Statewide Reports -August 1-9, 2002

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. 

8/9/02

• Doctors on retainer: Less than VIP treatment if you can't pay
  For most people these days -- at least those with insurance -- seeing the doctor doesn't mean what it used to. Doctors only make furtive cameos on the health care stage anymore. The stars of the show are the insurers, the care managers, the overburdened physicians' assistants, and of course the ubiquitous automated phone system: Press 1 for managed care's complete menu of aggravations. Press 2 for the itemized cost of pressing 1.
• Some private meetings may soon be legal
• Florida wielding new election equipment as national spotlight returns
  SOUTHWEST RANCHES — Steve Breitkreuz exuded confidence while casting his first computerized touchscreen ballot, but he soon found himself baffled. Calling himself "a technology kind of guy," Breitkreuz touched his candidate's name on the computer screen, thinking it would finalize his vote for vice mayor in this tiny southwest Broward County town.
• Voters' duty critical, officials say
  Changes to election laws mean voters must be alert and proactive, Florida's new secretary of state says.
• Vote with passion -- and knowledge
  Every time there is an election, the first name to come to my mind is Medgar Evers. ... ...
  Medgar Evers and scores of others -- both black and white -- endured humiliation, pain and death to ensure that all law-abiding American adults have a right to vote. It doesn't seem like too much for the rest of us to invest a little time to study candidates and issues before we go to the polls.
• Ah, politics: where all things good are scorned
  This is the level of our politics. I am in receipt of a protest from the Republican Party of Florida because I praised our new secretary of state -- a Republican -- for common sense and compromise.
• Election officials aim for no glitches
  State officials said Thursday they are confident they can avoid a reprise of the 2000 presidential debacle during Florida's upcoming elections.
• One election fix done; state needs a few more
  Issues for Jim Smith in his caretaker role.
• Election 2002: Bush touts record on diversity to Tampa area's black Republicans
  TAMPA — Gov. Jeb Bush touted his track record for embracing diversity during a lunchtime campaign stop Thursday at the Tampa Bay Black Republican Club and said the state must do more to eliminate educational disparities among different racial groups. Bush told about 600 blacks, whites, Hispanics and others that the key to creating a shared vision for the state's future is by assuring that all children have equal opportunities in education.
• Governor touts record on promoting diversity
  Gov. Jeb Bush touted his record on diversity Thursday during a campaign stop, telling an audience of black entrepreneurs that his administration has helped black business owners, government employees and schoolchildren from prekindergarten through college.
• Judge considers request to block voucher use during appeal
  Four days after ruling Florida's voucher law unconstitutional, a judge holds a hearing on a request to block expansion of the program, which has been limited to a few dozen students in Pensacola, to several hundred students in three counties in South and Central Florida. For the full story, see tomorrow's edition of the Tallahassee Democrat and Tallahassee Democrat Online.
• Election 2002: McBride slams Bush education plan
  BOYNTON BEACH — At a school branded with failing grades, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill McBride said Thursday the state's grading system has punished more schools than it has helped. He described Forest Park Elementary as a school that's "trying mightily to do well" despite bloated class sizes and few resources for its overwhelmingly poor students.
• Handful of area educators jump from the GOP
  The public switch shows dissatisfaction with the governor and support for Bill McBride.
• McBride law firm used sister's travel agency
  The gubernatorial candidate says he he didn't push the use of the travel agency.
• Democrat figure offers a few words - Instead of trotting out a Dick Gephardt, Democrats brought a little-known Maryland congressman to Orlando on Thursday to campaign on behalf of the party's candidate for a new Central Florida seat in the U.S. House. -- 
  This year, Republicans have sent a parade of prominent officials to Central Florida with an eye to Election Day. As for Democrats? U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer was the first national party figure to share a stage with local candidates in months.
• Election 2002: Missing cell phone generates Panhandle political intrigue
  MILTON — A lost cell phone has generated political intrigue and a criminal investigation in the Florida Panhandle. The phone belongs to the son of Santa Rosa County Commissioner Byrd Mapoles, who is challenging state Rep. Greg Evers in the Sept. 10 Republican primary.
• Miami-Dade agrees to settle lawsuit on 2000 election
  Hillsborough is one of the remaining defendants in the federal trial set for Aug. 26.
• LIVE RUN FOR ELECTION REFORMS
  After months of negotiations and the threat of a trial, Miami-Dade County has settled a lawsuit filed on behalf of minority voters who said they were denied their right to vote in the 2000 presidential election.
• Everglades murk may get worse
  A panel of top scientists warns the plan to restore the Everglades might harm the water quality of Florida Bay.
• Glades plan may hurt Florida Bay
  Restoring the Everglades could harm Florida Bay instead of saving it, a scientific report warned Thursday. The $8.4 billion restoration plan promises to send more fresh water through the Everglades into the bay, reversing an increase in salt levels that many scientists blame for the bay's ecological collapse in the late 1980s.
• Bad Boys vs. manatees
  In Florida, headlines about manatees are routine. If the lovable sea cows aren't in the news because of their popularity with tourists and wildlife lovers, they're at the center of some controversy or court battle about whether the government is doing enough to protect the ancient and endangered species.
• West Nile Cases Prompt Alert In 2 Counties
  TAMPA - Two counties have been put on alert for West Nile virus, but so far Florida remains free of human cases of the mosquito-borne illness. ... State Department of Health officials issued the alert Thursday after tests determined that 15 sentinel chickens and seven horses had the virus in Volusia County and 18 birds tested positive in Escambia County.
• State's canker fight loses ground as two judges reject blanket warrants - The state Department of Agriculture suffered two more courtroom setbacks Thursday, as judges in Broward and Palm Beach counties rejected the state's latest efforts to stop the spread of citrus canker.
• Florida Power Wins Age Bias Case
  OCALA - Florida Power Corp. did not discriminate against a dozen older workers when they were fired seven years ago, a jury decided Friday. ...
• Florida nursing home that alleged union used voodoo tactics is charged by labor officials
  MIAMI — A nursing home that accused union organizers of using voodoo to frighten its Haitian-American employees into joining has been accused by federal officials of mistreating workers. The National Labor Relations Board said last month it found evidence of spying on workers, threats and unfair dismissals at Mount Sinai-St. Francis Nursing & Rehabilitation Center in Miami.
• Pompano activist sues for voter approval on public land sale - POMPANO BEACH · The divisive issue of whether the sale of seaside public land should be decided by the voters is now in the hands of the courts.
  M. Ross Shulmister, a city activist and attorney, has filed a lawsuit in Broward County Circuit Court to stop the city from giving up a piece of land for high-rise development without holding a public referendum.
• Builders help tax initiative for schools
  Builders are donating $200,000 today to the campaign to sell Orange County voters on raising taxes for a multibillion-dollar school-construction program.
• Glitch misses drivers' offenses
  Drivers whose licenses should have been suspended kept driving because of a computer mistake.
• Grand jury will end Escambia County investigation in September
  PENSACOLA — A grand jury investigation into corruption charges against four Escambia County commissioners will conclude in September, a state attorney said. The grand jury, impaneled in February, will issue a final report next month, Curtis Golden, a state attorney, said Wednesday.
• Hurlburt Field loses second plane, seven airmen in two months
  HURLBURT FIELD — For the second time in as many months a plane crash has claimed the lives of Air Force Special Operations Command members stationed at this Florida Panhandle base. Seven of 10 people killed Wednesday in Puerto Rico were part of Hurlburt's 16th Special Operations Wing. A June 12 crash in Afghanistan killed two Hurlburt airmen and an Army Special Forces soldier.
• Anti-Semitism's ugly face is getting uglier every day
  Prejudice, like politics, is local. It breeds like mosquitoes beside a stagnant pond where the bites need scratching. That's why every wave of immigration ushers in its own form of prejudice, because the latest ethnic group to arrive competes for jobs with those locals who are the most economically insecure.
• Guest editorial: Unlimited presidential powers
  The Justice Department all but told a federal judge this week to take his legitimate concerns about civil liberties and stuff them in the garbage pail. The Bush administration seems to believe, on no good legal authority, that if it calls citizens combatants in the war on terrorism, it can imprison them indefinitely and deprive them of lawyers. It took this misguided position to a ludicrous extreme on Tuesday, insisting that the federal courts could not review its determinations. - This defiance of the courts repudiates two centuries of constitutional law and undermines the very freedoms that President Bush says he is defending in the struggle against terrorism. The courts must firmly reject the White House's assertion of unchecked powers. - The administration's autocratic approach is unfolding in the case of Yasser Esam Hamdi
• Bush seeks authority to expand hunts at sea - The idea of widening the scope of ship interdictions, which started in the Arabian Sea in November, is the largest and latest piece of a wide effort by a number of U.S. government agencies to get more control over the vast and poorly documented movement -- legal and illegal -- of people and commerce on ships, officials said.
• Thousands of customs computers go astray - WASHINGTON -- Thousands of U.S. Customs Service computers and employee credentials were reported lost or stolen during a three-year period, worrying officials who noted that customs personnel commonly have access to some of the most sensitive areas of airports, harbors and other transportation centers

