In an uncommonly sharp exchange of budget barbs, House Speaker Johnnie Byrd and two top fiscal lieutenants have accused Chief Justice Harry Lee Anstead of exaggerating the impact of spending reductions in the courts.

Senate OKs 'leadership funds' bill
Despite bipartisan warnings that it was inviting political corruption and driving up the cost of campaigning, the Senate on Monday quietly approved a return of "leadership funds" controlled by House and Senate presiding officers.

Lobbying rule is too cozy
The Florida Commission on Ethics has lost its sense of direction. In granting legislators the go-ahead to join law firms that also lobby the legislature, the Ethics Commission would make a bag man seem morally superior.

Pro-ERA brigade lobbies legislators
Campaigning at the Capitol
A small but vocal band of Equal Rights Amendment supporters told legislators Monday the long-running argument about the legal status of women won't go away when the 2003 session ends.

American to oversee Iraqi oil industry
The US is preparing to install an American chairman on a planned management team of the Iraqi oil industry, providing further ammunition to critics who have questioned the Bush administration's agenda in the Middle East.
The administration is planning to structure the potentially vast Iraqi oil industry like a US corporation, with a chairman and chief executive and a 15-strong board of international advisers.
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, it has lined up the former chief executive of the US division of Royal Dutch/Shell, Philip Carroll, to take the job of chairman.

4/27-21/03

Some fear they'll die if state benefit lapses
As lawmakers scramble to stall cuts, 27,000 sick Floridians look to charities for help and consider how death will come.
Critical legislation drowning in dogma
There comes a time when you have to say enough.
This is it.
This is the moment when the shrill rhetoric about no new state taxes must stop. This is the moment when you stand up and say that there are some things government should be responsible for, no matter what political party you subscribe to.
Things like the universities and local school districts, where officials are howling about the spending cuts.
Or the protection of children. We lost two more this month in South Florida, by the way. They were killed, allegedly by their foster parents, people who had been approved by state caseworkers.
And then there's the program I've been writing about, the Medically Needy program, a back-up health insurance plan for the old and the poor...
For the Legislature, money is time
Session's conclusion hinges on the state budget
Don't think of it as a state budget. Think of it as a $52 billion cork holding back a river of legislation. As the Florida Legislature enters what should have been the final week of its 60-day regular session, the budget remains the pivot upon which all legislation turns. And although the spending plan is the only bill the constitution requires the lawmaking body to pass annually, there are other priorities that must be completed this year as well.

Legislature down to numbers
As legislative budget staffers did the detail work for House-Senate negotiations Saturday, advocates for state employees voiced hope of saving enough of a pay raise to offset rising health insurance rates.

Activists condemn detention security policy for Haitians
MIAMI · Haitian community activists on Friday denounced the decision by U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to detain Haitian immigrants indefinitely because of national security concerns.
"Haitians are not terrorists," said Marleine Bastien, executive director of Haitian Women of Miami. "We come here in search of freedom and liberty, like everybody else."

Crews chopping down hundreds of canker-exposed citrus trees
WEST PALM BEACH — Sheriff's deputies joined tree-cutting crews Wednesday morning as they began chopping down backyard citrus trees that have been exposed to the bacterial disease canker.
The crews aim to cut down 1,750 citrus trees on 648 properties in neighborhoods north of downtown over the next few weeks. The trees are growing within 1,900 feet of diseased trees, a measurement that has become the state's threshold for determining which trees threaten to spread the disease.

Marchers deliver message to NRA
They gathered quietly under a chilly, gray sky near a remote parking lot on International Drive, knowing they would never be known for parting the Red Sea -- not even on a movie set.

An Everglades fiasco
Legislators are caving into the sugar industry at the expense of a national treasure.
Are lawmakers deaf, dumb and blind?
They'd have to be to ignore the growing cacophony of concern emanating from Washington and a federal courtroom over proposed legislation that would indulge sugar growers at the expense of ambitious plans to restore Florida's fabled Everglades...
Hiaasen: How sweet is Big Sugar's Everglades deal?
Big Sugar's sticky-fingered campaign to weaken pollution standards in the Everglades might be derailed by an old nemesis -- one who cannot be bought off.
His name is Bill Hoeveler, and he's a federal judge.
Billboard plasters water manager
Environmentalist angry over a bill to slow the cleanup of the Everglades target one of its backers in a billboard.
'Glades cleanup delay looks likely
TALLAHASSEE · A move that could delay the cleanup of Florida's Everglades by a decade won preliminary approval from the Florida Senate late Friday, with few questions asked and no apparent opposition.
The measure, developed with a push from the sugar industry, is on a fast track as the legislative session enters its final days.

Governor backs Panhandle airport as 'field of dreams'
PANAMA CITY — A development plan that features a new airport will help the Florida Panhandle build a "field of dreams," Gov. Jeb Bush said Monday.
Build it, and high-paying jobs will come to the region, he said. Opponents say the airport is unneeded and would mainly benefit the state's largest private land owner, the St. Joe. Co.
The West Bay Sector Plan covers 78,000 acres owned by St. Joe in western Bay County. The former paper company has agreed to donate 4,000 acres for the airport, but state, federal and local taxpayers would pick up an estimated $210 million in construction costs. ...

Lawmakers turned lobbyists
Florida's term limits have funneled former politicians like John Thrasher into the lucrative new career of influencing one-time colleagues.

Gov. Bush spends Easter with Broward prison inmates
PEMBROKE PINES — A chain-link fence coiled in barbed wire served as the backdrop for Gov. Jeb Bush as he made an Easter address to inmates at an all-female maximum security prison Sunday.
Bush told about 120 inmates at Broward Correctional Institution that faith-based programs could improve their lives — and possibly their chances of getting out of prison.
"I believe in my heart that if you accept Jesus and stay the course great things will happen to you," Bush told inmates as they gathered on a softball field to hear religious speeches and songs. "You know what will happen? Four times a year as governor of this state, I sit as a member of the clemency board, and I know I'm going to see you there. And the way you get there is to live your life in the right way.
"The joy I get as governor to sit and to see people come to seek the state's grace pales by comparison of the joy I know when people come to seek that grace that they have already received by the grace of God. That is far more important." ...

Happy to fiddle as budget consumes
I've tried to think of something else that looks as ugly as the Florida Legislature this week.

Session heads for overtime
Senate, House trying to reach budget accord
With budget negotiations bogged down, House and Senate leaders Friday gave up hope of ending the legislative session on time next week.

Workers comp bill reaches floor
One provision in the House version of the reform measure says losing an arm doesn't qualify as catastrophic injury.

Tax break for business passes House
A Democratic effort to kill a $124 million credit for depreciation is quashed.

Legislature: Bill would allow police to stop motorists for seatbelt violation
TALLAHASSEE — Motorists can be stopped by Florida police for failure to wear seat belts under a measure approved Monday by a Senate committee.
The legislation (SB 504) now allows authorities to make the stop for no other reason than to be sure the driver is properly harnessed. Before they would have needed other reasons to stop the automobile.
Anyone in the vehicle under 18 would have to be buckled up, even in the back seat, under the bill approved by the Senate Transportation Committee on a 6-1 vote.

Legislature: GOP donor's development would benefit from hospital expansion bill
TALLAHASSEE — A hospital serving a booming central Florida retirement community developed by a top Republican Party donor could expand without normal state regulatory approval under legislation headed to Gov. Jeb Bush.
The measure allows certain hospitals in particularly fast-growing areas to bypass the usual bureaucratic process for getting approval to add new beds. It would likely only affect two hospitals, including Villages Regional Medical Center serving The Villages, a sprawling community between Ocala and Orlando. It was developed by Gary Morse, one of the largest individual contributors to Republican candidates in Florida.

Legislature: Panels approve different versions of no-fault insurance reform
TALLAHASSEE — A House committee approved a no-fault auto insurance reform bill backed by trial lawyers Tuesday, while a Senate panel passed a version supported by the insurance industry.
The Legislature is seeking a solution to rampant fraud and soaring costs in the system, which requires drivers to buy insurance to cover their injuries in auto accidents.
While both bills have tough penalties for fraud, they differ widely on other measures to cut costs, with the Senate version (SB 1202) containing caps on medical fees and the House proposal (HB 1819) containing a different dispute resolution system.

Legislature: Negotiations continue on budget going into final scheduled week of session
TALLAHASSEE — Most of the Legislature left Tallahassee on Saturday for a last break before an expected final, frantic effort to work out a deal on how to spend $52 billion and where to get all the money. The state budget — the one thing lawmakers must do every session — is hung up on a difference of opinion between the House and Senate. That's not unusual, mainly because they always have different spending priorities.

Legislature: Bill would allow leaders to again funnel money to other candidates
TALLAHASSEE — Lawmakers are considering a change in campaign finance law that would allow legislative leaders to directly raise large sums of money to spread around to other candidates they like.
Supporters of the idea argue that goes on now — it is simply done through the political parties. They say that makes it hard for the public to know who's getting support from whom. And at least one lawmaker suggested that's no accident.
"Laundering money through a party for the purpose of concealing who gave it is nothing more than a sham," said Sen. Tom Lee, R-Brandon. But that's what goes on, he said.
Banned in '80s, campaign tool might return
They're called leadership funds, and some worry they'll give special interests a beeline to legislators. Advocates say they'll bring more accountability.

Legislature: House passes class size, Senate OKs tax credit for scholarship expansion
TALLAHASSEE — A class-size reduction bill that expands vouchers and reduces the time required to get a high school degree passed the state House on a 77-38 vote Friday.
House's solution: hand out vouchers
To cut class size, the House votes to increase the number of vouchers given out. The Senate says no way.
House passes class-size bill
By Kimberly Miller, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
The measure contains reduced graduation requirements and four new voucher programs.
Cutting it close
School superintendents issued a warning to the Legislature this week that its education budget cuts too deep, and that Florida schools cannot do more with less.

