As acting state Medicaid director Justin Senior met with an advisory group Tuesday, he got an email on his wireless phone.

Federal officials were letting Senior know they want Florida to request another 15-day extension of a Medicaid managed-care pilot program.

The pilot was originally supposed to end June 30, but the federal government has repeatedly granted temporary extensions as Florida seeks approval to continue the program through June 2014.

"I'm going to get the whole three years, 15 days at a time,'' Senior quipped after reading the email.

A U.S. homebuilder estimates that increasing the domestic content of new houses by just 5 percent would create 220,000 American jobs.

Anders Lewendal is putting his money where his mouth is, as he constructs a Bozeman, Mont., home entirely of U.S.-made products. And shattering the conventional wisdom that domestic goods cannot compete on cost, Lewendal, an economist-turned-builder, says the house's price tag is barely 1 percent higher.

Goodbye, Chinese drywall.

WASHINGTON -- You step onto an airport's moving walkway, a flat metal conveyor belt that conveys travelers down an airport concourse, sparing them the indignity of burning a few calories by walking a bit.

On Tuesday, the two leading candidates for the Republican presidential nomination -- former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and businessman Herman Cain -- added to their teams in Florida which, as the fourth state in line to determine who the GOP nominee will be -- continues to rank as one of the most important political battlegrounds in the nation.

A day after announcing his political and financial leadership team in the Sunshine State, Romney announced that 24 Republicans in the Florida Legislature had endorsed his presidential candidacy -- bringing his total up to 36.

BP is a smaller company than it was before the Deepwater Horizon disaster off Floridas Gulf coast last year.

But with third-quarter net profits of $4.9 billion -- up $1.8 billion from the same period a year earlier -- and plans to shed up to $45 billion in assets in the next two years, BPs chief executive officer is telling investors the company is back at work.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry unveiled a "Cut, Balance and Grow" economic plan on Tuesday to slash federal spending, curb regulations and implement an optional 20 percent flat tax.

Calling for a balanced budget by 2020, the GOP presidential candidate would cap federal spending at 18 percent of GDP and reduce discretionary nondefense outlays by $100 billion in the first year.

The plan also bans congressional earmarks, ends baseline budgeting, curbs federal salaries and institutes "pay-go," requiring that any funding for new programs be offset by cuts elsewhere.