The state has already had 1,200 wildfires since the start of the year, consuming 20,000 acres.

And Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam said conditions are ripe for a repeat of 2011 for state firefighters.

The same conditions that created a very significant and active wildfire season last year are still present in the state, Putnam told reporters Wednesday.

The race for the Republican presidential nomination takes a lull until April 24 when five states in the Northeast -- Connecticut, Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island -- hold their primaries. Polls of two of those key states, unveiled on Thursday, show that Mitt Romney is ahead despite Rick Santorums roots in the area.

With 94 delegates to the Republican convention in Tampa, New York is the biggest prize on the table when the five states have their say in the Republican race -- and Empire State Republicans appear to be solidly behind Romney.

With the much-anticipated energy bill sitting on Gov. Rick Scotts desk pending approval, Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam said opposition to his legislation, which includes a coalition of Florida tea party groups, is rooted in a lack of good information.

Putnam defended the first comprehensive energy plan in the state since 2007 as one that replaces alternative-energy mandates with market-driven incentives while playing up Floridas natural competitive advantages.

People may be able to dye baby chicks for at least a year, as a tradeoff in the state Department of Agricultures effort to fight the growth of Africanized honey bees, which have been tagged as "killer bees."

Florida business leaders are more optimistic about adding employees, according to a Florida Chamber of Commerce Small Business Council survey.

The nonscientific, random survey found 37 percent of employers in the Sunshine State plan to hire in the next six months, up from only 7 percent last July.

Meanwhile, only 3 percent anticipate layoffs, while 8 percent of business owners and operators in July 2011 were looking to cut staff.

A political committee that played an important role in Gov. Rick Scott's 2010 election raised $910,000 in contributions during the first three months of this year, according to state records.

The Let's Get to Work Committee also has started quickly in April, reporting on its website that it has already brought in about $438,000 -- with large contributions coming from private prison operator The Geo Group Inc., and a Florida Optometric Association political committee.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court of Florida elected Ricky Polston, who had been with the court since being appointed to it by then-Gov. Charlie Crist backin 2008, by a unanimous vote to serve as chief justice.

Generally considered one of the more conservative members of the court, Polston replaces current Chief Justice Charles Canaday, a former Republican congressman whose two-year term comes to an end.

When I was a kid, we dreamt about someday owning a "flying car" like the ones we saw in cartoons. Back in those days, I also heard my dad warn that "someday we will have another Depression, where the financial world just collapses overnight."

Second in a series of profiles of candidates in the 6th Congressional District, which runs along the northern east coast of Florida.

Craig Miller likes his position in the geopolitics of the new 6th Congressional District.

The first Republican to officially enter the race, Miller has an established residence in Winter Park, outside CD 6. But the former restaurant-industry executive has long maintained a home in the Volusia County town of New Smyrna Beach and has extensive business connections in the district.

A Republican congressional candidate in Southwest Florida is questioning what he calls an opponent's "creepy" purchase of personal Internet domain names.

"It's a little stalker-ish," Chauncey Goss said of the "Friends of Trey Radel," who bought the rights to chaunceygoss.com, chaunceygoss.net and chaunceygoss.org.

Adding to the intrigue, the site names were obtained in March and April of 2011 -- 11 months before Radel announced his candidacy for the 19th Congressional District.