A Tri-Rail bidder has gone to court to halt the award of a $100 million locomotive contract. The South Florida Regional Transportation Authority, which oversees the three-county commuter line, is scheduled to announce the winner of the nine-figure contract at its board meeting Friday. But one of the finalists, MotivePower Inc., filed a petition for injunctive relief with Broward County Circuit Court on Wednesday. Sunshine State News has the full story here.

Florida Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, over at the site of iconic conservative magazine National Review,offered his thoughts on the uprisings that have shaken Libya.

For a final time, the NASA Space Shuttle Discovery launch is set for 4:50 p.m. Thursday. The six astronauts assumed their seats inside space shuttle Discovery. According to NASA, Commander Steve Lindsey and Pilot Eric Boe are in the forward seats on the flight deck. Mission Specialists Alvin Drew and Nicole Stott are set in the seats behind them. Steve Bowen and Michael Barratt are strapped in on the lower level.

With news breaking that authorities arrested a Saudi Arabian student attending school in Texas for plotting terrorist attacks, including one targeting former President George W. Bush, Florida Republican U.S. Rep. Gus Bilirakis repeated his call for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to crack down on student visas.

Concerned about prescription drug abuse, the House Health and Human Services Committee mulled over controlled substances on Thursday

The Senate Rules Committee voted unanimously Thursday to send a letter of admonition to their leader, Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, for an ethics violation. Haridopolos admitted last year to unintentionally leaving out information on his financial disclosure forms from 2004 through 2008.

A new poll from Rasmussen Reports showed that Americans disapproved, by a wide margin, of Democratic legislators in Wisconsin fleeing the state to avoid a bill to cut benefits for state employees. Only 25 percent of likely voters backed the Democrats while 67 percent disapproved of their tactic. The poll found that, even among Democratic voters, there was significant opposition to the strategy with 44 percent of them disapproving. The poll of 1,000 likely voters took place on Feb. 22-23 and had a margin of error of +/- 3 percent.

At 4:50 p.m. Thursday, the space shuttle Discovery will be launching from Cape Canaveral. Since first taking off in 1984, this will be the Discoverys 39th and final mission before being decommissioned. This makes the Discovery the most traveled space ship in history. The Discovery took part in a number of milestones for the American space program, including the 100th space shuttle mission and John Glenn's return to space. The launch can be watched online at NASAs website.

"Awake the State" rallies by government workers and their not-so-merry band of sympathizers are shaping up for March 8. Coinciding with the opening of the 2011 Legislature, activists announced protests in nine Florida communities: Clay County, Cape Coral, Daytona Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Ocala, Orlando, Tampa, and West Palm Beach. Hmmm. Where's Tallahassee? Progress Florida, an organizer of the events, said there will be a rally in the capital city, but that details were not yet available.

Attorney General Pam Bondi, fresh off a meeting of the state clemency board on Thursday, announced her opposition to the automatic restoration of the civil rights of convicted felons. Here is the statement from her office:

What does Republican U.S. Rep. Rich Nugent, a member of the Tea Party Caucus, want to do with the $2.4 billion in federal funds rejected by Gov. Rick Scott for high-speed rail -- pay down the national debt or use them for other transportation projects in Florida? Nugent said last week that he backed the governors decision and hoped the monies would be used to pay down the national debt.

In the latest round of the states constitutional challenge to the federal health-care law backed by President Barack Obama, Attorney General Pam Bondi responded to the U.S. Department of Justices latest motion and called for the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case as soon as possible.

Along with Democratic U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler of North Carolina, Florida Republican U.S. Rep. Cliff Stearns introduced the National Right-To-Carry Reciprocity Act on Wednesday which would mandate that states recognize concealed firearm permits from other states.

With Medicaid reform looming as one of the largest challenges confronting the Legislature in 2011, Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, is looking to reach out to as many Floridians as possible in explaining why the program needs to be tweaked. Negron released a video on Wednesday in which he asked for more public input and offered some of the details of the pending legislation.

Days after the announcement of a March 8 tea party rally in Tallahassee, another tea group unveiled plans for a March 10 demonstration. The second event, headed by controversial tea party activist Everett Wilkinson, echoes the first in rallying support for Gov. Rick Scott's budget cuts. "Scott is receiving pushback and verbal attacks because of his cost-cutting ideas. We must drown out the opposition and show him our support," Wilkinson said in his e-mail announcement Wednesday night.