Phil Latzman

Even before last year's coastal calamity caused by superstorm Sandy, Broward County Mayor Kristin Jacobs was trying to get everyone's attention about sea-level rise and it's impact on South Florida.

In a wide-ranging interview back in February, Florida Power & Light President Eric Silagy addressed a number of issues facing the state's largest utility.

The responses prompted a slew of feedback on topics ranging from storm preparedness and climate change to renewable energy sources.

Nuclear Power

The city of North Miami holds key mayoral elections this month.

But the new mayor will have the difficult job of reuniting a city divided between east and west. 

Editor's Note: Be sure to check out an interactive bill tracker of this year's session from the Miami Herald.

It's curtains for Session 2013 in Tallahassee but a feeling persists that not much was accomplished during the last two months.

Dolphins Stadium

Here in South Florida, the clock ran out on the Miami Dolphins' 2-minute drill for state help on renovations to Sun Life Stadium.

Update 10:07 p.m. EST: The Florida Senate approved the Dolphins bill, 36-4. Now the House will get its turn to pass its own version.

Believe it or not, early voting began Monday in Miami-Dade County in a referendum that may NOT be needed by the end of the week.

Today is Earth Day. 

And here in low-lying, hurricane prone Florida, the day has special meaning.

Sea-level rise is no longer something so incremental that we don't notice.

It's real and visible, and planning for a future of rising oceans has become a top priority for local towns, cities and counties across the state.

It's been a busy week in Washington, D.C.

As lawmakers react to the Boston Marathon bombings, parts of the Capitol had to be evacuated after suspicious letters addressed to U.S. Senator Roger Wicker and President Barack Obama were intercepted at mail screening facilities.

While dealing with that scare, members of Congress are getting their first look at a proposal for immigration reform put forth by the so-called "Gang of Eight" Senators including Florida's freshman Republican Marco Rubio.

Nicolas Maduro, heir to the late Hugo Chavez, appears to have won Venezuela's presidential election.

But it's by a margin so thin that opposition candidate Henrique Capriles is challenging the legitimacy of the results, demanding a full recount.

Maduro, acting president since Chavez's March 5 death, held a double-digit advantage in opinion polls just two weeks ago, but electoral officials said he received just 50.7 percent of the votes compared to 49.1 percent for Capriles. With nearly all ballots counted, that's a difference of about 300,000 votes.

This Sunday, Venezuelans return to the polls for yet another presidential election.

This vote is to replace the late Hugo Chavez, who died of cancer last month after winning re-election in October.

Interim president Nicolas Maduro, Chavez's former vice president, has tried to embody his former boss as he runs for the permanent job. The man who was defeated in the fall -- Miranda state Gov. Henrique Capriles -- is waging a more aggressive campaign.

Marathon talks between the Miami Dolphins and Miami Dade County officials appear to have delivered a tentative deal.

In the agreement, the Dolphins would receive $7.5 million a year in hotel sales taxes to renovate Sun Life Stadium. The deal also stipulates that the Dolphins repay the county between $110 million and $120 million over the next 30 years. The team would face huge penalties if it fails to bring high-profile sporting events to the stadium, including four Super Bowls and four college football championship games.

We spoke with the governor about his hopes for this legislative session, his political turn to the left, his support of Medicaid expansion and teacher raises, the issue of illegal internet cafes, guns, jobs, property insurance and a proposed texting-while-driving ban.

HIS POLITICAL SHIFT

It's all in the family. 

Miami-Dade school board member Raquel Regalado grew up listening to her father Tomás host one of Miami's most popular radio talk shows. She watched as her famous dad won a spot on the Miami City Commission, and eventually become mayor in 2009. 

Now, she's got a high-profile job of her own, and may be following in dad's footsteps.

The younger Regalado hosts her own Spanish-language radio program on La Poderosa, 670 AM, and was elected in 2010 to represent district 6 on the Miami-Dade School Board. 

After nearly 43 years, John Dorschner has left The Miami Herald, and he will be sorely missed around here.

John's wry manner, and his considerable chops, both in reporting and in voice, have made him the perfect newspaper-to-radio journalist since we began the WLRN-Miami Herald News cooperation a decade ago.

Pope Francis may not be from the United States, but for many in South Florida, the fact that he's from Argentina is even better.

Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski has hailed the selection of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio as a "great thing” for the hemisphere, and called the new Pope an American.

