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Governor Rick Scott has until Saturday night to decide if he will allow the University of Florida and Florida State to raise tuition to “market” rates in select programs. If he agrees, the universities could set their own rates above what the Board of Governors or the Legislature decide. Scott says he hasn’t made up his mind yet, but is ready no matter which way he goes.

“I have drafts of both sides, a veto letter and an approval letter. And I’m going to look at that. What I care about in thinking that through is the same thing: what are we doing to make sure that our kids are able to afford their higher ed, and to make sure they are going to get degrees where they can get jobs.”

Scott spent an unprecedented two hours meeting with the presidents of the two universities. He continues to say he wants to know what students and their families will get in return if they are paying more.

On Friday, Governor Rick Scott signed legislation creating the states twelfth university by splitting the Lakeland campus of the University of South Florida into it’s own school. Scott told reporters today that he signed the legislation because the Board of Governors of the University system had already said it would happen over time and because the Governor believes it will create jobs.

“Well, I sighed that bill because as you know, I believe in STEM degrees; I believe that there is a big need and a big opportunity to continue to grow. It basically follows what the board of governors had already approved. And I believe that in the long term it’s going to pay off in jobs” says Scott.

The split was pushed by one of the most powerful men in the legislature, Senator JD Alexander, an heir to the Ben Hill Griffin citrus fortune.

It’s now free to put your phone number on Florida’s Do Not Call list. The state is waiving the 10 dollar sign up fee and five dollar renewal charge people paid in the past to keep telemarketers at bay. As Whitney Ray tells us, the lost revenue will have to be made up by companies that violate Florida’s Do Not Call Law.

Rose Blackburn is virtual bowling with her friends at the senior center. It’s an hour of uninterrupted competition and socializing. Rose remembers a time when her rest and relaxation was often interrupted by telemarketers.

“I still get evening calls,” said Rose.

Rose placed her home phone number on the Do Not Call list, but times change and so did her phone number. She now has a cell phone. And solicitors have her new number.

“Now I’m getting them on the cell phone to, so when I get a number I don’t recognize, I just don’t even listen to it,” said Rose.

Rose’s bowling partner Evelyn Dowery gets the calls too.

“We don’t answer most of them,” said Dowery.

In the past it cost 10 dollars to register a phone number on Florida’s Do Not Call list. There was also a yearly renewal fee. A new law eliminates the fee and shifts the burden for funding to telemarketers.

Florida’s list was started in 1987. A national list was launched in 2003. The state keeps its own list because it allows for quicker investigations and prosecutions. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Commissioner Adam Putnam oversees the list.

In the past the department had to take telemarketers to court if they violated do not call. Now the department has the authority to directly fine the companies.

Eliminating the fees will cost the state half a million dollars. Last year companies violating the law paid the state 50-thousand dollars total. The Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services hopes the new law will allow them to collect enough money to make up the difference.

To put your number on the list visit www.fldnc.com.

There are two new members on the state’s stand your ground task force. Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings and FSU Police Chief David Perry will join the original 17 members when they meet for the first time in May. The men were suggested to the force by Attorney General Pam Bondi. She says having a campus police chief on the stand your ground review team will help.

“There was not a police chief represented on the task force. I think we needed a police chief. He’s local and I think it’s great to have a college chief,” said Bondi.

There are now 19 members on the review team but still no students. Black student protestors say they deserve a spot on the task force because they are more likely to be victims of gun crimes.

The youngest victims of Florida’s pill problem are in the spotlight at the state capitol. This afternoon the US Drug Czar joined Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to discuss how to stop the rising number of babies being born addicted to prescription pain killers. In 2010, nearly 14-hundred babies were born with drug addictions in Florida, up 40 percent from the previous year. General Bondi says that’s has to change.

“We are going to do everything in our power to stop this epidemic and it’s not an epidemic in Florida, it’s throughout our country,” said Bondi.

Today was the first meeting of the Florida Prescription Drug Abuse and Newborns Task Force. The force was empanelled earlier this year after Bondi discovered a high number of babies in Tampa Bay were addicted to prescription drugs.

Governor Rick Scott has until Saturday to sign or veto legislation allowing UF and FSU to raise tuition as high they’d like. The bill lifts the 15 percent a year cap on tuition increase for the two research institutions. School administrators say charging more would help them produce better graduates and create high tech jobs in Florida. Scott says he’s not sure yet if the price is worth the payoff.

“I have drafts of both sides, a veto letter and an approval letter. And I’m going to look at that. What I care about in thinking that through is the same thing: what are we doing to make sure that our kids are able to afford their higher ed, and to make sure they are going to get degrees where they can get jobs,” said Scott.

So far Scott has received about four hundred calls and emails asking for a veto and 30 asking him to sign the bill.

