Restaurant executive Craig Miller, who is in a crowded Republican primary of candidates looking to challenge Democrat incumbent U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson in 2012, stressed his roots in the private sector on Monday and argued that Florida needs a senator with real world experience.

Miller --an Air Force veteran and former CEO of Uno Restaurants and Ruth's Chris Steakhouse who ran unsuccessfully for a Republican congressional nomination in Central Florida in 2010 --sent out an email to supporters on Monday noting that the Sunshine State continues to lag behind much of the nation

Mitt Romney -- in a move to grow his grass-roots base and peel off votes from a fading Newt Gingrich -- found new support in a national tea party straw poll Sunday. But Gingrich and Michele Bachmann remain the movement's favorites.

Meanwhile, Ron Paul's surge continues in Iowa, with a newPublic Policy Polling surveyshowing the Texas congressman taking the lead there with 23 percent.

When did student protests, once incubators of social and political change in America, become little more than cheering sections for criminal behavior?

As with the majority of the ports that line Floridas coasts, the Port of Pensacola wont be in the scrum for mega-freighters that come through a wider Panama Canal. But like its smaller port counterparts, the Port of Pensacola -- which already trades greatly in frozen foods and wind-power components -- will be in the hunt for business that spins off from the expansion of the east-west trade when the canal widening is expected to be completed in 2014, said Port Director Clyde Mathis.

It's highly unusual in a presidential debate for two Republican candidates -- the two leading in current national polls -- to heap praise on a liberal Democratic senator.

Some 76,292 pages of regulations were added to the Federal Register in 2011, heaping an estimated $232 billion in new compliance costs on a struggling national economy.

According to Sen. Marco Rubio, even though that puts the paperwork burden for businesses at 119.4 million hours per year, a bill that might have "brought some common sense to the outdated regulatory system in America" never made it to the Senate, even though it sailed through the House.

WASHINGTON -- In 1927, seven years before the board game was created, Washington state decided to play monopoly. It gave a private interest the exclusive right to operate a ferry on 55-mile long Lake Chelan in the northern Cascade Mountains.

The $1 trillion omnibus spending bill passed the U.S. House Friday without the help of seven Florida representatives.

Conservatives assailed the measure, which passed 296-121, for a variety of reasons.

Rep. Bill Posey, R-Rockledge, noted that the bill spends $31.6 billion more than the House-passed budget plan and nearly $10 billion more than the bipartisan Budget Control Act agreed to in August.

Years of medical-malpractice reforms have begun to rein in insurance rates for Florida physicians, but those benefits haven't trickled down to patients, a new study finds.

"Florida surgeons and physicians have seen an average [cost] decline of approximately 8 percent. However, there is no mechanism in place to mandate a reduction in the patients' health-care costs when providers realize savings," states a study commissioned by the James Madison Institute.

The first step is done. Now, Florida officials will try to convince the federal government that they should be able to remake the Medicaid system statewide.

The Obama administration this week gave long-awaited approval to Florida's extension of a pilot program that requires most Medicaid beneficiaries in five counties to enroll in managed-care plans. The decision was a victory for Republican leaders who ultimately want to put beneficiaries statewide into HMOs and other types of managed care.