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Homes sales in Florida continue to climb while the average sale price continues to fall.

Florida seen an increase in home sales for 10th straight months. June sales were 28 percent higher than home sales a year ago and prices are down 28 percent from last year. Vani Ungapen, a spokeswoman for the Florida Association of Realtors, said qualified shoppers can get a good interest rate on a loan if they buy now.

“The mortgage rate is so low and it is the best time to buy. Home prices are still incredibly affordable when compared to national home prices. The national median home price is 172-thousand and in Florida it is 148-thousand,” said Ungapen.

Realtors also attribute the uptick in sales to the 8,000 dollar first time homebuyer tax credit.

By this time next year Florida could see five million cases of the swine flu.

The estimate is from a doctor at the state health department and is based on patterns from past pandemics. The state has confirmed 3,000 cases so far. Susan Smith, a spokeswoman with the department of health, said the prediction of a five million Florida swine flu cases is just that, a prediction.

“It’s hard for us to predict how virulent swine flu is going to be in the fall, but we are certainly working with state and federal partners to prepare and we are continuing to educate Floridians on good hygiene practices, such as washing hands frequently, covering cough and sneeze and keeping sick at home which is extremely important to slow the spread of the virus,” said Smith.

Swine flu has claimed the lives of 22 Floridians so far this year. 14 of those deaths occurred this month.

A study financed by independent oil companies claims drilling in state waters would help reduce Florida’s double digit unemployment rate.

The study was financed by Florida Energy Associates. According to the report drilling in state waters could pump seven billion dollars a year into the state’s economy. Economist Hank Fishkind said drill would also create jobs.

“We are talking about over 40-thousand jobs. We are talking about a new industry that would be developed in the state of Florida and tremendous support to government jobs because the oil revenues are so significant that they would support the state and support many jobs that the state supports,” said Fishkind.

Opponents of offshore oil drilling continue to highlight the environmental risk. Senator Bill Nelson is one of the biggest opponents of drilling off Florida’s coast. Friday Nelson’s office emailed articles to members of the media about oil being found on Texas beaches.

Homeowners who strengthen their homes may lose hundreds of dollars in insurance discounts. The state mandates discounts to encourage people to replace their windows, roofs, and doors but as Whitney Ray tells us, many insurance companies say large discounts could make it hard for them to pay claims.

Storm shutters, hurricane resistant windows, and a metal roof can cost a pretty penny, but the upgrades can also save homeowners money. The state requires insurance companies to offer discounts to customers who strengthen their homes, but the amount saved could soon change.

“Our members believe that the discounts are excessive in a lot of cases,” said Sam Miller, Florida Insurance Council

A committee of hurricane and insurance experts is discussing a change in the discount rate. Representative Brian Nelson says most insurance premiums are too low and giving customers huge discounts could make it harder for companies to pay claims.

“We just want them to be actuarially sound and I think there is a lot of speculation that where we are at right now isn’t actuarially sound on rates or discounts,” said Nelson.

If strengthening doors and replacing your windows will no longer save you as much money, fewer people may choose to make the changes. The Office of Insurance Regulation says despite the size of the discount making your home more wind resistant is a good move.

“Mitigation is a win-win for both the homeowner and the insurance company because when the consumers hardens the home it protects it from possible damage when the storm comes along,” said Ed Domansky, an OIR Spokesman.

Any recommendations the commission makes will be discussed by lawmakers during next year’s legislative session. State Farm listed discounts as one of the main reasons their company isn’t making money in Florida.

A Florida family that adopted twins in January is livid over medication the girls were given while in foster care.

When Mirko and Regina Ceska adopted the girls, they were on the drug Seroquel. According to Seroquel’s website, the drug hasn’t be approved for kids. Regina said the drugs were affecting the girl’s behavior.

“To tell you the truth, when we received those two children, when we saw them the first time, and they were on all those medications, their behavior was absolutely terrible and almost, you could almost not control them,” said Regina.

A recent report found that hundreds of foster kids are being wrongfully prescribed psychotropic drugs. The Department of Children and Families is researching the problem. DCF has asked the Ceskas to help them with their research.

For the second straight year Florida has set a record for the number of foster kids being adopted. Last year the state found homes for 3,775 foster kids. As Whitney Ray tells us, civil rights advocates say allowing gay and lesbian couples to adopt would help the state shatter the current adoption record.

Fundra Hart is a mother of two: 13 year old Torii is her biological daughter, and two years ago she adopted William.

“It’s been really good. He just blended right in,” said Hart.

Fundra is just one of thousands of parents helping to ease the pain on the state’s troubled foster care system.

