Unless President Obama and Congress change current law, our armed forces will face an indiscriminate, across-the-board cut or sequestration of more than $500 billion on Jan. 2, 2013.

With 50,000 people expected to converge on the Tampa area in a matter of days, all eyes turned to the Caribbean this week as Tropical Storm Isaac churned its way toward Florida and the Republican National Convention.

Twenty years after Hurricane Andrew flattened the southern part of the state, Gov. Rick Scott met repeatedly with local reporters and national networks and repeated a mantra befitting the state's head cheerleader: Come to Florida, we can handle a little wind and rain.

A tropical storm watch for Isaac is now in effect across the Florida Keys, and along Floridas east coast from the Jupiter Inlet south and on the west coast from south of Bonita Beach, Florida Bay and Lake Okeechobee.

But state emergency officials, who have supply lines pre-set to go out from Orlando and Jacksonville, say it remains too early, with the fate of the storms strength and direction depending upon its interaction with the hilly terrain of Cuba this weekend.

Florida's Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater is seeking a little give-and-take with a group of small-business owners that may assist efforts to revamp federal financial laws or identify state regulations that need to be repealed.

Following the Republican National Convention next week, Atwater will be participating in a small-business forum in Tampa with the Jim Moran Institute at Florida State University.

The forecast track for Tropical Storm Isaac continues to show a western move away from close contact with the Republican National Convention.

But the Florida Keys and the western side of the state, particularly the Panhandle, remain in the potential path of the storm that still must cross Haiti and a large portion of Cuba. And that could impact the strength of the storm.

For the convention, the potential for heavy impacts diminishes with the latest forecast.

While the focus will be on the scripted political gamesmanship this week in Tampa for the Republican National Convention, and the week after in North Carolina with the Democrats, Neil Cavuto and others at Fox Business Network intend to be digging for what the candidates will do about the economy.

He wants specific answers, not political retorts.

When Republicans formally nominate Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan next week, the race against President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden will be officially under way.

Floridas $1.6 billioninvestment in bioscience is yielding high returns, according to two reports published by the industry and presented at its annual conference in June.

Biotechnology (or biotech) is the use of living organisms in the development of useful products, most commonly in the diagnosis and treatment of disease and in the development of agriculture.