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The price of college textbooks has risen at twice the rate of inflation over the past 20 years. A bill aimed at making the books more affordable is on the Governor’s desk. As Whitney Ray tells us, lawmakers voted to hold professors more accountable when choosing books for their classes.

Hear it Here: Students Get Angry About Textbook Prices, Lawmakers Vote to Lower Cost

FSU Senior Julie Shott spends about the national average on books which is about 500 dollars a semester. She likes used books because they’re cheaper, but some professors require the latest edition, some students say isn’t worth the money.

“The only difference is like pictures or a couple of phrases,” said Shott.

But a bill awaiting the Governor’s signature requires any new edition to be significantly different and it requires professors to give students notice of a change.

The 5th edition of one geography book we found had been on the shelf less than a year when the 6th edition came out. According to the table of contents there doesn’t appear to be much of a difference. Publishers are constantly pitching new books to professors.

“The publishing companies stay very closely connected to faculty. They advise us when new editions are coming out,” said FAMU Assistant Professor Gina Kinchlow.

The legislation also bans professors from taking gifts or kickbacks from publishing companies. The bill requires colleges and universities to post the titles of textbooks that will be required for each course on the web.

Autistic children will now be eligible for up to 36 thousand dollars a year of intensive therapy designed to help them learn to live normally. As Mike Vasilinda tells us,
The new legislation caps a decade of effort and forces insurance companies to offer the coverage.

Hear it Here: Autism Bill Signed Into Law

14-year-old Zach Zepp arrived at the Capitol with his mom and dad on what is one of the happiest days of their lives. They were invited by the governor to be part of a bill signing because Zach has been working for legislation to help Autistic children since he was 7.

“[I’m] real excited. Because this bill has finally been passed after so many years,” Zepp said.

With the stroke of his pen, Charlie Crist ended a fight by parents, some of them famous, to get help for their children. Zach got the first pen. Former Dolphins Quarterback Dan Marino calls the legislation historic.

The new law requires insurance companies to provide up to 36 thousand dollars a year in life altering therapy for very young children. The governor calls the mandate the right thing to do.

“Whenever there’s a time to do the right thing, and you have to, like, force people to do it, we’re willing to do that,” Crist said.

Supporters have been wearing blue bracelets like this one. It contains five words beginning with ‘e’ and supporters say the words are as much about the child as they are about the disease.

“Enable him. Expand him, so he could express who he was. It had a dual purpose, it kept us on task,” Zach’s mother, Victoria Zepp said.

The legislation is important because the therapy must occur in the first years of life.

The new law also caps benefits for children at a total of two hundred thousand dollars before age 5.

Barack Obama is spending three days in Florida this week. John McCain was here today, and Hillary Clinton will be here Thursday. The Governor says the appearance of all three candidate this week is proof positive of how the candidates view Florida.

“It says that Florida is important,” Crist said. “I think it’s great that we’re all here. There should be a focus on Florida. We had a record turnout on primary. This presidential race is important to the people of our state. It’s good for all the candidates to be here. They should be.”

Because of Florida’s importance and the believe that Republicans can’t win the Presidency without Florida, Crist is still considered one of the top VP choices for McCain.

Environmentalist are concerned that a bill they supported to save seagrasses was hijacked by developers. A last minute amendment allows developers to by development credits and creates a sea grass farm on state owned lands. The bill is waiting for the Governor’s signature, but Charlie Crist says that signature is still in doubt.

“I do have concerns about it, so I want to take a hard look at it before I sign,” Crist said.

One in 150 children is born with autism, and boys are more prone than girls. Kimberly Hill of Tallahassee is the mother of two autistic children. She and her husband have spent more than a hundred thousand dollars of their own money seeking therapy. Kimberly says hearing the words diagnosis and your child’s name in the same sentence can be mind shaking.

“Everything you’ve ever wanted for your kid is not as you know it,” Hill said. “You wonder if they’re actually going to get to go to school. If they’re ever going to speak. If you’re ever going to hear them say ‘mom’ or ‘I love you.’ If you will ever have grandchildren for them; what goes on in life. To find out that there is no help out there.”

Legislation signed by the Governor is expected to begin providing limited coverage for autism therapy by the end of the year.  Some have complained the coverage does not go far enough, or cover enough therapy choices, but the governor calls the step taken today “the beginning”.

Governor Charlie Crist signed historic legislation today, guaranteeing insurance coverage for autism therapy for very young children. The Therapy is deisned to main stream children. Former Miami Dolphin quarterback Dan Marino’s son is autistic. Marion has been fighting to help other kids for more than a decade and says they deserve the same therapy he was able to afford for his son.

Dan Marino Speaks Out

“As you know, my son Michael is 20 three days ago,” Marino said. “He is doing very well. He’s in college, doing well. He is a direct result of early intervention. He is a direct result of occupational therapies, speech therapies, things you need to do at an early age starting at two years old, maybe younger. Just think about that, he got all those opportunities and I think that’s why he’s where he’s at today.”

The insurance coverage is limited to 36 thousand dollars a year with a 200 thousand dollar maximum benefit.