Ten thousand foster kids have been adopted since 2006. This year the state set a record, finding homes for 3,776 kids. While the state is celebrating the new record, civil rights advocates say the bar could be much higher. In Florida gay couples can be foster parents, but they can’t adopt.

“If you can be a good loving, caring foster parent then you should be able to make that a permanent relationship and many want to and that’s the thing I think the governor needs to look at. It’s sort of the elephant in the room context,” said ACLU Spokesman Larry Spalding.

Wednesday Governor Charlie Crist dodged questions about the law.

“I’m serious about adoption and I think the record we celebrated today proves it,” said Crist.

Despite the ban last year a Florida judge ruled in favor of a gay man who went to court to adopt his two foster children. The decision is being appealed by the state. On August 25th the 3rd District Court of Appeals will hear the state’s challenge.

The University System’s Board of Governors spent 75,000 state dollars searching for a new chancellor.

Meanwhile, the man the board ended up hiring was right under their noses. Last week the board named Frank Brogan as their next chancellor. Brogan was on the search committee before a consultant named him as a candidate. Board of Governors spokesman Bill Edmonds said Brogan took immediate action once he decided he became interested in being the new chancellor.

“As soon as he knew he was involved in the search he resigned and then later applied, but at the start he was an unknown, no one had any idea. But even if we did, we wanted to have a nationwide search. We wanted to have what we ended up with, 13 good candidates, four strong finalists. You really want to do that, you don’t want to just go and find somebody you know and hire them. It turns out in this competitive process he turned out to be the winner and that’s to his good credit. That’s not any deficit of the search process,” said Edmonds.

Brogan served as lieutenant governor during Jeb Bush’s administration. He’s currently the president of Florida Atlantic University.

School boards across the state will consider raising property taxes to fund education.

State lawmakers voted for a budget that left schools shorthanded. To make up the funding shortage, the legislature permitted school boards to levy a small millage increase. Florida Education Association Spokesman Mark Pudlow said the legislature has passed the buck.

“This continues a strategy the legislature has had for sometime, and that is to shift more burden to local school districts. So property taxes go up and the legislature says ‘it’s not our fault,’ but it is,” said Pudlow.

Governor Charlie Crist was asked about the proposed property tax increases.

“’Is the state passing the buck on the property tax issue?’ ‘No we are trying to reduce property taxes and I think that is exactly what the people want and I would encourage local governments to do the same thing. Honor the will of the people,” said Crist.

Lawmakers gave school boards the authority to raise property taxes by about 25 dollars on every 100-thousand dollars of a home’s value.

While the state is searching for pythons in the wild, nothing is being done to keep the predators out of urban areas. Anyone can get certified and buy a Burmese python to keep as a pet. As Whitney Ray tells us, county governments want more control over where dangerous animals are housed.

If one of these lived next door would you want to know? In Florida it’s legal to own a wide array of exotic animal, but there is a push to keep better tabs on deadly pets. Calvin Sancho said if his neighbor owned a snake he’d like know, in order to protect his six year-old son.

“Sometimes he’s playing in the backyard and that’s an area a neighbors pet can easily slip into,” said Sancho.

The Florida Association of Counties is asking the Fish and Wildlife Commission to give local governments more of a say-so in the permitting process. Counties also want the authority to zone areas for dangerous pets.

The association said they’re just trying to get the conversation started.

“You have areas that are where I think those types of animals would be more safely zoned for, versus a high density condominium or something like that. The fact is that those are the things we need to start looking at and working together to solve,” said Cragin Mosteller, a spokesperson with the Florida Association of Counties.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission declined our request for an on-camera interview but a spokesperson said on the phone they’re taking the counties’ suggestions under consideration.

Jane Gordon has her own plan to keep her kids safe.

“It’s less important to know if they have a dangerous animal. It’s more important to actually know your neighbors,” said Gordon.

And for now that maybe the only way to know what kind of pets are living next door. The Animal Rights Foundation of Florida has a posted a list of reports of exotic pets that have escaped their cages in Florida. To view the list go to http://animalrightsflorida.org/incidentlist.html

More than 20 species of freshwater turtles are now safe from hunters.

This week the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s ban on turtle hunting took affect. The ban will stop the mass export of Florida turtles to Asian countries. The demand for Florida turtles was growing so much that wildlife experts began to worry about the stability of the state’s turtle population. Pat Benhke, a spokeswoman with the Commission, said they had to put a stop to turtle hunters before things got out of hand.

“We like to keep common species common and we don’t want them to go on our imperial species list at all. We want to keep them just as abundant as they are. We are very blessed in Florida to have a very diverse and abundant population of freshwater turtles and we want to keep it that way,” said Behnke.

Turtle farmers are exempt from the ban. The farmers will be able to catch a limited number of turtles for breeding purposes.