State cuts squeezing charter schools
As one of the charter school movement's true believers, one of Gov. Jeb Bush's partners in building the program and one of the industry's corporate leaders, Jon Hage has one word to describe a plan that could vastly increase their number:
''Lunacy,'' said Hage, the chief executive officer of Charter Schools USA in North Lauderdale.

Legislature: Senate passes measure banning local 'living-wage' laws
TALLAHASSEE — Cities and counties couldn't require most businesses to pay workers more than the federal minimum wage under a measure passed Thursday by the Senate.
Currently there are no Florida towns or counties requiring all businesses to pay more than the federal minimum wage, but a few cities around the nation have passed such measures, leading pro-business lawmakers to try to head off the possibility in Florida.
The bill (CS-SB 54) passed 22-13 over the objections of dissenters who said it tells local governments they can't react to unique local circumstances by requiring higher wages.

Legislature: Senate passes measures to halt malpractice insurance rate hikes
TALLAHASSEE — The state Senate passed a series of bills Thursday aiming to curb the soaring cost of malpractice insurance that the health care industry says may close hospital trauma centers and force doctors to give up their practices.
The measures would require insurance companies to roll back their malpractice policy rates more than 20 percent to where they were in 2002 and grant some immunity from lawsuits to doctors caring for patients in emergency situations. They would also limit hospitals' liability in mistakes in the emergency room to $2.5 million

Legislature: If lawmakers require kids to take FCAT, should they take it too?
TALLAHASSEE — True or False? If lawmakers are going to make students go through a high-stakes test to graduate, legislators should take the exam, too.
A number of senators answered true Wednesday. But ultimately they excused themselves and other state officials from having to take the stomach-churning FCAT.

Legislature: Senate OKs removal of state jurisdiction on Indian reservation
TALLAHASSEE — State law enforcement would be barred from investigating crimes and the state could not preside over civil lawsuits at the Miccosukee Indian reservation under a bill passed by the Senate Wednesday.
The legislation would leave it to the federal government and tribal courts to prosecute crimes and hear lawsuits involving the tribe, which owns 285,000 acres in Miami-Dade and Broward counties.

State health officials announce second phase of smallpox vaccination
MIAMI — The second stage of the Florida Department of Health's smallpox vaccination program will begin May 1 with the inoculations of some fire and rescue workers and others who would be first to respond to a bioterrrorism attack.

Sierra Club files notice of intent to sue over Florida waterways
TAMPA — The Sierra Club and Florida environmental groups threatened Monday to sue the federal government unless it rejects the state's list of polluted waterways, which they say is incomplete.
The groups contest the removal of 137 bodies of water, including the Suwannee River and much of the Tampa Bay basin, when the state submitted its updated list of polluted waters to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in October.

Healing waters
Springs represent a disappearing part of Florida
Springs have a way of getting into your mind and staying there. My first spring was a small one, a goblet hollowed out of the earth, but I have never forgotten it.

Sick birds found along St. Johns County beaches
ST. AUGUSTINE BEACH — Dozens of sick and dead Northern gannets are being found along St. Johns County's beaches, but no one has been able to determine what is causing them to become sick.
Karen Lynch of Noah's Ark, a St. Augustine Beach wildlife rescue and rehabilitation facility, said Thursday that 27 sick gannets, which are migratory sea birds related to the albatross, were brought in over the past week, including seven on Easter Sunday, seven on Monday and two more Tuesday.
She said anyone who finds sick sea birds on the beach should not put them back into the water.

Unions size up sheriffs' fiefdoms
With a state Supreme Court decision providing a breach, organizers rush in to sign up deputies and hold elections in several counties.

Appellate court strikes down 'invasive' adoption law
WEST PALM BEACH — The 4th District Court of Appeal struck down a law Wednesday that requires birth mothers who want to give a child up for adoption to publicize their sexual histories in newspaper ads.

Florida's troubled child-welfare agency sees privatization as the answer
TAMPA — Kathy Hall, a 36-year-old single mother of six, used to dread visits from the caseworker with Florida's Department of Children & Families. Hall worried the DCF worker would find something she didn't like: Not enough food. A dirty house. Children missing school. If anything was amiss, she feared she would lose custody of her kids again. So Hall didn't mind when the caseworker often called to cancel her required monthly visit because she was too busy. .

DCF to review firing of six employees
MIAMI — Department of Children & Families Secretary Jerry Regier said Thursday the firing of six employees following a senator's complaint will be reviewed.
"We will look into it and we will do what is appropriate," Regier said.
The department maintained a day earlier it would not review the firings, which occurred 10 days after an aide to Sen. Rudy Garcia, R-Hialeah, complained about rude treatment at a DCF office in Hialeah. The aide was at the office to help Garcia's grandmother with a problem with her food stamp card. 4/25/03
DCF: No plans to review firings of six workers
TALLAHASSEE — The Department of Children & Families does not plan to review a decision to fire six workers after a state senator complained about rude treatment his aide and grandmother allegedly received at the agency's Hialeah office, an agency spokesman said Wednesday. 4/24/03
DCF firings raise questions over senator's influence
TALLAHASSEE — The firing of six Department of Children & Families workers in Hialeah has raised questions about whether a senator put pressure on the department's leaders to get rid of the employees.
The employees were fired after Sen. Rudy Garcia, R-Hialeah, told DCF Secretary Jerry Regier about rude treatment his aide received when bringing Garcia's grandmother into the office. Now the former district administrator for DCF's Miami-Dade County office is saying Regier ordered her to fire the workers.
"He told me to fire everybody in the chain of command," Chelly Schembera, who Regier hired to temporarily run the Miami-Dade office, told The Miami Herald. 4/23/03
Unfair punishment at DCF
Whatever favors Department of Children and Families Secretary Jerry Regier thought he was performing for a state senator, he did his agency - and his own reputation - no good by firing six employees who supposedly mistreated the senator's grandmother.
DCF's skewed priorities
Palm Beach Post Editorial
Political firings as state's children keep dying.

Judge orders hearing to discuss bill on Everglades
TALLAHASSEE — A federal judge in Miami is concerned two bills moving through the Legislature could change the agreement the federal and state government have to restore the Everglades and on Wednesday ordered a hearing on the issue.

State agriculture department testing large shipment of leaky food
TALLAHASSEE — The state Department of Agriculture said Thursday it was testing a large shipment of canned fruit bound for Florida schools after some containers were discovered to be leaking.
Food safety inspectors are testing the U.S. Department of Agriculture-issued food — about 15 truckloads — at the Phoenix Industries warehouse in Winter Haven after a central Florida school reported March 26 that some of the cans were leaking, department spokesman Terry McElroy said.

FPL to buy two Pennsylvania wind farms
SOMERSET, Pa. — The country's largest producer of wind-generated electricity plans to buy two more wind farms in southwest Pennsylvania. FPL Energy LLC, of Juno Beach, Fla., bought the region's first power-producing windmill last year and will own two more once the deal is completed in June.

Fifteen acres of habitat restored under oil spill settlement
ST. PETERSBURG — Fifteen acres of habitat that were damaged by an oil spill 10 years ago have been restored, officials announced Friday.

Blue crab population melts away; biologists try to find out why
ON LITTLE COCKROACH BAY — After the morning fog burned off, Gus Muench took his 19-foot boat out to check his traps. One by one he hauled them up, dumping the dripping contents into a cooler. From each square wire enclosure tumbled perhaps a dozen conch shells, a few angelfish or catfish and, finally, three or four blue crabs waving their azure claws. The blue crabs, a succulent mainstay of Southern seafood menus, are Muench's money crop. There was a time when his traps would be packed with them. No more. Muench (pronounced Mew-nik) has been catching blue crabs for 30 of his 66 years, and he has never seen it this bad

Oliphant announces re-election bid for Broward elections chief
FORT LAUDERDALE — Broward County's embattled elections supervisor said she will seek re-election, despite criticism she has received over the past eight months including calls for her resignation and a state investigation of her office
Out-of-state candidates vie for elections chief
MIAMI · Elections officials from Nevada and Illinois are the top two choices for Miami-Dade County's next supervisor of elections.
County Manager Steve Shiver will choose between Constance Kaplan, a deputy chief administrative officer for the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, and Daniel Burk, registrar of voters in Washoe County, Nev.

When Republicans say 'flexibility,' grab your wallet
By Molly Ivins
Boy, there is no shortage of creatively terrible ideas from the Republican Party these days. Those folks are just full of notions about how to make people's lives worse - one horrible idea after another bursting out like popcorn - and all of them with these sickeningly cute names attached to them.
Consider the Family Time and Workplace Flexibility Act (Senate version) and the Family Time Flexibility Act (House version). The Bush administration is leading the charge with proposed new rules that will affect more than 80million workers now protected by the Fair Labor Standards Act.
To hear the Republicans tell it, you'd think these were family-friendly bills, something like Clinton's Family Leave Act, designed to help you balance the difficult combined demands of work and family. With such a smarm of butter over their visages do the Republicans go on about the joys of "flexibility" and "freedom of choice" that you would have to read the bills for maybe 30 seconds before figuring out they're about repealing the 40-hour workweek and ending overtime.
As The American Prospect magazine notes, when Republicans talk about "flexibility," it means letting business do whatever it wants without standards, mandates or worker and consumer rights. Ever since FDR's New Deal, working overtime has gotten you time-and-a-half in money, which has the happy effect of holding the work week down to 40 hours - or at least preventing it from ballooning grossly...

