From birth, Ashley Elliot wasn’t set up to succeed. When she was born, she was addicted to drugs due to her mother’s drug usage during her pregnancy -- an issue which carried on in much of Elliot’s childhood. Elliot’s mother bounced in and out of her life.

“[My brother and I] grew up on [government subsidies,]” Elliot told Sunshine State News.

Elliot has attended public schools, a charter school, an alternative school and now attends a private school as a result of Florida’s Tax Credit Scholarship program.

Gov. Rick Scott on Wednesday signed nine bills, including a high-profile measure requiring local law-enforcement agencies to submit "rape kits" to be tested and another allowing the creation of a needle-exchange program in Miami-Dade County.

Scott praised SB 636, which would establish time limits for sexual-assault evidence --- known as rape kits --- to be submitted to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for testing. He said in a statement the move would "provide thousands of women with a renewed sense of safety and closure as they heal from the horrific crime of rape."

On Tuesday, the U.S. House passed a bill allowing Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs), the female pilots from World War Two, to be honored at Arlington National Cemetery. 

On Wednesday morning, former Gov. Jeb Bush, R-Fla., endorsed U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, for the Republican presidential nomination, insisting the Lone Star State Republican represented the best chance to stop businessman Donald Trump from being the GOP’s candidate. 

Thousands of children of legal immigrants will be closer to obtaining subsidized health insurance this summer, after the Legislature passed a long-debated expansion of the state's KidCare program.

Until this year, children of legal immigrants were technically eligible for KidCare --- the low-cost federal-state health insurance program --- but had to wait five years to actually start receiving services.

That changed on Thursday, when Gov. Rick Scott signed the state budget into law. Contained in an accompanying bill (HB 5101) was language eliminating the five-year wait.

One of the biggest laws to pass through the Florida legislature this year revolved around medical marijuana, and even though the bill passed with wide support from both chambers and is waiting to be signed off by Gov. Rick Scott, not everyone in the Sunshine State is happy with the state’s newly passed legislation.

From her perch as chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., came out swinging on Tuesday at presidential hopeful U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, for calling for more police patrols of Muslim neighborhoods following the terrorist attacks in Brussels. 

Members of the Florida congressional delegation weighed in on Tuesday after the terrorist attacks in Brussels on Tuesday. 

Looking to rally conservatives behind his candidacy, former U.S. Attorney Ken Sukhia launched his bid for the Republican nomination to challenge U.S. Rep. Gwen Graham, D-Fla., on Tuesday. 

The Florida Grocers Association (FGA) announced on Tuesday that Josie Legido-Correa will lead it as executive director. 

Back in June, the Florida Retail Federation (FRF) rebranded its Grocery Council as the FGA to help focus on the more than 2,300 grocery stores across the Sunshine State, a $45 billion annual industry. The FGA is a division of the FRF.