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Friday's Daily Pulse
What You Need to Know About Florida Today
Emerging Designers
Five Florida students and recent grads are already making their mark in the world of fashion and design:
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| A room by Sonika Fourie |
•Sonika Fourie - Senior, Ringling College of Art & Design, Sarasota
• Juliana Costa - 2006 graduate, Miami International
•Trang Dang - Senior, Ringling College of Art and Design, Sarasota
•Sandra Dressler - Senior, Institute of Interior Design at Southwest Florida College, Bonita Springs
•Adriana Castro - 2007 graduate, Miami International University of Art & Design, Miami
A New Kind of Ivory Tower
 Mark Howard, Executive Editor |
At the Emerging Pathogens Institute at the University of Florida, they don't give tours of the working labs on the upper floors of the institute's new, $60-million building. Access, even for researchers, comes only after an FBI background check. Even with that authorization, entry means passing a security officer, a handprint reader and a coded keypad. Then they must take off their street clothes and put on a surgical scrub-like outfit and a gas mask-type respirator to avoid inhaling any of the organisms they may be studying — nasty bugs like the West Nile Virus or MRSA, the antibiotic-resistant bacteria found in locker rooms and hospitals that can produce fatal septic shock. When the researchers leave the labs, their scrubs are destroyed, and they have to shower before dressing again. The work in the labs is high-tech stuff. Most broadly, the institute, which UF created in 2006, is interested in any new organism that causes disease in humans, animals and plants, including the citrus greening disease that plagues Florida's agricultural industry.
» Read November's Editor's Page
Second Wrongful Foreclosure Case in South Florida This Week
In the second South Florida foreclosure reversal this week, a Broward County court "vacated" the sale of a Fort Lauderdale man's home that had been sold out from under him, even though he bought the house with cash and never had a mortgage. The court order, made at the request of Bank of America, reversed the foreclosure sale of Jason Grodensky's house. Grodensky was the subject of a Sun Sentinel article about wrongful foreclosures last month. He and his father bought the house for cash and didn't owe money to Bank of America, but the lender had continued to pursue a foreclosure case that began with the previous owner. In July, Grodensky learned that his house had been sold in a foreclosure auction. The news comes one day after Bank of America disclosed that the court had also vacated the foreclosure sale of a Miramar homeowner's property — even though the homeowner had secured a mortgage modification. [Source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel]
Many Quirks in Florida's Sales Tax Laws
Christine Klein was happy to score a half-price deal on Arm & Hammer Scoopable cat litter at Petco. Her mood soured after discovering she was billed sales tax based on the full price of $38 for two bags. "Sure the difference was only $1.33," said the St. Petersburg retiree. "But that really adds up over millions of transactions." No question. But unfair or not, it's one of the a lesser known quirks in Florida sales tax law. Since 1965, Florida has required retailers to slap the state tax on the full price of taxable items bought with coupons or manufacturers' rebates. Few shoppers notice — the calculation is buried in the register tape and most coupon deals apply to foods which are tax-free. [Source: St. Petersburg Times]
Bill Clinton Pushed Kendrick Meek to Quit Florida Race
Bill Clinton sought to persuade Rep. Kendrick Meek to drop out of the race for Senate during a trip to Florida last week — and nearly succeeded. Meek agreed — twice — to drop out and endorse Gov. Charlie Crist’s independent bid in a last-ditch effort to stop Marco Rubio, the Republican nominee who stands on the cusp of national stardom. Meek, a staunch Clinton ally from Miami, has failed to broaden his appeal around the state and is mired in third place in most public polls, with a survey today showing him with just 15 percent of the vote. His withdrawal, polls suggest, would throw core Democratic voters to the moderate governor, rocking a complicated three-way contest and likely throwing the election to Crist. [Source: Politico]
RELATED:
» Florida Senate Candidate Denies He Was Asked to Quit
ALSO AROUND FLORIDA:
› Feisty CFO Race Features Senate President and Ex-lawmaker
In a statewide race that's received little public notice, chief financial officer candidate Loranne Ausley has resorted to a 400-mile bike ride to get her message out.