4/20-16/03

So who really did save Private Jessica?
From Richard Lloyd Parry in al-Nasiriyah
Doctor claims that soldiers terrorised unarmed staff
THE rescue of Private Jessica Lynch, which inspired America during one of the most difficult periods of the war, was not the heroic Hollywood story told by the US military, but a staged operation that terrified patients and victimised the doctors who had struggled to save her life, according to Iraqi witnesses.
Doctors at al-Nasiriyah general hospital said that the airborne assault had met no resistance and was carried out a day after all the Iraqi forces and Baath leadership had fled the city.
Four doctors and two patients, one of whom was paralysed and on an intravenous drip, were bound and handcuffed as American soldiers rampaged through the wards, searching for departed members of the Saddam regime.

Occupation of Paradise Square is an illusory promise of peace
It's difficult to judge who's cowering more at the moment, Saddam's band of butchers or America's anti-war liberals. The now-famous scene of a Saddam statue tumbling to the heels of Iraqis is supposedly symbolic of an Iraqi rebirth midwifed by U.S. Marines, and just as supposedly symbolic of the burial of liberal opposition at home. But Paradise Square was Ground Zero in the blitzkrieg of deceptions that continue to define "Operation Iraqi Freedom."
There was no national celebration on Paradise Square. There was a gathering of a few dozen people orchestrated by the U.S. military in front of the Palestine Hotel, where the world's press has its Baghdad headquarters. Like Saddam, the statue was brought down by the invading force, not by a popular uprising from within. The "celebration" that followed was contained to the very few people there, and rimmed by American tanks around the square. Cars were prevented from entering the traffic circle from radiating avenues. It was a celebration at gunpoint, however benevolent the arsenal shadowing the celebrants, and it was no more authentic than canned celebrations of Iraqis dancing around Saddam in those many propaganda films his regime distributed like Baath Party porn. To compare last week's events on Paradise Square to the celebrations that involved hundreds of thousands of people dancing on the Berlin Wall for weeks in 1989 is as ludicrous as comparing the American invasion of Grenada in 1983 to the Normandy invasion in 1944.

UNEMPLOYMENT BY THE NUMBERS
UNEMPLOYMENT BY THE NUMBERS Gov. Jeb Bush's budget this year calls for the elimination of 2,905 positions in state government, Tallahassee's largest employer. It's not known how many of those jobs will be in Tallahassee or how many are filled. But if the proposed cuts were made, it would bring to 12,390 the number of jobs eliminated since Bush took office in 1999. To date, about 9,500 positions statewide have been eliminated.

Case of the Homeland Whodunnit
By Randy Schultz, Palm Beach Post Editor of the Editorial Page
The anthrax that killed Bob Stevens is a mystery government must solve, and not just for Mrs. Stevens.

 Investors' tax cut survives
Florida's new budget is likely to slash funding for the poor, university students and the elderly, but lawmakers are still finding room for a $100 million tax cut for some of the state's wealthier residents and businesses.

Living beyond their means
Florida legislators have no business sticking pet projects into the budget.
When motorists are stuck in a conga line of cars, the elderly can't pay for prescription drugs and communities face losing critical-care facilities, how dare Florida lawmakers even think of spending tax dollars on their pet projects.

Legislature: Report shows phone companies poured more than $5 million into campaigns
TALLAHASSEE — Leading telecommunications firms and their lobbyists contributed more than $5 million to Florida campaigns and political parties before seeking what could be the largest increase in home telephone service prices in state history.
Most of the money went to Republicans, helping Gov. Jeb Bush win reelection and the GOP strengthen its hold on the Legislature, according to an analysis by The Miami Herald.

Miccosukee tribe gave state GOP $210,000 during 2002 campaign
TALLAHASSEE — The Miccosukee tribe contributed more than $300,000 to Florida political campaigns last year while preparing to ask state lawmakers to give up state authority over Indian lands.
The South Florida tribe gave $325,818 to state political campaigns in 2002, decidedly more than the $85,529 the tribe had contributed to Florida campaigns since 1996, according to an analysis by The Miami Herald.
Most of last year's contributions went to the Republican Party of Florida, whose members control the governor's mansion, the Cabinet and the Legislature. Beyond the contributions, the tribe has hired more than a dozen lobbyists to push legislation that would give it criminal and civil jurisdiction over its land. 

University leaders, Bush talk budget in private
TALLAHASSEE -- Gov. Jeb Bush met behind closed doors Friday with leaders of state universities to address a bare-bones budget that slashes funding for higher education.
The governor-appointed chairmen of the trustee boards overseeing the state university system have been blasted in the past for conducting critical business at secret meetings.
"I'm sure we'll be criticized again tomorrow about it," said Bush, offering few details from the more-than-hourlong discussion.
Phil Lewis: Legislation imperils our right to know
It's Easter break in Tallahassee and our lawmakers all went home for an extended weekend. The wags would say, we are safe, at least for awhile. Word from the capital is not good, if you are concerned about the public's right to know. Twenty-five bills that in one way or another take information out of the public eye have made it out of committee, meaning they are a step closer to becoming law.

Blitz of Cabinet members in state show Florida in play
TAMPA — Florida is already shaping up as a battlefield for the 2004 presidential election, with President Bush sending four Cabinet members in the past two weeks to push his tax cut plan in the state that played a crucial role in sending him to the White House.

Arts may be victim of state deficit
Florida lawmakers are joining a national stampede to slash arts funding. Worse, ours is one of several states considering the unprecedented: to strip away support for cultural programs altogether.
The potential toll: $28 million in already approved grants to 720 arts organizations in 58 counties, with 22,327 full-time employees.

Summer reading camp: Great idea, Jeb, but where's the money?
Reading camps for kids in the summer. Now there's an idea.
In Homestead this week, Gov. Jeb Bush unveiled his plan to help third-graders who can't read at grade level. Bush's "Read to Learn" plan suggests summer reading camps for third-graders who score at the bottom of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. It also calls on more volunteer mentors. There would be an online program to help kids prepare for the FCAT and workshops to get parents to bring books home and read to kids.
All fine ideas. Except there's no real money to back up the governor's grand plan.
The summer reading camps would be left up to already-cash-crunched districts to decide if they want to go that route. Nor is the state offering to retest the kids after the summer to get them to fourth grade.

Bill targets sex abuse of kids; would let DCF probe churches
The reports of sexual abuse that have shaken the Catholic Church are prompting outrage in the Capitol and proposals for new state laws aimed at protecting children better and making it easier for them to sue their abusers.

Bush tries to ease bill's impact
The governor is looking for ways to help people left vulnerable by cuts to the Medically Needy program.

Audit: State could save if pharmacies bid on Medicaid business
TALLAHASSEE — Requiring drug companies to give rebates as a condition for having their products used in the state's Medicaid program has saved Florida more than $80 million, but more could be saved if pharmacy networks competitively bid on the Medicaid business.

Board of Pharmacy approves judge's Internet pharmacy ruling
TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Board of Pharmacy has approved an administrative judge's decision to let an Internet pharmacy deliver drugs to customers diagnosed online by physicians.
Florida Administrative Law Judge Daniel Manry ruled in January that Davie-based Rx Network was operating within the limits of the law. He said state health officials didn't present convincing evidence that the company endangered the public by selling drugs over the Internet.

Legislature: The day in Tallahassee (4/16)

Tax breaks sought for golf carts
By S.V. Dáte, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Golf carts used in rich communities across Florida could become tax-free.

Farmworker legislation pushed
By Jim Ash, Palm Beach Post Capital Bureau
A last-ditch effort is planned on a bill to give farmworkers the right to sue growers.

FDLE wants to hide technology with secret murder trial
JACKSONVILLE — Prosecutors are trying to keep secret the technology they used in the arrest of a man in the murder of his wife, so secret they want part of his trial closed to the press and public.

Deportee's death raises questions
Ahfez Khan and his lawyer pleaded with U.S. immigration officials not to deport him to Pakistan.
Married with two young children in Central Florida, Khan feared for his life if sent back to his native country, where U.S. deportees are outcasts and victims of discrimination and violence because of seething anti-American sentiment. His lawyer also argued that he should be allowed to stay in the United States because his wife was a U.S. citizen and he had applied for permanent residency.
While considering his application, however, U.S. authorities deported him in February 2002 during a roundup of foreigners resulting from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Three weeks ago, as Khan and a friend sipped tea at a hotel cafe in the Karachi neighborhood of Azizabad, two gunmen on motorcycles opened fire. Shot twice in the head, Khan, 36, died at a local hospital. His friend survived.

Panhandle needs a grip on wetlands
Think of a wetlands area as a big bathtub. With one toddler in the tub, the water level rises. When a second one climbs in, the level climbs higher. With a third, the basin overflows.

DEP urges Big Bend land buy
Cabinet had balked at purchase price
Some environmentalists and state officials say the hole in the doughnut is worth buying, even if it costs $38 million. The hole is 37,358 acres in Franklin County that is surrounded by Tate's Hell State Forest. The Cabinet delayed buying the land April 9 after Gov. Jeb Bush and Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher questioned the purchase price of $1,017 per acre.

10 whales still stranded off Keys
BIG PINE KEY -- About 10 pilot whales were stranded Saturday in shallow water off the Florida Keys, while seven others were being cared for at a temporary holding center.

Blue crabs melt away
Biologists don't know what's causing the decline, which has commercial crabbers fearing for their livelihood.

West Nile appearing earlier than usual
Signs of the West Nile virus in Florida are showing up earlier this year than last, the Florida Department of Health said Friday, urging residents to start taking precautions against being bitten by mosquitoes.

