News & Public Affairs

Fraud prevention workshop focuses on seniors listen

06/02/09 Seán Kinane
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Tags: Consumer fraud, fraud, seniors, credit

As the economy sinks deeper into recession, fraud against citizens remains a concern. For that reason, the Federal Trade Commission and the office of Sen. Mel Martinez held a fraud prevention workshop this morning at the new Town 'N Country Senior Center.

Claudene Hicks, 80, was a victim of telemarketing fraud which added charges to her phone bill. But she was able to clear up the matter by going to a consumer protection agency.

“I kept getting thi...

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Survey: Americans hungry for immigration reform listen

06/02/09 Mitch E. Perry
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Tags: Politics, immigration reform

Pro-immigration groups from South Florida and around the country will gather in Washington later this week to pressure President Barack Obama to address immigration reform in his first year in office.

To convince the President and members of Congress that comprehensive immigration reform, and not handling illegal immigrants punitively, is what the American people want, advocates today released new poll numbers.

Pollster Peter Brodnitz is with the Benenson Strategy Group. He said 67 perc...

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Crist signs growth-management bill listen

06/02/09 Mitch E. Perry
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Tags: Politics, growth management

As we reported last night, without ceremony Gov. Charlie Crist has signed Senate Bill 360, also known as the Community Renewal Act, into law. The bill was sponsored by Bradenton Sen. Mike Bennett, who is also a developer.

Bennett says the rewrite of growth-management regulations will bring common sense to outdated and frustrating rules, untie the hands of developers and jolt a badly stalled economy with a burst of new construction.

Hillsborough County environmental activist Denise La...

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Latino community mourns the loss of Maria Ester Carillo listen

06/02/09 Mitch E. Perry
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Tags: Maria Esther Carrillo, TICH, HYPE

Last week in Miami, Maria Esther Carillo, a leader in the Latino community in Tampa, and her daughter, Maria Liliana Carillo, were hit by truck while standing on a sidewalk. Maria Esther died at the scene; her daughter remains hospitalized.

The Tampa Tribune reports that Maria Esther Carrillo, 48, was a native of Colombia and came to Tampa in 1990. She founded the Hispanic-American Inter-Cultural Workshop, known as TICH, to help children of Hispanics connect with their culture and langu...

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Task Force: Not all of referendum funds will go to transit listen

06/02/09 Mitch E. Perry
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Tags: Transportation, Hillsborough County, light-rail, mass transit

Last night, the Hillsborough County Transportation Task Force held the second of its 12 planned meetings to inform residents about a possible 1-cent referendum for rail and other transportation projects on the 2010 ballot.

Although the emphasis has been about the funding becoming crucial for Tampa to begin to construct a light-rail system, Lucia Garces, speaking for the Transportation Task Force, said the meeting are also to learn what other projects that the public wants that tax to fund....

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Water managers from around the world at USF listen

06/01/09 Seán Kinane
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Tags: Water, USF, Patel Center

This morning at the University of South Florida, 20 water managers from around the world exchanged ideas about that essential resource with people from the Tampa Bay area. The internationals are students from the UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education in Delft, The Netherlands.

USF’s Dr. Kiran C. Patel Center for Global Solutions hosted the students, who are in Florida to learn about “Sustainable Water Resources Management ...

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Dan Gelber drops out of Senate race listen

06/01/09 Mitch E. Perry
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Tags: Politics, U.S. Senate, Dan Gelber, Kendrick Meek, Dave Aronberg, Corrine Brown

There’s been some movement in the race for the Democratic nomination for Senate next year.

Over the weekend, Miami Beach Sen. Dan Gelber confirmed that he is dropping out of race for Senate, in which he was running against South Florida Congressman Kendrick Meek.

Gelber made his comments to a netroots appearance in Miami on Saturday, where he said when the Democrats get into a contested primary, the winner generally loses in the general election to the Republican on the ballot.

Last ...

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Radio stations fight bill to require them to pay musicians listen

06/01/09 Mitch E. Perry
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Tags: Radio legislation, royalties

Legislation moving its way through Congress could soon require radio stations to pay artists and record labels for playing their music.

Radio currently pays hundreds of millions of dollars a year to record labels whose music they play, as well as to songwriters and music publishers.

But with the explosion of music on the internet and fewer people buying CDs, the industry has been using superstars like Bono and Sheryl Crow to testify in front of Congress to support the law.

Marty Mac...

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Sustainable Living: Capitalism

06/01/09 Jon Butts
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Tags: Sustainable living, farming, agriculture

Our very special guest on the Sustainable Living program was John Ikerd, Professor Emeritus of Agricultural Economics at the University of Missouri, College of Agriculture, Food, and Natural Sciences. John is the author of the books Sustainable Capitalism - A Matter of Common Sense, Small Farms are Real Farms, Sustaining People Through Agriculture, plus more books, papers and related media on the topic of sustainable economies and agriculture.

He addressed the question of sustainabl...

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