8/8/02

• Appeals court upholds Florida ruling on water runoff
  ATLANTA — A federal appeals court panel has upheld a Florida ruling that a sugar cane farm is not illegally polluting Lake Okeechobee through its management of a water management system. A group called Fishermen Against the Destruction of the Environment sued Closter Farms Inc., claiming that runoff from the cane fields and adjacent properties was polluting the lake in violation of the Clean Water Act because it had no permit.
• Ballot issue born early, argued late
  The confusing wording stripped this week from the ballot for the Democratic gubernatorial primary was actually circulated widely for feedback for more than six months. And sample ballots of how the new wording would look were available since May.
• Legislators back fraud plan
  Democratic leaders in the Legislature got behind a former colleague Wednesday to endorse his plan to combat corporate fraud. Sen. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, and Rep. Doug Wiles, D-St. Augustine, plan to file bills modeled after Sen. Buddy Dyer's proposal to close state loopholes that he says leads to retirees losing their nest eggs to unethical corporations.
• Governor rolls into Chiefland to lend an ear; residents bend it
  Levy County loves the governor, but that doesn't stop residents from rising early to speak their mind.
• Bush endorsements rile primary opponents
  In a break from tradition, the governor gives early support to some incumbent state legislators.
• McBride-Jones is best strategy for Democrats
  Daryl Jones doesn't have to say he was an Air Force fighter pilot.
• An apple for the teacher
  Florida public schools now educate 2.5-million students. One in two is poor. One in seven has a learning disability. One in 12 speaks little or no English. The schools they attend are the largest, in average enrollment, in the nation. The classrooms in which they sit have more students, per class, than 46 of the 50 states.
• 'A' for adoption: A scarlet letter?
  A new state law raises questions about privacy rights for birth parents of adoptive children.
• Allstate wins rate increase on homes
  Insurance Commissioner Tom Gallagher OKs an average increase of 15.7 percent statewide.
• Two laptop computers missing from U.S. Central Command; one had classified information
  TAMPA — Two laptop computers are missing from the military command center coordinating the war in Afghanistan, including one with classified information, officials said Wednesday. The Air Force Office of Special Investigations is investigating the computers' possible theft from U.S. Central Command, office spokesman Maj. Mike Richmond said.
• Letting up on the throttle for the sake of manatees
  During Sunday afternoon outings or class field trips to Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo, the dark room that opens onto the big glass window of the manatees' deep pool is full of eager children and their curious parents and teachers. They come to watch the big animals sway and dip in the water and munch on the occasional chunk of romaine lettuce.
• Panel downplays arsenic-treated wood
  The conclusion, reached by six doctors, contradicts an expert who says treated play sets pose a danger to children.
• State wants to resume canker cutting in Broward on Aug. 20 - The chainsaw crews inched closer to the back yards of Broward County this week when the state Department of Agriculture filed legal papers to resume the citrus canker eradication program on Aug. 20. - 
  But the department faces a stiff fight from attorneys representing Broward County and its municipal allies, who plan to mount legal challenges in two courts to prevent the state from cutting down more trees.
• Lawsuit: Death row inmates suffering in hot cells
  JACKSONVILLE -- Florida death row inmates say temperatures that routinely top 100 degrees in their cells force them to stand in toilets, drape themselves in wet towels and sleep naked on concrete floors.

8/7/02

• State appeals voucher ruling
  TALLAHASSEE — The state appealed a ruling that Florida's voucher law is unconstitutional Tuesday, meaning that the program will continue, at least temporarily. That reprieve for the program could be short, however. Opponents said they will go to court Wednesday to ask Circuit Judge P. Kevin Davey to block 662 students who wanted to begin using vouchers this school year from joining the program.
• Governor appeals voucher setback
  Gov. Jeb Bush on Tuesday appealed a Tallahassee judge's ruling that tuition vouchers violate Florida's Constitution by using tax dollars to aid religious schools, a legal maneuver that allows the controversial program to continue until a higher court decides the issue.
• Judge right on vouchers; state wrong on appeal
  Palm Beach Post Editorial
  Fraudulent claims for an illegal program.
• Students in limbo as voucher battle rages
  A ruling against school vouchers is put off. For hundreds who plan to use them, it's a reprieve. But the debate isn't over.
• Vouchers not a fairness issue
  Gov. Bush should concede that vouchers have long been a legal question.
• Plan for regents makes it to ballot
  Sen. Bob Graham led an effort for an amendment to restore the Board of Regents, but keep the new university board of trustees.
• Regents measure makes it to ballot
  By Jim Ash, Palm Beach Post Capital Bureau
  Voters will be asked to reinstate a governing board of regents for the state university system.
• Election 2002: District superintendents oppose class-size proposal
  TALLAHASSEE — Florida's school district superintendents said Tuesday they're opposed to a proposal to cap class size that voters will see on the November ballot. The Florida Association of District School Superintendents published a 10-page critique of the proposal, saying that the measure would require new taxes or a reduction in state services.
• Election 2002: Florida Democrats accept ballot changes, drop lawsuit
  TALLAHASSEE — Florida Democrats dropped a lawsuit against the state over the wording of their gubernatorial primary ballot Tuesday, agreeing with changes made by elections officials to avoid confusion. Democrats had sued Monday, saying the ballot should be changed because it instructed voters to "Vote for One Pair," meaning they should pick only one gubernatorial candidate and his or her running mate.
• Deal pares 'pair' from ballot
  By S.V. DATE, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
  Florida's new secretary of state agrees to solve Democrats' gubernatorial primary problem.
• Dropping one word fixes ballot
  After the word "pair" is eliminated from the gubernatorial primary ballot, the Democratic Party drops its lawsuit.
• Expect a few corrections on your ballot
  If the magnifying glass symbolized the 2000 elections, the Magic Marker may become the emblem of the 2002 primary, under an agreement reached Tuesday by Secretary of State Jim Smith and Democratic Party Chairman Bob Poe.
• Election 2002: House candidate's home not in district
  JACKSONVILLE —Civil rights advocate Alton Yates dropped out of the state House District 15 race when he learned he doesn't live within the redrawn district boundaries. The former city administrator filed his paperwork before the lines were redrawn in the redistricting process. His home is now a few blocks outside the district.
• Election 2002: Suit says Barley should be removed from the ballot
  TALLAHASSEE — A Lake City lobbyist sued Tuesday to keep agriculture commissioner candidate Mary Barley off the ballot in the Sept. 10 primary election, charging that her qualifying papers are fraudulent. Manly C. Bolin charges that the signatures on some of the required paperwork are not Barley's and he's hired a handwriting expert to contest what he described as a "sham" to undermine qualification requirements and mislead voters.
• Katherine Harris sends letter to editors about resignation
  SARASOTA — Former Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris said in a letter to newspaper editors Tuesday that she resigned last week when she realized she had inadvertently broken state campaign law. Harris told editors at about a dozen daily and weekly newspapers that she quit after learning that when she qualified July 15 to run for Congress she had failed to submit a letter saying when she would resign as secretary of state.
• An old hand comes back to provide a new touch
  Jim Smith was at his vacation home in Steamboat Springs, Colo., at midday last Friday when the governor of Florida called. Jeb Bush asked Smith to return for one more stint as secretary of state, which is the same elected job that he held between 1987-1995. (Smith also served eight years as Florida's attorney general before that.)
• Inclusion in debate shines light on Jones' campaign
  TALLAHASSEE -- Mired in the shadow of his better-known and better-organized rivals, Daryl Jones has been the odd man out in the field of Democrats running for governor. But a decision allowing Jones to participate in a statewide televised debate could alter the dynamics of the race.
• Funding worries chief justice
  Harry Lee Anstead sounded like a concerned dad, worried about his family's finances. In what he called his first public address since becoming chief justice of the Florida Supreme Court, Anstead called on local lawyers to "take up the mantle" in ensuring enough money for Florida's courts.
• Citrus canker battle continues in Orange County
  ORLANDO — Many Orange County homeowners have agreed to the planned resumption of citrus canker eradication efforts, despite continued legal wrangling over statewide attempts to cut down infected trees. State workers were expected to start chopping down backyard citrus trees Tuesday within three canker-eradication zones in eastern Orange County, said Liz Compton, spokeswoman for the Department of Agriculture.
• Canker crackdown
  Citrus-tree owners in east Orange County are feeling the sting of eradication's blade.
• Help Medicaid's Most Helpless
  Nancy Majava is a victim of modern health care. Her medical needs are too costly for her nursing home to afford, and her options are abysmal. Such is the dilemma faced by Medicaid recipients in Florida in need of both long-term care and a ventilator.
• Death cases kept in limbo
  Six weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court put Florida's death-penalty laws into question, capital-murder trials around the state have come to a near standstill.
• Orlando may tighten rules for lobbyists
  A proposed overhaul of Orlando's lobbying ordinance would require additional financial reporting and, for the first time, disciplinary action against those who break the rules.
• Report says 50 Florida governments, businesses violate Clean Water Act - The 30-year-old federal law that aims to keep pollution out of water bodies has been violated by dozens of Florida businesses and governments, according to a new report.
• Sharon, Bush to share stage
  Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is planning to headline a rally in Miami next month to boost U.S. public support for his embattled country.
• Judge: Government cannot deport for failure to report new address
  ATLANTA — An immigration judge has ruled that the government cannot deport a legal immigrant from the West Bank for failing to report a change of address. Judge William A. Cassidy said Monday the punishment of deportation would apply only to those who "willfully" broke a law requiring immigrants to alert authorities within 10 days of moving.
• Balancing secrecy
  A judge has ruled appropriately on detainees' arrests.
• OPEN SOCIETY, OPEN PROCESS
  Bravo to U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler for her decision requiring the Justice Department to release the names of Sept. 11 detainees. She has injected a healthy degree of skepticism into a process that has the imprimatur of governmental overkill.
• Identify the detainees
  Palm Beach Post Editorial
  Judge thwarts the secret crusade by Attorney General Ashcroft.
• Thomas Sowell: Unnecessary attention
  There was a painful irony in an upbeat newspaper story about a man of modest income who was able to continue living in San Mateo County, California, only because he could rent a government-subsidized apartment for $850 a month. Without the subsidy, the rent would probably have been at least twice as high.
• Martin Schram: Saber-rattling the Saudis
  Of all the non-government, non-military institutions that play crucial roles in the making of geopolitical and military policy, perhaps the most pivotal are the think tanks. That's because it is assumed that they will emphasize the think, not the tank.
• Molly Ivins: Texas showdown for the governor's mansion
  AUSTIN, Texas — You can already tell it's going to be a perfectly glorious political year in Texas. Four months out, and we've already got one gubernatorial candidate accusing the other of being a drug dealer, naturally causing the maligned party to in turn describe his opponent as a raving liar. This is going to be so much fun.
• Paul Krugman: The memory hole
  Winston Smith, the protagonist of George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four," was a rewrite man. His job was to destroy documents that could undermine the government's pretense of infallibility, and replace them with altered versions. Lately, Winston Smith has gone to Washington.
• Oregon teaches Florida
  Palm Beach Post Editorial
  States must deal with long-term care crunch.