“Latin America, as Pope Benedict described it, is the continent of hope. And it is the continent in which we have the largest growing number of Catholics in the world.”

With the country still in mourning over the death of Hugo Chavez, election season has begun again in Venezuela.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is back in his home country after more than two months recovering from his latest cancer surgery in Cuba. Celebrations ensued throughout the country on Monday as he made his way back to the capital, Caracas, following his extended absence.

But as tens of thousands of Venezuelan expatriates monitor in South Florida, his return may raise more questions than it answers.

For example:

What's on state lawmakers agenda for the upcoming session? Sen. Anitere Flores (R-Miami) and Sen. Maria Sachs (D-Boca Raton) discuss what's on their list with WLRN's Phil Latzman.

For Republican Anitere Flores, there's little hesitation when she's asked what she'll be working on first when the session begins. 

"The most important issue that I'll be tackling this year," she says, "is Citizens Property Insurance."

Wednesdays on WLRN, we discuss issues related to Latin American and the Caribbean. Today: how a transition at the top of the U. S.  State Dept. might be felt in the hemisphere.

Some have said the Obama Administration has ignored that part of the world as it tried to put out other fires in the President's first term.

Now that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been succeeded by John Kerry, might things be different?

Phil Latzman spoke with assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs, Jose Fernandez about the possibilities.

Marlins open with loss; but only on field. 

The Marlins lost the first regular season opener in their Miami new ballpark last night, falling to the World Series champion St Louis stadium last night by a score of 4 to 1.

WLRN-Miami Herald reporter Phil Latzman was there, as were many of the major players OFF the field that made the new stadium a reality.

The Marlins lost the first regular season opener in their Miami new ballpark last night, falling to the World Series champion St Louis stadium last night by a score of 4 to 1.

WLRN-Miami Herald reporter Phil Latzman was there, as were many of the major players OFF the field that made the new stadium a reality.

The Miami Heat are this year’s NBA champions after finishing off the Oklahoma City Thunder in game 5 of the finals last night in Miami 121 to 106.

On special assignment this week from the American Airlines Arena in Miami, WLRN's Phil Latzman has the sounds of celebration.

Florida Power and Light is the state's largest utility serving roughly 4.6 million customers.

Since 2006, FPL customers have been paying what's called a "Nuclear Cost Recovery Fee," which enables the utility to charge in advance for future costs of building and improving nuclear power plants.

Since then, about $320 million has been raised to add 525 megawatts of new power to Turkey Point in South Miami-Dade.  

Now that a group of key senators and the president have proposed their plans for immigration reform, what would some of the proposed changes mean to South Florida's unique immigrant communities? We hear from  University of Miami immigration law specialist David Abraham.

Wednesdays on WLRN, we take time out for discussions and stories concerning our hemispheric neighbors in Latin American and the Caribbean.

As Miami-Dade commissioners sit down to talk about the public's role for the first time today, the National Football League is offering its support to help Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross pay for improvements to Sun Life Stadium.

The Dolphins have been reluctant to talk about the idea but are hinting that the NFL's contribution is contingent upon public help first. The Miami Herald reports today the amount is unclear, but could be in the tens of millions of dollars.

As New York and other states strengthen their gun control laws in response to the tragedy in Newtown, Conn., the chances of that happening in Florida appear dim.

"Remember, this a Republican-controlled Legislature, and they are very much about trying to honor yhe Constitution and the Second Amendment," says our Tallahassee reporter, Gina Jordan.

The Cuban-American Democrat. It is an unusual breed in Florida.

Since the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 made the Democratic administration of John F. Kennedy look bad, and caused many Cubans to flee their homeland forever,  El Exilio community in South Florida especially has been strongly Republican.

But that's beginning to change. Some exit polling indicated Cubans nearly split their vote between President Obama and Mitt Romney this past election, something that has never happened.

It's election year in the region's largest city and the race for Miami mayor has just become a little more interesting. City Commissioner Francis "Frank" Suarez, 35,  will officially announce a challenge to incumbent Mayor Tomas Regalado today.

With an ailing Hugo Chavez still in Cuba, and perhaps on his deathbed, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans now living in South Florida are anxiously awaiting word of what happens next.

El Arepazo 2 on N.W. 79th Avenue in Doral is their unofficial headquarters.

Inside the restaurant, the walls are covered with major league baseball cards, honoring players from Venezuela's most popular sport, such as reigning MVP Miguel Cabrera and Hall of Famer Luis Aparicio.