Some county governments want plastic grocery sacks outlawed because of concerns about the bags filling up landfills. Lawmakers halted those plans by passing a bill banning any ban on plastic bags. As Whitney Ray tells us, some people aren’t waiting on government to bar the use of plastic bags and have already stopped using plastic.

Hear it Here: Bag Ban Barred

Major grocery store customers are given the same option at checkout. Take their groceries home in paper bags or plastic. Many choose plastic.

“They’re easier to carry and when you get older things get heavy, so they’re more convenient,” said Sally Ann Smith who was shopping at Publix Monday.

Plastic bags end up in piles with other trash but plastic takes longer to waste away. Takes more than 500 years for a plastic bag to decompose.

Some county governments in Florida want to keep grocery stores from using plastic. Lawmakers headed off attempts at a ban by passing a bill postponing any local government from taking action until 2010. The ban hasn’t stopped shoppers like Whitney Arpasi from boycotting plastic bags. Arpasi takes her groceries home in a reusable tote bag.

“This bag is actually made out of recycled plastic bags and it’s held up for about eight years now,” said Arpasi.

People who use cloth bags aren’t the only ones concerned about the environment. Bob Sanchez chooses plastic. He just wishes more people would recycle.

“It’s convenient just to save them up and return them to Publix,” said Sanchez.

For now keeping plastic bags out of landfills will be left up to customers who may choose to bring canvas or return plastic to stores. Newspapers joined the coalition to pass the ban on the ban. If the Governor signs the bill, local governments wouldn’t be able to outlaw plastic bags until 2010.

The father of slain confidential informant Rachel Morningstar Hoffman is calling on the state to set guidelines for the use of informants. The practice is largely unregulated. Hoffman was killed when her drug sting went bad almost 2 weeks ago. Governor Charlie Crist says he doesn’t know if more rules need to be adopted, but he sympathizes with the family.

“It’s a tragic case, number one. I mean how that would impact a parent is beyond comprehension,” Crist said. “So anything he would have to say we should take very seriously.”

Rachel Hoffman was buried a week ago tomorrow.

Governor Charlie Crist is hoping for some speedy answers about Allstate Insurance. Today he praised the effort to get documents from the reluctant company, now he want to know if the company colluded with others to set rates and if it was denying valid claims based on a formula.

“We’ve been successful in simply getting them to answer a subpoena,” Crist said. “It shouldn’t be that hard but they’ve finally now done so, according to the commissioner and I’m delighted about that fact. Maybe now we’ll get to the truth as to why they were raising their rates when they represented to members of the Florida Senate and the Florida House that they in fact were going to drop them. I’m very curious and anxious to have those documents reviewed.”

Allstate tuned over the last of hundreds of thousands of documents after regulators suspended the company’s ability to sell new policies.

Mark Dean Schwab is getting a new date with the death chamber. Governor Charlie Crist is expected to sign his death warrant today, with a July first execution date. Schwab was convicted of killing 11-year-old Junny Rios-Martinez, Jr. in April 1991.  His execution has been stopped by the US Supreme Court last year as it reviewed executions across the country. Today, the nation’s high court gave the go ahead for the execution. Governor Charlie Crist says he set the July First date after consulting with staff.

“Why not sooner? It’s a time that makes sense, that the office staff advised when I got here,” Crist. “After talking to our general counsel, it sounds fine to me.”

Schwab gained the families confidence by posing as a news paper reporter, then lured the child to his death.

For the last ten years, the advantage held by Democrats in the number of registered voters has been steadily declining, until this year, when their numbers jumped by almost a hundred thousand voters. Democrats now have 317 thousand more voters than the GOP. One in 5 Florida voters remains a member of neither party. Speaking to a Democratic Club today, Florida State University Political Scientist Lance de Haven Smith says the increase does not necessarily guarantee victory in November.

“The race in November will depend on the turnout,” de Haven Smith said.  “If there’s a very high turnout, Democrats will sweep across the country and it won’t just be at the Presidential level, it’ll be at all levels. If there’s not a big turnout, I think that you will see a very close election. It’s clearly the Democrats race to lose, but it’s loseable if they don’t get out the vote.”

Turnout among Independents is usually low, which means if Democrats turn out their base, their chances of winning increase.

More than 100 wildfires continue to burn across the state today. A total of 29 homes have been destroyed and dozens of others have been damaged. Rain is offering some relieve, but as Whitney Ray tells us, it’s a mixed blessing.

Hear it Here: Rain is a Mixed Blessing For Firefighters

Firefighters in Franklin County have all but won their battle with the wildfire.

“We’re still doing mop ups, still marching around the houses we burned out and just continuing to monitor it and keep it in,” said Victor Rowland, forest area supervisor.

Rowland spent the day checking houses and making sure fires didn’t reignite. After four days of fighting the flames firefighters got some relief early Friday morning when it started to rain.

Fifteen new fires greeted firefighters Friday morning. Fatigue is not a factor yet, but the rain can be a double edge sword.