8/6/02

• Jones calls for raises, end to Service First
  Sen. Daryl Jones has a deal for state workers - an end to Service First and government privatization plus a 5-percent raise every year for the next four years.
• Reno would consider McBride as running mate
  Florida gubernatorial candidate Janet Reno, during a campaign swing through town Monday, said she would consider asking rival Bill McBride to be her running mate if she wins the state's Democratic nomination next month.
• McBride seeks educators' votes
  Eager to win voters in Florida's education capital, Bill McBride brought his campaign for governor to Gainesville on Monday - his second stop here in two weeks.
• Tallahassee judge strikes down state voucher law - TALLAHASSEE - Florida's original school voucher law violates the state's constitution and can't be used this school year, Circuit Judge P. Kevin Davey ruled Monday.
  The decision, which will be appealed, comes after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Ohio's voucher law on June 27.
  ...  Florida's constitution is ''clear and unambiguous'' in preventing public money from going to churches or other ''sectarian institutions,'' he ruled.
  ''While this court recognizes and empathizes with the ... purpose of this legislation -- to enhance the educational opportunity of children caught in the snare of substandard schools -- such a purpose does not grant this court authority to abandon the clear mandate of the people as enunciated in the constitution,'' Davey wrote.
• State judge strikes down voucher law
  As the school year nears, a Tallahassee judge ruled Monday that Florida's 3-year-old tuition voucher law violates the state constitution by using tax dollars to aid religious schools -- dealing a setback to Gov. Jeb Bush's sweeping educational reform plan.
• Voucher violation: Constitution rules out religious funding
  Free is free. Public is public. Because U.S. Constitution doesn't do enough to protect a system of schools that are both free and public, the Florida Constitution must.
• New debacle
  Florida once again could confuse voters at the polls.
  Does anyone in Florida's election office have a lick of common sense?
  Two years after the state's confusing and misleading ballots upended the presidential election, the state Division of Elections is at it again. With just five weeks to go before the Sept. 10 primary, the election brain trust in Tallahassee has approved ballot language that is all but destined to once again leave voters scratching their heads.
• St. Katherine departs
  She's off to campaign - leaving damage behind. -- Depressing as it is to imagine Katherine Harris as a member of Congress, the consolation is that she hardly could harm Florida more than she has while pretending to be secretary of state.-- Ms. Harris, who has diamond aspirations but abilities of pure zirconium, leaves her office with a performance that torpedoes the image she portrayed during the presidential election. She was St. Katherine, bound to state law and not to the fact that she was George W. Bush's co-chairman in Florida. In fact, she didn't know the law then, and she didn't know the law last month when she resigned to run for the U.S. House.  (see Beattie cartoon)
• State GOP calls for Butterworth to resign
  Chairman Al Cardenas reprimands the attorney general for acting on his own reading of state law and staying in office.
• Money flows into Florida toward power in Florida
  TALLAHASSEE — The federal government spends more money in six Florida congressional districts than it does in any of the nations' other 429, an analysis by The Associated Press shows. Federal spending increased in 15 of Florida's 23 congressional districts since Republicans took control of the U.S. House in 1994, the study revealed.
• Official begins clarification of ballot wording
  Minutes into office, Secretary of State Jim Smith responds to criticism of the Democratic primary ballot with a quick fix and a meeting on alternate wording.
• Election 2002: Democrats suing to get words changed on Florida ballot
  TALLAHASSEE — Florida Democrats sued Monday to try to change the wording of the gubernatorial primary ballot, which they say will confuse voters like the 2000 presidential ballot did in some counties. The ballot for the Sept. 10 Democratic primary for governor instructs voters to "Vote for One Pair," meaning they should choose a combined entry for governor and lieutenant governor.
• Election 2002: Group using Bush's name to raise money disbands
  TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Jeb Bush thanked a Republican lawmaker Monday for disbanding a South Florida fund-raising organization that used Bush's name to launch personal attacks against Janet Reno. The political action committee, "Americans for Jeb Bush," had distributed fund-raising letters urging supporters to "Stop Janet Reno," one of three Democratic candidates for governor.
• Election 2002: Jones invited to Democratic gubernatorial debate
  WEST PALM BEACH — State Sen. Daryl Jones was invited to join a debate between the Democratic candidates for governor by his fellow challengers: former Attorney General Janet Reno and Tampa lawyer Bill McBride. The Forum Club of the Palm Beaches agreed to their request and invited Jones on Monday. Jones didn't return calls to comment on the invitation. The state senator, who is far behind Reno and McBride in the Democratic primary polls, called his initial exclusion "unfair."
• Elections supervisors suing over death penalty ballot question
  TALLAHASSEE — Fifteen county elections supervisors sued the state Monday hoping to remove a proposed constitutional amendment on the death penalty from the ballot, saying it is too long and confusing. The Legislature voted to place the question on the ballot during its 2001 session. It asks voters to put the death penalty in the Florida Constitution and is similar to a measure approved by voters in 1998 and thrown out by the state Supreme Court two years later. The justices said the measure wasn't clearly written.
• Pregnant pigs amendment will go on the ballot
  TALLAHASSEE — A group seeking to make it unconstitutional to cage pregnant pigs has enough signatures to put the proposed amendment on the November ballot. Floridians for Humane Farms on Monday went over the 488,722 signatures required to get the question on the ballot. The amendment would phase out the use of two-foot by seven-foot metal cages in which sows are confined during pregnancy.
• The good and bad news about the class-size amendment
  For almost two decades, many states have recognized that education is the central component in building a strong, viable economy to be competitive in the new global business environment.
• Sun Editorial: Demand answers --- The public would be wise to study both issues carefully and demand answers from both sides.
  For the proponents: Where is the money going to come from to pay for these initiatives? Does this mean raising taxes or cutting other important state services?
  For the opponents: What are your alternatives? If reduced class sizes and universal pre-K are such great ideas that Floridians are rallying around them, why haven't lawmakers taken any steps toward those goals? Do political leaders intend to do so in the future? If so, how will they pay for it?
• Education initiative backers scramble
  They are optimistic about being able to replace the 10,000 lost signatures.
• Coastal Growth Can Mean More Hurricane Liability
  Florida, the state most likely to be whacked by a hurricane, gains an average of 4,400 residents a week. Growing even faster than the population is the value of its coastal property. The National Hurricane Center in Miami says over the past 20 years the value of property along the East Coast and the Gulf Coast has grown sixfold, to more than $6.5 trillion.
  On the Florida Panhandle, the St. Joe Co., a paper firm eager to diversify, plans to open its vast coastal timberland, including a 40-mile stretch of pristine Gulf beachfront, to business and residential development.
  Even beach communities savaged by hurricanes have rebuilt bigger and more expensively than before. ... The storms have prompted insurance companies to raise premiums for homes and businesses in hurricane country, and to restructure policies so property owners assume more of the risk. ... Forecasters say they see unprecedented disasters in the making. 
  ``When I fly over the coast, I just shake my head,'' said Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center. ``We're losing the battle with coastal development. I can almost guarantee that the next large loss of life from a hurricane is going to be from a storm surge'' at the shore.
  Too many people are crammed into coastal communities with too few evacuation routes, leaving too little a margin for error, Mayfield said.

• River discussion to include public input
  Alabama, Florida and Georgia are seeking new, creative solutions for sharing water from the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river system, Florida officials said Monday.
• 'Blind spot' protects DCF workers
  A procedural "blind spot" at the state Department of Children & Families means that hundreds of child-welfare workers have never undergone a full check of their driving records, even though many of them routinely transport children in their cars, The Miami Herald has learned.
• Florida may lose $12.2 million in federal road funding - WASHINGTON · Florida would lose $12.2 million in federal funds for road projects under a Sept. 11 recovery plan that has the transportation lobby seeing red.
• Drivers now can help in search
  Florida will use electronic highway signs to post bulletins on missing kids so motorists can help early in the search.
• Orlando restricts homeless
  Starting today, homeless people who sit or lie on downtown Orlando's sidewalks can be hauled off to jail.
• Advocates call on celebrities and minorities for help
  MIAMI — Calling the Department of Children & Families "a cruel hoax," advocates resolved Monday to step up efforts to overhaul the state's much-maligned child welfare system. Panelists said they would attempt to recruit a minority celebrity, perhaps Denzel Washington or Will Smith, as spokesman for their cause. State Rep. Fredrica Wilson also plans to arrange for 7-year-old Erica Pratt, the Philadelphia girl who escaped her abductors last month by gnawing through duct tape, to speak to Miami children about the dangers of approaching strangers.
• Backyard citrus trees to start falling - State agriculture officials will begin cutting down backyard citrus trees within three canker-eradication zones in east Orange County this morning.
• The truth comes out
  Who runs Orlando? Is it the area's elected officials or the tourism industry?-- 
  A recent St. Petersburg Times article about Tampa's successful effort to be a finalist for the 2004 Republican National Convention noted that Orlando also was invited to bid on the event, but declined. Orlando Mayor Glenda Hood's spokeswoman, Susan Blexrud, told the Times that Orlando didn't bid because, "We were advised [by tourist-industry leaders] that it was very, very costly and didn't think it was the best business decision."
• Drivers see film crew as the real `Bad Boys'
  It was predictable and it was even predicted, but the closure of a major highway through downtown Miami paralyzed traffic in all directions Monday, overheating cars and tempers.
• New benches a letdown
  Miami's new bus benches are in the hot seat. They may look nicer than the previous ones of cement and mint green wood -- but bus riders say the new black steel benches are impossible to sit on during a sweltering South Florida afternoon.
• Daytona to vote on new nudity rule in wake of federal ruling
  The city's nasty quarrel with nude nightclubs is getting steamier. The City Commission plans to vote on an ordinance Wednesday that prohibits public nakedness and bolsters their ongoing legal battle to tame totally nude nightclubs and rowdy special events. Violators of the proposed ordinance would include a dancer who strips for cash as well as a Spring Breaker who bears her breasts for beads.
• Jellyfish invasion leaves hundreds smarting
  Scott Petersohn didn't have to tell swimmers to stay out of the water Monday. The Volusia County Beach Patrol captain lifted his shirt to reveal a dark, red welt the size of a handprint stamped on his back. For some, that was warning enough. Petersohn was one of more than 700 people stung by jellyfish along Volusia and Flagler county coastlines since late last week.
• Anti-spam tools more aggressive but still frustrated
  More than pop-up ads or in-your-face Web graphics, a withering assault of junk e-mail is souring the Internet experience. This story examines the surge in spam, the people behind it and the struggle to thwart them.
• Thomas Sowell: 'Open space' housing ban
  A black man waiting at a bus stop called to me as I was bicycling down the street: "You're the first black man I have seen over here in a long time." "It will be a long time before you see the next one," I said, and we both laughed. In a deeper sense, it was not funny, but sad.
• A BRIDGE LOAN
  As a candidate for president, George Bush pledged not to spend U.S. dollars to bail out struggling countries with failed economies. Then, why was Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill in Uruguay yesterday touting the transfer of $1.5 billion from the U.S. Federal Reserve to Uruguay?
• Bush got his recession, needs to avoid encore
  Here and abroad, he must revive confidence. President Bush had one economic trick in his bag: a tax cut. He performed it. The economy still headed South. Now it's his economy, so what's his next trick? - Last week's statistics were all bad. The Commerce Department reported that the economy shrank during the last three quarters of 2001, ending the argument over whether there even had been a recession. The growth rate for the second quarter -- April through June -- this year was only 1.1 percent. That ruins -- among other things -- the administration's hope that it can hold the deficit to $165 billion. The unemployment rate, which was 4.2 percent when Mr. Bush took office, was 5.9 percent in July, same as June, but only 6,000 new jobs were created.
• Corporate crackdown: Will Cheney be held accountable?
  By now, you'd think the Bush White House would be pretty adept at responding to the steady flow of corporate scandals washing over the White House lawn.
• European opposition to war on Iraq grows
  Even Tony Blair may not be able to support President Bush's attack plans.
• U.S. response pathetic to Egyptian outrage
  Watching the pathetic, mealy-mouthed response of President Bush and his State Department to Egypt's decision to sentence the leading Egyptian democracy advocate to seven years in prison leaves one wondering whether the whole Bush foreign policy team isn't just a big bunch of phonies. Shame on all of them. ...
  These days, said Coomaraswamy, "none of us in the human-rights community would think of appealing to the U.S. for support for upholding a human-rights case -- maybe to Canada, to Norway or to Sweden -- but not to the United States. Before there were always three faces of America out in the world -- the face of the Peace Corps, the America that helps others, the face of multinationals and the face of U.S. military power...

