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Progress Florida and Florida Watch Action-- two influential progressive groups in the state-- have launched a preemptive attack on the influence of ALEC in the Florida Legislature. 

ALEC, or the American Legislative Exchange Council, is a pro-business political outfit that hands out model conservative legislation to state lawmakers who follow a conservative agenda.

Leaders from throughout the region meet in Jupiter later this week for the fourth annual Regional Climate Leadership Summit, and the timing couldn't be better. Or worse, depending on your perspective. 

Pounding surf and high tides from Hurricane Sandy's passage have put the issue front and center, especially in Fort Lauderdale.

Art Basel opens Thursday for the 11th year of staging the "most prestigious art show in the Americas."  

So, if anything is prestigious at Art Basel, everything must be prestigious at Art Basel. The New York Times describes the event this way: "bigger, richer, longer and, if it’s possible, snobbier than ever before."

What is the value of living on a golf course? Michael Rosenberg isn’t sure. And though he doesn’t play the game, he likes the idea of sitting on his deck and looking out at serene green fairways, not someone’s rusty barbecue pit or swing set.

It’s why he bought his home on the Calusa Country Club in South Dade, paying a premium for his four-bedroom home.

Cash and opportunity are on their way to 34 winners of the Knight Arts Challenge, announced last night in Miami. The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation selected the winners from 1,100 applicants.

The agendas probably say nothing about amends-making or damage control, but the mission is already clear as House and Senate elections committees begin hearings today in Tallahassee on overhauling Florida's elections system.

The lawsuit brought by Miami City Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones argues that Mayor Tomas Regaldo and Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle plotted to end her political career and ruin her reputation.

Just when it looked like it would be a good two years before the next major election campaign , Gov. Rick Scott and former Gov. Charlie Crist are at it already.

Though he rarely mentions his name, Scott was pretty clearly campaigning against his predecessor this weekend on the CBS4 show, "Facing South Florida With Jim DeFede." And Crist is losing no opportunities to tell potential voters how he objected and even blocked Republiucan voter law changes, signed into law by Scott,  that ultimately turned ordinary ballot-casting into an endurance challenge on election day.

As the state decides how to implement the Affordable Care Act,  which is also known as Obamacare, opponents of the new law converge on Tallahassee.

  Indiana's ousted education chief says he's applied for the Sunshine State's top schools job.

Tony Bennett lost his bid for reelection last month.

Bennett says he first met Jeb Bush after winning election as the Indiana's Superintendent of Public Instruction four years ago.

Since then, Bennett has taken education policies Bush first in Florida tried and brought them to Indiana. Those ideas are often called "The Florida Model."

City of Miami Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones is suing Mayor Tomas Regalado and state attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle for what she says is a plot to destroy her political career by accusing Spence-Jones of political corruption.

On Monday, Spence-Jones filed a lawsuit claiming that Fernandez Rundle and Richard Scruggs, the lead prosecutor in a case accusing Spence-Jones of corruption more than a year ago, misled key witnesses.

These criminal cases surrounding Spence-Jones turned out to be unsuccessful.

WLRN Public Television won three Emmy Awards for two documentaries and one promotion video this week.

WLRN was granted these prestigious awards  by The Suncoast Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, a nonprofit organization committed to honoring excellence in television.

WLRN‘s documentary Out of Darkness, Into Light received an award in the Societal Concerns category. The award went to producer Mia Laurenzo, director Doug Clark and editor Jamie March.

A state appeals court on Friday said the Florida Department of Health used an invalid rule to approve new trauma centers in Pasco, Manatee and Clay counties, handing a victory to nearby hospitals that have waged a long-running battle against the facilities.

Art Basel begins this week, and WLRN will be your guide.  In a special hour hosted by WLRN's arts editor, Alicia Zuckerman, we give you tips on what to see, and how.  Plus we look at the fair's history and how it's shaped Miami. 

After  helping direct a successful re-election campaign, a top Democratic official says President Obama wants South Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz to stay on as party chair.

Motorcycle deaths are on the rise in Florida. And within that finding is another story: older bikers  dying in increasing numbers.

University researchers say riding motorcycles is a popular hobby for retired Baby Boomers, many of whom rode when they were younger. But now, according to the Center for Urban Transportation Research at the University of South Florida in Tampa, their reflexes, eyesight and overall bike skills have eroded, and some of them are no longer safe on the road.

What would a plunge off the fiscal cliff mean in Florida?

Disaster, according to the data. Higher taxes, job losses and probably a recession because of curtailed consumer spending.

Governor Rick Scott says he's worried that Citizens Property Insurance could cost Floridians money when they can least afford it - after a major storm.

As more Floridians find jobs, the state's unemployment compensation trust fund is expected to have a surplus again in six months. The fund has been running a deficit for nearly four years.
 

Forty years ago, the U.S. House and Senate passed the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), an amendment adding language to the U.S. Constitution that says "equality under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex."

The amendment was the result of a historic surge of women's rights activism in the country. It took decades to get the amendment passed in Congress, but it did indeed pass at a federal level.

Miami-area Republicans helped the U.S. House pass legislation to give out more high skilled visas.

On The Florida Roundup: Hurricane season has officially ended.  South Florida was saved from any severe hurricanes, but we see the effects of climate change as beaches erode, roads crumble and flooding inundates parts of region.  

I am sorry, everyone, but a judge doesn't want to let us all in on some of the more "defamatory'' and "salacious" aspects of the saga of Jim Greer, the former Florida Republican Party leader who was accused of defrauding the party to the tune of $200,000.

To the TV watcher sitting with wide eyes, tightly crossed legs and an image burned indelibly into his mind:

Sorry about all the catheter commercials you've been seeing lately. Thought you'd like to know where they came from and why it's actually a good thing.

New Policy, New Market  

Some of your fellow Americans have just gotten a new medical benefit that they really needed, an increase from Medicare in their monthly catheter allotment from 24 to 200.

"Little Haiti" has lost perhaps the man who could be called its father and the man who is credited for the name.

Viter Juste has died at the age of 87.

He was born in La Gonaive, Haiti in 1924 and after first going to New York, he and his family made their way to Miami in 1973.

He started with a house in Buena Vista and a record store in downtown Miami, "Les Cousins."

That led to creating the first Haitian newspaper for the growing community,  Haitian Florida,  and the Haitian American Community Association of Dade.

Just two blocks west of Federal Highway in Fort Lauderdale, progressive metal band Neolythyc is rehearsing in a cramped, dark, converted garage.  The rehearsal space is just a stone's-throw from Holiday Park, the last known address of jazz legend Jaco Pastorius.

The four members of Neolythyc are all 17 years old, born nearly a decade after Pastorius's death in 1987.  But bass player Jerry Caceres refers to Jaco as "one of the old homies from down the block."

Forty-five-year-old Tammy Goss is sitting on a park bench in a small patch of green wedged between Dixie Highway and the FEC railroad tracks. Staring down from the southeast wall of the corner community center is a huge blue-toned mural of a man's face, his fingers curled around an electric bass guitar.  She knows his name.

“Jaco Pastorius, I think,” says Goss.

But that's all she really knows about John Francis Pastorius III.