Barack Obama stepped to the brink of victory in the Democratic presidential race Tuesday night, defeating Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Oregon primary and moving within 100 delegates of the total needed to claim the prize at the party convention this summer. ...more

May 21, 2008

Sen. Barack Obama has chosen to spend Tuesday night not in Kentucky or Oregon, the two states that will be holding their primaries that day, or even at his home in Chicago. Instead, Obama's staff announced Saturday, he will return to Iowa, where he won the Democratic caucuses way back in January and has at least two good reasons to revisit now. ...more

May 18, 2008

After Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's disappointing showing in the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, her campaign acknowledges she needs the banned delegates from Florida and Michigan for any chance of winning the Democratic presidential nomination. ...more

May 8, 2008

You need photo identification to board an airplane, write a check, purchase age-restricted products and gain access to certain buildings. So what's wrong with requiring photo IDs of citizens who show up to vote? ...more

February 20, 2008

After nearly a year of supposed debates formatted like low grade television quiz shows, moderated by talking-heads asking inane and pointlessly irrelevant gotcha questions targeting the minutia of personal histories; dutifully followed by an army of pollsters, who daily report their statistical finding like variations in the weather, we are finally approaching a point of alleged decision-making in the winnowing process of selecting the presidential candidates who will compete for the presidency of the United States in a general election to be held in November of 2008. The first narrowing of the field will result from a series of coffee klatches held by the matrons and patriots of Iowa. Shortly following these conclaves the minions of the maple syrup belt, the live free or die bunch; New Hampshire, will be polled and report their collective wisdom as to which two of the various political marathoners would, in their inspired judgment, best lead the country. What is seldom discussed is that these two states will have seven and four electoral votes respectively to cast in the general election which requires the winner to aggregate at least 270 electoral votes out of a possible 538. ...more

December 29, 2007

Florida's population growth was slower in 2006 than for any year this decade, and for the first time since 2000, the state's population grew by fewer than 200,000 people, according to figures released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. ...more

December 27, 2007

Florida's population growth slowed, and Louisiana appears to be rebounding from the effects of Hurricane Katrina, gaining 50,000 residents in the year ending July 1, according to Census Bureau state population estimates released Wednesday. ...more

December 27, 2007

Florida has soured on California-grown citrus. A legal dispute has emerged between the two states over the importing of fresh citrus, and concerns of fungus-laden fruit making its way into Florida groves and markets and, eventually, into Korea. ...more

December 15, 2007

Florida and California helped drive the national foreclosure rate to an all-time high in the third quarter, fresh evidence of the problems afflicting distressed homeowners amid the housing meltdown. ...more

December 7, 2007

Sales of existing homes fell in 46 states during the July-September quarter as the housing market's slump worsened, a real estate trade group reported Wednesday. ...more

November 22, 2007