8/5/02

• Primary Election Voter Registration Ends Aug. 12
  TALLAHASSEE - Floridians who aren't registered to vote and want to help choose their party's nominees for the Nov. 5 election have until Aug. 12 to register to vote in the primaries for state offices on Sept. 10. Most primary ...
• Election officials consider changing Florida ballot to avoid repeat of 2000
  State election officials were considering changing the ballot for the Democratic gubernatorial primary after the party complained that the wording could confuse voters in a rerun of the 2000 presidential tally. Division of Elections Director Clayton Roberts sent e- mails to election supervisors in Florida's 67 counties on Saturday to see how many absentee ballots had already been mailed to overseas voters, Roberts said Sunday.
• Thousands in SW Florida request absentee ballots-- 
  Almost 13,000 registered Lee and Collier county voters — the vast bulk of them in Collier — have requested absentee ballots in time for the Sept. 10 primary election.
• Absentees complicate process of possible ballot changes
  State elections officials are considering changing the ballot for the Democratic gubernatorial primary after Democrats complained that the language used could confuse voters.
• Glitches Show Change Needed
  For Floridians, it seems, the need for election reform is a never-ending story. Last month, when candidate qualifying time closed, it was obvious that some more election rules changes are needed:
• Election pattern: Disturbing signs Florida's not ready for voters
  Crop circles, those mysterious patterns of flattened grain often found in the English countryside, were once seen as mystical portents of monumental events.
• Her calendar was full, but with what?
  Wondering where Katherine Harris was during the chaotic final week to qualify for the 2002 election? Don't count on her public schedule to tell you much.
• NAACP settlement: County's agreement benefits all Volusia voters
  Headed into the 2002 elections, Volusia County voters can be happy that local leaders put at least one scandal behind them.
• Candidates court seniors' support
  The issues driving the race for governor have taken on a decidedly elderly tone in recent weeks, as both Gov. Jeb Bush and Democratic front-runner Janet Reno have courted retirees along Florida's coasts.
• Cabinet hopeful nettles agribusiness
  Mary Barley, known for crusading for the Everglades, rattles the industry by jumping into the race for commissioner of agriculture and consumer services.
• Orange tries new tack
  A company with mixed results in other cities will get to use its methods to help Orange County at-risk kids.
  Starting this month, hundreds of troubled Orange County students will attend two private schools run by a company that uses single-sex classes, metal detectors and uniforms to boost grades.-- The school district is paying $8 million to the company -- and has spent $16 million to renovate two buildings -- in an attempt to improve reading skills for 1,200 students who are truant, disruptive or academically challenged. -- 
  At $8,865 per student, Community Education Partners is charging double what it costs the district to educate a typical student and more than it pays for other alternative programs.-- 
  The money will be going to a Tennessee-based company with political connections in Washington, Texas and elsewhere.
• Schools brace for new law
  As Central Florida schools prepare for another year, officials are scrambling to meet requirements under a new federal law aimed at boosting reading skills.
• While governor stalls, county acts on child safety
  Running for governor four years ago, Jeb Bush promised to fix the Florida Department of Children and Families. As he seeks reelection, child deaths continue and morale is dangerously low. The governor could take a lesson from Palm Beach County.
• County Committee Drafts Tough Rules For Developers
  BROOKSVILLE - A committee formed recently to determine how to better inform the public about upcoming development issues is proposing new rules for developers.
• CSX insurance bill could kill rail plan
  The company that could make or break Central Florida's plans for commuter rail wants the region to buy a $500 million insurance policy to protect it from lawsuits -- a demand that could account for half the yearly cost of running the system.
• Florida serves panther on a plate
  ...Panther and manatee popularity (on license plates) might tell visitors that the environment has Florida's affection, but developers have the county commissions, so it's a wash. ... Voluntary contributions at license-plate renewals in lieu of taxes is akin to voluntary gambling on the lottery in lieu of taxes for schools. But government isn't just a kicky thing to do, like trading in the van for an SUV. It's the price of civilization. - Designer license plates are a small symptom of the same thing that produces designer countries of residence for U.S. corporations. The anti-government side is winning.
• FBI returns to search Ocala storage shed
  FBI agents searched a storage facility here for the second time in five weeks as part of the investigation into last year's deadly anthrax attacks. The search Thursday centered on property used by Dr. Steven Hatfill, who once worked in the virology division of the U.S. Army Medical Institute of Infectious Disease at Fort Detrick, Md., and most recently for a defense contractor.
• Guest editorial: Powder River showdown
  The Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana may appear unprepossessing to people whose idea of the West is the peaks of Grand Teton National Park. It is a windswept, grassy landscape, pure ranch country, with a subtle beauty all its own. The basin now finds itself at the epicenter of a larger national struggle between the country's energy needs and its environmental values, between a Bush administration that is determined to drill for oil and gas and the conservationists and ranchers who are equally determined to protect their vulnerable and increasingly threatened landscape.
• Toxic Sites Fester As Superfund Dries Up
  EDISON N.J. - For 11 years, Robert Spiegel spent his nights creating elaborate wedding cakes and his days trying to force the government to clean up arsenic, lead, dioxin and other lethal chemicals that saturate a 6-acre lot between ...
• With Gore, Democrats get same old tune
  WASHINGTON -- The whole world, it seems to me, can be divided into two kinds of people -- those who admit their mistakes and those who don't.
• A leadership deficit
  Projected budget surpluses already have evaporated, and the long-term outlook is gloomy, but President Bush and Congress are ignoring the problem.
• Iraq invites Congress to tour
  Iraq invited U.S. Congress members and experts of their choice today to search sites in Iraq where they suspect weapons of mass destruction are hidden.

