Gov. Rick Scott is scheduled to be in Central Florida today for a second day ofceremonial signing of the state budget. He will also sit down with the Orlando Sentinel editorial board. The hour-long editorial board meeting is on his schedule for 9:30 a.m. The budget ceremonies will be held at noon at Tangelo Park Elementary in Orlando and 2:45 p.m. at Sam Rampello Downtown Partnership K-8 School in Tampa.

Among the $142.7 million that Gov. Rick Scott vetoed from the state budget for the next fiscal year, was $63.1 million that had been identified by the budget watchdog group Florida TaxWatch as fiscal "turkeys."

The American Conservative Union announced on Tuesday that it is backing U.S. Rep. Connie Mack for the Republican nomination to challenge Democrat incumbent U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson in November.

Gov. Rick Scott signed a budget that increases education spending by $1 billion from last year, while slashing $142.7 million from individual legislators' projects such as the Science and Discovery Center of Northwest Florida, the Frank Lloyd Wright House at Florida Southern College and the Bay of Pigs Museum in Miami. The hallmark of the $70 billion budget for Scott was education, using the A-rated Cunningham Creek Elementary School in St. Johns County at noon Tuesday as the backdrop for signing the 2012-2013 budget.

Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland, expressed, in a letter on Tuesday, being very disappointed that Gov. Rick Scott hasnt met with her and University of South Florida-Polytechnic students, while he did so with the primary champion of the effort to speed up the creation of the states 12th public university. But that hasnt stopped her from continuing to push Scott to slow down the split of the Lakeland campus into an independent university by vetoing the bill.

The states budget wont see the slashing that occurred a year ago, Gov. Rick Scott said Tuesday morning, as he prepares for the ceremonial signing of the states $70 billion budget. Scott said the number of vetoes this year will be substantially less than the $615 million slashed a year ago, as those backing individual line items have done a better job showing the economic return on the investments.

Gov. Rick Scott wouldnt say if a state investigation is underway into the $10,000 bounty the New Black Panther Party placed on the apprehension of George Zimmerman prior to his arrest in the Feb. 26 shooting of Trayvon Martin in Sanford. But Scott said "any time someone is putting a bounty on someone's head you ought to be looking at that" and there is no need for vigilantes in this state, when speaking on WOKV 690 AM in Jacksonville Tuesday morning.

A group of former astronauts and the leader of Mission Control are pleading with NASA to cool it on "global warming." In a letter to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, Apollo 7 astronaut Walt Cunningham and fellow space farers maintain that, The global-warming hypothesis has never been proved look at the data." The signatories, who include Mission Control boss Chris Kraft, charged that the agency is endangering the reputation of science itself by advocating the extreme position that carbon dioxide is the major cause of climate change.

Prior to todays budget signing ceremonies, Gov. Rick Scott is scheduled to meet with the editorial board of the Florida Times Union. The meeting with the Jacksonville newspaper is scheduled for one hour starting at 10 a.m. The budget signing ceremony is set for noon at Cunningham Creek Elementary in St. Johns. A second, ceremonial signing ceremony will be held at 2:10 p.m. at Margaret K. Lewis Exceptional School in Panama City Beach.

The Heartland Institute, which was among the groups that unsuccessfully called for Gov. Rick Scott to veto Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnams energy bill, released the following comment:

State Rep. Fred Costello, R-Ormond Beach, affirmed Monday that he will seek the GOP nomination in the 6th Congressional District. Costello told Sunshine State News he waited until April 15 to "be sure" that Rep. John Mica, R-Orlando, would not be returning to CD 6. Mica has opted to run against freshman Rep. Sandy Adams in the neighboring 7th Congressional District.

Blaming everything from the Arab Spring to the earthquake in Japan, President Obama has dodged responsibility for the lousy state of the U.S. economy. Ironically, Obama has also said he would make "no excuses" for any shortcomings in his policies. That haunting statement is echoed repeatedly in a new GOP-produced video, which includes a snippet from Fort Myers.

Gov. Rick Scott is scheduled to attend the groundbreaking for the Arthrex manufacturing plant in Ave Maria on Monday morning.Arthrex specializes in minimally invasive orthopedic surgery products and physician education. The construction cost for the plant is $25 million; another $8 million or more will be spent on equipment, according to the Naples Daily News.

The space shuttle Discovery, which completed 39 missions, spent 365 days in space, orbited the Earth 5,830 times, and traveled 148,221,675 miles, is to be lifted off for its final flight out of Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday. Residents along the Space Coast may be able to see the retired craft as it is flown to its new home at the National Air and Space Museum, Udvar-Hazy Center in Washington, D.C., on the back of the shuttle carrier aircraft as the 747.

Gov. Rick Scott released the following comments after spending his eighth Lets Get to Work! day on Friday at Tampa International Airport. Tourism remains a top job creator and a leading driver of Floridas rebounding economy, Scott stated in a release. Floridas tourism success is directly linked to the people who work at our airports to help our visitors have a great travel experience.