Florida is the only state in the nation that allows Social Security numbers to be distributed for the purpose of locating owners of unclaimed property.

And state Sen. Jack Latvala wants to keep it that way.

Currently, the state Department of Financial Services has a database of Social Security numbers it receives from holders of unclaimed property where the rightful owner cannot be located, such as abandoned safe deposit boxes or uncollected utility security deposits.

Two polls released on Monday find that Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum has built a lead over Mitt Romney in Michigan -- where George Romney, the father of the GOP presidential candidate, served as governor during most of the 1960s.

The president is protecting religious freedom in America. He has told us so.

Rick Santorum won big victories in three small contests in the Republican presidential race last Tuesday. In doing so, he reshaped the oft-reshaped nomination battle once again.

Taking aim at a controversial piece of Florida's Medicaid overhaul, federal health officials this week rejected hitting beneficiaries with $10 monthly premiums and charges for some emergency-room visits.

The federal Medicaid agency, in a letter dated Thursday, notified the state that the proposals violated federal requirements that are designed, at least in part, to shield poor people from additional costs.

Does the Florida Legislature really want to set itself up as the state food police?

The late Senate President Jim King used to talk about trying to get everyone together to sing "Kumbaya.''

The Capitol this week didn't exactly teem with lawmakers holding hands and belting out a tune.

The House passed a $69.2 billion budget Thursday along straight party lines, with Republicans saying it was a responsible plan in tight times and Democrats saying it was, well, "half-witted.''

A short time later, the Senate gave final approval to redistricting maps -- only to be greeted immediately by a Democratic Party-backed legal challenge.

Fox Business Network will be rolling through Florida this weekend with exclusive access to JPMorgan Chase & Co.s Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon, as the executive tours the financial institutions expanding Florida footprint.

FBN anchor Melissa Francis is spending Sunday and Monday traveling with Dimon and other JPMorgan Chase officials as they travel by bus, visiting branches that have been part of the banks plan to open 50 new Florida locations this year.

The environmentalists are coming for Big Sugar, again.

Unslaked by the billions of dollars of public and private money poured into Everglades restoration, billionaire environmentalist Paul Tudor Jones wants to wring more cash out of Florida's sugar growers.

At an Everglades Foundation forum in Tallahassee last month, Jones darkly compared pollution leaching from Everglades Agricultural Area to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Sugar producers resent the analogy, and flatly reject it.