8/4/02

• JUDGE WANTS MANATEE ZONES
  Manatees, the slow-moving endangered species found only in Florida, made the news several times last week. First off, a federal judge for the second time rebuked the Bush administration for taking up Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's push to delay the implementation of a federal plan that would establish about a dozen more manatee safety zones.
• Harris' bizarre term has bizarre end
  Florida's place as the national butt of jokes about its ability to run normal elections remains secure. Thank you, Katherine Harris.
• Candidates acknowledge Hispanics' electoral clout-- 
  Former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno must overcome her handling of the Elian Gonzalez affair and other controversies still fresh in the minds of Florida voters if she wants to unseat Gov. Jeb Bush this election, some political observers say.
• Democrats asking for ballot change in governor's race
  TALLAHASSEE — The primary ballot in the state's most important race since the 2000 election debacle could be confusing to voters, Democrats said Saturday. The ballot designed for the Sept. 10 Democratic primary for governor reads "Vote for One Pair," meaning one vote for a combined entry for governor and lieutenant governor. But Democrats say the word "pair" does not apply because none of the gubernatorial candidates — Daryl Jones, Bill McBride and Janet Reno — has chosen a running mate.
• Democrats may sue over ballots-- LEESBURG -- Florida Democrats are ready to sue the state over concerns that wording on ballots for the 2002 primary election for governor will confuse voters, party chairman Bob Poe said Saturday.
• Ballot wording might change
  Elections officials wonder whether it's too late to clarify language on absentee ballots. Prompted by concerns that the Sept. 10 primary ballot may confuse voters, the Florida Division of Elections took steps Saturday to determine whether a last-minute change in ballot language is possible.
• GOP catches flak on lack of tax holiday- Just in time for the start of school, Florida's Democratic Party this week pounced on the fact that Florida is not holding its annual sales-tax holiday to help families with their shopping bills.
  For four years, the state has waived the sales tax to help parents buy back-to-school clothes. This year, Florida's GOP Legislature and governor decided it couldn't afford it, citing a slow economy.
  Democrats point out that GOP leaders could afford a $262 million tax cut to benefit the state's biggest corporations, which cost the state a lot more than the $28 million estimated tab for the sales-tax holiday
• McBride's law firm often foe to his allies
  The gubernatorial candidate works for a firm with many corporate clients that oppose unions and environmentalists.
• Reno running for governor, with or without her party’s help - ...“We can get elected in this state without big money,” Reno told supporters at a recent barbecue at her wooded estate on the outskirts of Miami. “We can make this work. We can do it without spin. We can use Florida as an example to the nation of how you run an election and how you win an election.”
• In quest for another 'first,' Jones' campaign moves on
  Daryl Jones says he's the most qualified Democrat running for governor of Florida, and he might be right. As a legislator from Miami-Dade County for a dozen years, the state senator is the only candidate with any lengthy experience in state politics. While Democratic rivals Janet Reno and Bill McBride tend to speak broadly about education and healthcare, Jones has detailed plans.
• What other campaign surprises await us?
  What fun. Now we can talk about our very own seven dwarfs.
• Law aids overseas voters, ballots
  Absentee ballots sent by overseas voters probably determined the presidency in 2000. Like almost everything about that election, the Florida overseas ballots were counted amid their share of controversy, so the Legislature subsequently changed the laws about how the ballots can be returned. That means overseas ballots being sent out statewide this week can be returned without a postmark, as long as the voter signs and dates it by Election Day in front of a witness.
• State also failing to protect adults - Problem is not being intrusive enough. - What do a 73-year-old Lake Clarke Shores man and a 5-year-old Miami foster child have in common? Both are victims of Florida's Department of Children and Families -- or, as some are calling it, the Department of Colossal Foul-ups.
  Both were egregious cases that sparked publicity and increased calls to the state abuse hot line. Both are expected to change how DCF operates. Five-year-old Rilya Wilson disappeared from a DCF foster home in January 2001 and remains missing. Clarence Lewis died in November 2001 despite neighbors' calls to DCF's Adult Services division in August.
• Driving records at DCF not fully checked
  A procedural ''blind spot'' at the state Department of Children & Families means that hundreds of child-welfare workers have never undergone a full check of their driving records, even though many of them routinely transport children in their cars, The Herald has learned.
• Let social worker tell her story in court
  Mirla Pronga, if you're listening, here's a chance to do something for all the battered, unwanted and forsaken children of Florida: Go to trial, get on the witness stand and talk about what it's really like to work for the Department of Children & Families.
• N. Florida prison is taking lot of heat
  The question of heat in a Florida prison was elevated to an Eighth Amendment issue in an unusual Jacksonville trial last week. Specifically: How hot is too hot for a cell on Death Row?
• FCAT challenges include poverty, language barrier-- 
  There are two groups of Collier County students who routinely score low on statewide testing: those who speak little English and those from poor families. School officials say these are the facts, not supposition. They don't want to make excuses but they do want to highlight the reality behind the FCAT — especially in reading.
• State requests broad search for canker in Palm Beach
  WEST PALM BEACH — The state Department of Agriculture has asked a judge for permission to search more than 85,000 Palm Beach County properties for diseased trees. The state made the request Friday, saying summer storms could spread citrus canker. The search for diseased trees would cover a 70-square-mile area in the county.
• Florida Panhandle tribe revives Muscogee heritage, seeks federal status
  BRUCE — Allen Thomas gave up a good-paying job and comfortable South Florida lifestyle for virtual poverty when he came to the rural Panhandle five years ago in search of his Native American roots. Thomas now serves on the tribal council of the Muscogee Nation of Florida, which is continuing a 22-year battle for federal recognition while reviving and preserving the religion, language and culture it had nearly lost. That effort includes a recent name change from Florida Tribe of Eastern Creek Indians. Creek is the English name given Muscogees long ago due to the many creeks on tribal lands across the South.
• Mining, recovery collide in Everglades -- FORT LAUDERDALE -- Armed with bulldozers, explosives and political clout, the limestone industry has embarked on a 50-year mining project that will tear up the eastern edge of the Everglades.
  This year, the miners won permission from the Army Corps of Engineers to destroy 5,409 acres of Everglades wetlands in the first phase of their expansion in western Miami-Dade County. It was the latest in a series of victories for Tarmac America Inc., Rinker Materials Corp. and eight other companies that haul limestone out of the ground for use in housing developments, roads and other projects.
  The mining will destroy wildlife habitat up to the edge of Everglades National Park, just as the state and federal governments spend $8 billion to restore the Everglades ...
• Waste blights residents' lives
  A South Apopka community survives amid a landfill, an incinerator and a sewage plant
• Rise in rabies cases has animal officials on alert - 
  As their search for food brings them to trash containers, public parks and back yards, rabid raccoons, foxes, cats and dogs increasingly are coming in contact with humans, county officials said, causing a sharp increase this year in the reported number of rabies cases.
  Twenty-two cases of rabies have been reported in Palm Beach County so far this year -- the most since 1953 -- alarming health officials into posting rabies alerts in several areas of the county and closing a park to catch feral animals.
• Cocoa Beach to its tourists: Wish you weren't here
  Imagine if, in some alternate universe, the roles reversed in a Florida city. The people on the outside -- the agitators who fight hopeless battles against tourism, growth and traffic -- actually assumed control.
• Analysis: Most school districts say no to drug-testing kids
  WASHINGTON — Despite the Supreme Court's recent ruling that schools can require random drug tests for students participating in extracurricular activities, many educators say it's unlikely to create a drug testing frenzy among school districts. Most U.S. school districts don't conduct random drug tests of students. Many school districts don't believe they have a big drug problem among students, while others don't believe testing is an effective drug deterrent.
• Inflamed arteries may rival cholesterol - BOSTON -- Worse than cholesterol? Hard to believe, perhaps, but the top health concern of millions of Americans is about to be trumped by what doctors say is an even bigger trigger of heart attacks.
  The condition is low-grade inflammation, which may originate in a variety of unlikely places throughout the body, including even excess fat. New federal recommendations are being written that will urge doctors to test millions of middle-aged Americans for it.
• Put the brakes on rip-off moving companies
  As if moving weren't bad enough. Watching strangers pack your belongings. Seeing them disappear into the back of a cavernous truck, and being reminded that you'll soon be saying a more permanent farewell to home and friends.
• FL Attacks Jewish Insurance - MIAMI - Jewish charities in Florida and elsewhere say skyrocketing insurance premiums caused by fears their buildings could face terrorist attack have forced them to cut programs and drop coverage.-- Some Jewish groups say their premiums have at least doubled since Sept. 11, causing them to cut programs for children, the elderly and poor. Their new policies also exclude terrorism coverage, leaving them open to financial ruin if their facilities or employees are attacked.
• Thomas L. Friedman: Bush's shame
  COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Watching the pathetic, mealy-mouthed response of President Bush and his State Department to Egypt's decision to sentence the leading Egyptian democracy advocate to seven years in prison leaves one wondering whether the whole Bush foreign policy team isn't just a big bunch of phonies. Shame on all of them.
• A BLOW FOR OLDER PEOPLE
  The Senate's failure before recessing to adopt prescription-drug relief for America's most vulnerable seniors is a colossal disappointment to millions of older residents. After five years of promises, Senate Democrats and Republicans have accomplished no more than to point blame at each other. The big losers are the elderly who will continue to be buffeted by astronomical drug bills.
• Audits find possible violations in Puerto Rican campaigns- SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Still reeling from so many public corruption scandals during the last election year, officials and an angry public are sifting through the details of how politicians run and pay for campaigns in Puerto Rico.

