The Florida Cabinet unanimously reaffirmed Ash Williams as executive director of the state Board of Administration on Tuesday. Williams has overseen the state's pension system since October 2008, when he was signed to a $325,000 a year contract.

Three Florida Supreme Court justices are up for retention on the November ballot, and Sunshine State News is the onlynews source that is examining their judicial record.And for your convenience, we've created an entirely new section of our website to bring you the news nobody else is: "Are They Activist? A Look at Justices Pariente, Lewis, and Quince"

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Connie Mack, the congressman who chairs the House Western Hemisphere Subcommittee, strongly condemned reports on Monday that the United Nations is preparing to monitor the upcoming U.S. election. That's a service U.S. citizens traditionally perform for fledgling and shaky democracies, he said.

Rosemary Goudreau, co-founder of floridavoices.com, began this morning as editorial page editor of the Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale. In a column today on the all-opinion website, Goudreau said she and business partner Rosemary Curtiss will continue to keep the 11-month-old site going.

Tim Tebow popularized the act of dropping to one knee to give thanks to God during football games, and now he owns the trademark for it.

A potential hurdle for Charlie Crist if he wants to run for the Governors Mansion as a Democrat says he isnt running. Florida Democratic Party Chairman Rod Smith said on the Bay News 9 roundtable show Political Connections that hes wont run enter the 2014 gubernatorial contest, according to the St. Petersburg Times.

Jesse Phillips, President of Restore Justice 2012, has formally invitedFlorida Supreme Court Justices Barbara Pariente, R. Fred Lewis, and Peggy Quince "to debate whether these Justices merit retention" on the November ballot.

Sources close to Democratic state Rep. John Patrick Julien of North Miami have told Sunshine State News the Haitian legislator is "considering a party switch," in light of treatment he's received at the hands of the Florida Democratic Party. The news comes just one day after Julien's attorney, former Republican state Rep. J.C. Planas, told the News his client would "probably" be appealing his August primary election defeat to the Florida House of Representatives.

A just-out CNN/ORC poll of likely voters in Florida shows President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney statistically tied once again. The race has been wandering back and forth between red and blue here in the Sunshine State for the past month.

A month after the federal government rejected Floridas request for disaster assistance after Hurricane Isaac, the White House has reversed itself. Gov. Rick Scott announced Friday that Florida has received a Presidential Declaration to assist the 11 counties -- Bay, Collier, Escambia, Franklin, Gulf, Martin, Monroe, Okaloosa, Palm Beach, St. Lucie and Santa Rosa -- impacted by the storm in August.

Gov. Rick Scott has ordered state and national flags lowered to half-staff on Saturday at Floridas Capitol, the Hillsborough County Courthouse and Tampa City Hall for former congressman and state legislator Sam Gibbons.

Gov. Rick Scott will be in at the Saint Frances Barracks Parade Field in St. Augustine Friday afternoon to attend the retirement ceremony for Gen. Craig McKinley. McKinley, an Air Force general, was the 26th chief of the National Guard Bureau.He has served in that position since 2008. He is the first officer from the National Guard to ever achieve the grade of a four-star general. The ceremony gets underway at 3 p.m.

The unemployment mark for Florida dipped to 8.7 percent in September, down 0.1 percent from August and July. The state Department of Economic Opportunity noted the mark is 1.7 percentage points below where Floridas unemployment stood in September 2011. Florida still lags behind the U.S. unemployment rate of 7.8 percent.

Shortly after concluding arguments on behalf of client Rep. Mack Bernard, D-West Palm Beach, before a three-judge panel of theFlorida 1st District Court of Appeal, former Republican state representative J.C. Planas told Sunshine State News another of his clients, Rep. John Patrick Julien, D-North Miami, will "probably" be appealing his own trial court defeat to the Florida House of Representatives. "We're looking at a House challenge," Planas told the News.

Gov. Rick Scott slipped in his 14th Lets Get to Work" Day on Thursday, heading to Orlando where he spent time in the Florida Department of Law Enforcements Orlando Regional Operations Center.Scott spent time as a crime lab analyst, processed DNA evidence from local agencies, checked out a gun in the firearms section and went online with the cybercrimes unit in their pursuit of computer criminals including online predators.