State officials are reassuring Floridians that seafood caught off the coast of Florida is safe, and they have the lab results to prove it.

This red snapper and every other fish sold in this shop is put in plain view for customers to see. Business was brisk for a Monday lunch. Karolyn Mears came for grouper, flounder and crab.

“Everything I ever buy here has always been very good, so I feel it is safe” says Mears.

But reports from Louisiana suggest some mutated fish have been found there. Bob Jones of the Southeastern Fisheries represents Florida commercial fishermen. Jones says they aren’t surprised about fish in Louisiana but adds that’s there and this is here.

“Everyone that’s in the business knows that where you had a significant amount of oil over an extended period of time, that the critters in that area are going to be harmed” says Jones.

Every piece of fish sold by this store is triple inspected…by smelling, by seeing, and by cutting. Since august 2010, the state has tested more than thirteen hundred samples. they include clams, shrimp and all kinds of fish.

The state got ten million dollars from BP to beef up lab their facilities and conduct increased inspections. So far, State Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam says no sample has exceeded safety guidelines for possible oil contamination.

“We have seen no visible impact that lingers in the shell fish samples or fin fish samples that we are pulling from the Gulf of Mexico” says Putnam, who added that he and his family eat Florida seafood at least once a week.

The state has been testing an average of two samples a day since the fall of 2010. The funding for increased testing will last for another two years.

Policy holders of Met Life in Florida will be paid up to two hundred million. The company has been fined forty million for not initiating payments on life insurance policies when it knew policyholders had died. the company got the information from the US Government and used it to stop sending annuity payments to customers, but it never bothered to try and contact life insurance policy beneficiaries and send them what they were owed. CFO Jeff Atwater says there is no way the action was unintentional.

“Now, how do you even say it with a straight face. That a company the size of the ones we are talking about didn’t know how to use that information properly. So I think its been egregious, and I think this is a significant penalty they will now pay” says Atwater.

The state will receive four million of the forty million dollar fine to cover its investigative costs.

In an effort to encourage healthy eating the state now has a capital garden. The garden was unveiled by the Department of Agriculture today. As Whitney Ray tells us, the garden will serve as a prototype for schools wanting to grow their own food to help fight Florida’s obesity problem.

Examining the fruits of their labor, these young gardeners have spent months growing their own food. Their Pre-K teacher Kathy Leland uses the garden as her classroom. Today Kathy’s students are taking a test, It’s not a pop quiz. It’s a taste test.

But gardening is just part of what these three and four year olds learn. Eating fresh, local food is the real lesson.

“Some kids say they don’t like it, it doesn’t taste right. But once they try it, they like it and they go home and plant it,” said Leland.

It’s a lesson the Florida Department of Agriculture is trying to spread to public schools. This garden in the capital city will serve as an example to public schools looking to grow their own food. Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam unveiled the garden Monday.

“When kids connect where their foods come from they are more likely to eat fresh fruits and vegetables. They’re more likely to develop lifelong healthy eating habits,” said Putnam.

School gardens are the next phase in the state’s Fresh from Florida Program. This year schools began serving locally grown produce. The goal is to fight Florida’s obesity problem. Demonstrating how to grow food at school will be shot in the capital city garden and used in webinar videos in schools throughout the state.

It’s shaping up to be another bad year for wildfires. Right now 79 fires are burning statewide, 14 of them are consuming 100 acres or more.

Nearly 15-hundred fires have been reported since the first of the year charring 58-thousand acres of forest. That’s 10 thousand more than burned in the same time period last year. Commissioner of Agriculture Adam Putnam says the drought index is to blame.

“It’s a hundred points higher, more dry at this point this year than it was last year and we all know what a terrible wildfire season 2011 was. So this is a very serious situation,” said Putnam.

The director of the Florida Forest Service will give an update to the state cabinet tomorrow about wildfires and what can be expected this summer.

10,800 New Jobs in March

Florida’s unemployment rate dropped four-tenths of a percent in March. That is the single biggest month to month drop in more than 20 years. As Mike Vasilinda tells us, the uptick is sending optimism through some sectors of the economy.

More signs like this are popping up. Florida added 10, 800 jobs in March.

90 thousand more people are working in Florida than a year ago. Trade, transportation and utilities accounted for one of every three new jobs. March marked the twentieth consecutive month of job gains.

“Well, the recession is over,” state labor economist Rebecca Rust. “We’re certainly in recovery. But we would still consider it a modest recovery, when you look at historical standard.”

Hotels, restaurants and bars are also showing solid gains.

The industry is cautiously optimistic.

“We’re not where we were four years ago,” Lauren Searcy with the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association. “Still, these numbers are really great. We’re glad that there’s an upswing, but we’re still not where we need to be.”

836 thousand Floridians do remain out of work.