8/3/02

• Four Panhandle newspapers begin charging for online content
  DESTIN — News delivered online by four Freedom Communications Inc. newspapers in the Florida Panhandle is no longer free. They are among the first papers in Florida to charge for online subscriptions. Two dailies, the Northwest Florida Daily News of Fort Walton Beach and The News-Herald of Panama City, and the twice-weekly Destin Log and weekly Walton Sun initiated the policy Thursday.
• 10,000 amendment petition signatures lost
  Replacing them by Tuesday is crucial to getting a higher education proposal on the Nov. 5 ballot.
• Ballot wording sparks worries
  Critics are concerned that the wording on the primary ballot will lead to more voter confusion.
  The new statewide ballot that will help debut Florida's improved election system contains hints of the same confusion that brought disaster in November 2000.
  In the Sept. 10 Democratic primary for governor, the ballot tells people to "Vote for One Pair," meaning one candidate for governor and one for lieutenant governor.
  But critics say the word "pair" does not apply because none of the gubernatorial candidates has chosen a running mate. They worry that the phrase could encourage some voters to select more than one candidate for governor, an "overvote" that would nullify their choice
• Reno campaign fears another ballot fiasco
  Citrus County's ballot instructions tell voters to select one candidate for governor -- and then one pair.
• Ex-secretary of state named to post
  Gov. Jeb Bush on Friday named political veteran Jim Smith to succeed Secretary of State Katherine Harris, who unexpectedly resigned from her post a day earlier to run for Congress.
• Bush names Jim Smith secretary of state to replace Katherine Harris - TALLAHASSEE — Former Secretary of State Jim Smith got the job back Friday, being appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush to replace Katherine Harris until the post is eliminated in January. Harris resigned Thursday to run for Congress. Smith held the job from 1987 to 1995, and was attorney general from 1979 to 1987. He ran for governor as a Democrat in 1986, before becoming a Republican.
• Smith to fill Harris' job
  TALLAHASSEE -- Facing questions regarding the legality of former Secretary of State Katherine Harris' continued claim to that office, Gov. Jeb Bush on Friday quickly appointed former Secretary of State Jim Smith to the job through the coming elections.
• Harris, Butterworth squabble over resign-to-run compliance-- 
  Former Republican Secretary of State Katherine Harris and Democratic Attorney General Bob Butterworth tussled Friday over whether they complied with Florida election law when they recently filed to run for other offices.
• Harris Making Up The Rules
  Florida voters' hopes for a glitch-free election season have just been dashed, big time.
• Some Broward probationers mistakenly told they couldn't vote
  The Florida Department of Corrections is investigating an error that may have disenfranchised a number of eligible voters in four counties over the past four years.
  A handful of probation officers (44) in Broward, Monroe, St. Johns and Orange counties relied on an unofficial document to instruct offenders on probation that they've lost certain civil rights, even if the offenders had their adjudication withheld as part of a plea agreement.-- 
  That instruction was false.
• Cut! Manatees keep cameras from rolling
  A waiver allowed filming of a chase in their waters. But the sea cows keep making cameos.
• Emergency steps sought to reduce Fla. manatee deaths - 
  Fresh off a court victory against federal wildlife officials this week, manatee advocates sought Friday to turn up the pressure on behalf of the endangered species. Attorney Eric Glitzenstein filed a proposed order that would require the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to consider "appropriate emergency steps" to stem boat-related manatee deaths in Florida waters.
• State to start cutting trees in canker areas - State agriculture officials will begin cutting down citrus trees within three canker eradication zones in east Orange County on Tuesday.
  As of Friday, inspectors had received permission to cut down about 336 trees because of the threat of the highly contagious disease
• State seeks OK for new canker searches-- 
  Concerned that summer storms will spread the citrus canker, the state Department of Agriculture has asked a judge for permission to search for diseased trees at 87,434 residences in southern Palm Beach County.
  The search would cover a 70-square-mile area, running the width of the county from just north of Clint Moore Road to the Broward County line.
• County attorney causes flap with citrus canker e-mail
  DELAND -- William Bosch, a newly hired assistant attorney for Volusia County government, has gotten himself into a bit of a stink over citrus canker. ...  
  Bosch, who could not be reached for comment Friday, fired off his comments to the South Florida Business Journal in response to an article about the state citrus canker eradication program, a topic the lawyer dealt with extensively when he practiced law in Pompano Beach. 
  His e-mail, which called the Florida Department of Agriculture "inept," appeared in print on July 5 with the signature "William Bosch, Volusia County Attorney's Office, DeLand." 
• Law Aids ID Theft, Some Say
  TAMPA - Two local property appraisers say a new Florida law will make 500,000 Social Security numbers public,
  putting those people at risk for identity theft. ...
• Here's how Florida can be a solar leader - Florida is ground zero for the effects of global warming and clean energy solutions -- yet its political leaders have zero to say on the matter. That's why Greenpeace is sending letters this month to 500 candidates for office in Florida, asking them to adopt our platform on global warming and clean energy. Floridians have too much to lose from the effects of global warming and much to gain from clean energy solutions. Now is the time for political candidates to show true leadership by pledging action.
• Jones first woman to lead major Florida state police agency
  TALLAHASSEE — Col. Julie Jones, Florida's new top conservation cop, will be the first woman to head one of the state's major police agencies. She will become law enforcement director of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission on Aug. 9, the agency announced Friday. The commission's executive director, Ken Haddad, chose her from 26 applicants.
• Irritated judge rips FDLE in lab flap
  A hearing will look at the effect of DNA-test cheating on a triple-murder case.
• Jones deserves spot in McBride-Reno debate - Daryl Jones is locked out of the only debate of the Democratic candidates for governor that will be televised statewide.
  He should be let in.
• Gubernatorial candidate proposes plan for child-welfare agency-- ... State Sen. Daryl Jones, a Miami-area lawyer and investment banker, on Thursday called for reform of the system and suggested that Florida could pay for much-needed changes without raising taxes through a combination of policy adjustments, tax incentives and changes in the way the state pays for prescription drugs.
• Election 2002: Bush gets endorsement of Puerto Rican mayors
  KISSIMMEE — In one of Florida's fastest-growing Latino communities, Gov. Jeb Bush landed the endorsement of the Puerto Rican Federation of Mayors on Friday. Osceola County, where the sweltering morning rally was held, is booming with Hispanic immigrants, especially Puerto Ricans. About 30 percent of the county's 182,000 residents are Hispanic, and U.S. Census figures show Osceola led the state's Latino explosion with a 294 percent increase from 1990-2000.
• Jeb shows his class
  Palm Beach Post Editorial - Money for tax cuts, but not for education.
   ... The governor's "choice" is to continue his priority of cutting the tax on stock and bond holdings of the wealthiest Floridians and using tax breaks to repay the individuals and industries that finance his campaign. The $1 billion for education that Gov. Bush highlights in this year's budget is a sham. His outright opposition to smaller classes reveals the true face of the "education governor."
• Police: Briton surfing web wasn't hatching bomb plot
  PUNTA GORDA — A British man arrested for browsing the Internet at a public library, allegedly looking at sites dealing with explosives, was only reading about healing minerals, authorities now say. Though the criminal investigation against Nigel B. Gates has been dropped, he's still in trouble for a visa violation, police said Wednesday.
• Vacuous vigilantism: Terrorists beware library thought police
  Nigel Gates, a British national, was browsing the Internet at the Punta Gorda Public Library earlier this week. He was looking at sites that deal with healing through minerals. One such site, for example, describes with pictures the "salt volatization experiment," which apparently turns rosemary, the herb often used as seasoning for strip steaks and chicken breasts, into a spiritual element with all kinds of feel-good powers. The pictures feature flasks, vials, bulbous bottles and liquids in assorted colors. 
• Fake checks made in jail, detectives say
  Investigators are looking into the possibility that a vocational cellblock at the Orange County Jail spawned a counterfeit check-writing ring.
• Jewish agencies face high insurance rates and no terrorism coverage
  MIAMI — Jewish charities in Florida and elsewhere say skyrocketing insurance premiums caused by fears their buildings could face terrorist attack have forced them to cut programs and drop coverage. Some Jewish groups say their premiums have at least doubled since Sept. 11, causing them to cut programs for children, the elderly and poor.
• State created insurance pools now merged
  TALLAHASSEE — The two-state created property insurance pools were merged Friday, creating the Citizens Property Insurance Corp. The Legislature passed a bill earlier this year to merge the Florida Windstorm Underwriting Association and the Casualty Joint Underwriting Association. Combined the so-called insurers of last resort had more than 500,000 policies.
• The e-mail message is clear: Something's wrong here
  We're never amazed anymore about what clutters our electronic mailboxes daily. Only bothered.
• Analysis: White House tries to minimize political fallout from WorldCom case
  WASHINGTON — Two former senior WorldCom executives on Thursday became the newest symbols in the administration's broadening effort to use prosecutions to fend off political problems. Prosecutors insist that politics played no role in the decision to charge the two former top executives, Scott D. Sullivan and David F. Myers, with criminal fraud and conspiracy.
• Guest editorial: An implausible forecast
  Campaigning for president two years ago, George W. Bush promised to restore honor and integrity to the White House. And in the conduct of his personal life since then, he seems to have set an exemplary and refreshing model. In the conduct of public policy, however, his administration has shown a recurring tendency to stretch the truth, bend the rules and mislead voters in ways that have grave consequences for public business.
• Guest editorial: Leaks, the 4th branch of government
  Congress and the White House are engaged in one of the capital's most enduring exercises in futility: Trying to identify the source of leaks. Most often these investigations peter out; infrequently, some aide is offered up as a scapegoat. ...
  The Defense Department is trying to finger whoever leaked to The New York Times a draft plan for an invasion of Iraq. At the behest of the White House, the House and Senate intelligence committees called in the FBI to find out who in Congress leaked two cryptic messages that the National Security Agency intercepted on Sept. 10 but did not translate until Sept. 12.  ... ... Now Congress is having second thoughts.  The FBI has interviewed 37 members of Congress and perhaps 60 staffers and is asking that they take lie-detector tests, raising serious constitutional issues.
• White House Watch: Is Iraq worth the trouble?
  If you want to rile former President George H.W. Bush, ask him again why the United States didn't pursue Saddam Hussein's troops into Baghdad and get rid of the mass murderer when we had the chance. No. 41 rolls his eyes, shifts his weight, sighs heavily and explains, for the thousandth time, that he was not willing to sacrifice hundreds of Americans and innocent Iraqi citizens for a mission that might have failed, might have destabilized the Middle East even more and dragged the United States into being an unwelcome occupation force for years.
• U.S. in no position to tout capitalism to Latin America's poor - The American economics professor was touting the benefits of capitalism and a global economy to expand opportunity in this hemisphere, create more jobs and cement democracy in Latin America.
  The Argentinean journalist wasn't buying any of it. He shook his head and told journalists and academics gathered at a Florida International University workshop on Latin America that the International Monetary Fund's neo-liberal economic policies, pushed through by foreign reformers, had made life worse for most Argentineans.
• Judge: U.S. must identify 9/11 detainees
  A federal judge ruled Friday that the federal government must release the names of those detained in the post-Sept. 11 terrorism investigation, in a strong rebuke for the Justice Department and a victory for civil and immigrant rights activists.
• Feds reopen probe of Florida arms deal-- Federal investigators have reopened a South Florida arms smuggling case after a TV newsmagazine questioned a probe into whether agents of the Pakistani government tried to buy missiles and nuclear weapons components in the United States last year for use by terrorists.

