Elaine Chen

On The Florida Roundup, we take a special look at the economy.  

Employment, tourism and real estate numbers suggest a recovery. We’ll examine whether Gov. Rick Scott’s “it’s working” motto is actually working -- for him.

Meanwhile, the legislative session is over but many bills are still under review by the governor. The biggest: Florida's $74.5 billion budget.

And locally, could South Florida lose both the Super Bowl and the International Swimming Hall of Fame to California?

So many issues made the headlines during the state's 60-day legislative session.  But if you haven't been following the ins-and-outs of Tallahassee, we have you covered.  Here are the 7 main events from Florida’s recently concluded legislative session.

Join us for The Florida Roundup today at noon for a special look back at the 2013 state legislative session and a follow-up with participants from our WLRN-Miami Herald Town Hall in February.

Below you can be part of a live, online discussion curated by our social media editor, Danny Rivero.

Click here for The Seven Most Important Things You Should Know About Florida's Legislative Session

Join us Friday at noon on 91.3 FM WLRN for an hour's discussion on the week's headlines, including:

• Legislation on health care, ethics, elections and education dominate the final days of the current session in Tallahassee.

• Before Miami-Dade voters have their say on stadium improvements, will the state clear the way for the Miami Dolphins to receive tax rebates?

Everyone loves to complain about political corruption.  But would you do any better?  Play our interactive game, Tallanasty, and find out if you would be a cleaner Florida politician.

What makes Miami's food culture so great?  Vote for a poem from our That's So Miami project that best describes a culinary favorite.

UPDATE: POLLS CLOSED AFTERNOON OF 4/25, WINNERS TO BE ANNOUNCED AT THAT'S SO MIAMI READING AND FINALE

Since Julia Tuttle’s arrival in 1891, Miami has grown like crazy: more people, more homes, more roads, more 

  boom. Dense tropical hardwood trees that covered the City of Miami were chopped down and urbanization moved west into the Everglades.

Join us for an hour of conversation about the week's news on The Florida Roundup, live at noon on WLRN:

Join us for an hour of conversation about the week's news on The Florida Roundup, live at noon on WLRN.  Here's what we're watching:

Join us for an hour of conversation about the week's news on The Florida Roundup, live at noon today on 91.3FM WLRN:

• Cuban dissident Yoani Sanchez captivates Miami. We hear how her tweets are breaking down barriers between Cuba and the rest of the world.

In honor of National Poetry Month, WLRN - Miami Herald News is teaming up with the O, Miami poetry festival to bring you That's So Miami--a project documenting your thoughts about Miami, in verse.    

We want to see your Miami, not “CSI: Miami” or “Miami Vice” or “Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach.” The only rule is that your poem has to begin or end with the phrase, “That’s so Miami.”

The public funding in the Marlins stadium deal has been called one of the biggest boondoggles in sports history. But hardly any stadium now is built with only private funds. Why do governments fund these facilities?

On April 1, opening day of Marlins' season, Rick Horrow with WLRN-Miami Herald News hosted a special roundtable, Foul Ball! The Future of the Marlins in Miami, a two-hour radio special on the impact of the Marlins stadium deal. Some of the guests included:

On The Florida Roundup, here are some of the items on our rundown:

Join us for a conversation about the week's news on The Florida Roundup, live at noon, for an all-staff show during the pledge drive. 

It would be nice to know more about state politics.  But who can keep track of all those committees and subcommittees, you say.  And all the House and Senate bills with long names and random numbers – and who is my legislator anyway?

You could go to the official state websites to find your legislators and proposed laws. 

On the week's The Florida Roundup:

On The Florida Roundup, here are some the events that caught our attention:

On The Florida Roundup, here's what we're talking about from this week's news:

On the Florida Roundup, we have on the slate:

On the Florida Roundup, we take a look at the week in news in our region and state:

• As President Obama addressed the Congress and the nation, how is the state of Florida’s union?  From voting and gun rights to climate change, we take a look at what resonated here from the President’s speech.

The job of lobbyists is to improve the image of their clients.  But lobbyists themselves could use some PR.

Carl Adams, who was a Tallahassee lobbyist for 35 years and founded the Florida Association of Professional Lobbyists, thinks that the system - campaign finance laws and the prohibition on private deliberation - is flawed, not the people.   

We asked Adams why his profession is so maligned. 

On the Florida Roundup: The Dolphins jump the first hurdles in their quest for public money to upgrade Sun Life Stadium.  

Rising tides on your street - how sea level rise could cost our region millions. 

The price of property insurance in Florida keeps going up --  such that some homeowners are getting second mortgages or dropping coverage all together.  The state created Citizens Property Insurance to be the insurer of last resort for Florida homeowners. But plans to shrink Citizens by loaning money to private insurance companies and allegations of corporate misconduct have sparked outcries by some state officials and the public alike. 

On the Florida Roundup: New immigration reform proposals are put on the table in Washington. How could a path to citizenship be traveled in immigrant-rich South Florida?   Plus we get the latest update on the FBI raid of a West Palm Beach eye doctor with connections with U.S. Senator Bob Menendez, a sponsor of a bipartisan immigration reform plan.

The state Legislature, perhaps more than Congress, passes laws that have a direct impact on the day-to-day life of a Floridian: how much you pay in sales tax, how much time you have to vote, how you obtain a gun.

Tallahassee is in our lives every day. It's only 480 miles away. And yet, for many in South Florida, it might as well be on another continent. 

Florida is one of only 11 states that does not prohibit texting while driving.  Though state legislators have already introduced 3 texting ban bills for the upcoming session, similar bills have failed in the past several years. 

Politics can be quite the poetic muse - especially statehouse politics, it turns out.

We recently challenged members of the Public Insight Network to write about politics in the Sunshine State - in a limerick.* 

On the Florida Roundup: From immigration reform to gay rights, we’ll discuss how the president’s inauguration speech resonated here.  

The Dolphins win the first battle in their fight for public funding to renovate Sun Life Stadium, with the Miami-Dade County Commission agreeing to ask the state for an increase in the hotel tax.  But Florida state lawmakers might not be receptive.