Surrounded by a sea of sugarcane, this poverty-ravaged town on the southeastern edge of Lake Okeechobee has long been one of the country's most fertile football areas. ...more

August 17, 2008

Some of Florida's U.S. House members complained Wednesday about being kept in the dark during the state's secret negotiations of a $1.75 billion proposed buyout of U.S. Sugar Corp. ...more

July 31, 2008

The state's plan to buy 187,000 acres from U.S. Sugar Corp. worries the residents of Clewiston, whose town near Lake Okeechobee grew up with the sugar industry and is threatened by the loss of its main industry. ...more

July 20, 2008

The Seminole leader Wild Cat, captured with Osceola under a flag of truce during a meeting with U.S. Army officers, became one of the most feared leaders of the Second Seminole War. ...more

July 20, 2008

Hernando County's unemployment rate keeps inching upward, but the gap between it and the top spot is widening. ...more

July 19, 2008

Jim Withers sat in the back room of his small barbershop smoking a cigarette and studying his computer screen. ...more

July 13, 2008

As the state is working on the massive Everglades cleanup, a local Audubon Society official warned that one of its tributaries is headed for the same environmental problems plaguing the swamp and Lake Okeechobee. ...more

July 10, 2008

For the past seven months, Gov. Charlie Crist and his staff have been talking in secret with U.S. Sugar Corp. about buying all its holdings in South Florida. ...more

June 26, 2008

The deal announced Tuesday by Gov. Charlie Crist for the state to buy 187,000 acres of U.S. Sugar land south of Lake Okeechobee and put it back into natural marsh is epic both in the size of the parcel and the impact it will have on the environment in South Florida. ...more

June 25, 2008

For all his nice-guy, never-say-a-mean-word ways, Gov. Charlie Crist has managed to do what no other Florida governor has dared to attempt. ...more

June 25, 2008