8/2/02

• Workers' comp issue hits firms
  State regulators have ordered 779 Florida companies — most of them in the construction industry and nearly 100 of them in Collier and Lee counties — to shut down until they can prove they have proper workers' compensation coverage. In a July 25 letter to the companies, Florida Department of Insurance Compliance Chief Lee Pease told bosses that AMS Staff Leasing, the company through which the 779 employers purchased workers' compensation insurance, hadn't actually secured that coverage. The state had ordered AMS to quit operating in Florida on June 28, according to the letter.
• Workers' anger crashes a Bush campaign stop
  SARASOTA -- Gov. Jeb Bush courted friendly seniors on the heavily Republican southwest coast Thursday, but he also had the kind of encounter no politician wants on his campaign schedule. -
  Before Bush could promote a prescription drug plan for low-income seniors, he was met by a half-dozen angry workers who say they are being forced out of business by a new law Bush signed in May. The law requires self-employed subcontractors to carry workers' compensation coverage for themselves for the first time on commercial projects greater than $250,000....
  "They lifted the exemption on us and never told us," said Jim Reppi of Venice, who hauls fill and rocks. "Gov. Bush needs to take action right away. Otherwise, it's going to put us right out of business." ... ... 
  Regulation of workers' comp shifted on July 1 from the heavily privatized Department of Labor, an agency under Bush's control, to Insurance Commissioner Tom Gallagher, an elected Cabinet member who will soon become the state's first chief financial officer.
• New Law Cripples Small Contractors
  ... The new law affects 139,000 companies, according to state records, and most are unhappy. ... The issue of worker's compensation is a hot topic in Tallahassee, but it will be early 2003 before lawmakers convene again and changes to the law can be considered. ... `There's been an effort to close what many people are exploiting as a loophole,'' said state Sen. Tom Lee, R-Brandon. ``The other side of the coin is that there are a lot of subcontractors in this state that will go out of business.'' ... The Florida Department of Insurance, which recently took over the state's Division of Workers' Compensation, began mailing letters in the middle of June to every company with an exemption, spokeswoman Tami Torres said. ... People affected by the law don't have many options now, said Steve Birtman, state director for the National Federation of Independent Business.
  ``As to an immediate solution - there isn't one,'' he said.
• Movie gets break from manatee rules to film boat chase on river
  TALLAHASSEE — The makers of "Bad Boys 2" expected Thursday to begin shooting the action movie on time after getting a special waiver of manatee protection rules for a high-speed boat chase scene in waters near Miami. The makers had originally been denied a permit by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to shoot the scene on the Miami River, plied by the lumbering manatees whose biggest enemy is boats.
• A judge's justifiable anger
  The federal government should not be backpedaling on manatees.
• State's cuts in Medicaid squeezing poor adults
  While Gov. Jeb Bush was boasting about the new state program to help poor seniors afford drugs, Brenda Ormiston of Pembroke Pines was worrying about how to pay $600 a month for her prescriptions after suddenly being cut from the state's Medicaid program.
• HEALTH INSURANCE FOR KIDS
  There are almost 400,000 poor children in Florida who are eligible for free and low-cost health insurance. But they are not covered. Unfortunately, the amount of funds available to reach their families, educate the parents and enroll those kids continues to fall.
• Katherine Harris resigns to concentrate on congressional run
  TALLAHASSEE — Katherine Harris resigned Thursday as secretary of state, saying she misunderstood the rules about whether she had to submit a resignation letter to run for Congress. Gov. Jeb Bush kept her as acting secretary, however, until he appoints a successor. Under state law, Harris, the state's top elections official, should have filed a letter July 15 stating her intent to resign before the next Congress takes office in January, but didn't. Candidates who don't file the letter are considered resigned immediately.
• Harris resigns after election-law conflict
  TALLAHASSEE -- During the 2000 presidential election controversy, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris repeatedly said she was only following state election laws when she accepted some ballots and discounted others and ultimately named fellow Republican George W. Bush the winner and next president. -- But Harris, Florida's top election official who gained international fame for her role in the 2000 election, was forced to resign her position yesterday after she acknowledged misinterpreting Florida election laws.
• One squirms on hot seat, the other just shrugs - 
  Katherine Harris, who resigned Thursday as Florida's secretary of state in typically bizarre fashion, should never have been in statewide office. ...
  .... The motto of her four years in office might as well be: Harris Could Not Be Reached For Comment. -- The end of her press conference Thursday was perfect: a flustered Harris, sheltered by aides hustling her out of the room, knocking over microphones and tape recorders to get her away from having to explain herself any further.....
• Mistake forces Harris to resign -- TALLAHASSEE -- Secretary of State Katherine Harris, the state's top elections official, acknowledged Thursday she failed to follow an election law herself and abruptly resigned.
  It was a bizarre end to the controversial tenure of one of the most visible figures in the 2000 presidential election recount.
• Harris suddenly resigns
  Secretary of State Katherine Harris, who presided over Florida's disputed 2000 vote count as the state's chief elections officer, stepped down abruptly Thursday after admitting she violated the election law. ... "I was very familiar with the law," Harris said, adding she had done "an outstanding job" during her 31/2years in office.
• Harris resigns to seek office
  Secretary of State Katherine Harris announced her resignation Thursday, admitting that she made a mistake when she didn't submit the required paperwork in her bid for Congress.
• Harris resigns two weeks late
  By S.V. Dáte, Palm Beach Post Capital Bureau
  The secretary of state resigned Thursday, but said she'd continue as 'de facto' secretary.
• Election Resignation Rule Trips Harris
  TALLAHASSEE - It looks like Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris might once again be an inviting target for late-night comedians. -- Harris revealed Thursday that she didn't resign her office when she qualified to run for Congress, as required by state election law. The oversight is embarrassing because the secretary of state is in charge of elections.
• Election law trips Harris up  -- ... But Harris' acknowledgment that she made a mistake in filling out her elections paperwork may give some of her opponents the chance to eliminate the front-running candidate who has amassed a campaign war chest of more than $2 million. -- 
  Candice Brown McElyea, a former TV reporter and one of four Democrats seeking the same seat, said she would file a lawsuit today in Sarasota County challenging Harris' place on the Sept. 10 primary ballot. Harris is squaring off against Republican John Hill in the primary.--
  ''She always thinks she's above the law,'' Brown McElyea said. ''No rules or regulations ever apply to her. She's in charge of the Division of Elections. If anyone would know the law, it should be her.''--- 
  Other Democrats made similar comments. Jan Schneider, a lawyer seeking the seat, predicted that if one of them had failed to properly file their paperwork that ''we'd be out.''
• Term-limit shuffle could reduce attorney general to senator
  One of the few surprises during candidate-qualifying week was news that Bob Butterworth, the state attorney general, will run for the Florida Senate.
• Judge lets voting suit proceed
  MIAMI -- A federal judge has rejected state attempts to avoid trial over presidential election problems that kept blacks from voting in Florida.
• Voters' lawsuit headed to trial
  Barring any last-minute settlements, the players in a federal lawsuit alleging voter discrimination in Florida's controversial 2000 election -- including Miami-Dade County and Secretary of State Katherine Harris -- will be heading to trial later this month.
• Class size reduction proposal to hit the ballot 
  Barring a last-minute legal challenge, a proposed constitutional amendment to reduce class sizes in Florida will face voters in November after gaining the necessary number of signatures Thursday to put the issue on the general election ballot. Voters on Nov. 5 will decide whether to require state taxpayers to spend billions of dollars over the next eight years to reduce the number of children in classrooms that critics say are too crowded.
• Class size push gets spot on ballot
  The proposed constitutional amendment is the ninth to qualify for the ballot. And it has enemies in high places.
• GOP complaint against McBride ad dismissed
  TALLAHASSEE -- A state Republican Party complaint over an ad promoting Bill McBride, Democratic candidate for governor, has been dismissed.
• McBride gains support, learns ad's legal
  By Brian E. Crowley, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
  The Florida Republican Party had challenged the ad, which was paid for by the Florida Education Association.
• Elton John to play Broward for Reno donors
  This time, Elton John's yellow brick road leads to South Florida, and Janet Reno hopes the bricks are gold.
• Elton John raising money for Reno
  By Brian E. Crowley, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
  He has scheduled a show Sept. 18, eight days after the Sept. 10 Democratic primary for governor.
• Gubernatorial candidate meets Wingate activists - Wingate, a northwest Fort Lauderdale landfill and incinerator that closed 24 years ago, drew a gubernatorial candidate's attention on Thursday.-- 
  State Sen. Daryl Jones, a longshot candidate for the Democratic nomination for governor, met with Wingate community activist Leola McCoy and others who live nearby, using the setting to address state environmental concerns, one of his five priorities for the state.
• State contributes to campaign coffers
  Six candidates for governor or attorney general will get big campaign checks today, all of them paid for by Florida taxpayers. More than $2 million in public financing will change hands. It's the first installment of money that will continue weekly until candidates either lose in the September primary or get to the November general election.
• GOP primary shows sign of rift
  By Marc Caputo, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
  One of the more qualified candidates for Florida attorney general thinks Charlie Crist is least-qualified.
• Kenney gets chance, but public gets little clue
  Judicial oversight group cuts another deal.  The agency that monitors judicial conduct in Florida keeps too many secrets. That has become clear again in the case of a St. Lucie County judge.
  Four years ago, three colleagues accused Circuit Judge Scott Kenney of drinking on the job. Not until last year, however, did the Judicial Qualifications Commission -- the state's oversight group -- announce that it was filing two charges of misconduct against Judge Kenney. More startling, the JQC had warned him about the allegations in April 1999, and he had entered an alcohol treatment program. The public had not known.
• Report says inmates mistreated in Broward jail
  The Broward County jail system has countless serious problems, including poor medical care that contributed to preventable deaths, a pattern of excessive force, inadequate mental health care and improper use of restraints on mentally ill prisoners, according to experts’ reports released Thursday.
• Judge denies sanctions for DCF over releasing family records - A family court judge has refused to impose sanctions on the state's child welfare agency for releasing family history records of a slain toddler.
• Public Access TV Funding Cut
  TAMPA - In a move that caught some Hillsborough County commissioners and public access TV advocates off guard, the board voted 4-3 to withhold the station's $355,000 in annual funding. ...
• Residents Raise Roof About Rent Hike
  ST. PETERSBURG - Several Jordan Park residents complained to the city council Thursday about proposed rent increases of as much as 100 percent at their low-income housing community.--- The management company that runs the redeveloped housing project on the city's central-south side has notified 115 of Jordan Park's 148 families that their subsidized rents will increase Sept.1.
• Rodman endgame
  It is just and fitting that the responsibility to finally remove the dam, drain the artificial reservoir and restore the river devolve back to the federal government.
• Ocean rules: Developers shouldn't dictate beaches' future
  It wasn't that long ago that Wyoming had beachfront property and Florida was an African province, with Daytona Beach's foreground landlocked somewhere between a tectonic plate and a savanna. In other words our familiar beaches have never quite been the static suntan strips we'd like them to be, nor is erosion an intrusion on the way things ought to be. Erosion is the norm. Condos, among other illusions of permanence, are the intrusion.
• Cable's broken promises: Less competition, higher rates without local control
  Does anyone still believe that deregulation benefits the consumer or encourages competition?
• Palestinian USF professor speaks out against potential firing
  TAMPA — A University of South Florida professor who could be fired for alleged terrorist ties said Thursday that he and other Muslims are victims of post-Sept. 11 mania. The university "buckled under the pressure because of the 9-11 hysteria," Sami Al-Arian told the Suncoast Tiger Bay Club in St. Petersburg. "If I were any other nationality or any other color, believe me, that would not have even been a consideration."
• Authorities getting tough on sea turtle poachers
  WEST PALM BEACH — Sea turtle eggs, an illegal delicacy some crave for its supposed aphrodisiac potential, are becoming harder to buy in South Florida. After a decade reprieve, law enforcement officials are renewing their focus on the sea turtle market, investigating poachers and those who dig up the nests of the endangered reptiles.
• Turtle Egg Dealers Lurk In Shadows -- NORTH PALM BEACH - They work under cover of night, selling their goods from car trunks and the backrooms of bars to customers needing a fix. Rather than cocaine or ecstasy, however, these dealers are selling sea turtle eggs, snatched from the nests of endangered species and marketed to people who consider them a delicacy or swear by them as an aphrodisiac.
• Decision could slow Everglades project
  WASHINGTON -- A Utah congressman who blocked legislation that would have allowed as many as 102 houses to be condemned as part of the Everglades restoration project received $26,700 in campaign contributions from South Florida residents two years ago.... The battle over the 8 1/2 Square Mile Area illustrates how money, politics and conflicting priorities are inextricably intertwined in the complex restoration effort. And that, in turn, demonstrates how hard it is move all the pieces of the huge project forward.
• Drug benefit's downfall
  Election year politics and Republican Party posturing defeated humane efforts to give senior citizens help in purchasing their prescriptions.
• Drug betrayal
  The U.S. Senate failed seniors when it didn't approve the drug plan.
• Tax cut's bitter pill
  Without surplus, prescription-drug benefit withers.
• Keep soldiers off beat
  Palm Beach Post Editorial
  No military presence for domestic security.
• FBI asks lawmakers to take lie detector test in Sept. 11 leak investigation
  The FBI has asked members of the House and Senate intelligence committees to take lie-detector tests as part of an investigation into the leak of information related to the Sept. 11 attacks, a law enforcement official said.
• Our 'education president' appearsto see little dignity in higher-ed help
  ... Here's what George W. Bush said about that Monday while addressing a $1,000-a-plate fund-raising crowd: :
  "In the way they're kind of writing it right now out of the Senate Finance Committee, some people could spend their entire five years on welfare -- there's a five-year work requirement -- going to college. Now, that's not my view of helping people become independent, and it's certainly not my view of understanding the importance of work and helping people achieve the dignity necessary so they can live a free life, free from government control."
  That's what he said, and it is an interesting view of what college is all about. Never mind that it issues from the lips of our education president.
• U.N. Weapons Inspector Invited to Iraq- .... In a surprise move, Iraq's Foreign Minister Naji Sabri sent a letter to Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Thursday referring twice to the return of inspectors — and hinting that talks with chief inspector Hans Blix could lead to an agreement for a resumption of inspections.
• Anthrax investigation leads FBI to former Army researcher's home - ... Hatfill has not spoken publicly about the searches. In March, however, he denied involvement in the anthrax mailings and complained to The Baltimore Sun in a telephone message that he was fired from a recent job because of media inquiries.-- ''I've been in this field for a number of years, working until 3 o'clock in the morning, trying to counter this type of weapon of mass destruction, and, sir, my career is over at this time,'' Hatfill said.