Canker eradication opponents ask judge to block tree removal
FORT LAUDERDALE — Attorneys for South Florida homeowners who oppose the state's citrus canker eradication program have asked a judge to block the removal of citrus trees they contend have not been exposed to the disease.
With tree-cutting crews poised to resume work, the homeowners asked Broward Circuit Judge J. Leonard Fleet on Thursday to issue an emergency injunction limiting the Agriculture Department's ability to cut down trees. A hearing was scheduled for Wednesday.
State Supreme Court to review citrus canker eradication law
TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Supreme Court has agreed to review the state's citrus canker eradication law, but it has refused to block the removal of citrus trees while the case is pending.

A marriage in trouble
Our position: The Everglades is threatened by Tallahassee's love affair with sugar.
Bush's sugar-coated bill
Gov. Jeb Bush is trying to sell this line to people who practice politics for a living: Sure, we are extending a deadline that is written into law, replacing the date 2006 with 2026, but we have no intention of delaying anything.
Sugar growers' sticky fingers spoil cleanup
The Everglades sugar growers are like the big gators that roam the world's best-known swamp.

Feds offer water plan
Move aimed to restart talks over Apalachicola system
Federal officials are advancing a new proposal to end a stalemate among Florida and neighboring states over sharing water from the Apalachicola River system.

Mammogram-themed billboards attacking malpractice costs on way
TALLAHASSEE — Billboards that protest the rising cost of malpractice insurance and alert motorists to one part of the crisis' fallout will soon be placed along roadways in Volusia and Flagler counties. The advertisements are planned by Florida Hospital, which operates more than a dozen health care facilities.

Satellite images help shed light on black water event
A view from space might help scientists keep track of the health of the world's coral reefs. A new study uses satellite pictures to link a 70 percent decline in coral coverage and the disappearance of sponges at two monitoring sites north of the Florida Keys to the black water that clouded western Florida Bay between Naples and Key West in early 2002.

Cruise ships drop anchor in paradise off private beach — and no mention it's impoverished Haiti
LABADIE, Haiti — The turquoise bay ringed by ruins of a 19th century plantation and crimson-flowered flamboyant trees is everything the tourist brochures promise — tranquil waters, pristine beaches, good food, exotic local culture. But few tourists realize they've taken a cruise to Haiti, the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation. "Can you see Haiti from here?" asks Linda Tracy, 59, of Camden, Maine, disembarking from the cruise ship Explorer of the Seas with 3,400 other passengers who scurry toward banana boats, Jet Skis and art stalls.

Paul Krugman: Rejecting the world
NEW YORK — The Bush administration did the right thing on diesel emissions this week, curbing an important source of air pollution. Yet George Bush has, in general, reneged on the environmental promises of his 2000 campaign. Most notably, he broke his campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, offering instead a purely voluntary — and therefore, one might have thought, meaningless — plan to limit global warming.
But even this, it turns out, was too much for Bush's party. The energy bill passed by House Republicans last week didn't include any plan, even a voluntary one, to limit greenhouse emissions. Why?
The answer, I believe, has to do with an aversion to all things global.

Paul Krugman: Behind our backs
As the war began, members of the House of Representatives gave speech after speech praising our soldiers, and passed a resolution declaring their support for the troops. Then they voted to slash veterans' benefits.
Some of us have long predicted that the drive to cut taxes on corporations and the wealthy would lead to a fiscal dance of the seven veils. One at a time, the pretenses would be dropped — the pretense that big tax cuts wouldn't preclude new programs like prescription-drug insurance, the pretense that the budget would remain in surplus, the pretense that spending could be cut painlessly by eliminating waste and fraud, the pretense that spending cuts wouldn't hurt the middle class.

Harsh judgment
The federal courts do not suffer from a crisis of leniency. Still, a measure proposed by Rep. Tom Feeney and passed by Congress undermines judicial discretion and imperils reasonable sentencing.

4/15-11/03

Conflict with Iraq: Florida anti-war protests dwindling
MIAMI BEACH — Tourists, shoppers and beachgoers wandered around the site of what has been a weekly Saturday afternoon anti-war protest on trendy South Beach.
Problem was, no protesters showed up.
"I'm sorry to hear that," Erika Bingham, the organizer of the Miami Beach event, said by telephone from California, where she has been traveling. "I had hoped it would carry on."
What happened on Miami Beach mirrors a nationwide trend. Protests are still taking place, but considerably fewer activists are turning out than in the months leading up to the conflict, and the focus has shifted to bringing American troops home quickly.
Conflict with Iraq: Peace advocates stage sit-in at Rep. Harris' office
SARASOTA — About a dozen peace activists staged a sit-in at U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris' congressional office to urge her to vote against funding the war in Iraq.
Inside the First Amendment: Patriotism, dissent not mutually exclusive
What does America stand for? That's the question on the streets of Baghdad this week as Iraqis celebrate their first taste of freedom — and look with a mixture of hope and anxiety to the "nation-building" that now begins. And that's also the question on the home front as Americans work to heal the divisions and anger triggered by debate over the war.
Iraqi liberation tastes like crow to antiwar crowd
What was that whimpering sound? Oh that. It's just the "Yes, but" crowd formerly known as the "antiwar pundits." Ignore them.
Saddam's statue had barely hit the ground in central Baghdad before America's armchair doomsayers began harrumphing a new caveat in which to couch this unseemly turn of events. One might almost think they didn't want Saddam to fall.

Student-aid measure called 'anti-Arab'
Legislation that would deny state financial aid to students from predominantly Muslim countries is causing an outcry in Arab-American and Muslim communities, who say it's yet another instance of bias and suspicion toward them.
Bill bans aid to students from terror-list nations
Rep. Dick Kravitz, an Orange Park Republican, said the idea for the bill came to him after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Legislature: Lawmaker apologizes, explains Muslim comment
TALLAHASSEE — State Rep. Dick Kravitz apologized to Muslims Monday for a comment he made last week when he explained his appreciation for Muslim culture — and added that he regretted not dating "one of their women." In a letter to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Kravitz said he wanted to apologize to anyone offended by the remark and said he was cut off at the committee meeting before being able to explain it.
Legislature: House panel defeats bill barring aid to students from terror-linked nations
TALLAHASSEE — A House committee defeated a measure Monday that would have barred students from terrorism-sponsoring nations from receiving state financial aid. The bill (HB 31) was defeated 8-6 in the House Judiciary Committee with bipartisan opposition. Five committee members missed the vote. The measure, which also died in last year's legislative session, was sponsored by Rep. Dick Kravitz, R-Jacksonville, who argued it doesn't make sense for Florida taxpayers to pay to educate foreign students who must go back to their homelands when some Florida students don't get all the financial aid they need.

Florida doctor sues, says detained at airport because of skin color
PHILADELPHIA — A doctor of Indian descent who was taken off a plane in handcuffs then detained several hours by air marshals filed a civil rights lawsuit against the government Monday. Dr. Bob Rajcoomar, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserves, said he hadn't done anything wrong and the two marshals singled him out because of his skin color.

Legislature: Bill that could increase basic phone rates passes House committee
TALLAHASSEE — A proposal that could raise basic phone rates to encourage competition between telephone companies sailed through the House Business Regulation Committee Monday by a 30-1 vote. Only Rep. Manuel Prieguez, R-Miami, the committee's chair, voted against the bill (PCB BR 03-06), which will now be formally introduced and assigned to committees.
Phone companies write new bill for consumers
Palm Beach Post Editorial
That local phone-bill increase you didn't see because of Gov. Bush's veto this year probably will take place next year, and be as much as $7.25.
Bush backs phone-rate increase
By Mary Ellen Klas, Palm Beach Post Capital Bureau
Lawmakers are promoting a bill that could end up costing telephone customers more money for basic service.

Bushes use fast-break offense
"Bush & Bush Wrecking. You make it, we break it. This is Todd. How may I help you?"

Capital Column: Verbal missteps becoming regrettably common
TALLAHASSEE — For decades, the dealings within both chambers of the Florida Legislature have been largely staid affairs, proceedings steeped in tradition, where even heated debates were waged with an eye toward ceremony and civility.
Then came term limits. It's no incredible coincidence that decorum has eroded as lawmakers no longer work with each other for decades and seniority, once a time-honored process, now completes its course in eight years.

Who'll be hurt in budget standoff? Just look in the mirror
When Peter Pan and Ralph Waldo Emerson start showing up in Tallahassee's budget talks, you can tell the Legislature has run itself into a ditch.
Sure enough, House Speaker Johnnie Byrd has complained that the Senate is breathing "pixie dust" in a proposed new budget that spends $1.4 billion more than the House proposes spending.
And sure enough, Senate Majority Leader Dennis Jones has quoted Emerson: "The meaning of good and bad, or better and worse, is simply helping or hurting." The Senate's budget, Jones says: "attempts to help, not to hurt, the citizens of our state."

Legislature facing up to a session defined by limits
When voters imposed term limits in 1992, everybody said Florida was in for a new kind of Legislature. Everybody was right. In the final three weeks of a legislative session buffeted by a "perfect storm" of constitutional amendments that will cost taxpayers untold billions of dollars over the next decade, the state House of Representatives is controlled by a combative cabal of newcomers with no allegiance to the old way of doing things.

Officials' desire to toe the tax line spirals into absurd obsession
There's a common theme at work here.

Crisis won’t be solved at patient’s expense
The medical malpractice debate in Florida continues to focus on a false hope, but there are promising signs that the illusion is wearing thin.

Desperate measures
Merciless cuts to the university system have spurred the presidents of two Florida schools to draft a contract that demands financial support from the state in return for good performance.
UF, FSU ask for power of purse
Tuition increase in sight if state gives up control
Florida's two largest public universities would be able to raise tuition as high as they want, essentially becoming semiprivate, under a novel budget plan that is gaining support among influential policymakers.

