WASHINGTON -- I have a thing for Marines, always have. It began a long time ago when I watched my older brother amble away in the night toward his barracks at Camp Pendleton near San Diego.

Who would have thought that Greece's fiscal and financial woes could imperil all of Europe?

For the past few months, we'd been reading and watching a stream of news stories suggesting that the American economy was shaking off its stupor and about to proudly right itself. Then fresh fears surfaced, mysteriously tied to Greece and the European Union.

Florida's "ultrasound" abortion bill is neither unique nor out of the mainstream of state policies around the country, a Sunshine State News analysis shows.

A bill aimed at encouraging school prayer is drawing praise from an unlikely pairing of free speech advocates and social conservatives even as some warn it could make it tougher for school administrators to discipline students.

The announcement that the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund can borrow $15.9 billion to supplement its own funds and meet its financial responsibilities for the upcoming hurricane season is being met with sighs of relief.

The insurance industry and critics of the states insurance regulation policies say the news that the fund, which reimburses insurers for hurricane damages, can pay a total of $25.4 billion in claims is a promising sign for Florida.

Hedge funds have become the bogeymen of the investment marketplace. They can conjure bad memories of fraudulent operators like Bernard Madoff of Palm Beach and Arthur Nadel of Sarasota.

But hedge funds also can protect against sudden downturns in the market, an investment expert said Thursday.

While Gov. Charlie Crist may not be running for reelection, he certainly is not acting as a lame duck and, in fact, his recent appointments will be shaping Florida for years to come.

In the last week of the 2010 session, the Senate confirmed almost 600 appointments the governor had made to various bodies in Florida.

Laments about polarization are filling the air -- or at least that part of the air in which friends and family members have political discussions. It has been widely noted that every Republican member of Congress has a voting record to the right of every Democrat and every Democrat is to the left of every Republican. There is no partisan overlap anymore.