8/1/02

• Manatees no threat to $60-million film
  After an emergency waiver to race in slow-speed zones is denied, a Columbia Pictures producer visits Gov. Jeb Bush. The chase is on.
• President wants Florida manatee settlement scrapped-- WASHINGTON — A federal judge ruled Wednesday the Bush administration must designate by Nov. 1 where it will create new areas to protect Florida's endangered manatees from boaters.- The Justice Department had asked U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan to scrap an agreement with environmentalists last year requiring the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to create 16 manatee sanctuaries and refuges, with reduced speed zones.-- Instead, Sullivan ordered the agency to say how it plans to establish 14 more refuges. The agency had created two but then delayed on the other 14, in deference to a request from Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
• Judge: Manatee zones must be designated by Nov. 1 
  A federal judge on Wednesday ordered Interior Secretary Gale Norton to show why she shouldn't be held in contempt for violating a 2001 settlement agreement in which the Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to designate new manatee refuges and sanctuaries throughout peninsular Florida. U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan also ordered the government to issue final designations of refuges and sanctuaries by Nov. 1
• Real help for manatees
  Not from the state, but from the courts.
• Education amendment supporters might unite
  TALLAHASSEE -- Supporters of three controversial and costly education measures might join forces in a bid to win voter approval of all three..
• Ex-opposer backs pre-K push
  State Rep. Carlos Lacasa spent the past two years as part of the House leadership that said Florida's finances were too thin to support pre-kindergarten classes for all, helping kill bills that pushed the issue in the Legislature.
• Amendment to limit class size nears enough signatures to appear on ballot - TALLAHASSEE - Overcoming stiff opposition from the governor and the Republican-led Legislature, a state lawmaker from Miami will apparently get his chance to ask voters in November to cap the number of students in public-school classrooms.
• Bush ripped for class-size stance
  Bill McBride, a Democratic candidate for governor, calls the governor a hypocrite.
• Governor touts plan to cut drug costs
  With a pharmacy counter as a backdrop, Gov. Jeb Bush on Wednesday touted a state program to cut prescription drug costs for the elderly, garnering applause from an audience of seniors and a barrage of criticism from Democrats who belittled the plan and accused him of blurring the line between governor and candidate for re-election.
• Plan targets cost of drugs
  Gov. Jeb Bush's plan addresses costs for some low-income seniors, but Democrats call it too little help for too few.
• Economist's candor will be missed
  The indispensable employee in any state capital is the one whose duty is to tell the governor and the Legislature what they don't want to hear. In Florida, that role has been filled, faithfully and fearlessly for 16 years, by a good-humored economist (yes, there is at least one) named Ed Montanaro. His resignation as director of the Legislature's Office of Economic and Demographic Research is the worst news to come out of Tallahassee this summer.
• McBride vows to increase DCF funds
  The candidate says he would raise pay, cut caseloads and hire more counselors.
• Let Sen. Jones debate
  The political manuvering surrounding televised debates is often more interesting than the actual event.
• Duval County, civil rights groups, reach election suit settlement - Duval County and civil rights groups have settled a lawsuit sued over widespread voting problems in the 2000 presidential election in Florida, county officials said.-- The county has agreed to replace voting machines, offer provisional ballots and add laptop computers at precincts under a settlement reached with the NAACP and four other groups
• REQUIRE MORE OF LOBBYISTS
  The annual disclosure of Miami-Dade County lobbyists' expenses is an ineffective way for the public to see how its money is spent in county contracts. Most lobbyists, even those with large client rosters, reported few expenses this year beyond the registration fees required of all lobbyists.
• Vandals destroy sign for Boca Raton Muslim center three times
  BOCA RATON — Vandals have destroyed a sign for a new mosque and Muslim cultural center for the third time this year, police said. The $900 sign announcing construction of the Assalam Center was set on fire Monday, according to Boca Raton police. The 48-by-96-inch vinyl sign was also burned in March, then the replacement sign was slashed about thirteen times with an ax on July 17, crime scene technicians said.
• Crime at synagogue, cemetery vexes town
  In Key West, known for tolerance, arson in a synagogue and overturned graves have disturbed local leaders. A congresswoman wants answers.
• Department of Health stress risk of eating raw oysters
  TALLAHASSEE — With the continuously warm temperatures in the state, the Florida Department of Health Wednesday is warning consumers of the risks of eating raw oysters. Officials said the risk of vibrio vulnificus, a bacteria commonly found in oysters and in the warm waters off the Gulf of Mexico, is low for healthy people but can be deadly for those with certain health conditions.
• The deadly state
  Florida has a weak seat belt law because members of the state Legislature like to pontificate about "freedom of choice" on the highways and make libertarian speeches about keeping the government "out of our cars."
• River's restoration back in federal hands
  The DEP still could play a role alongside federal agencies in restoring the Ocklawaha River..
• State may get chance to buy land near Rookery Bay
  A Palm Beach developer of a contentious set of condo towers planned near Rookery Bay yanked his rezoning request from this week's Collier County Commission meeting agenda with hopes that the state will offer the right price for his property in the environmentally sensitive area. The request, twice denied by county advisory boards, was continued indefinitely.
• Norwegian paying $1.5 million for cruise pollution
  MIAMI — The world's fourth-largest cruise line agreed Wednesday to pay a $1.5 million penalty for dumping waste oil and untreated waste water into the ocean and covering it up with mechanical tricks and false logs. Norwegian Cruise Line Ltd. pleaded guilty to keeping a false log book in April 2000 and admitted the company lied to the Coast Guard for three years about illegal discharges from its 2,030-passenger Norway liner.
• PROTECT WOMEN'S RIGHTS
  The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women is a clunky name for a very simple idea: equality. The treaty, which has been ratified by more than 170 countries, asks governments to grant females basic civil liberties like the right to an education and to run for office. But the United States, which already grants those rights, has let the treaty languish in the Senate since President Carter introduced it over two decades ago.
• Hollywood's bad demo
  The idea of letting record and movie studios hack into PCs to find pirated music and films is bad.
• Executive branch wants more power -- ...."If you like the idea of a government agency that is 100 percent secret and 0 percent accountable, you'll love the new Homeland Security Department," said Timothy Edgar, a legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union. He said administration plans to exempt Homeland Security Department decisions from the Freedom of Information Act will keep potentially harmful problems secret.-- Edgar said the citizens would not be able to find out about the health risks from uranium dumps stored underground, information on what caused railroad accidents, or the dangers from contaminated blood if the provision goes through.-- "It's difficult to see how allowing private industry to keep secret actions that expose Americans to tainted blood or radioactive material or caustic chemicals is a step in the right direction," Edgar said.

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