Fay is going to pass over the heart of Florida’s citrus-producing region.

As Judith Smelser reports, the industry is concerned about everything from disease to flooding.

Central Florida’s Red Cross chapter is taking the lead role in storm response efforts. Judith Smelser reports.

Florida agriculture officials are trying to distance the state’s ethanol production initiative from the debate over ethanol’s impact on food prices.
The state’s fledgling ethanol industry is the main topic of discussion today at the third annual Farm-to-Fuel summit in Orlando. Judith Smelser reports.

Florida’s top Democratic and Republican officials are confident their delegations will be seated in full at the parties’ presidential nominating conventions later this summer. The delegate question has been the subject of major debate this year, as both national parties punished Florida for holding its presidential primary too early. Judith Smelser reports.

Florida is taking center stage in the presidential election campaign this week. Republican John McCain visits the Sunshine State today; tomorrow, Democrat Barack Obama will make his first campaign swing through Florida since the fall. Judith Smelser reports.

Citrus growers from across the state are gathering in Central Florida today for a summit on citrus greening. The deadly plant disease has been spreading across the state for the past three years, and researchers want to make sure growers are doing all they can to fight it.

Judith Smelser reports.

Power executives say they’re still in the dark about how a glitch at a substation triggered a blackout that cut power to millions across south Florida. The sporadic outages yesterday spanned 300 miles of the peninsula but appeared to be concentrated in the southeast portion of the state. Judith Smelser reports.

There could soon be less water flowing into Florida’s rivers - as federal officials lean towards letting Georgia keep more water in its reservoirs to cope with a record-setting drought. But the governors of Georgia, Florida, and Alabama will be responsible for working out a long-term solution to their deepening dispute over water resources. Judith Smelser reports.

Hundreds of people gathered in Orlando’s Lake Eola Park this weekend to demand an end to the Iraq war. Orlando was one of eleven cities around the country that held coordinated peace rallies on Saturday. Judith Smelser was there and has this report.

Elephant vasectomies.

Now that’s a phrase you probably thought you’d never hear – on public radio, or anywhere else for that matter. For one reason, that’s because nobody’d done one until last year – that’s when a team of scientists led by the chief veterinarian at Disney’s Animal Kingdom successfully pioneered the surgery.

The same team recently returned from South Africa where members performed five more of the operations and started teaching vets there how to do the procedure themselves. But as Judith Smelser reports, elephant sterilization is costly, challenging … and even controversial.