Politics

Last summer, my father-in-law entered the hospital in Germany. My wife, Lu Mueller-Kaul, desperately wanted to be with him. But she was in this country on a complicated visa that forbids her from returning if she leaves. She stayed as her father suffered, cursing the unfair system.

TALLAHASSEE -- If your plan is to manufacture paella on an industrial, thousand-meals-a-batch scale, first thing you need is a truck. And a trailer, with a heat source. A giant cooking pan, maybe a dozen feet across. And, of course, a ton of food.

Literally a ton.

"It's maybe two thousand pounds of stuff," said Chef Bijan, the official paella chef of Miami-Dade Days at the state capitol. "Chicken, crab, shrimp, saffron, peppers."

A medical marijuana bill sponsored by two South Florida Democrats has reached the end of the line in Tallahassee.

Famed Cuban blogger and dissident Yoani Sanchez visited The Miami Herald editorial board Monday morning. We spoke to her in our studios with translation by WLRN's Patricia Sagastume.

Sanchez discussed the way people in Cuba perceive Miami, how she hopes to change things in Cuba through her blogging and the future for Cuba after the Castro regime ends.

You can read full coverage of her visit at miamiherald.com.

The public funding in the Marlins stadium deal has been called one of the biggest boondoggles in sports history. But hardly any stadium now is built with only private funds. Why do governments fund these facilities?

On April 1, opening day of Marlins' season, Rick Horrow with WLRN-Miami Herald News hosted a special roundtable, Foul Ball! The Future of the Marlins in Miami, a two-hour radio special on the impact of the Marlins stadium deal. Some of the guests included:

We're nearly halfway through the legislative session, and your roving Capitol bureau reporters are ready for a nap.

We'll need one, since the busiest days are still weeks away.

It was quiet at the Capitol in the days before Easter. So this seemed like a good time to share some observations made while covering the Florida Legislature.

Everybody chews gum. Lawmakers and lobbyists in particular can, in fact, walk and chew gum at the same time.

Animal welfare advocates are at odds with wildlife conservationalists as the Florida Senate prepares this week to look at a controversial feral cat bill. 

On The Florida Roundup, here are some of the items on our rundown:

Inspiring millions of virtual fans with heartfelt dispatches and persistent calls for greater political freedom, blogger Yoani Sanchez is the most visible symbol of both sweeping change inside Cuba and the modern power of social media to crack some of the world's most closed societies.