Friday's Daily Pulse

Posted 5/1/2015

Updated 9 yearss ago

Divided Legislature and Gov. Rick Scott can't agree on next step

Gov. Rick Scott and a bitterly divided Legislature darted in four different directions Thursday as Scott called for budget talks, senators suggested a special session in June, the House did not favor either idea and Democrats sued the House. Read more from the Tampa Bay Times and see Gov. Scott's statement at Florida Trend.

Florida Trend Exclusive
Cuba and Florida: 'Isolation does not lead to success'

Even before President Barack Obama and Raul Castro announced plans to begin normalizing diplomatic relations, the Aquario Nacional de Cuba began working on a joint-research agreement with the Florida Aquarium in Tampa. In this article, Florida Trend writer Jason Garcia interviews the director of the Aquario, Guillermo Garcia Montero. Montero laments the time wasted due to isolation and politics. Full story here.

From Florida Trend's May magazine:
» Interested parties: Florida businesses are watching Cuba's evolution
Many industries are watching the evolution of U.S. policy toward Cuba closely.

Water releases from Lake Okeechobee raise concerns for rivers and birds

Dirty water from Lake Okeechobee is once again threatening South Florida’s fragile ecosystem. With the arrival of the wet season and growing pressure on the lake’s aging dike, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced on Thursday that it would continue releasing water into the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers despite an algae bloom in and around the lake. [Source: Miami Herald]

Boeing, SpaceX seek to end reliance on Russia

If schedules stay on track, two new U.S. spacecraft could be ready to launch astronauts from the Space Coast in two or three years, resuming human launches from U.S. soil that ended with NASA's retirement of the space shuttle program in 2011. [Source: Florida Today]

Florida hospitals agree to settle Medicare-fraud allegations

Nine hospitals in the Jacksonville, Fla., area and a local ambulance company agreed to pay a total of $7.5 million to settle civil allegations that they defrauded Medicare with ambulance rides that were medically unnecessary. [Source: Wall Street Journal]

ALSO AROUND FLORIDA:

› Smaller investors take over home market [Sarasota Herald-Tribune]
Investors continue to dominate Southwest Florida's housing market, despite rising home prices and the diminishing availability of foreclosures, a new report shows.

› Manatee water park aims to be major attraction [Sarasota Herald-Tribune]
If a newly formed amusement park business and the county can strike a deal, “Lost Lagoon” — a water theme park to be built at a location visible from Interstate 75 — is expected to become a prominent recreation destination for area residents and visitors.

› Marco store relocates — into cyberspace [Naples Daily News]
Tom and Tiffany Wiebell have drawn a bead on where the future of their business lies. The conclusion? It’s not in an old-fashioned brick-and-mortar location; it’s on the World Wide Web.

› Toyota Corolla is bestselling brand in Florida [AutoBlog]
The Toyota Corolla is consistently one of the best-selling cars, not just in the United States, but in the entire world. Interesting, then, that the Corolla only manages to outsell all other nameplates in just one lone state: Florida.

Go to page 2 for more stories ...

› Profits growing at two South Florida banks [South Florida Sun-Sentinel]
Two of the largest banks based in South Florida — Sabadell United and Mercantil Commercebank — increased earnings, loans and deposits in a year.

› SunRail marks 1st year of service [Orlando Sentinel]
SunRail, the first fixed-rail mass transit system in Central Florida history, has yet to transform the way most people get around the region as it marks its one-year anniversary Friday.

› What's Southwest Florida's vision for sustainability? [Fort Myers News-Press]
With its beaches, estuaries, swamps, rivers, uplands and spectacular wildlife, Southwest Florida is, for many people, a subtropical paradise. But it's a paradise threatened by development, non-native plants and animals, excess nutrients and much more.

› Port Canaveral pushes cargo barge plan [Florida Today]
As Port Canaveral looks at its options for rail connections to its burgeoning cargo operations, it is pushing a new proposal: Shipping cargo by barge along the Indian River Lagoon from the port to existing rail lines in Mims.