As Floridas leadership has focused on expanding port cargo traffic with the pending completion of an expanded Panama Canal, not every one of the states 14 ports is expected to directly benefit.

The gateway from the United States to the Bahamas and Caribbean, the Port of Palm Beach hopes to be able to revive a drop in trade through the creation of an inland port that would serve as a distribution point in western Palm Beach County.

Port of Palm Beach -- What is there

With natural gas costing less than expected, Florida Power & Light said Monday it will lower customers' electricity bills in 2012.

The announcement came as something of a surprise: About three weeks ago, state regulators approved FPL proposals that would have led to small increases in monthly bills.

Calling herself the "consistent conservative" who can deliver a win in 2012, GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann on Monday predicted an upset at the Iowa caucuses.

"We're going person to person, mapping who will come out on caucus night. We've already identified more people than Mike Huckabee [who won the 2008 caucus]. It will be a shock," Bachmann told Sunshine State News in an exclusive interview from New York City.

Admitting defeat in their efforts to find a compromise on cutting the nation's debt, the co-chairmen of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, U.S. Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., released the following statement:

After months of hard work and intense deliberations, we have come to the conclusion today that it will not be possible to make any bipartisan agreement available to the public before the committees deadline.

"Alice in Wonderland" was written by a professor who also wrote a book on symbolic logic. So it is not surprising that Alice encountered not only strange behavior in Wonderland, but also strange and illogical reasoning -- of a sort too often found in the real world, and which a logician would be very much aware of.

Public university leaders, through thousands of pages of answers that include backup academic studies and appendixes, have replied to Gov. Rick Scotts request to outline what the schools are doing to ensure graduates meet the need of Florida employers.

The presidents of the states 11 public universities were given until last week to respond to Scotts Oct. 13 email sent to each school.And as diverse as each campus is, the schools replied using a variety of formats, from secured online pages to discs and pages of bound volumes.

Floridians dissatisfied with the major political parties will have fewer options next year.

When 2012 rolls around, there may no longer be a Real Food Party of the United States of America, Surfers Party of America or a British Reformed Sectarian Party for voters to join when they register.

Political parties in Florida with fewer than 5 percent of the states more than 11 million registered voters have been given deadlines that range through the first week in January to re-register after complying with a number of guidelines set by legislators last spring.