This Saturday in Jacksonville, Ed Dean, the No. 1 statewide political radio talk-show host focused on Florida politics and a senior editor for Sunshine State News, will be on center stage for an early test of strength for Republicans and Democrats looking to win elections this year. 

President Donald Trump on Tuesday tapped two Florida appellate judges with ties to Attorney General Pam Bondi and former Gov. Jeb Bush to serve as federal district judges.

Trump said he will nominate Allen Winsor, a judge on the state’s 1st District Court of Appeal, to serve as a judge in the federal Northern District of Florida. Also, he chose Wendy Berger, a judge on the state’s 5th District Court of Appeal, to serve as a judge in the federal Middle District of Florida. The nominations are subject to Senate confirmation.

For the second time in a week, Florida citrus growers got what could be considered good news for the struggling industry.

A forecast Tuesday from the U.S. Department of Agriculture showed this season’s projected orange crop holding steady for the third consecutive month.

The estimate followed an announcement Friday by U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue that anxiously awaited disaster-relief programs for farmers who suffered damages in Hurricane Irma will be in place by mid-July.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced it will send $791 million to Florida through its Community Development Block Grant – Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) Program to help homes and buildings damaged by Hurricanes Irma and Matthew. 

U.S. HUD Sec. Ben Carson made the announcement on Tuesday morning. HUD sent $616 million to Florida back in November to help hurricane recovery efforts. 

Howard Simon began his career fighting for voting rights, and he’ll end more than four decades of civil-rights advocacy championing the same issue.

Along the way, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida has plagued the Republican-dominated Legislature and more than one GOP governor, emerging victorious in court battles involving abortion, gay adoption and drug testing of some of Florida’s neediest people, to name just a few issues.

More than $100 million will likely be spent during the next seven months as two of Florida’s top elected officials go head-to-head in the mid-term contest for a spot in the U.S. Senate.

The long-anticipated contest in which Gov. Rick Scott will try to unseat U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson became official on Monday.

Key issues that could shape the contest include the mass shootings at Pulse nightclub in Orlando and at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland and hurricanes Irma and Maria.

While she is not running for another term, U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., the first woman to ever lead the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee and currently the chair of the U.S. House Middle East and North Africa Subcommittee, continues to focus on international issues, including the current tensions with North Korea and China. 

Jereima "Jeri" Bustamante, 33, press secretary to Gov. Rick Scott since 2014, died Sunday evening after the boat she was riding in crashed into a stand of mangroves in a narrow channel off Islamorada.

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) Officer Bobby Dube told the Miami Herald she suffered blunt force trauma and died soon after the accident in a Tavernier hospital.

A once and possibly future Democratic presidential hopeful is getting increasingly active in the Sunshine State. 

Former Gov. Martin O’Malley, D-Mary., is scheduled to be in South Florida on Monday as he helps out Democratic candidate Javier Fernandez who is running in a special election for an open House seat scheduled on May 1. 

Through his Win Back Your State PAC, O’Malley went to bat for Fernandez on Friday, calling on Democrats to support the candidate. 

U.S. Rep. Francis Rooney, R-Fla., who is serving as the vice chairman of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee despite having spent just 15 months in Congress, applauded the Trump administration for stationing the national guard on the border to curb illegal immigration but insisted more needed to be done. 

Rooney weighed in on the matter towards the end of last week.