After 10 Glorious Years, Sunshine State News and I Are Passing the Baton

Three members of the SUR 13 street gang each received nearly a half-century in sentences in a Palm Beach County courtroom after accepting plea agreements. Attorney General Pam Bondi noted the three -- Jose Sanchez, 30, Victor Castillo, 29, and Roberto Trejo, 22 -- were prosecuted by the Office of Statewide Prosecution.

The decision to split the University of South Florida-Polytechnic campus in Lakeland into an independent university comes down to a chance to reinvent the state university system versus costs, Gov. Rick Scott said Wednesday. Scott said Wednesday morning he was still weighing the impact of allowing the University of South Florida-Polytechnic campus in Lakeland to become independent this summer.

Among the $142.7 million that Gov. Rick Scott vetoed from the state budget for the next fiscal year, was $63.1 million that had been identified by the budget watchdog group Florida TaxWatch as fiscal "turkeys."

Gov. Rick Scott signed a budget that increases education spending by $1 billion from last year, while slashing $142.7 million from individual legislators' projects such as the Science and Discovery Center of Northwest Florida, the Frank Lloyd Wright House at Florida Southern College and the Bay of Pigs Museum in Miami. The hallmark of the $70 billion budget for Scott was education, using the A-rated Cunningham Creek Elementary School in St. Johns County at noon Tuesday as the backdrop for signing the 2012-2013 budget.