Actress and comedian Sherri Shepherd, commenting Monday morning on ABC-TV's "The View," told viewers across America that "a real crime of the government shutdown" is that it had shut down the AMBER Alert program.

Not so in Florida, says the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

OK, Florida's unemployment rate has fallen to 7 percent, .03 percent better than the national average. But what cities in Florida are the best for finding a job? Ever think about that? Somebody has, and the answers might surprise you.

Officials from 16 South Florida counties disregarded the closed-for-business sign on Washington, D.C., Wednesday, meeting in the nation's capital with the Congressional Everglades Caucus to encourage water projects they believe will relieve pollution-assaulted waterways on both sides of Lake Okeechobee.

Included at the meeting were representatives of the counties within the South Florida Water Management District, including district officials themselves.

Independent Colleges and Universities of Florida (ICUF) announced Tuesday a significant increase in enrollment and availability of online degree programs offered by member institutions across the state.

A recent poll shows that Floridas independent colleges are currently offering 324 fully online degree programs, up 15 percent since last year. Nearly 32,000 (21 percent) of ICUFs 150,000 students are taking advantage of these programs.

The South Florida Water Management District governing board adopted its $622.2 million fiscal 2014 budget Tuesday night, funding the agencys core flood control and water supply missions as well as its continued progress to restore the South Florida ecosystem -- and that includes Americas Everglades.

More than 80 percent of the budget is invested in the environment, operations, and maintenance.

In Florida, there's never enough money to buy land, there's never enough money for education.

Legislators, parents, educators, and community activists will rally Thursday, starting with a press conference, 10:30 a.m. at the State Capitol in Tallahassee.

Here's a reminder list of the schedule of public workshops to supplement the remaining Senate Gaming Committee meetings Oct. 7, and during the weeks of Nov. 4 and Dec. 9, as approved by Senate President Don Gaetz:

-- Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2013, 47 p.m. (Eastern)
Broward College, North Campus, OMNI Auditorium

Even Democrat-friendly PolitiFact Florida set a match to Debbie Wasserman Schultz's pants over her bizarre defense of Barack Obama's military threat to Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.

The National Democratic Party chairwoman told CNN that Obama has more support for his Syria initiative than George W. Bush had for the Iraq War.

You knew it was going to happen, right? You knew the anti-gambling crowd would commission a gaming study of its own to throw at the Florida Legislature two weeks before the last part of their own Spectrum Gaming Study was due out.

Sure enough.

Sometimes God is good to conservative journalists. Thank you, God, for Marci Shatzman.

Shatzman, a reporter for the Sun-Sentinel Forum Publishing Group and not a conservative journalist, was covering a meeting Tuesday night of the West Boca Community Council when featured speaker Andre Fladell tore into the media.