Florida named one of the top states for business

Florida is once again the second-best state in the U.S. to do business, according to CEOs surveyed for a new report released Thursday by Chief Executive magazine. More at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and the Orlando Business Journal.

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Many outside groups aren't fighting to be part of special session

Special interest groups whose issues weren't resolved this spring have no guarantee they'll secure a spot on the agenda for the special session scheduled to start June 1. Texas was ranked No. 1, as it was in 2014, followed again by Florida. And many of them aren't even trying, opting instead for a rallying cry they might make after a more typical session: Wait until next year. [Source: Tampa Bay Times]

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Florida Originals
Bullets before breakfast:
Ma Barker's house is for sale

Before dawn on Jan. 16, 1935, as many as 25 FBI agents surrounded a two-story home in Ocklawaha near Ocala. Inside the house, most members of the Barker-Karpis gang were already gone, apparently tipped off to the coming raid. Today, the house is being offered to the state. The price: $1 million. Access full story.

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Gov. Scott files injunction to get federal hospital funds

After striking out with federal officials, Gov. Rick Scott accelerated his efforts Thursday to secure federal funding for hospitals’ care for the poor, filing an injunction aimed at preventing the Obama administration from ending the program. [Source: Orlando Sentinel]

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This is what CEOs give (and get) on Mother's Day

The National Retail Federation expects the holiday to ring up $21 billion in retail sales this year, and the promotions can be relentless. What do successful CEOs give and get on Mother’s Day? Five CEOs told Fortune their stories. [Source: Fortune]

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ALSO AROUND FLORIDA:

› Universal Parks and Resorts will create attractions based on Nintendo games [Orlando Sentinel]
Universal Parks & Resorts will create theme-park attractions based on Nintendo video games,. Nintendo is the creator of games such as Super Mario Bros. and Zelda.

› University of Miami to study the health effects of e-cigarettes [Miami Herald]
Electronic cigarettes, the plastic, light-up, 21st-century version of traditional smokes, have been marketed as the safe alternative to smoking, despite no studies on how they affect the human body — until now.

› Orlando drop in homeownership among biggest in US [Orlando Sentinel]
Metro Orlando's homeownership rate dropped by more than that of almost any metro area in the U.S. from 2010 to 2013, according to a study released Thursday by the National Association of Realtors.

› eMerge Americas conference wins praise [Miami Herald]
eMerge Americas gave South Florida’s technology community the stage this week, and reviews were quite favorable. It appeared that Miami — and the effort to build a tech hub for the Americas — may be starting to move beyond the buzz. The region is getting noticed.

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› Sarasota start-up plans to hire 150 by year's end [Sarasota Herald-Tribune]
A start-up that has the made the region its home base for outsourced sales and marketing campaigns expects to have 50 employees by the end of June.

› Tampa's Quality Distribution to be acquired by Apax private equity fund for $800 million [Tampa Bay Times]
Quality Distribution Inc., a publicly traded logistics and transportation company based in Tampa, will be acquired by the Apax Partners private equity firm. The transaction comes to about $800 million, including the assumption of debt, or $16 per share in cash.

› MIA travelers can soon shorten checkpoint waits with fingerprint or iris scans [South Florida Sun-Sentinel]
Travelers at Miami International Airport will soon have the option to shorten their wait to get through the dreaded security checkpoint — for a price. On May 20, a new secure identification option called CLEAR that verifies identities through fingerprints or iris scans will launch at the Miami airport.

› Central Florida's water agency roils with resignations [Orlando Sentinel]
Simultaneous and unexplained departures by four executives from the agency that protects Central Florida's wetlands, rivers and aquifer triggered complaints Wednesday that the moves were orchestrated to weaken the region's environmental safeguards.