Capitol to Courthouse Headliners: Thursday, July 5

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Fla. workers’ comp rates to be halved

TALLAHASSEE — (AP) — While Florida business owners may still be struggling with high property insurance costs, another major business expense will go down next year: Workers’ compensation assessment rates are set to be cut in half.

 

Property insurers’ bids for rate increases anger Florida Governor Crist

TALLAHASSEE Gov. Charlie Crist on Tuesday blasted property insurance companies for seeking rate increases despite the state’s push to lower homeowner premiums.

 

Storm intensifies: Forecasters want director removed

Three senior forecasters at the National Hurricane Center called Tuesday for the ouster of recently appointed director Bill Proenza, saying he has damaged public confidence in their forecasts, fractured morale and lost their support.

 

Hurricane Center in eye of storm as inquiry begins

A special team from Washington, D.C. is reviewing procedures and interviewing forecasters at the National Hurricane Center, just weeks after center director Bill Proenza criticized higher-ups at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for their funding priorities and failure to replace a doomed forecast satellite.

 

Attorney: Wal-Mart Collected On Deaths

TAMPA – When Karen Armatrout died in 1997, her employer, Wal-Mart, collected thousands of dollars on a life insurance policy the retail giant had taken out without telling her, according to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court.

 

Legal Fights Loom Near Law’s Sunset

TALLAHASSEE – It’s known as “no fault” and was designed to safeguard motorists hurt in an accident. The downside, say auto insurers, is that it also shields fraudsters and doctors, lawyers and others who milk the system, and jacks up insurance rates for the rest of us.

 

Relief Plans Fall Short, Legislators Admit

ORLANDO – When this year’s legislative session began, Florida lawmakers took on two enormous tasks: to reduce the burden of the high property taxes Florida homeowners face, and to provide them with relief from skyrocketing home insurance rates.

 

Hometown Senator Boosts Unneeded Office

The Army Corps of Engineers doesn’t necessarily need a new field office in Tuscaloosa, Ala. But with visions of restaurants and condominiums along their downtown waterfront, city leaders there decided several years ago that the Corps’ existing facility was standing in the way of progress.

 

South Florida water summit to help prepare for future droughts

Even before the end of the drought of 2007, a water summit on July 30 seeks to better prepare South Florida for dry years to come.

 

Court to FEMA: Turn over documents

The Federal Emergency Management Agency must turn over to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and other news organizations the addresses of 1.3 million disaster aid recipients, a federal appellate court in Atlanta ruled Friday.

 

Neighbors keep Pines woman from treating her termite-infested townhouse

Whether Marcia Rosenberg is required to pay a fine of up to $250 a day because she has termites in her townhouse depends on her five neighbors.

 

Nassau resists Medicaid reform

TALLAHASSEE – Just days into the second phase of Florida’s landmark Medicaid reform project, some Northeast Florida officials are pushing back against the state experiment in their area by warning the health of 23,000 patients could be jeopardized.

 

Disability coverage divides ill, insurers

Down to her last can of tuna and last box of macaroni and cheese, Susan Kristoff thought she might as well kill herself. Why wait for the breast cancer to do her in?

 

Letter to the Editor:  Florida Chamber agrees with Crist on initiative reforms

As executive vice president of the Florida Chamber of Commerce, I commend Gov. Crist for working to restore the initiative process to the people of Florida by signing two landmark constitutional amendment reform bills this session (“Sign up for democracy,” editorial, June 28).

 

AIA Urges Optional Federal Charter During Capital Market Competitiveness Review

Racicot to Paulson: Insurance Should Function with Oversight by a World Class Regulator in a Modern, Uniform Framework

Governor Marc Racicot, president of the American Insurance Association (AIA), today sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson asking the Dept. of the Treasury to consider an Optional Federal Charter as part of the Bush Administration’s review of U.S. capital markets and their competitiveness and the government’s regulatory system for financial institutions. 

 

Health district found guilty of defamation

The Palm Beach County Health Care District was ordered on Tuesday to pay $692,000 in a verdict by a jury that found it had defamed a Lake Worth paramedic and conspired to hurt his fledgling business.

 
Taxpayers foot the bill to clear rivers of boats sunk by storms

The 26-foot cabin cruiser used to skim across the water sporting the name “Painkiller.”  Now it’s just a pain.  It will take four big men, a barge and a towboat to drag it out of the Banana River and haul it to the Brevard County dump. Caked with slick, green algae and mired in mud, the battered boat has been rotting near the riverbank since Hurricane Wilma took it for a ride two years ago.

 

Hedge Funds Mystify Markets, Regulators

Deeply Powerful, Largely Unchecked

Wall Street chroniclers one day could look back at the early 21st century and easily dub it the Era of the Hedge Fund. The question is whether it will be remembered as an age of reason or irrational exuberance.

 

Sunshine State lags in harnessing sun’s energy to cut energy bills

When it comes to harnessing the sun’s rays for electricity, the Sunshine State is largely in the dark.  Despite almost ideal weather, South Florida is lagging far behind California and states in the Southwest in powering homes, businesses and government offices by tapping into the ultimate renewable energy source – the sun. But it’s changing.

 

Hurricane season the best and worst of times for planting trees in S. Florida

After a severe drought slowed tree-planting projects, some communities couldn’t wait for the rainy season to arrive. The rain is here, but so is the hurricane season and the risk of losing the newly planted trees to destructive winds.

 

Modern projects replace hurricane’s devastation

CHOLUTECA, Honduras When Hurricane Mitch tore into this sleepy Pacific coastal province of dairy farms and cane fields in October 1998, its torrential rains and winds swept away an entire way of life — and opened up unexpected new vistas of change.