Duke Overbilling Charges Were to Reach More than $2.6 Million

Duke Energy Florida customers' overbilling charges were set to reach more than $2.6 million before the utility halted the fees following Tampa Bay Times reports. More than 165,000 customers were bumped into a higher rate tier when Duke Energy Florida added days to their billing cycles while revamping its meter ready rounds, the Tampa Bay Times reports.

Florida's Public Service Commission documents obtained by the Tampa Bay Times show that Duke stated that the average customer affected by the overcharges would receive $5.62. While the highest credit totaled $23.62, the lowest credit amount is 2 cents.

Duke charges customers $11.34 for every 100 kilowatt hours up to 1,000 kilowatt hours. Above that, the charges shift to $13.70 per 100 kilowatt hours. The charges are before taxes and other fees. The changes in the billing cycles bumped customers into the higher range.

To read the entire Tampa Bay Times article, click here.

DOD Could Save Pentagon $108 Billion Over Next Decade

A new Congressional Budge Office report has found a way to save $108 billion over the next decade. However, veterans may not be happy with it: the savings targets veterans, according to the South Florida Business Journal. The money would come from cutting retirement pay for veterans already on disability from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

To read more about it, click here for the South Florida Business Journal article, or read more here. To view the Congressional Budge Office report, click here.

Some Florida Min. Wage Workers to See Raise

While the Florida Legislature did not raise the state-mandated minimum wage during its latest session, some minimum wage workers will soon see an increase in their paychecks. Companies including Gap and Ikea have announced or started voluntary minimum wage increases ahead of proposed legislation, according to the Miami Herald. In April, St. Petersburg-based C1 Bank raised its "living wage" to $14 an hour.

While the current federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, Florida's minimum wage is $7.93 an hour. A full-time employee working 40 hours a week in Florida would earn $317.20 a week, or $16,494.40 per year, before taxes. Meanwhile, Florida's poverty line for a family of four is $23,850 a year. According to the Miami Herald, "The [Florida] Legislature adjourned in May without taking up a proposed hike to $10.10 an hour."

To read the entire article, click here.

Warhol Superstar Ultra Violet Dies

Isabelle Collin Dufresne, the actress, artist and author who was better know as Ultra Violet, died Saturday. The 78-year-old, who was best known as one of Andy Warhol's "superstars", died of cancer in a Manhattan hospital, according to The New York Times.

In 1973, she had a near-death experience that she blamed on her excesses of the previous decade. She later became a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She lived in both Manhattan and Nice, France, and worked as an artist until her death. A New York exhibition in Chelsea this spring featured a selection of her work, and closed three weeks before she died.

In a 2010-interview with Miami Herald's Steve Rothaus, Ultra Violet said, "Today with the explosion of the media, the Internet, everybody has 15 minutes of fame. I'm trying to get 16 minutes, and it's very hard."

To read Dufresne's obituary in The New York Times', click here. To read Steve Rothaus' interview of Ultra Violet, as well as the mention of her death, click here.

Oil Driller Sanctioned for Fracking In Florida's Everglades

Earlier this month, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection revealed that it had sanctioned a Texas-based company for unauthorized fracking in in an area surrounded by the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. Critics of plans to drill in the Everglades were further dismayed that the fracking and sanctions against the Dan A. Hughes Co. dates back to December, but were not disclosed at lat month's hearings about the Hughes Co.'s Florida activity, the Broward/Palm Beach New Times reports.

Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary is considered the gateway to the Western Everglades.

Hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") entails blasting water and chemicals into the ground to release oil and natural gas. Its effects on human health and the environment is controversial.

To read the article in its entirety, click here.

New Treatment For Dogs?

When Jenny Conley noticed her English gold retriever, Moses, limping, eventually unable to put weight on his leg, she brought him to the vet's. X-rays showed severe osteoarthritis in the 6-year-old dog. While taking medication for the pain for the remainder of Moses's life was an option, Dr. Cara Erwin-Oliver of Belleview Animal Hospital in Belleview, Florida offered up another option: stem cell therapy, according to The Gainesville Sun.

While the pricey surgery ($1,500) holds no guarantee, Moses is now back to walking with Conley after his November surgery. "It's like he never had anything wrong with him," Conley said.

To read the article in its entirety, click here.

Driving With Killer GPS

Most of us have heard somewhat amusing stories involving drivers taking their GPS's routing too seriously: trying to turn where there is no longer a turn lane, being told by GPS to turn the wrong way down a one-way street. We then might shake our heads and think, Yup, gotta use common sense.

Varoly Olivares might want to consider not using a GPS at all on future trips. Seems that Olivares was driving during the pre-dawn hours on Friday, February 28 when the GPS in his car told him to turn off of 6th Avenue South in Fort Worth - onto railroad tracks. As soon as he realized his mistake and tried backing off the tracks, his truck became stuck, according to The Palm Beach Post.

A southbound Tri-Rail commuter train was heading toward Olivares and his truck. While Olivares escaped, his truck wasn't so lucky. The collision, which wrecked his truck, stopped traffic for more than two hours.

To read the article in its entirety, click here. And to drive a little safer, use common sense if and when using a GPS.