Groups urge citizens to lobby legislators
TALLAHASSEE — Rep. Stan Jordan remembers when he thought of citizen input as a few words of advice from somebody he bumped into on the street. Those days are gone. Doctors, lawyers, teachers, builders, environmentalists, librarians and others are barraging legislators with e-mails, phone calls, letters and personal visits to press their side of issues pending in the 60-day session that is scheduled to end May 2.

Ignoring the voters
Despite Floridians' desire for open government, lawmakers are on the attack.
Some Florida lawmakers are addicted to government secrecy. What else would explain their introduction of dozens of proposals to close public records and meetings, just months after state voters overwhelmingly reaffirmed their belief in open government?

The shame of Florida’s leadership
Inch by inch, forest by forest, Florida is being eaten up by development -- and no one has a more voracious appetite for Florida's open land and water than the state Legislature.
Gov. Jeb Bush leads the way, of course. His big environmental proposal this year? To take money set aside by taxpayers to preserve and protect the environment and use it to pay for everything from education to out tax breaks. The ultimate effect? The death of Florida Forever, the state's landmark land-buying program.

House approves Florida anti-drilling amendment
PENSACOLA — Language that Florida officials feared might lead to oil and natural gas drilling off the state's shores was dropped from an energy bill Friday by a voice vote of the U.S. House of Representatives.
The House then passed the bill 247-175, but the Senate has yet to act. The House bill would offer incentives for oil and gas production and authorize drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

House would leave Everglades for someone else to clean up
Now we know how long "forever" lasts in Florida:

Backlash may be looming on state's school reforms
Even fellow Republicans are objecting to measures that could prevent graduations and promotions.

Fix workers' comp
There are several major ways state lawmakers can help the system now.
Workers' comp reforms sought
Businesses look to lawmakers for relief
Every time Tallahassee contractor Ed Dion pays one of his eight carpenters a dollar in wages, he pays his workers' compensation insurance carrier 44 cents in premiums.

Home price outrace income gains
It now takes two average incomes to buy a typical house in Palm Beach County or on the Treasure Coast.

DOT's inefficient ways take toll on Florida drivers
"Their ways are not our ways, my son."
I remember that line from a movie I saw when I was a youngster. It was a story about the first Europeans to arrive at a Polynesian island paradise. The Europeans' concept of how life should be lived was, of course, very different from the Polynesians'.
What brought the line back to my memory was the SunPass booths at toll gates along the Florida Turnpike.

Medical costs for illegal immigrants burden hospitals
STUART — Luis Jimenez has been a hospital patient for three years, all at once the beneficiary and the victim of a law that requires emergency medical care for illegal immigrants but nothing more. A car wreck has left him at age 30 unable to walk and with the mental awareness of a 4-year-old. He needs therapy but no U.S. facility will take him because he has no money or insurance. Hospital officials want to send Jimenez home to Guatemala, but his cousin and attorney say the country's socialized system of health care won't provide for him either.

Don't retreat on arts
It would be a mistake for Florida to get rid of reliable dollars for culture.

Childers facing up to 10 years in Escambia bribery case
CRESTVIEW — W.D. Childers was once one of Florida's most powerful state legislators. Now, the former Florida Senate president faces up to 10 years in prison after being convicted of bribing another suspended Escambia County commissioner.

Castro defiant, says he will defend nation against U.S.
HAVANA — President Fidel Castro, defiant amid international criticism of Cuba's harsh measures to restrain dissent and halt violent hijackings, said he would fight to defend his nation against the United States.
"We are now immersed in a battle against provocations that are trying to move us toward conflict and military aggression by the United States," Castro told a group of Venezuelans in a Friday night speech broadcast on state television.

Cypress Gardens closes gates for good
WINTER HAVEN — Cypress Gardens returned to its heyday Sunday, with visitors packing every grandstand for the water-ski shows and filling every tour boat for the botanical garden cruises. They wanted to get one last look at one of Florida's oldest theme parks. After 67 years, Cypress Gardens closed its doors for good Sunday because of a steady decline in attendance.
Earlier this week, Governor Bush directed state officials to meet with the owner of the park on Wednesday to discuss acquisition of the land. "Gov. Jeb Bush directed state officials to meet with park owner Bill Reynolds on Wednesday to discuss acquisition of the 67-year-old attraction through the Florida Forever program, which was established to conserve environmentally sensitive land. ..."
Cypress Gardens is latest Old Florida institution to close its doors
WINTER HAVEN — During its golden years in the 1950s and 1960s, millions of viewers saw Cypress Gardens' lush botanical gardens, Southern belles in flowing dresses and daredevil water-skiers in Esther Williams movies or on television shows hosted by Carol Burnett or Johnny Carson.
A slice of real Florida
Before Space Mountain and the talking mouse, a theme park in the sleepy town of Winter Haven put Florida on the map with its lush scenery and Southern belles. Cypress Gardens was the first paid attraction of its kind. Opened in 1936 by daredevil Dick Pope, the park charged people a quarter to amble about what became a 200-acre garden.
Cypress Gardens closes after 67 years
Florida's first theme park, which closed abruptly Sunday, falls prey to changing times and lagging tourism.
Click here for a photo gallery on the closing of one of Florida's first theme parks

Leaving to fail another day
The Republican-led Congress is limping into recess decidedly laurel-free, still consumed with its retrograde struggle over just how much more of a tax cut the wealthiest Americans need as the nation plunges into a decade of deepening budgetary pain.

Paul Krugman: Conquest and neglect
Credit where credit (is due: The hawks were right to say that a whiff of precision-guided grapeshot would lead to the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime. But even skeptics about this war expected a military victory. ("Of course we'll win on the battlefield, probably with ease" was the opening line of my start-of-the-war column.) Instead, we worried — and continue to worry — about what would follow. As another skeptic, Michael Kinsley of Slate, wrote Thursday: "I do hope to be proven wrong. But it hasn't happened yet."
Why worry? I won't pretend to have any insights into what is going on in the minds of the Iraqi people. But there is a pattern to the Bush administration's way of doing business that does not bode well for the future — a pattern of conquest followed by malign neglect.

Once again, U.S. weapon is democracy
By Randy Schultz, Palm Beach Post Editor of the Editorial Page
We invaded Iraq based on our interests, not those of the Iraqis.

Let the guzzling begin
Palm Beach Post Editorial
In GOP energy policy, the Hummer is king.

4/10-9/03

Appeals court hears arguments on felon's voting rights
MIAMI — A state law barring convicted felons from voting ever again is discriminatory because it disproportionally affects blacks, a civil rights attorney told a federal appeals court Wednesday. The 11th U.S. Circuit of Appeals heard a lawsuit challenging the law as unconstitutional after a U.S. District Court judge dismissed it. Attorney Jessie Allen said she wants the panel to send the case back "for a fair trial."
Felon voting rights weighed
A panel of federal judges grappled Wednesday with the issue of whether Florida's 135-year-old law that bars released felons from voting has historically discriminated against that group in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Personnel privatization still concerns some senators
Some state senators raised concerns today about privatization of the state personnel system. But officials of the Department of Management Services assured them that Convergys Corp. has everything under control. The actual "outsourcing" of more than 500 state jobs is supposed to start on May 1and the phase-in will be completed by New Year's Day.

Embattled voter chief on reform task force
FORT LAUDERDALE -- Under investigation and almost out of money to run her office, Broward County Elections Supervisor Miriam Oliphant is taking on a new assignment -- helping set the course for election reform in Florida.
Secretary of State Glenda Hood has named Oliphant to a task force that will draw up plans to make voting easier and fraud harder to commit, in accordance with new nationwide election standards.
Oliphant's appointment has been met with a mix of derision and horror among her detractors.

Lawmakers abandon our old, ill and poor
It's hard to believe that the government could be so casual, so callous.
But it's true: Florida just might let the old and the sick die, as many as 26,000 of them.
In just a few weeks, cuts in what's called the Medically Needy program take effect. The program helps pay for the bills of poor people who are dealing with transplants or catastrophic illnesses, or facing drug bills that outstrip their monthly Social Security or disability checks.

Library out of budget plans
The House and Senate don't include money to transfer the state library to Nova. TALLAHASSEE -- Secretary of State Glenda Hood on Tuesday graciously accepted a legislative drubbing of her plan to transfer a $5 million "circulating" collection from the state library to a private college in Broward County, but critics remain wary.
"If the money's not there to move it, it certainly will not be moved," Hood said. "I don't think that's a decision I will make. I think that's up to the legislature."

Antiwar activists find less to protest
Images of freed Iraqis tossing flowers on American tanks rolling into Baghdad and beating broken Saddam Hussein statues with their shoes has gut-punched the peace movement locally, but it's too soon to count out their resolve or influence.
Peace ranks are thinning -- at least those willing to stand outside with signs, said Jeff Nall, founder of Patriots for Peace.
And the flood of calls and for antiwar rallies waned to a slow trickle in Central Florida, he added.

Cigarette maker's troubles imperil state tobacco money
Florida lawmakers, already struggling to balance next year's state budget, now have a new worry -- an Illinois court case that could cost the state up to $200 million a year in tobacco settlement money, starting in December.

Wine-shipment ban gains allies
House panel backs proposal, but Gov. Bush likely to veto
A powerful Miami wine distributor with a history of generous campaign contributions convinced a panel of legislators Wednesday to support blocking Florida vineyards from shipping their goods directly to consumers.

House, Senate at budget impasse
By S.V. Date and Marc Caputo, Palm Beach Post Capital Bureau
Their proposals are $1.5 billion apart, and neither side is budging.
House now stage with pitiful acting
Those observing the Legislature this week needed not a schedule and bill packet to follow the action, but a playbill identifying the lead actors and supporting cast.


Legislators, stop blowing smoke in voters' faces
There are nine customers in Hoops Tavern, eight of them smoking.

