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After the mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, the country renewed a debate over gun control. At the same time, Florida quietly marked a milestone. It became the first state to issue more than a million permits allowing residents to carry concealed weapons. From Miami, NPR's Greg Allen reports.

GREG ALLEN: It's the holiday season, and at American Armory, a gun store in Homestead, Florida, the atmosphere is festive.

(SOUNDBITE OF CROWD)

Longshoremen and East Coast and Gulf Coast port operators have agreed to a 30-day extension on labor negotiations, averting a potentially crippling strike that would have halted container traffic at many of the nation's largest seaports, according to a federal mediator.

The strike would also have idled cargo but not cruise ship operations at PortMiami and Port Everglades. PortMiami is the nation's 11th largest container port and a lengthy strike would be costly to the regional economy.

The unrelated killings of two young men, two state government controversies, election developments and a multi-fatality car crash made up the top 10 Florida news stories of 2012, according  to an Associated Press survey of newspaper editors.

We were once again in the center of the political universe, but perhaps for all the wrong reasons as the state that can't vote straight.  It was also the year that the death of a black teen from Miami Gardens named Trayvon Martin made us reassess race relations, and the right to stand your ground.    

A bustling Art Basel Miami Beach, the 1,000th Random Act of Culture, a vote of popularity for Delray Beach’s Arts Garage and major change for the Miami City Ballet.

All this and more took place in 2012.

WLRN is seriously committed to covering the arts and a lot of our staff was in the thick of the arts world.

We asked some voices you may just know to identify a few of the influential happenings.

So here are thoughts from Alicia Zuckerman, Arianna Prothero and Christine DiMattei in what we like to call “ArtsYear 2012.”

Tumbling off the fiscal cliff will immediately cut the economic lifeline for 119,000 Floridians who depend on extended unemployment compensation now funded by the federal government.

It would also mean an immediate increase in the payroll taxes paid by every American wage-earner. But the long-term unemployed will be especially vulnerable if Congress and White House negotiators are unable to reach an agreement to head off automatic tax increases and deep spending cuts by Monday.

Just a few miles away from downtown Miami lies a natural beach in the city’s largest park.

The 82-acre Virginia Key Beach Park remains a bit of a hidden gem. The historic beach still attracts those looking for a quiet place to relax despite one drawback.

In season, about 2,000 people visit Virginia Key Beach Park every weekend even though swimming isn’t permitted.

“It’s a disadvantage - one we’re overcoming," said Guy Forchion, head of the Virginia Key Beach Park Trust.

Gov. Rick Scott and executives of Florida's largest ports Thursday called on negotiators to avert a strike that could cripple the majority of container shipments along the eastern and gulf coasts as early as this weekend. 

Barring an agreement between longshoremen and shippers, the group urged President Barack Obama to use his authority to keep containerized cargo moving while talks continue, saying any interruption would have a ripple effect throughout Florida and across the country.

South Florida lost a number of notable figures in 2012.

Bee Gees singer and former Miami resident Robin Gibb died at 62 after a battle with cancer.

Tony Goldman, the developer credited with turning South Beach and Wynwood into thriving destinations, died at 68 from heart failure.

In 2012, Florida remained the state that can't vote straight. 

President Barack Obama sent Florida's GOP leaders in to shock by winning the state in November, and some Democrats followed his coattails to make the state slightly bluer. But while licking their wounds, Republicans remain in firm control of Florida's agenda.

Transportation engineers are planning to install pay-per-drive express lanes as part of the next big I-95 makeover in Palm Beach County.

Already in use in Miami-Dade County and under construction in Broward, express lanes provide a faster, limited-access drive for commuters who can commit to the entire distance. Tolls rise and fall as a function of traffic congestion.

In Miami, the tolls range from 25 cents to six and seven dollars, according to traffic conditions.

Many years from now, hundreds of Lynn University alumni will be able to tell their grandkids, "Yep, I was there."

2012 was the year Lynn went from relatively unknown university to center of the political universe when it hosted the final presidential debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.

Just before the October 22nd event, Lynn President Kevin Ross repeatedly referred to the debate as the moment the university had long been waiting for.

