Tallahassee

Florida can once again brag about having the world's strongest magnet. Officials at Florida's National High Magnetic Field Laboratory said Tuesday they tested a magnet that is able to crank out more than 41 tesla of magnetic power, beating the record holder that comes from China  “This is a new world-record magnet,” explained Mag Lab Associate Director Eric Palm. “It’s a resistive magnet so we have to keep putting power into it and water through it to take the heat out of the magnet. And as long as we keep paying our power bill, we can keep running it.” 

The battle over boundaries for Florida's 27 congressional districts began in earnest Thursday, with a state House committee approving a plan while senators considered overhauling the same proposal --- and as a congresswoman continued pressing her case that the map would harm black voters.

Pointing to a time crunch, a Leon County circuit judge Wednesday gave the Florida Legislature little more than two months to draw new congressional districts and to defend them in court.

Judge George S. Reynolds III issued an order that said a special legislative session to redraw districts and a subsequent trial must be finished by Sept. 25. The order came after the Florida Supreme Court last week tossed out eight congressional districts because it found that lawmakers violated a 2010 constitutional amendment aimed at preventing gerrymandering.

A special session for the Florida State Legislature starts Monday in Tallahassee. And that's a good a time as any to revisit the history of the 200,000-city, which used to be just a town of the Old South.

Mark Silva, former Tallahassee bureau chief for the Miami Herald, wrote about the capital's past in a National Geographic story.