This Weeks News In Florida

The Republican Party of Florida was sued Wednesday for $237,000 it received from Scott Rothstein's defunct Fort Lauderdale law firm. Rothstein donated to the party from accounts of his law firm, Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler, on more than 10 occasions, states the lawsuit filed in federal bankruptcy court.

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) Bypassing the federal stalemate that has blocked the use of $130 million in state funding approved this past spring, officials in Florida's Collier County have approved using $28 million in existing county funds as a one-year loan to The Jackson Laboratory toward the first-year startup costs of its planned personalized medicine campus near Naples.

Florida Great-grandmother Nearly Loses Tooth After Biting Purse Snatchers

LOCAL LABOR NEWS: Those "inevitable" furloughs for Pinellas teachers disappeared in negotiations Monday. Hillsborough teachers are likely to see their health benefit costs rise . SEX ED: Flagler schools and community groups aim to move sex education away from abstinence only and make the lessons more real, FlaglerLive.com reports. BUILDING LESSONS: Fledgling architects learn tools of the trade ...

A SPECIAL PLACE: Tiny New College in Sarasota aims to excel , and makes its point with its string of Fulbright scholars. (Times photo, Stephen Coddington)  DOWNWARD DIVE: Florida educators worry that school grades will drop because of this year's challenged FCAT results, the Orlando Sentinel reports. COLLEGE BOUND? Surveys indicate that fewer Lee County students are headed to higher education ...

REJECTED: Phi Beta Kappa denies the University of South Florida a chapter again. MISLEADING: The Florida Education Association sues to keep Amendment 8 regarding class size off the November ballot . PAY UP: NCS Pearson faces another $12 million in fines for its FCAT failures. UNTRUE: Talk of Hillsborough schools adopting weekly early release days is  greatly exaggerated . NEVER MIND: Pinellas ...

TOUGH TALK: Pinellas schools superintendent Julie Janssen wants to crack down on unexcused absences . (Image from KFYR-TV ) REACCREDITED: Pasco-Hernando Community College receives reaccreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. NEW TURNAROUND GURU: The Florida Department of Education replaces its Northeast Florida regional director of accountability , the Florida Times ...

The good news: The Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation (AWI) says the state's unemployment rate has fallen to 11.7 percent, the second month in a row that it's dropped. The bad news: Take away hiring for temporary U.S. Census jobs and it's still pretty ugly. Here's a closer look at the numbers

Sorry to deliver some sad news ... The daughter of former Florida State linebackers coach Joe Kines, Susan Kines Langston, died in an automobile accident on Monday in Alabama, the Tuscaloosa News reported. Mrs. Langston was 43. Her two sons were airlifted to a Birmingham hospital after the drash in which an 18-year driver in a Ford Explorer crossed the center line into on-coming traffic and hit ...

New Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher hasn't minced words about the non-conference schedule he's inherited -- games against Division I-AA samford to open followed by games at Oklahoma, against BYU and then the regular-season finale against Florida. Not exactly the lineup you see from teams that are in the national championship conversation. And if it were up to him, you wouldn't see his Seminoles ...