Oil Companies Plan: Drill In Florida Panther Habitat

Matthew Schwartz, a transplanted Brooklynite, fell in love with the South Florida wilderness. After learning what the oil industry has planned for the region - plans that he says threatened the Florida panther to a greater degree than first believed, Schwartz began researching the number of official permits were issued by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. He was concerned enough that he plans to attend a meeting in Naples on March 11 to discuss oil well wast water with the federal Environmental Protection Agency, one of the Broward/Palm Beach New Times' blogs reports.

Among some of his findings, Schwartz discovered that the Dan A. Hughes Co. of Beeville, Texas has leased the mineral rights on approximately 115,000 acres from Collier Resources, including a well next to the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge. The lease also includes large portions of the panther refuge, as well as part of the Big Cypress National Preserve, and the Audubon Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. Schwartz also found two more leases issued by Collier Resources.

To read the article on the Broward/Palm Beach New Times' blog in its entirety, click here.

School Bus Driver Credited For Helping Save 6-year Old

A St. Johns County School District bus driver alertness helped keep a 6-year-old safe recently, possibly saving the child's life. Driver Bill Buckley was approaching the first-grader's bus stop when a car driving behind the bus sped up to pass the bus, which already had its stop signals out and red lights flashing. Meanwhile, the first-grader ran into the street toward the bus, according to The Florida Times-Union. Buckley laid on the horn to alert the child, who stopped. Buckley's actions "saved his (the child's) life," according to his mother, Joy McMillen.

Buckley, who joined the district's transportation department on Jan. 29, 2013, has been honored by the school district.

To read The Florida Times-Union's article in its entirety, click here.

Probation For 'Affluenza' Teen After Fatal Crash

A Texas teen was sentenced to 10 years' probation in a drunk-driving case in which four people were killed. Prosecutors had asked Judge Jean Boyd to sentence Ethan Couch to 20 years in jail on charges that two people were severely injured, The Florida Times-Union reports. However, Couch received no jail time.

A defense expert testified that the teen's wealthy parents "coddled him into a sense of irresponsibility," naming the condition "affluenza." Defense attorney Reagan Wynn said that his client was "misunderstood."

To read the Florida Times-Union article in its entirety, click here.

Bitcoin Exchange CEO Arrested At JFK

The CEO of Bitinstant was arrested at JFK airport Sunday and charged with money laundering, according to Business Insider. Charlie Shrem, 24, of New York, New York, along with a co-conspirator, is accused of trading more than $1 million in bitcoins to Silk Road users, who then used the bitcoins to purchase illicit items, including drugs.

Shrem, who is also vice chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation, and Robert Faiella, an alleged underground Bitcoin exhanger, are among the widening circle of arrests in the case, according to Forbes Magazine. Bitcoin payment processor BitInstant was Shrem's startup and had received $1.5 million in start-up funding "in an investment round led by Bitcoin moguls Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss," according to Forbes.

To read the Business Insider article, click here. To read the Forbes article, click here.

New Voting Rights Bill

A bipartisan group of legislators plans to announce the introduction of The Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2014 in Congress today. The new bill is in response to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Shelby County v. Holder which invalidated part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the American Civil Liberties Union reports.

Last year's ruling invalidated "the coverage formula that determined which states and political subdivisions were subject to the law’s preclearance requirement," the ACLU release stated. Because the ruling did not strike down the preclearance requirement itself, it opened the door for Congress to "devise a new formula and other mechanisms" to protect minority voters' rights.

The bipartisan group includes Reps. John Conyers (D-Mich.), James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT.), among others.

To read the release in its entirety, click here.

Scott Requests SCOTUS To Weigh In On Drug-Testing

Florida Gov. Rick Scott is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to fight a Miami federal judge's ruling on drug-testing state employees. During Scott's first year in office, he issued an executive order for state agencies to conduct random drug tests of state employees. The American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Council 79 sued on the grounds that it was unconstitutional, the Orlando Sentinel reports. In 2012, a Miami federal judge ruled that the order violated state employees' Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches.

To read the Orlando Sentinel article, click here.

Franklin McCain Dies, Part of Greensboro Four

Franklin McCain, who, with three other college students, helped touch off the American civil rights movement, has died of respiratory ailments. He was 73. The Greensboro Four sat down at a Woolworth's lunch counter, knowing that they would not be served, The Washington Post reports.

The four were college freshmen at the Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina, and included Mr. McCain, his roommate, David Richmond, and their friends Ezell Blair Jr. and Joseph McNeil when they sat at the Woolworth's lunch counter on Feb. 1, 1960.

To read the entire article, click here.

Earthquake Felt In Tampa Bay Area

A 5.1-magnatude earthquake struck just before 4 p.m. Thursday afternoon in the Straits of Florida between Cuba and Florida. The quake, which lasted about 30 seconds, caused highrise buildings in Havana to sway, startling workers, according to Tampa's WFLA.com. The city closest to the epicenter is Corralillo, 17 miles to the southwest; the quake was approximately 106 miles east of Havana.

According to the U.S. Geological Service, there were five reports from Tampa and seven reports from St. Petersburg of people reporting that they had felt tremors. The USGS site mentioned one report from as far away as Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.