The end of the year is approaching and the news columns and web sites of a hungry nation are filling up with weird Florida stories, each supposedly an illustration of the character, lifestyle and unholy preoccupations of our strange, strange state.

Florida's war on so-called "pill mill" pain clinics  appears to be pushing the problem into Georgia.

The Wall Street Journal reports that in 2010, there were just 10 pain clinics in the state of Georgia. Today, there are more than 125 clinics  and the state's per capita prescriptions of oxycodone has tripled in the last decade.

2012 may be remembered in Latin American for what didn't happen more than for what actually did, especially in Venezuela and Cuba.

VENEZUELA

The year began ominously for Venezuelan nationals living in South Florida.  The U.S. State Department expelled the country's consul-general, alleging she was involved in a cyber-terrorism plot. In January, Venezuela's Miami consulate was shut down by President Hugo Chavez, who was facing a tough reelection campaign. 

tvOur friends at WUSF in Tampa have been collecting holiday stories and traditions from around the state for a series they call "Florida Holidays." The following was originally posted by WUSF reporter Dalia Colón.

Confession: Publix holiday commercials turn me to mush.

Maybe it's the music. Maybe it's because I'm already in the holiday spirit. Or maybe it's just good marketing.

Texas executed 15 convicts in 2012, the most of any state, according to an end-of-year report from the Death Penalty Information Center.

But Florida led the nation with new death sentences for the year: 21, more than twice as many as Texas. California, with 14 death sentences, was the only other state to achieve a double-digit performance.

His big campaign pledge was 700-thousand jobs in seven years.

So, halfway through his term, how is Gov. Rick Scott doing with that?

The answer...it's complicated.

Unemployment has dropped from 11.4 percent in January, 2011, to 8.1 percent in November of this year. But almost half of the improvement is attributed to discouraged workers leaving the workforce.

Floridians will remember how hard it was to vote on election day in November of 2012.

But many will forget what was easy: Losing their vote because of simple mistakes.

Our friends at WUSF in Tampa have been collecting holiday stories and traditions from around the state for a series they call "Florida Holidays." The following was originally posted by WUSF reporter Dalia Colón. It came to her as an email with subject line "That's so Florida." Here's a strange tale from Anna Maria Island  resident Peggy Bode:

Our friends at WUSF in Tampa have been collecting holiday stories and traditions from around the state for a series they call "Florida Holidays." Becky Wanamaker shared this story on WUSF's Facebook page and Scott Finn, WUSF's news director, originally posted this story.

Every December, our family drives to Orlando for a little winter wonderland fun at the Gaylord Palm's ICE! show. We bundle up in those big, heavy blue coats and marvel at the beautiful sculptures that created wonderful Christmas vignettes.

LISTEN TO THE STREAMING JINGLE JAMS MIX HERE

For the last 14 years, WXPN host and producer Robert Drake has programmed and hosted a 24-hour holiday-music marathon called The Night Before, aired from midnight to midnight on Dec. 24. We decided this year to put more jingle in the jangle and create Jingle Jams on XPN2, a 24/7 stream of holiday music.

The multitoed cats that have lived for decades in comfort and ease at Key West's Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum may continue to do so, a court has ruled.

But those cats will be protected and regulated by the U. S Department of Agriculture from here on out, just like any animals that are exhibited for a profit.

That's the puzzling upshot of a decision that has the famously independent city in an uproar and wondering if the decision can be appealed to the U. S. Supreme Court.

What's the deal, you’re wondering, with Jewish people and Chinese restaurants on Christmas?

Sun Sentinel religion writer Lois Solomon traces the long history of America's Jewish Christmas dinner and how immigration and cultural diets played a part in creating the tradition. It even found a place in the record of U. S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan's Senate confirmation hearing:

We all know South Florida can be a pretty weird place, and it's something of a holiday tradition for news organizations around the state to put together lists of the weirdest stories of the year.

We decided to go straight to the people on the front lines, WLRN's anchors, producers, editors and reporters, and ask them what they thought were the most bizarre Florida stories of 2012. 

Some stories were funny, others perplexing and some macabre.