A bill aimed at encouraging school prayer is drawing praise from an unlikely pairing of free speech advocates and social conservatives even as some warn it could make it tougher for school administrators to discipline students.

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Florida has the capacity to create "hundreds of thousands" of new jobs through expanded international trade over the next five to seven years, economists said Wednesday.

British Petroleum agreed Monday to give Florida another $25 million to pay for an advertising campaign promising that the states beaches remain open and fishing is going strong even as the company struggles to stanch a massive oil spill off Louisianas Gulf coast.

The cash comes on top of $25 million the company has already pledged to help offset the states costs in preparing coastal regions for a possible landfall of the oil, which continues to mass roughly 350 miles from the St. Petersburg shoreline.

The $70.4 billion state budget awaiting action by Gov. Charlie Crist is already looking like a museum piece a fattened brontosaurus of a spending plan whose future is threatened by a harsh new age.

The budget includes about $2.5 billion in federal stimulus money the last installment of $16 billion in Washington cash that flowed to Florida the past three years, allowing lawmakers to avoid major tax increases or the deepest spending cuts.

A new state audit criticizing Floridas Medicaid program for shoddy oversight is raising heightened concerns about the role state officials play in fueling the runaway costs that have prompted calls to overhaul the health plan covering 2.7 million Floridians.

Medicaid payments from the state to hospitals, nursing homes, hospices and rural health clinics frequently relied on inaccurate rates and unsubstantiated claims, resulting in potentially millions of dollars in overpayments during the 2007-09 period reviewed by state auditors.

Its one of the best kept secrets of Floridas austere, $70.4 billion state budget.

Yet its also among the budget provisions most certain to become law this fractured election year.

A $1.4 million pay raise for the 720 law enforcement officers in the states Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is tucked into the spending plan approved by lawmakers last month and expected to be sent to Gov. Charlie Crist as early as Thursday.

Jeb Bush and Republican U.S. Senate contender Marco Rubio campaigned together for the first time Friday night, with the former governor urging supporters at a crowded GOP fund-raiser in Wesley Chapel to return to their foundational beliefs.

Bush drew standing ovations at the Pasco County Ronald Reagan dinner and lavished praise on Rubio, who he formally endorsed earlier this week in a move given added loft by rival Charlie Crists earlier decision to break with the Republican Party and continue his Senate campaign as an independent.

The Florida Republican Party stepped-up pressure Wednesday on breakaway Gov. Charlie Crist, with contributors demanding refunds from his U.S. Senate campaign and GOP leaders even hinting he derailed an eBay auction of his portrait.

Former Gov. Jeb Bush also officially weighed in Wednesday. As expected, Bush endorsed Crists Republican rival, Marco Rubio, underscoring what emerged as the days theme: the allegation that the governor is a liar and maybe even a thief.

Under fire from both Democrats and Republicans, the ever-sunny Gov. Charlie Crist is turning into the most ridiculed man in the state Capitol.

But he also remains the most powerful. As long as Crist is in the governors office, he commands the states biggest political stage and can, as late Gov. Lawton Chiles once said, put the ball in play every day..

Although for a fifth straight year lawmakers have declined to provide state worker pay-raises, union officials Monday said they were satisfied with lawmakers decision to back away from a proposed pay cut.

The House accepted a Senate proposal that will require some 27,000 mid-level managers, lawmakers and other workers pay a modest amount for health coverage for the first time. Public employees across the state who are part of the states pension plan would also have to contribute a small portion of their paycheck to stave-off a looming multi-billion dollar deficit.