Five of the 34 applicants to become Florida’s top financial regulator, including state Rep. Jay Fant, will be considered for the post by Gov. Rick Scott and the Cabinet during a meeting Wednesday.

Striking a blow to the Legislature, a Tallahassee judge said state lawmakers failed to comply with a voter-approved constitutional amendment to buy and preserve environmentally sensitive lands.

Gov. Rick Scott has made imposing congressional term limits a priority of his U.S. Senate campaign. But if elected, it appears he might loosely impose such a limit on himself until the rules he wants are in place.

With Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis pointing to more “transparency,” lobbyists who represent clients at the state-backed Citizens Property Insurance Corp. will have to comply with a new registration process.

Florida’s citrus industry experienced its worst growing season since World War II as the hurricane-battered harvest is now essentially complete.

The latest forecast numbers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show no change in the past month for orange production, which is off 34.7 percent from the prior growing season. Meanwhile, grapefruit production has fallen another 1.8 percent from a May forecast, coming in at half of what was picked in the prior growing season and at its lowest level in nearly a century.

Democrats and gun-control advocates took aim Friday at Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam after the Tampa Bay Times reported that a former employee of Putnam’s agency failed for more than a year to conduct national background checks on applications for concealed weapons licenses.

California didn’t work out for U.S. Senate candidate Roque “Rocky” De La Fuente. But there’s always Florida.

State utility regulators Tuesday approved Florida Power & Light’s acquisition of a city-run utility, overriding a staff proposal that could have scuttled the deal.