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Tuesday's Daily Pulse
What You Need to Know About Florida Today
STEM education comes with a price tag
It's the jumper cables to America's dead battery, they say, the lighter fluid to a cooling economy. STEM education — science, technology, engineering and math — is being touted by lawmakers and business people as the key to future job creation and international competitiveness. But as campuses move to aggressively bulk up their STEM programs, they are grappling with an age-old question: How to pay for it? [Source: Tampa Bay Times]
Tropicana goes back to using only Florida oranges
PepsiCo Inc. is returning to using only oranges from Florida in its Tropicana Pure Premium orange juices, a decision made several months ago, before low levels of fungicide were found in oranges from Brazil, the company confirmed on Monday.
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Legislature's redistricting handiwork destined for courts
After more than two years of bickering over reforms meant to curb political abuses, the Florida Senate on Tuesday plans to debate maps for congressional and legislative districts that preserve Republican majorities and, its authors say, meet legal muster with Fair Districts.
But it will be far from the final word.
[Source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel]
» The Game of Redistricting
Should guns be banned in hospitals?
In Florida, it's against the law to carry a gun into a school, an athletic event, a jail, a police station or a local government meeting. Not so with hospitals, where it remains perfectly legal to pack heat. For years, Linda Quick of the South Florida Hospital and Healthcare Association has wanted to change that. Just before each session of the Legislature, when her group publishes its agenda, it includes a talking point: "Add 'licensed hospitals and nursing homes' to the Safety Zone provisions of the Concealed Weapons Law." The agenda item is once again on the association's list as the 2012 legislative session gets under way. [Source: Miami Herald]
Thieves casing abandoned buildings for scrap metals
Palm Beach County sheriff's Detective Alfredo Forgione says that unlike most law enforcement work, his job requires him to work backward. And as the only detective assigned full time to Palm Beach County's confounding issue of metal thefts, Forgione says it can make his job even more challenging. "It's getting to the point that the thefts are so overwhelming," he said. "(Thieves) are starting to target closed-down buildings now." [Source: Palm Beach Post]
Related:
» Two accused of dismantling dozens of Hernando AC units for parts
ALSO AROUND FLORIDA:
› What's missing from new Jacksonville ethics office? Money
Seven months after it was signed into law, Jacksonville's Office of Ethics, Compliance and Oversight still has no budget.
Its one employee, a director appointed last month, works part-time but hasn't drawn a city paycheck since leaving an earlier job in October.
She's hoping volunteers will help get the new office in gear — and that the city releases enough money for her to get paid again.
› UF students continue King legacy by helping community
It's an unusual way, to put it mildly, for University of Florida students to spend a day off -- pulling prickly pear cacti from the grounds of a cemetery. The volunteers at Prairie Creek Conservation Cemetery outside Gainesville were among more than 175 UF students marking Martin Luther King Jr. Day by doing community service. Students volunteered Monday morning at a dozen different area nonprofits, doing work such as sorting donations at a thrift shop and painting a home for single mothers.
› Miami Hurricanes alert boosters about stern new policy
The University of Miami, in the midst of the NCAA investigation into the Nevin Shapiro booster scandal, has taken extra measures to distance Hurricane boosters from student-athletes.
» Florida Sports Newsmakers in 2011
› Palm Beach County tourism office woos Brazilians who like to shop
Palm Beach County tourism leaders are looking forward this year to capturing more business from visitors who love to shop, and Brazilian tourists figure heavily into that strategy.
» Floridian of the Year
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