Open records face 'stunning' assault
TALLAHASSEE -- Dozens of proposals to close public information or meetings are quietly moving through the Florida Legislature, including bills that could conceal medical mistakes by hospitals, prescription abuses by doctors and many meetings at a new state-supported Alzheimer's research center backed by House Speaker Johnnie Byrd.
Open government advocates are crying foul.
"It's stunning," said Barbara Petersen, director of the non-profit First Amendment Foundation. "I counted 37 of these bills considered this week in committee or on the floor. I'm reaching rare levels of frustration. This is my 12th session, and I'm just disgusted by it."
At least a half-dozen bills to shut off public information were heard Wednesday in at least five legislative committees.

State is told Everglades extension a bad idea
TALLAHASSEE -- Despite a congressional warning that it was bad policy, a state House committee on Wednesday approved a bill giving a 20-year extension to the deadline for cleaning up phosphorous pollution in the Everglades.
Members of the House Natural Resources Committee voted 16-1 to amend the Everglades Forever Act, the 1994 law that required the state to reduce the amount of phosphorous washing into the Everglades from farms and cities.
Everglades deadline extension advances
By Jim Ash, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
A House panel approved extending by 20 years -- to 2026 -- a deadline for phosphorous cleanup.
Easing of pressure on Everglades polluters passes a test
Despite warnings from a bipartisan group of congressmen that state lawmakers are imperiling the $8 billion Everglades restoration effort, a House panel Wednesday endorsed a proposal backed by the sugar industry that would give polluters 20 more years to meet water quality standards in the Everglades.
Panel OKs Everglades legislation
A House Committee on Wednesday approved a bill to remove a deadline for reducing phosphorous pollution flowing into the Everglades.

Legislature: Bill to allow lawsuits against child rapists is all but dead
TALLAHASSEE — A bill that would have allowed people raped as children to sue their abusers is all but dead after a House committee refused to take a vote Wednesday on the measure opposed by insurance companies and churches. The bill would have waived the statute of limitations on filing lawsuits for one year so adults who repressed their memories of being raped as children could sue their abusers.

Budget veto brewing over school funds
Gov. Jeb Bush is threatening to reject any plan that doesn't include $120-million for his A-plus grading program.
Schools' 'A+' fund debated
Bush says budget must include rewards; Legislature divided
Gov. Jeb Bush said Wednesday he will veto any state budget that does not "fully fund" his reward program for schools that score an "A" or make major improvement in student reading and math scores.

Legislature: House and Senate panels approve bills to curb health insurance abuse
TALLAHASSEE — House and Senate panels took different routes Wednesday to curbing health insurance abuses by out-of-state group insurers. The lawmakers heard from witnesses who said the out-of-state companies had raised their premium rates to $1,000 a month or more after they became ill and from others who said the health insurance offered by the companies was the only kind they could afford.

Legislature: House committee defeats measure to open nomination hearings
TALLAHASSEE — A proposal designed to ask voters to open up the closed meetings used to nominate judges was cut down Wednesday in a House committee. The House Judiciary Committee — made up largely of attorneys — rejected the measure on a 14-3 vote. A lobbyist for the Florida Bar, which opposed the legislation, conceded the system might be better in the open. But Stephen Metz said it could also have a "chilling effect" on the deliberations of the Judicial Nominating Commission.

Legislature: House panel OKs Everglades bill over objections from Shaw
TALLAHASSEE — Despite concerns in Congress that it may threaten federal support for Everglades restoration, the House Natural Resources Committee approved a bill Wednesday to set standards for how much pollution can be released into the massive ecosystem over the next two decades. U.S. Rep. Clay Shaw, R-Fort Lauderdale, sent a representative to the meeting to urge state lawmakers not to tinker with the 1994 Everglades Forever Act because it could endanger the $8 billion joint federal-state project to restore the system's natural water flows.

Legislature: Senate committee approves Regier as DCF secretary
TALLAHASSEE — In less than eight months, Department of Children & Families Secretary Jerry Regier has turned around the criticism that greeted his appointment and is headed toward his Senate confirmation with strong support. The Senate Ethics and Elections Committee voted 8-2 Wednesday to approve Regier's confirmation during a hearing where senators largely praised the DCF chief for doing well in a very tough job.

Legislature: House kills real estate impact fee bill
TALLAHASSEE — The House sent a message Tuesday that it has no intention of raising new money for the state budget, killing a plan for an impact fee on home buying it portrayed as a threat to the American dream.
The Republican-dominated House took up and defeated the Senate proposal to place a statewide fee on real estate transactions, lining up firmly against it as a huge new tax that would prevent Floridians from buying homes. The vote was unanimous.

Legislature: Lawmakers taking another shot at telecommunications bill
TALLAHASSEE — A bill similar to a measure vetoed by Gov. Jeb Bush last year that could increase local telephone rates for millions of Floridians won approval from a Senate panel Tuesday.
The bill cleared the Senate Communication and Public Utilities Committee on a vote of 8-1. It was criticized by elderly residents, consumer advocates and a Republican lawmaker upset with the panel's desire to speed the measure through.

Sound alarm about the beaches
South Florida business should be complaining.

Childers convicted of bribery
CRESTVIEW -- Former Florida Senate President W.D. Childers was convicted Wednesday night of charges he bribed a fellow Escambia County commissioner in return for a favorable vote.

Police health plan can't pay its bills
Hundreds of retired and active Miami-Dade police officers can't get their medical bills paid because an insurance plan sponsored for the past 30 years by the county Police Benevolent Association has a $2.5 million shortfall, according to court documents and interviews.

Senate committee backs Gulf oil and natural gas inventory plan
WASHINGTON — A Senate committee endorsed Wednesday a plan for the Interior Department to inventory oil and natural gas resources in the eastern Gulf of Mexico over the fervent objections of a coalition of senators from Florida and other coastal states.

Stifling dissent in Havana
As soon as the fighting started in Iraq, Fidel Castro saw his opening. With the world's attention focused elsewhere, more than 80 Cuban pro-democracy dissidents and independent journalists were rounded up and tried on trumped-up charges of subversion in one of Cuba's most severe crackdowns in memory.

Guest editorial: Two million inmates, and counting
The population of the nation's jails and prisons passed two million last year, for the first time in history. The United States has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, and one that falls unevenly. An estimated 12 percent of African-American men between 20 and 34 are behind bars, more than seven times the rate for white men the same age. Our overflowing jails and prisons come at a high price, in dollars and in wasted lives.

Maureen Dowd: Dances with Wolfowitz
Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney were determined to lead America out of its post-Vietnam, post-Mogadishu queasiness with force and casualties, to change the culture to accept war as a more natural part of a superpower's role in the world. Their strategy might be described as Black Hawk Up.

Martin Schram: Urgent goals in the war on terror
After the last battle is fought and won in Iraq and the search for Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction has begun, the United States and its once-solid global coalition must return to two urgent, unfinished offensives. Each is vital to securing every nation's homeland.

Looking ahead to deja vu
If history's calendar were a landscape of memory, this would be a time surrounded by monoliths of deja vu.
April 17 marks the anniversary of the first national march on Washington to protest the war in Vietnam. It was a Saturday in 1965, breezy and innocent as the marchers. About 20,000 streamed past the White House in orderly rows of threes and fours, their signs neatly printed and grammatically correct. President Johnson was vacationing at his ranch in Texas, but the peace marchers had their share of opponents: a dozen members of the American Nazi Party and several dozen members of the Delaware Valley Citizens for Victory over Communism. A Nazi was arrested after trampling a phonograph playing polka music (could you really blame him?) and a man describing himself as a "Hungarian freedom fighter" was arrested after making threatening gestures at the anti-war marchers. Even the incivility was low-cal...

Molly Ivins: Figurehead puppets to be the new Iraqi leaders
AUSTIN, Texas — Oh good. It looks as though we're going to have as big a fight over postwar plans for Iraq as we did over the war itself. Just what we need, more of everybody being at everybody else's throat.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who seems prepared to run the world, favors one Ahmed Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress, an exile-emigre group, as postwar leader (read figurehead-puppet). Chalabi is bitterly opposed by both the State Department and the CIA.
 

4/8-7/03

Gov. Bush speaks to 15,000 at 'Rally for America'
CLEARWATER — More than 15,000 people, many waving American flags and hand-lettered patriotic signs, packed a waterfront park Saturday morning to hear Gov. Jeb Bush and others offer encouraging words for the troops fighting in Iraq and their families.

For codgers, war leaflets are IOUs
By Tom Blackburn, Palm Beach Post Editorial Writer
Iraq conflict sacrifices Social Security. Aside from inconvenience and indignity in air travel, the war on terrorism and the continuing liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq have cost Americans nothing in the way of rationing, shortages or taxes. Busting up the rest of the axis of evil won't limit anyone's coffee-drinking, either. But while all eyes are on the enemies President Bush points to, his domestic policies have moved prospects of saving Social Security from slim to nearly none.

Downside of Service First taking shape
A report by the Department of Education's chief troubleshooter supports three fired employees who filed a "whistleblower" lawsuit, seeking to get their jobs back.
The detailed findings by former DOE Inspector General Melinda Miguel also illustrate a situation that employees have run into in many state agencies since Service First moved about 16,000 of them from Career Service to Selected Exempt Service.
"You're SES and you can be terminated any time. You people can be fired, your jobs are on the line. You have to understand you are SES and can be let go at any time."
That's how many employees described the message they received daily in the Office of Student Financial Assistance. For all of Service First's promise of employee empowerment and enlightened management, Miguel's report depicts a sort of Himmler-with-a-hangover environment.

Departments' merger favored
A proposed merger of the State and Community Affairs departments sought by Gov. Jeb Bush won the unanimous approval of the Senate's Comprehensive Planning Committee committee Monday, although some members said they had concerns
Today is the 36th day of the 60-day session.

