Housing figures released Wednesday were good news for Florida, with prices and sales both increasing in August from a year earlier, according to statistics released by Florida Realtors.

Sales of single family homes in Florida rose 10.8 percent in August from a year earlier, while pending sales --those signed but not closed upon --jumped 40.2 percent from August 2011. Pending sales tend to close within 90 days.

The continuing collapse of marriage in America, along with a dramatic rise in births to single women, is the most important cause of childhood poverty.

The greatest challenge to Florida's economic growth will be fostering a dynamic business climate, one that embraces our legacy as a great tourist destination, but that also positions Florida as the ideal state for private capital investment.

As another member of the retired space shuttle fleet has been ferried forever out of Cape Canaveral, a group of congressmen, including U.S. Rep. Bill Posey, R-Rockledge, wants to make changes to how the space agency is run.

The effort is aimed at reducing turnover in leadership and removing politics as projects are moved from start to finish.

Gov. Rick Scott is standing by his number on jobs created since taking office as he expressed hope that job growth trends would not return to a downward slide when the latest unemployment numbers arrive on Friday.

Scott, who campaigned on a promise of creating 700,000 jobs in seven years and maintains that outlook, repeatedly pointed on Tuesday to the figure of 130,000 private jobs having so far been created in Florida since January 2011.

Florida Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater on Tuesday cautioned the state-backed property insurer to proceed with caution as it considers spending $350 million upfront to reduce its number of customers.

Speaking to reporters following a meeting of the governor and Cabinet, Atwater said he is generally supportive of efforts by Citizens Property Insurance Corp. to reduce its policy count by up to 350,000 by offering low-interest loans to companies willing to take on some of the business. Citizens now handles more than 1.4 million policies.

WASHINGTON -- What's a day without a leaked video, a scandal, an unintended sliver of truth?