A lawyer and former Democratic state lawmaker from Tallahassee, Ausley is down in the polls and outgunned on TV nearly 3-to-1. She hopes when she finishes the ride Friday afternoon in West Palm Beach that voters will see she's a fighter. Her opponent, Jeff Atwater, doesn't need to bike. The Senate president from North Palm Beach has led most polls, including a survey for the Times/Herald that shows him up by 13 points. He's run a safe campaign, touting his fiscal conservative views early in the race before trying to tag Ausley as a tax-and-spend liberal in the closing weeks.
› Local History Inspires Young Playwright to Raise "Cane" at Florida Stage
The sparks fly when a Virginia playwright and a New York director discuss the unlikely topic of 1920s U.S. water policies, which created today’s threat of a water shortage, and served as inspiration for their new drama set in Florida.
“A couple of Aprils ago, there was only twenty-one days of water left here,” playwright Andrew Rosendorf said of the impetus for Florida Stage commissioning him to write Cane, which has its world premiere Friday night.
Director Louis Tyrrell told the same story, ending with “We were that close to turning on the tap and there being....” His fingers opened wide, indicating nothingness.
But audiences should not fear a preachy environmental diatribe or historical tract, Tyrrell said. “Andrew has written a page turner. It’s a feast both of epic and very personal proportions.”
With raging human emotions, a scene requiring a fight choreographer and a recreation of the 1928 hurricane blowing through the theater, “people are going to want to strap themselves in. This is going to be a ride,” he said.
› Supreme Court Upholds Sarasota Orioles Deal
Sarasota County did not violate public meetings laws when it struck a $31 million spring training deal with the Baltimore Orioles, the Florida Supreme Court ruled today. The timely decision means the county can issue $19 million in bonds and the city of Sarasota can issue $9 million in bonds to partially pay for the agreed-upon renovations to Ed Smith Stadium and Twin Lakes Park.
The county was concerned that it might miss an end-of-year deadline to qualify for federal stimulus to pay $4 million in interest on the county's bonds and another $2 million on the city's bonds.
Sarasota Citizens for Responsible Government filed a lawsuit challenging the Orioles deal and whether the county negotiated it in violation of Florida's Sunshine Law.
› Heat Home Opener Will Have Finals Feel
After nearly four months of hype that boosted sales of tickets and team gear, the most anticipated season in Miami Heat history brings the national sports spotlight home to the AmericanAirlines Arena on Friday night.
Friday night's game against the Orlando Magic opens 41 regular season home games for a Heat team infused with star power this summer when LeBron James and Chris Bosh joined Dwyane Wade. And while the NBA Finals are more than seven months away — with the Heat favored to win — all games this season are expected to have a Finals feel.
Although a couple hundred tickets remained for sale Thursday afternoon, a full house is expected. Fans are being urged to arrive early for the game being nationally televised on ESPN to avoid traffic and a protest rally planned nearby on Biscayne Boulevard by police and firefighters upset over pay cuts.
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› Melbourne Company Builds Powerful Homes
How would you like free electricity for the rest of your life? A burgeoning trend in homebuilding could make that a reality.
Melbourne builder LifeStyle Homes is reserving the final 14 lots in its Whispering Winds community for houses that could produce as much electricity as a typical family would use. The first of these homes is under construction.
Jake Luhn, LifeStyle's director of marketing, said such homes are the wave of the future.
"It is going to come in a hurry," he said.
These "Net Zero Energy" homes combine high levels of energy efficiency with roof-mounted photovoltaic cells to produce enough electricity that, over the course of a year, make them essentially self-sufficient.
› Zolfo Springs Ranch Site Yields a Rare Fossil Find
Sarasota attorney Bill Harrison was walking his 700-acre ranch after a summer rain when something peculiar caught his eye. Erosion had sheared the face from a 6-foot sandy clay embankment overlooking a exposed a true mystery. "When I saw that thing sticking out, I thought, 'What in the world would Indians have been doing so deep down in those layers?' It made me think maybe it was a piece of a big bull that had washed down the creek and bleached out."
Harrison began digging around, and soon found another bone.
After he e-mailed photos to family members, friends and the University of Florida, his discovery in August was confirmed as the massive molar and scapula -- part of the bony shoulder girdle -- of a mammoth species believed to have died off 11,000 years ago.
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