Mirages in Tallahassee while reality gets worse
Palm Beach Post Editorial
Senate passes a miserly budget that won't raise Florida from bottom ranks in services.

GOP considers raiding trust funds
By Marc Caputo and S.V. Date, Palm Beach Post Staff Writers
The funds make up about 60 percent of the state's $52 billion budget. TALLAHASSEE -- Having slashed $1.7 billion in taxes over the past four years, Republican lawmakers are now scrambling to make ends meet by smashing open long-protected piggy banks dedicated to the environment, the poor and the victimized.

Bush: Sugar bill no Glades threat
Pollution standards weakened, state environmentalists argue
Gov. Jeb Bush said Monday that two Republican congressmen got it wrong when they warned state Republicans that a proposal under consideration in the House could jeopardize the $8 billion Everglades restoration effort.

Push for unborn piques activists
Mirroring similar efforts around the nation, longtime abortion opponents in the Florida Legislature are pushing for two proposals that abortion-rights activists say could help erode a woman's right to end her pregnancy.

Florida GOP divided over new push to ratify ERA
Loss of female voters feared if party opposes amendment
As president of the Business and Professional Women's Clubs state chapter, Sue Banks says she was ''dumbfounded'' by the reception she received last month from a state senator when she asked him to support ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.

Florida among top in number of uninsured residents
Rose Schreiber, 61, is doing all she can to stay healthy: She eats well, takes vitamin C and rides her bike. Retired and living alone in a modest one-bedroom apartment in Tequesta, in northern Palm Beach County, Schreiber knows if she gets sick, she's in trouble.

Vote Against `NIMBY Bill'
Call it the "NIMBY bill" (Not In My Back Yard), and call it off. A bad bill by state Sen. Anna Cowin, R-Leesburg, would undo years of essential progress in allowing group homes for the disabled in single-family neighborhoods.

Pre-kindergarten programs feel budget squeeze
Despite a constitutional amendment requiring pre-kindergarten programs for all 4-year-olds by 2005, many school districts are cutting back on such classes because of the cost. The Florida Association of District School Superintendents predicts that 25 districts could be out of the state system for pre-K and other school readiness programs by summer because of budget shortfalls.

Bill would ban financial aid to students from terrorist nations
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. A measure that would shut off state aid to students from countries the federal government says support terrorism was narrowly approved in a state House committee Monday, with supporters saying it's simply a matter of spending priorities.
Rep. Dick Kravitz, the measure's sponsor, said the bill doesn't prevent students from countries on the list from coming to Florida to get an education. It only prevents Florida taxpayers from subsidizing that education.

House wants to toughen awards
Senate's plan for Bright Futures opposes changes
Three out of every 10 high school seniors academically eligible today for Bright Futures Scholarships would no longer qualify under tougher proposed criteria moving through the Florida House.

University Park: Business as usual will kill it
I've stopped wringing my hands over reductions in state government's size and stamina. I don't admire the rigid politics behind emptying state buildings, but I don't see this trend changing in the next three years and nine months either.

Effort to repeal anti-Asian state law hits roadblock
A state senator said he might abandon his effort to repeal a defunct Florida law banning Asian immigrants from owning property because other lawmakers want to use the opportunity to ban another group of people from land ownership: illegal aliens.

Clean air battle puts age in focus
Policies are often weighed by cost vs. value of lives saved. But putting value on older lives proves divisive. When it comes to pollution, older people are the canaries in the coal mine. Their hearts and lungs have deteriorated through the years, so soot from tail pipes and power plants hits them harder. Medicare records show they head for emergency rooms whenever air quality takes a dive -- a fact that underpins some of the nation's toughest environmental protection laws.

Ape populations face catastrophe, study finds
LOS ANGELES -- In just 20 years, poaching and the Ebola virus have cut in half the ape population of western equatorial Africa, long considered the last stronghold of the continent's gorillas and chimpanzees, according to a new study.

Al-Arian's lawyer fights move to detention center
Sami Al-Arian's attorney is fighting government plans to transfer him to an immigration detention center if he is granted bail. Al-Arian, a former University of South Florida computer engineering professor, is accused of heading the Palestinian Islamic Jihad's U.S. operations. The government says it is a terrorist group responsible for 100 murders in Israel and its territories. His arraignment is set for Monday.

Firms try subtlety in bid to hike phone rates
For the past few years, there has been a stalemate in Florida between local telephone companies, such as BellSouth and Verizon, and consumer advocates.The phone companies kept trying to use raw, brute power in the Legislature to jack up their local rates. But a combination of publicity, consumer pressure and, last year, a veto from Gov. Jeb Bush, thwarted the phone companies. This year, Florida's telephone companies have come up with a more subtle plan that is going to be even easier for the Legislature to pass and harder for the governor to veto.

Bob Herbert: The emotional pain of unemployment
"I've gone through a few stages of depression and frustration," said Dina Ziskin, who is 31 and lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. "Why is it taking me so long? I panic a lot. I did not think it would be this difficult to find a job." "I can't tell you the number of divorces we hear about," said Janelle Razzino, who runs an executive search firm in Westwood, N.J. "The job loss in these cases was probably the final straw. Nobody needs that kind of pressure, stress, whatever."

Guest editorial: The growth mirage
President Bush's "economic growth and job creation program" now dances before Congress like an Orwellian mirage. The administration is trying to justify its outsized tax cut plan by resorting to the Reagan era's discredited pipe dream of supply-side economics.

Molly Ivins: Figurehead puppets to be the new Iraqi leaders
AUSTIN, Texas — Oh good. It looks as though we're going to have as big a fight over postwar plans for Iraq as we did over the war itself. Just what we need, more of everybody being at everybody else's throat. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who seems prepared to run the world, favors one Ahmed Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress, an exile-emigre group, as postwar leader (read figurehead-puppet).

Iraqi citizens suffering
By Larry Kaplow, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Hospitals are flooded with 100 patients an hour at times.

4/6-4/03

House and Senate agree: Keep state library in Tallahassee
The House sent a message to Gov. Jeb Bush by agreeing with the Senate that the State Library should stay in Tallahassee. One of the handful of amendments to the House appropriations bill approved today retains the current staffing for the library and cuts the $2 million that would have been used this year to move the $10 million collection to Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale.

Senate stitches together budget
Plan includes pay raise for employees
Like a family kiting a check until payday, the Florida Senate unanimously challenged the House to come up with more than $1 billion Thursday to fund a "reality budget" that meets growing state needs in education, health care and public safety.

Legislature: House works on budget plan
TALLAHASSEE — The state House fine-tuned a $52 billion budget that supporters said proved Florida can "live within its means" without raising taxes or succumbing to the "siren call of slot machines." The House worked through dozens of proposed changes Friday to get the budget ready for a final vote Tuesday. The Senate went through a similar exercise Thurday and also planned to vote on its budget Tuesday.

Bill would ax agency for blind
Opponents worry about job security for workers
A bill that would dissolve the Division of Blind Services was postponed for a week Thursday, after it encountered opposition from union lobbyists and advocates for the disabled.

Cost of prepaid tuition could rise out of reach
Proposed tuition increases could double the monthly cost of prepaid tuition plans for Florida parents, making it unaffordable for many people and threatening the long-term health of the 15-year-old program.

Coalition seeking to ease rules on FCAT
Concerns over minorities voiced
A bipartisan coalition of black and Hispanic lawmakers wants to give high school seniors the chance to graduate even if they fail the standardized test that is the backbone of Gov. Jeb Bush's education reforms.

Pamphlet runs afoul of ACLU
Religious-themed AIDS information booklet paid for with state money
What would Jesus do about AIDS? The answer can be found in a 16-page brochure - a pamphlet paid for with taxpayer money.
Health Department recalls AIDS pamphlet
TALLAHASSEE — State health officials pulled a Christian-themed AIDS brochure from circulation Friday, a day after a civil liberties group complained that tax dollars were going for a pamphlet mostly about Jesus. In a letter sent to county health departments and community-based health organizations, Department of Health HIV/AIDS Bureau Chief Tom Liberti said that the department's lawyers had reviewed the pamphlet called "A Christian Response to AIDS" and decided to immediately remove it from the agency's list of approved educational materials.

House's handling of Glades plan draws cries from environmentalists
House Republicans appear intent on weakening the intricate rules that shepherd cleanup of the Everglades, despite cries from environmentalists.
Congressmen warn state about tinkering with Everglades
TALLAHASSEE — Two South Florida congressmen warned state lawmakers Friday that tinkering with plans for restoring the Everglades could endanger a fragile agreement between state and federal officials that provides the money for the massive ecosystem clean-up.

Horse in north Florida dies from West Nile; first case of 2003
TALLAHASSEE — A horse in north central Florida has been confirmed to have died from West Nile virus, the first such case of the mosquito-borne disease in Florida this year. Florida Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson said the 10-month-old quarter horse died near Williston. Bronson said it may have been the first West Nile case anywhere in the country this year.

4/3-1/03

Legislature: Advocacy groups urge tax reform
TALLAHASSEE — Several advocacy groups Monday called on lawmakers to overhaul and update the state's tax system and find more money for the state's schools, sick, elderly and poor.
The organizations included the League of Women Voters of Florida, the Florida Sierra Club, the Florida Education Association, the Florida Consumer Action Network, Common Cause of Florida, Florida Organization for Women and Florida TaxWatch.
"We are confident that better than $1 billion can be found by eliminating just a few of the sales tax exemptions," said Jane Gross, president of the League of Women Voters. ...

Senators try for raise for workers
But tight budget means pay hikes won't come easily
Banking on the House giving in on new revenues, Big Bend state senators offered a budget amendment Wednesday to give state employees a pay raise.