An appeals court is siding with the state in its denial of State Farm’s rate hike request.

The Insurer asked the Office of Insurance Regulation for a 47 percent rate hike. OIR denied the increase in January, but State Farm took the case to court. Today the First District Court of Appeal rejected the rate hike. OIR Spokesman Ed Domansky said State Farm simply couldn’t prove they needed to raise rates 47 percent.

“It’s important that whether it is State Farm or any other company that when a rate filling is made that it is incumbent on the company to support that rate filing and that’s the simple answer and State Farm simply failed to provide adequate support for the rate it was requesting,” said Domansky.

State Farm is still tied up in a battle with OIR over its exit plan. An October hearing with the Division of Administrative Hearings has been scheduled to resolve the issue.

Some Florida businesses are getting free summer help. 43 million federal stimulus dollars are being spent in Florida to create summer jobs for students. As Whitney Ray tells us, many traditional summer jobs are being filled by unemployed adults making it harder for high school and college students to find work.

Twenty year old Brittany Chandler began her summer searching the want ads. Brittany soon found out she was competing against the odds.

“There is like 400 people applying for one job. You are just going to be one in a million looking for that one job,” said Brittany.

After weeks of a fruitless job hunt Brittany discovered a program helping students find work. Florida received 43 million stimulus dollars to create summer jobs for 20,000 teens and young adults.

“This program gives Florida’s young workers excellent skills and experience in the work place great contacts and an excellent way to earn some money in the summer,” said Robby Cunningham, spokesman for the state Agency for Workforce Innovation.

Only one out of every three teens has a summer job; the lowest teen employment rate since 1948. Studies show when teens aren’t working or busy during the summer they’re more likely to get into trouble.

Brittany doesn’t have time to cause trouble. She’s doing clerical work for a radio station and has impressed her boss so much that “Once I do have an opening or a budget, I would like to interview Brittany for a permanent position with us,” said Dot Ealy, the stations general sales manager.

But for now Brittany’s being paid with stimulus dollars and filling a position the radio station can no long afford. For more information about the summer job program visit http://flarecovery.com/news/articles/teen-and-young-adult-summer-jobs-placement-services-and-job-training-available

Lieutenant Governor Jeff Kottkamp is running for the state’s top crime fighting position.

Kottkamp wants to replace Bill McCollum as Florida’s Attorney General. McCollum is stepping down to run for Governor in 2010. Kottkamp said his campaign won’t get in the way of his duty as Lieutenant Governor.

“Serving as Attorney General would certainly be a culmination of a lot of the experiences I’ve had in my life, something I feel very passionate about, but first and foremost I’m going to focus on being Lieutenant Governor,” said Kottkamp.

Kottkamp wouldn’t answer questions about his decision, telling reporters he would answer questions Wednesday when he makes a formal announcement. Kottkamp faces an ethics complaint for using the state plane for personal travel.

Forty years ago Monday Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon.

The famous Apollo 11 space mission was launched out of Cape Canaveral, Florida. Monday Lieutenant Governor Jeff Kottkamp toured the Challenger Learning Center, a Tallahassee space museum and planetarium to celebrate the moon landing. Kottkamp says the state needs to stay at the forefront of space exploration.

“Right here, 40 years ago, Apollo 11 launched and we are going to make sure that next generation of space whether it be exploration through NASA or commercial space, as much as possible of it takes place right here in the sunshine state,” said Kottkamp.

Kottkamp is the chairman of the Space Florida Board of Directors.

A new $7.50 shoreline fishing license went on sale Wednesday. Beginning August first, anyone fishing from shore must have one of the licenses. Only 73 people bought one the day they went on sale, but as Mike Vasilinda tells us, thousands more will need one.

As many as 338 thousand anglers are expected to need a shore line license for the first time, beginning August 1st. At Rivers Bait and Tackle, Johnny Rivers is already hearing the grumbling.

“A lot of people can go fishing that couldn’t go fishing if they had to have a boat or had to hire a boat. So I think it’s going to hurt the fishing industry,” Rivers said.

The first ever license to fish from shore costs $7.50. People on food stamps or other cash assistance are exempt.  The state expects to raise just under a million dollars.

“The shoreline license fee sales will go directly to research and management of marine resources and law enforcement,” Henry Cabbage with the Fish and Wildlife Commission said.

Terry Arnold doesn’t own a boat and says he will keep taking his kids and grandkids fishing.

“I mean, if I have to pay to keep the beaches clean, keep things up, keep the wildlife and game commission people patrolling, yeah that would be fine,” Arnold said.

People over 65 or under 16 are exempt from buying all fishing licenses.

The state is suggesting that people buy a full salt water fishing license, for $17.50, which entitles them to fish from a boat as well as from shore.