Looking to speed up the backlog of VA claims, two Florida congressmen teamed up this week on a bill giving congressional offices read only access on claims. 

UPDATED 4 a.m. Wednesday -- There will be no contested convention. The steam is gone from what might be the hottest Republican primary in history. Donald Trump -- an American original, the only presidential nominee in more than 150 years besides Dwight Eisenhower who never held office -- is the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party in 2016.

Lisa Edgar, the longest-serving member of the Florida Public Service Commission, will not seek a fourth term on the state's utility regulatory board.
 
Edgar, who did not submit an application for reappointment to the $131,000-a-year position before a Tuesday deadline, said in a prepared statement she intends to use her "regulatory and governmental experience as I pursue new endeavors and other career opportunities.”
 

Thirteen freshmen or redshirt freshmen in the Florida House were among 32 representatives named "Champions of Economic Freedom" on Americans for Prosperity-Florida's 2016 scorecard, released Tuesday.

Charlie Crist’s chances for a successful political comeback went up on Tuesday as his main rival for the Democratic nomination to replace David Jolly in Congress shifted his focus to running for a state House seat. 

Future Sen. President Wilton Simpson is putting his weight behind Republican Senate reelection efforts, funneling $100,000 from his political committee to the Florida Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee last month.

Fresh off remarks that he’ll wait until after November to announce whether he will seek to claim the governor’s office when Rick Scott terms out, Adam Putnam continues to raise his statewide profile, kicking off an agricultural summit Wednesday hosted by some of Florida’s heavy hitters, in one of the state’s largest counties.

This week, HUD Secretary Julián Castro awarded $9.3 million will go to more than 50 programs helping the homeless across the Sunshine State. 

Medical marijuana licenses given to two Northeast Florida nurseries by state health officials cannot be challenged by a grower who lost out in the application process, an administrative law judge ruled Monday.

But Judge R. Bruce McKibben left open the possibility for Loop's Nursery and Greenhouses to get a third license in the region.

Marion County dove headfirst into the transgender bathroom controversy, requiring transgender students to go to the bathroom of their birth sex rather than their identified gender.

Last week, the Marion County School Board approved a measure 4-1 requiring its students to use the bathroom of their birth sex.