“What were seeing with this front coming through with some lighting in it, especially some positive lightening strikes, which give us fits. There the ones that cause ground strikes and can cause vegetation to ignite and then we have other fires to take care of,” said Gerry LaCavera, a spokesman with the Florida Division of Forestry.

Residents across the state are being cautioned to be cautious this weekend when cooking outdoors. Burn bans are in place in six counties. Back in Franklin County the rain may pay dividends in the form of smoke signals.

“The rain hadn’t got in there and penetrated and put it out, but at least it’s got in there and cooled it off and then it starts smoke and we can see where more of the smoke is and then we can come in and mop that up,” said Rowland.

Rowland says they’ll keep on eye on the charred forest until there’s a significant rain, a tedious, but preferable task given the job fire crews in 13 other counties face where the battle rages on.

Florida Forestry Crews have been helping fight fires in Texas… The Division of Forestry has called those crews back home and is now asking Texas to return the favor. The six counties under a burn ban are Hendry, Alachua, Flagler, Volusia, Putnam and Sumter.

Allstate Insurance is back in the business of selling new policies, two and a half days after a court ruled the state could penalize the company for failing to turn over its rate setting and claims paying records. As Mike Vasilinda reports, the company may still be on the hook for the way it handled recent requests for information.

Hear it Here: Allstate is Back in Business

Shortly after two on Friday afternoon, the office of Insurance Regulation lifted its suspension of Allstate’s certificate to sell new policies. State regulators say the company promised to do better.

“Commissioner McCarty has agreed to lift the suspension as long as Allstate continues to comply with additional requests that might be necessary in the course of this investigation,” Ed Domansky with the Office of Insurance Regulation said.

Hundreds of thousands of documents have been turned over. At issue is how the company came to ask for a 42 percent rate hike last fall when most other companies were lowering rates. Also an issue is whether the company arbitrarily failed to pay 100 percent of a claim. The answer to both questions may lie in the documents the company finally turned over to regulators.

Allstate may still get another day in court. It has until Tuesday to ask the Florida Supreme Court if the lower courts upholding of the suspension was correct.

For now, the four month fight has put other companies on notice the state has the power to look at how they conduct business. Regulators say the message is a good one.

“Right now people should be thinking that Commissioner McCarty means business,” Domansky said. “He takes Florida law seriously and he is out to do whatever he can to protect the consumers here in Florida from potentially inappropriate business practices.”

Allstate could still face civil penalties from a state hearing officer over not turning the records over in a timely manner.

Some of Florida’s best and brightest professors are leaving for jobs outside of the state. Budget cuts and heavy out-of-state recruiting are to blame. As Whitney Ray tells us, many of the professors will take thousands of research dollars with them when they leave.

Hear it Here: Recruiters Target Florida Professors, State Universities Suffer

Florida State University Professor Charles Figley wanted to retire in Tallahassee, but with funding cuts to higher education becoming an annual event, he’s packing his bags.

“We’ve taken so many cuts, we had to keep pushing back and pulling back,” said Figley

Florida’s Universities are cutting budgets and positions creating concerns about pay raises and job security. Out-of-state schools are taking advantage of the situation and recruiting Florida professors. Figley gave in to advances from Tulane University. He says other FSU professors are looking at their options.

“Numbers of people, when they hear that I’m going, say that they are in the process of moving or they are aggressively investigating job opportunities,” Figley said.

Administrators at FSU were too busy to talk on camera about retaining quality professors. Students said they’re seeing more classes being taught by student teaching assistants.

“Sometimes I have TA’s that don’t even have graduate degree. So it frustrates me to have a TA over a professor,” said Stacie Brodsky, an FSU Junior.

I’m sure everybody’s really concerned about if they’re going to get the same education that they use to,” said Senior Rachel Dent.

Not only are universities losing professors they’re also losing research dollars. When Figley leaves he’ll take along this picture as a reminder of his 19 years in Florida and a grant he’ll now use at Tulane.

More people vacationed in Florida during the first three months of this year than did a year ago. Governor Charlie Crist along with members of Visit Florida held a news conference at the Capitol today to announce the numbers. So far this year more than 23 million people vacationed in the sunshine state. That’s up almost four percent from a year ago. Instate travel is up 10 percent so far this year. Governor Charlie Crist hopes the trend continues.

“There’s so many parts of Florida that are diverse and it’s very different from Miami to Pensacola, from Jackson to Ft. Myers and you know for Floridians to have the opportunity to visit other parts of Florida I think is extremely important and it’s cheaper on their budgets to do so,” said Crist.

Still a triple threat of wildfires, hurricanes and gas prices loom over the state’s tourism industry. Despite Triple A’s prediction that rising fuel cost will drastically cut down on summer travel, Visit Florida President Bud Nocera said people will still take a family vacation.

“Never discount the concept of vacation in the lives of Americans, it’s very important, so we believe Americans are still going to take vacations. They may cut back a little, but they’re still going to be on vacation,” said Nocera.

State leaders hope a strong travel season can help generate enough sales tax revenue to relieve some of the state’s budget woes.