DROUGHT
Water restrictions may be made permanent
Water managers on Thursday moved toward permanently imposing the twice-weekly irrigation restrictions on homeowners now in place across South Florida.
Water managers on Thursday moved toward permanently imposing the twice-weekly irrigation restrictions on homeowners now in place across South Florida.
WILDFIRES
A man accused of starting a few small fires amid a string of huge, destructive blazes in Palm Bay was denied bond Thursday as crews continued to successfully corral the flames and police broadened the search for arson suspects.
MIAMI-DADE
Florida child-welfare administrators must relicense a Miami-area foster home in which a woman was accused of abusing an adopted foster child and then surrendered the child back to the state, an appeals court has ruled.
INSURANCE
Floridians are still paying for the hurricanes of 2005 -- and the tab is growing. The Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund soon could be tapping all state residents holding insurance policies to raise another $600 million to cover storm losses.
HURRICANE SEASON 2008
Good luck and a brief prayer may have helped spare Florida from a destructive hurricane the past two years, but Gov. Charlie Crist on Wednesday warned residents not to rely on either this year.
FOOD SAFETY
Drop that frog leg. It might be bad for your health. State wildlife and health officials warned South Floridians on Wednesday against eating too many frog legs if they come from frogs caught in the state-controlled parts of the Everglades in western Miami-Dade and Broward counties.
CAMPAIGN 2008 | U.S. & CUBA
Democrat Barack Obama is slated to address the prominent Cuban American National Foundation on May 23, setting up a near-collision over foreign policy with Republican John McCain, who is delivering a major speech on Cuba three days earlier.
INSURANCE
Allstate's nine insurance companies operating in Florida now are barred from writing new policies until Allstate fully complies with a state subpoena for documents and information.
EVERGLADES
Flames swept across a vast swath of the East Everglades in Miami-Dade as firefighters fought to protect scrublands that are the only home to a tiny endangered bird.

WEST PALM BEACH
In a key victory for prosecutors, a judge on Wednesday denied a defense request to suppress the statement Pablo Cano Lopez gave to a sheriff's office detective admitting he shook his 4-month-old stepson in a moment of exhaustion after the baby, Elijah, would not stop crying.