Columns

Imagine the horror of learning you have a terminal illness for which science has not yet come up with a treatment. Now imagine receiving the same diagnosis, and then learning a promising new treatment exists that could save your life -- but you can't get access to it thanks to governmental obstacles.

Florida nursing-care centers and their residents have seen more than their share of hurricane seasons, but few have carried the wallop we all experienced last year. 

Who convinced Sen. Bill Nelson he can ride his NASA experience to re-election? You want to vote for this three-term Democrat, do what you've got to do -- but, please, don't vote for him because you think he's some kind of hero for NASA and the Space Coast.

Discussions surrounding offshore drilling continue to intensify as the Trump administration considers plans to expand the national Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) program. 

The local media have been in a delirious cycle of reporting regarding the teenage Parkland activist, David Hogg, and his latest target of activism -- Publix Supermarkets. Hogg’s overblown outrage at the Lakeland-based company was due to a very weak connection to his gun activism -- the company made donations to Republican gubernatorial candidate Adam Putnam, an avowed supporter of the Second Amendment and the NRA -- and Hogg went into full-throated outrage anyway.

Have you heard the saying that nothing is ever new? Well, in the case of Gwen Graham, that saying rings VERY true.

After months of pretending to be normal and reasonable on the diplomatic stage, North Korea's mask has slipped, and Pyongyang is back to threatening a "nuclear-to-nuclear showdown" that will "make the U.S. taste an appalling tragedy it has neither experienced nor even imagined up to now."

In the mid-fifties, my father-in-law, Harry Rich, a floor-covering retailer, made a pact with George Jenkins, the founder and CEO of Publix. The men decided to join forces to oppose a nascent trend in the retail industry: remaining open for business on Sunday. Their reason was simple; they believed their employees deserved to spend more time with their families, and they were happy to forgo profits for principle.

From the sublime to the ridiculous, David Hogg, Parkland's most prominent media fixture, has a doozie of a stunt planned for us on Friday.

UPDATED at 11.21 a.m. to include a Florida Department of Health response. Florida does so much right, it's hard to believe it could fall down on something as important to its identity as senior-citizen health care. But, according to a new report, the Sunshine State, the nation's leading retirement magnet, ranks 31 among the 50 states in the health of its over-65 population.

You have to hand it to Calder Casino. The scruffed-up racetrack once called Calder comes under the gun Tuesday at a Department of Administration (DOA) hearing. Yet it found a way to divert that negative attention and rake in more money at the same time.

This week marked the one-year anniversary of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. It’s already lasted too long, during which time malicious leaks and speculation have dominated the news cycle and distracted citizens from the real issues facing our country.

Congressman John Rutherford scored a big win for the First Coast last week when he was named to the House Appropriations Committee. 

On election night 2016, Mark Schlissel, the University of Michigan's president, addressed more than 1,000 students, declaring that the 90 percent of them who had favored the losing candidate had rejected "hate." He thereby effectively made those who disagreed with him and with the campus majority eligible to be targets of the university's "bias response teams." That his announced contempt for them made him a suitable target of the thought police is a thought that presumably occurred to no one, least of all him.

The Florida Department of Corrections (DOC) is dismantling successful substance abuse and re-entry treatment programs to fix a $28 million shortfall. The short-sighted action will adversely affect communities, offenders, and businesses: an action that is totally unacceptable.