Construction, state government, and telecommunications have all lost jobs.

The state continues to trail the nation in job creation. Gregory Dean has been looking for a construction job for the last four months.

Reporter: Any Luck?

“No,” Dean said.

Reporter: Any sense it’s getting better?

“Not in construction,” he replied.

And economists say that without an improvement in the housing and construction market, the recovery will remain modest and signs like this will be all too frequent.

Not since 1992 has the employment rate dropped by almost half a percentage point in one month. That 1992 signaled major economic recovery from a recession.

Economists say it is difficult to determine what impact the BP oil spill two years ago today had on Florida’s unemployment rate. The reason: Many of the fishermen who were impacted the most are not eligible for benefits and BP hired many to deploy boom on waterways, but state economist Rebecca Rust says BP did not share employment data with the state.

“A number of the hotels and eating and drinking places did receive payments, though from BP, so they kept their workers on the payroll,” state labor economist Rebecca Rust said. “So even though they didn’t have tourists at the time, their workers were still being paid, so the employment numbers held  out. And also, the hotels and restaurants had the clean-up workers who were in the area at the time. So, the labor statistics really did not show a major impact due to the oil spill.”

Hotels, Bars and Restaurants are showing some of the strongest gains in job growth in the latest unemployment report.

Black college students say there’s a key component missing from Governor Rick Scott’s task force to review stand your ground, them. As Whitney Ray tells us, a student civil rights group is demanding a spot on the 17 member review team.

With their mouths taped shut, these students from FAMU and FSU marched silently through the halls of the state capitol. Their message to the governor, “give us a spot on the newly formed stand your ground task force.”

“Young people are often the ones victimized the most by these practices, by stand your ground law,” said FSU Senior Michael Sampson.

The task force was formed following the shooting death of Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman’s claims he pulled the trigger in self defense.

There are 17 people on the review team, including four people who voted for the self defense law. There are attorneys, prosecutors and sheriffs but there are no students.

The Dream Defenders, a student civil rights group is leading the call for student representation. The group would also like to see racial profiling addressed.

“Governor Rick Scott has failed to make this task force about systematic racism and public safety and we feel like as the Dream Defenders there’s more things that we can get covered in this task force,” said FAMU Student Lucky Thomas.

Scott says his group is racially and professionally diverse. He picked Lt. Governor Jennifer Carroll to lead the investigation and named the pastor of a black church vice chair.

“We tapped a diverse and qualified group to carefully review our laws and our policies,” said Scott in a Thursday News Conference Announcing he members.

The task force will hold its first meeting in May and public testimony will be allowed throughout the process. But with no young black men on the force, these students will be leery of its conclusions.

Five months ago today, a Florida A&M University Drum Major was beaten to death during a hazing incident on a band bus in Orlando. The FAMU Marching 100, along with it’s director, remain suspended.

Applications for fall admission at the school are down eight percent over last year. Students like Richard Ray say the mood on campus is much more somber. “I know a lot everyone, a lot of people, are still mourning, and still very hurtful about the death” says the Miami Sopomore.

Five months after Robert Champions death, two active investigations are unresolved. One is criminal, the other involves financial irregularities surrounding the bands trips. Attorney Chuck Hobbs says the delay in filing charges has left his client, Band Director Julian White and the University in Limbo.

“In order of importance, we want to find out the truth and make sure that those who committed the acts that killed Robert Champion are brought to justice.” Hobbs says justice for his client is second to finding out what happened to Champion.

We called the State Attorneys office to ask about progress in the CHampion case. They did not return our call.

Five months to the day after Champion’s death, a more recent high profile case prompted Governor Rick Scott to name a task force to study the Stand Your Ground law. We asked the Governor what he would say to the Champion family about the lack of progress in their son’s death. He responded “To Robert Champions family, our heart goes out. I mean, we don’t, none of us want to see any more hazing in this state.”

We also asked the Governor what the Department of Law Enforcement has told him regarding charges in the Champion case. He said “As soon as they are ready, it will come out.”

FAMU Administrators have said the band and it’s director will remain suspended until all investigations are complete. FAMU students are in their final week of class for the fall semester. Final Exams begin next week.

At 23, Florida leads the nation in the number of innocent people sentenced to death and later released. In 1978, David Keaton became the first person released for a murder he did not commit. Keaton has been touring the country speaking to anyone will listen. His message: You too could go to death row for a crime you didn’t commit. Keaton says there are still more innocent people on death row.

“There have been many innocent people convicted and been sentenced to death, and they have died for something they didn’t do” says Keaton, who was just eighteen when he was arrested.

Keaton said until he was convicted, he believed in the justice system, but now argues that eyewitness accounts are often wrong and that police will sometimes look for an easy arrest when they have no other leads.