Outorganized and outvoted in 2010, left-wing groups are taking aim at Gov. Rick Scott and Republican lawmakers on March 8. But they'll have to do it at a distance.

"Awake the State" rallies are scheduled at 17 locations around Florida on the opening day of the 2011 Legislature. That's up from the eight announced just last week.

A rally site in Tallahassee was announced Monday, but organizers couldn't capture the prime real estate at the Capitol.

C'mon down! Panama City Beach wants college students to know that spring break is back.

Not that it ever really went away, but the BP oil disaster last summer blew a hole in Gulf tourism, and beach towns on Florida's Panhandle are spreading the word that the coast is clear.

A robust crowd in March -- the high season for college revelers -- can prime the tourism pump for the rest of the year, says Dan Rowe, president and CEO of the Panama City Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau.

"Spring break is part of our DNA," he says.

Rick Scott is governing Florida like a business -- and that's made the former health-care CEO the bete noir of pro-labor progressives and union-loving Democrats.

But Scott's agenda is just what the voters ordered to revive an ailing economy, say corporate leaders and grass-roots conservatives.

Whether Scott turns out to be a vulture capitalist or Florida's financial savior remains to be seen. But after less than two months in office, he leaves little room for ambivalence.

In an extraordinary move, the Obama administration's Justice Department announced Wednesday that it will no longer enforce a federal law barring gay marriage.

In Florida, where more than 60 percent of voters passed a constitutional ban on same-sex weddings, the action was denounced as an unprecedented attack on traditional marriage.

"It's outrageous that the chief executive of the country is failing to uphold the law," said John Stemberger, an Orlando attorney who led the successful 2008 ballot campaign to add a marriage-protection provision to the Florida Constitution.