Bill to create panel for blind
Plan not as aggressive as previous privatization try
A year after a similar privatization effort was abandoned, a bill to dissolve the Division of Blind Services and replace it with a private board will be heard today by the Senate Education Committee.

Water fight looming
State gears up for possible legal tussle with Georgia
Florida officials are preparing for a possible legal fight for water from the Apalachicola River system while disputing the amount of water that they say Georgia wants.

Hastings seeks day off for elections
By Angel Wilson, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Election day would be a national holiday under a bill introduced Monday by Rep. Alcee Hastings.

Capitol offenses
A business or a charity that raised money from the public for one purpose and spent it on something else would soon be shopping for criminal lawyers. Government shouldn't be allowed to get away with it either.

Students to lawmakers: Shame on you for cuts
Get coverage of all the action in Tallahassee as the Florida Legislature works to shape the state's future.
TALLAHASSEE -- Dozens of teenagers lashed out Wednesday at lawmakers for leveling a budget knife at a popular youth anti-smoking campaign.
At a protest outside the state Capitol, Gov. Jeb Bush's drug control officer joined students and health advocates to urge leaders in the state House and Senate to restore $39 million for television ads and community-outreach programs that warn young people about the dangers of smoking.

Senate budget growing by $950 million
Senate leaders plan to add $950 million in spending, creating a gap with the House budget.

Legislature: Session reaches halfway point with little progress
TALLAHASSEE — The 60-day legislative session reaches its midpoint Wednesday with the House and Senate even farther apart than usual on the major issues.
While it is traditional for the Legislature to save its biggest decisions for the final days or even hours of the session, the two chambers are far apart on medical malpractice, the budget, public school class size, no-fault auto insurance and several other issues.

 Legislature: House panel mulls Everglades restoration measure
 TALLAHASSEE — A nearly 20-year-old fight over how to clean up the Everglades has new life in the Legislature with the sugar industry and environmentalists clashing over details on how to cleanse the fragile ecosystem of farm runoff. The fight involves an effort to change Florida's landmark Everglades Forever Act of 1994, which forced the state to clean up the massive South Florida ecosystem. Since then, the state has built water treatment areas adjacent to the Everglades.
Legislature: Environmental advocates worry about Everglades cleanup standards
TALLAHASSEE — Environmental lobbyists are worried about legislation they say would set back Everglades restoration by increasing the amount of phosphorus that could be released into the ecosystem.
The House Natural Resources Committee is scheduled to take up a measure (PCB HNR 1) Wednesday dealing with some of the regulatory details for cleaning up the Everglades.
Lobbyists for the Audubon Society, an environmental group, say they're worried that the proposal would weaken pollution standards set by the 1994 Everglades Forever Act.
20-year delay sought for Everglades cleanup
By Robert P. King, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
The state official's proposal draws fast criticism from environmentalists.
Everglades pollution bill angers activists
By Robert P. King, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Critics say it would relax phosphorous limits through 2006.
House panel working on Glades restoration
A nearly 20-year-old fight over how to clean up the Everglades has new life in the Legislature with the sugar industry and environmentalists clashing over details on how to cleanse the fragile ecosystem of farm runoff.
Sugar growers seek to revise Everglades protection law

Legislature: House panel pushing July primary
TALLAHASSEE — Florida voters could be at the polls on one of the hottest days of summer under a measure approved Wednesday by a House committee that also favored reinstating the runoff election voided in the 2002 election. For those voters not on summer vacation in 2004, the Florida primary would be held July 20 with the runoff Sept. 7 and the General Election, Nov. 2.

Legislature: Lawmakers looking to toughen requirements on amendments
TALLAHASSEE — Pregnant pigs wouldn't fly under a proposal approved Wednesday in a Senate committee looking to make it tougher for voters to pass constitutional amendments. The Senate's Ethics and Elections Committee approved one bill (SJR 1672) that would require two-thirds approval by voters on constitutional amendments rather than the simple majority now required.

Bill would authorize state voter guides
By Jim Ash, Palm Beach Post Capital Bureau
The governor would get to express his opinion on constitutional amendments and justices up for retention votes.

Legislature: Bill would create tougher penalties for turtle egg poachers TALLAHASSEE — They're smuggled into the country from Latin America or plucked of Florida beaches late at night, sold in a black market that law enforcement finds difficult to crack, and often slurped down with some hot sauce. hThey're sea turtle eggs — a prized commodity and purported aphrodisiac among Latin and Caribbean cultures in South Florida.

Committee reinstates battle to ratify ERA
By Mary Ellen Klas, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
The state's Senate Judiciary Committee that he chairs voted 6-3 in favor of a resolution that would bring Florida closer to ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment.

Teachers not buying state's performance bonus program
Some may find the program divisive. Others think teachers simply should be paid more.

Bush, Jennings push to change workers compensation system
TALLAHASSEE — Nonprofit groups trying to help communities are having a harder time providing services because of skyrocketing workers compensation costs, representatives told Lt. Gov. Toni Jennings on Tuesday.

Gov. Bush: Shrimping businesses will get federal loans
TALLAHASSEE — The state's shrimp, clam and crab fishing companies, hammered by freezes over the past winter, will receive low-interest federal loans to rebuild, Gov. Jeb Bush announced Wednesday. The Small Business Administration's economic injury disaster program will be available to businesses, Bush said. A request for disaster unemployment assistance to help individuals still is pending.

To fix workers comp law, state should enforce it.
Palm Beach Post Editorial
Workers comp could work if the state would reduce fraud and see to it claims are paid promptly.

New opposition to a 'new city'
By Sally Swartz, Palm Beach Post Editorial Writer
Group forms to fight Harmony development.

Orlando mayor solicits money to pay staffer, cover expenses
ORLANDO — Facing a city budget crunch, Mayor Buddy Dyer has solicited as much as $75,000 from private donors to pay his chief of staff and other expenses. Dyer has begun seeking donations from local businesses, law firms and other groups to help defray the cost of his transition into office. No money has been collected so far.
Mayor orders review of city pay, bonuses
Responding to concerns about the high rate of pay for some city appointees -- particularly the special bonuses that further increase a handful of those salaries -- Mayor Buddy Dyer on Wednesday ordered an immediate review of wages.

Seminoles give blessing to FSU tradition
TALLAHASSEE -- Keep up those war chants, Chief Osceola, and ride your horse, Renegade, with pride and the knowledge that the Seminole Tribe of Florida stands behind you.
Max Osceola, acting chief of the Seminole Tribe, traveled to the Florida Legislature on Wednesday for FSU Day, carrying a brightly colored Seminole jacket for new Florida State University President T.K. Wetherell.
He also had a message of support for the students and alumni about the school's spirited, pre-football game tradition, in which a man dressed up as "Chief Osceola" charges down the field atop an Appaloosa horse and plants a spear in the earth.
"Members of the Seminole Tribe do not consider it derogatory, demeaning or insulting," Osceola said.
Though many American Indians have opposed the practice by many athletic teams of using Native American mascots, the Seminole Tribe approved the portrayal of Chief Osceola.

Cuban group hoping to drum up protests against dissident jailings
MIAMI — A leading Cuban exile group Tuesday denounced a crackdown by the Cuban government on dissidents in the communist nation, and said it would help organize a campaign of public protest to press for the release of all political prisoners on the island.

Sea turtles washing up at higher-than-normal rate
 PONCE INLET — Sea turtles have washed up in parts of Florida this winter at triple the rate of an average year, with scientists speculating that problems such as cold weather or red tide could be to blame. From Jan. 26 to mid-March, 159 turtles washed up sick or dead in an area that includes most of Florida's Atlantic Coast, state officials said. That's three times more than the average for that region over the last 10 years. Last year, 83 turtles washed up in the same period.

Spreading algae raises invades Indian River Lagoon
PORT ST. LUCIE — A stringy, vine-like foreign algae that has damaged reefs off southeastern Florida is spreading northward through the Indian River Lagoon.
Scientists studying the plant, Caulerpa brachypus, fear the algae could hurt seagrass that nurtures a $286.6 million-a-year sport fishery in the lagoon, which covers five counties.

Defeat Proposed ANWR Drilling
Because the Bush administration is determined to drill for oil in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Congress should be equally determined to make sure it never happens. The Senate acted responsibly with its recent 52-48 vote against drilling. The House should follow suit.

Maureen Dowd: Warring tribes, here and there
WASHINGTON — The president and his war council did not expect so much heavy guerrilla resistance in Iraq. And they really did not expect so much heavy guerrilla resistance at home. But you can't have transformation without provocation. This was a war designed to change the nature of American foreign policy, military policy and even the national character — flushing out ambivalence and embracing absolutism.

Where you stand depends on what you watch
AMMAN, Jordan -- After a Baghdad market was destroyed March 28, purportedly by a U.S. missile strike, viewers of CNN saw nothing more jarring than a man lying on a gurney with a bandage around his arm.

 Wrong 'patriotic' signal
Wall Street kicks out two Al-Jazeera reporters.

Pinocchios of a G-rated war veil scars of X-rated battlefield
Dehumanizing the enemy is the first unwritten rule of war. The impulse is psychologically excusable, because it is easier to kill a subhuman thing than it is to kill a mirror image of yourself (a father, a lover, a son). Thus America's rich gallery of slur-infected enemies over the years: krauts, wops, greasers, slants, yellow bastards, yellow monkeys, reds, pinkos, gooks, ragheads, sand-niggers, and, every mom and pop's current favorite, terrorists. Except in their fixation on race and color, Americans aren't unique at this. They're Islamdom's Great Satan of choice, remember, and the lusty stocks of porn and bared bellies on American streets (not to mention Geraldo and Bill O'Reilly on American airwaves) are a godsend for the other side's muezzins of poisoned euphemisms.

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