Another week, another rumbling train of tornadoes that obliterates entire city blocks, smashing homes to their foundations and killing people even as they cower in their basements. ...more

May 28, 2008

NEW TAMPA - Children who have never eaten at a restaurant, visited a zoo or ridden a Ferris wheel are missing popular life experiences. Their chances for high scores on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test also might be harmed. The state released the latest round of FCAT test results, the third-grade reading and mathematics scores. While most schools saw gains, some still lagged behind county and state averages. Many of those schools serve students who are unable to afford experiences such as visiting a fair or zoo. ...more

May 22, 2008

The most frequent question mothers pose to the founders of baby newsbits.com is where to find a good babysitter. ...more

May 7, 2008

Cinco de Mayo. Around here it's less a holiday than an excuse to stretch a long weekend through Monday. It's another reason to fire up the grill and sit outside in the prequel to another Florida summer. ...more

May 5, 2008

I thought I was going to need oxygen the last time I went to the grocery store and the cashier announced my final total. Suddenly, all of those news stories about rising food prices hit home. ...more

May 2, 2008

WASHINGTON - President Bush acknowledged that the economy is weakening, but expressed hope that tax rebates that start going out on Monday should help shore things up. ...more

April 25, 2008

DUNDEE - Investigators have identified the man killed by a Dundee police officer in the parking lot of a grocery store late Thursday night, the Polk County Sheriff's Office reported. ...more

April 11, 2008

TAMPA - Deputies have arrested a man who they said took a knife from a grocery store in Largo this afternoon then used it minutes later during a robbery of a nearby pharmacy, according to the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office. ...more

February 24, 2008

Just as interesting as new technology are the years following its introduction and finally seeing how we use it. Sometimes it's exciting, and sometimes it's little depressing. The Internet is both. Never in the history of humankind have people had the ability to communicate so quickly and access more information. It's nearly impossible to find bad in that – except we have. It's true that information is only a mouse click away, but the quality of information is the real question. Too many people gravitate to places on the Internet telling them what they want to hear, not what they need to hear. So that makes a lot of us believe we're intelligent on issues when, in fact, we've just bought into someone else's point of view and call it fact. Political websites are the worst. Someone with a flair for writing can spew garbage about any candidate and get a lot of people believing it. Our country is all about free speech, and there's nothing wrong with stating opinions. In fact, it's healthy. The problem occurs when people are mentally lazy and don't check out the facts. ...more

February 19, 2008

It seems like a simple concept: Let people shop for their groceries. But it's a new one at Metropolitan Ministries. And clients love it. ...more

February 14, 2008