Maintaining that he could win if he ran, real-estate mogul Donald Trump announced Monday that he would not pursue the GOP presidential nomination. In a statement, Trump said:

Republicans almost never nominate dark horses for the presidency. While it happened with some regularity in the Gilded Age with the rises of Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield and Benjamin Harrison, the GOP usually relied on front-runners and familiar faces during the 20th century to carry their standard, with a few exceptions (Warren G. Harding and Wendell Willkie come to mind).

Shortly after the space shuttle Endeavor launched into orbit from Cape Canaveral on its final flight, Gov. Rick Scott took to the airwaves to give the Space Coast a boost. The Atlantis shuttle is tapped to be the last space shuttle flight later this summer, and the end of the shuttle program also signals the end of thousands of jobs directly and indirectly linked to the shuttle missions.

Space shuttle Endeavor blasted off on schedule Monday morning, making its final voyage. The launch from Kennedy Space Center was flawless, as the orbiter rocketed into the clear blue Florida sky. The final voyage of Endeavor, which replaced the ill-fated Challenger in 1992, is the penultimate shuttle mission. Atlantis is scheduled to close out the 30-year shuttle program with a final flight sometime this summer.

A straw poll by Tea Party Fort Lauderdale affirms that the Republican Party's presidential candidates aren't bowling over the voters. Notching another straw vote victory, Godfather's Pizza exec Herman Cain topped a disparate field, receiving 18.5 percent of the first-place votes and 16 percent of the second-place ballots cast. Mitt Romney finished second with 13.5 percent of the first-place votes, followed by Ron Paul with 12 percent.

All systems -- and the weather -- are favorable for Monday morning's scheduled launch of the space shuttle Endeavor. The final scheduled voyage of the orbiter was set for launch at 8:54 a.m. It is the penultimate shuttle mission, with Atlantis scheduled for the program's final flight sometime this summer.

A straw poll by Tea Party Fort Lauderdale gave former Florida House Majority Leader Adam Hasner 50 percent of the first-place votes in the crowded GOP contest for U.S. Senate. Hasner collected a commanding 62 percent of the first- and second-place ballots cast in the May 7-14 survey. Mike McCalister had the next-best showing, garnering 12 percent of the first-place votes and 24.5 percent of the second-place ballots.

Staking out his own RINO preserve, GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich denounced the House Republican plan to privatize Medicare as too "radical." Taking on Rep. Paul Ryan's effort to control entitlement spending, the former House speaker called it "too big a jump." "I don't think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering," Gingrich said on "Meet the Press" Sunday morning. "I don't think imposing radical change from the right or the left is a very good way for a free society to operate."

Muslim-American leaders are expressing "shock" over the arrests of two Miami area imams charged with providing $50,000 to the Pakistani Taliban. Nezar Hanze of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said Saturday at a news conference, "I was very shocked. I was very shocked, just as other members of the community were shocked."

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the International Monetary Fund and considered a leading candidate to be the next president of France, was hauled off an airplane at JFK airport Saturday and arrested for a sexual assault at a New York hotel earlier in the day.

The more authorities pore through records confiscated during the Navy SEALs' raid on Osama bin Laden's compound, the more we discover what was going on in his obsessed, full-of-hatred-for-Americans mind. The latest discovery, says ABC News, was that, in his writings, the al-Quaida leader constantly urged his followers to kill President Barack Obama and do everything they could to disrupt the 2012 elections. He couldn't stand to see Obama on television, say analysts, and would change the channel whenever the American president was shown.

Six people in Florida and Pakistan have been charged with providing financing and material support to the Pakistani Taliban, Reuters reported Saturday. Three of the accused, who are all originally from Pakistan, were U.S. citizens arrested in South Florida and Los Angeles. They include two imams, or Muslim religious leaders, from mosques in Florida, Reuters said. The other three charged were living in Pakistan and are still at large, the report said.

The St. Pete Times is a little behind the times. A blog posted Friday related: "Palm Beach County Republican Party chairman Sid Dinerstein plans to ask the state GOP's executive committee [Saturday] to pass a resolution calling on Gov. Rick Scott to call a special legislative session ... to pass an E-Verify immigration bill." That idea was addressed by the governor himself in a Sunshine State News interview last Tuesday -- and he said no. Here's our question and Scott's answer:

Ethnic tensions bubbled to the surface in Miami-Dade's mayoral race as non-Spanish speaking candidates complained they were excluded from a debate this week. The debate, broadcast by Spanish language TV channel Univision, included just four of 11 candidates. Univision said it had invited the top four fund-raisers -- Jose "Pepe" Cancio, Carlos Gimenez, Marcelo Llorente and Julio Robaina -- all of whom are Spanish speakers. The seven other candidates who were not invited are not Hispanic.

Before being elected as state CFO in 2010, Jeff Atwater served as the state Senate president -- so its no surprise that he is backing current state Senate President Mike Haridopolos in the Republican primary to take on Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson in 2012.