Holiday shopping kicks off next Tuesday for Floridians, and spending will be up, according to AAA. Half of the holiday shopping in Florida will be conducted between Nov. 15 and Dec. 14, up from 46 percent in 2010. More importantly for retailers, the Fourth Annual AAA Consumer Pulse Holiday Shopping survey projects that 67 percent of Floridians will spend between $251 and $750 on gifts this year.Last year, 58 percent of Floridians expected to spend between those numbers.

The police union wont be able to run its president for top cop in Fort Myers, as voters rejected the idea of making the chief an elected position. More than 60 percent of the voters in the Southwest Florida city on Tuesday decided to keep Chief Doug Baker in the position hes held for three years.

Liberals and conservatives each scored victories in Ohio Tuesday, with voters overturning restrictions on collective bargaining by public employees and opposing the Obamacare requirement to buy health insurance. Labor unions from around the country spent more than $25 million to overturn a state law that barred government workers from collectively negotiating pensions and health-care benefits. The law, championed by Republican Gov. John Kasich, also banned public-sector strikes, scrapped binding arbitration and eliminated annual pay raises for teachers.

Reiterating his rejection of sexual harassment allegations, GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain said, "I have never acted inappropriately with anyone. Period." Speaking at a press conference in Scottsdale, Ariz., Cain addressed separate claims leveled by former National Restaurant Association workers Sharon Bialek and Karen Kraushaar. Cain said he did not even recall Bialek when he saw her appear on television Monday with her attorney, Gloria Allred.

A 22 percent increase in foreign-owned companies in the Tampa Bay area is boosting the region's focus on international business. A study by the Tampa Bay Partnership identified 480 foreign-owned companies from 41 nations operating in the eight-county region. That's up from 2009, when a similar Foreign Direct Investment Study counted 394 companies representing 34 countries. Some 41,500 workers are currently employed by the foreign firms, the report said. That's a 12 percent increase from the 37,000 jobs identified in the 2009 study.

Businesswoman and Republican congressional hopeful Karen Harrington unveiled the endorsements of two state representatives as she continues to build for a rematch with South Florida Democrat U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Harrington announced on Tuesday that she had won the backing of Rep. Chris Dorworth, R-Lake Mary, and Rep. Jeannette Nunez, R-Miami.

On Tuesday, business and policy leaders from the Sunshine State unveiled a new organization -- the Florida Coalition for the New Economy (CNE). CNE is looking to ensure that businesses will be able to offer greater coverage and more efficient Internet services across the state, while limiting the role of the public sector.

Democrat Alvin Peters, defeated in a bid for Panama City mayor earlier this year, has his eyes now set on Congress. An attorney, Peters has filed paperwork to take on freshman Congressman Steve Southerland, R-Panama City, and independent challenger Nancy Argenziano in 2012. We need jobs now, Peters said during a media announcement at the Florida Press Center. Our current Congress is a do-nothing, against-everything Congress. We dont have the time or the patience for more gridlock and obstruction.

Republican presidential hopeful former Gov. Jon Huntsman of Utah is sinking in most state and national polls but he still retains a bastion of support in New Hampshire, home of the first presidential primary. While Huntsman is doing better in the Granite State than anywhere else, he is far behind former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts in New Hampshire. Huntsman looked to turn that around when, on Tuesday, he launched an all-out attack on Romney. The Huntsman camp launched a new website and a new video attacking Romney.

A week after Gov. Rick Scott suspended the supervisor of elections in Madison County following her arrest, no one has applied for the $76,419 a year job. Meanwhile, Greene Publishing Inc., which publishes the Madison Enterprise Recorder, reported the governors office has received two applications for Madison County School Board.

Most books by former presidents are easily forgettable (as anyone who has ever read Gerald Fords "A Time to Heal" can attest), but there is at least one major exception among the men who occupied the White House in the 20th century. During his more than three decades of life after losing the 1932 presidential election to FDR, Herbert Hoover penned an interesting three-volume autobiography and a fascinating study on the presidency of Woodrow Wilson.

American Crossroads, a conservative political organization with ties to many prominent Republican leaders including legendary strategist Karl Rove, released a Web video on Tuesday featuring Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi attacking the record of President Barack Obama. In the video, Barbour bashes Obamas record on the economy and calls for electing Republicans in 2012.

Fresh off a trade mission to Sao Paulo, Brazil, Gov. Rick Scott said Tuesday hewill be off to Israel next month for a similar endeavor. But first hes going to do another of his Lets Get to Work days later this week in Immokalee, before he attends a Council of 100 meeting Friday in the Naples area, Scott said on Trey Radel radio show on 92.5 FOX in Southwest Florida this morning.

Gov. Rick Scott appointed Robert G. Panse, who has been senior attorney for the South Florida Water Management District since 1992, to a seat on the Palm Beach County Court. With experience as a government lawyer, a private practitioner and a prosecutor, Robert brings to the bench an understanding of the law, as well as an awareness of the needs of those who will appear before him as a county judge, Scott stated in a release. I am confident he possesses a strong commitment to justice, fairness and the rule of law.

The Florida Supreme Court on Monday unanimously reaffirmed the death penalty for Oba Chandler, who is sentenced to die Nov. 15 at Florida State Prison in Raiford. No motion for rehearing will be entertained by this court, the justices wrote. Chandler, through appointed counsel, had sought to overturn a ruling from a circuit court in Pinellas County that supported his three sentences of death. Gov. Rick Scott signed the death warrant last month for Chandler.