After a British soldier wearing a Help for Heroes charity T-shirt was run over, stabbed and slashed with machetes and a meat cleaver, and beheaded, the Tory government advised its soldiers that it is probably best not to appear in uniform on the streets of their capital.

In spite of the Sunshine State's declining unemployment rate, the number of Floridians on food stamps -- now called SNAP benefits -- has risen in alarmingly, actually doubling in five years.

In 2008,1.45 million people were signed up in Florida; today more than 3.5 million people are enrolled.

In a 5-2 decision, the Florida Supreme Court has ruled that public defender's offices can seek permission from trial courts to stop taking on new cases, if they can demonstrate that their offices are overloaded with clients and cannot provide effective representation to new ones.

Justice Peggy Quince wrote the opinion on behalf of herself and Justices Barbara Pariente, R. Fred Lewis, Jorge Labarga, and James E.C. Perry. Chief Justice Ricky Polston wrote a dissent that was joined by Justice Charles T. Canady.

Thanks to its zero percent personal income tax rate, lack of a death tax, and relatively few government regulations on businesses, Florida is back in the top 10 among states in terms of its economic outlook, according to a report published Thursday by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

A relatively new St. Petersburg-based insurance company with a few deep Tallahassee ties was given the go-ahead on the eve of the 2013 hurricane season to be paid to acquire policies from Citizens Property Insurance Corp.

The Citizens board Wednesday narrowly gave approval for Heritage Property & Casualty Insurance Co. to take out up to 60,000 policies from among Citizens' less-risky personal lines accounts and coastal accounts, with the company getting up to $52 million from the state-backed agency.