In the six months since the Legislature ended its annual session, many low-income Floridians faced utility and insurance rate increases. They endured two hurricanes (on top of last year's record season). Their housing and medical costs are at an all-time high. Floridians need help.

And what does the Legislature, called back into special session by Gov. Jeb Bush, have for them?

Slot machines and restrictions on health care.

Next year, the state is scheduled for a routine review of science standards, and House Education Chairman Dennis Baxley calls it "a healthy time to have discussions of that nature." Education commissioner John Winn has refused to discuss the possibilities, other than to release a cryptic statement suggesting current standards "were written in a way that is neither inclusive nor exclusive to any one theory of human origin." Winn's new K-12 chancellor, Cheri Yecke, says she brings no agenda to change the curriculum but told a reporter she believes "God created heavens and the earth."

These are not encouraging signs. Eight decades after the Scopes "monkey" trial, Christian conservatives are still pushing to treat religion as though it were a competing scientific theory. A federal judge is expected to rule soon on a Dover, Pa., school policy that requires instruction in intelligent design. But Dover voters didn't wait for his ruling. In Tuesday's elections, they gave the boot to eight of the nine School Board members who want intelligent design taught in ninth-grade science classes.

Meanwhile, the Kansas State Education Board has decided that science no longer need limit itself to natural explanations. The educator in charge of Florida K-12 schools says she believes in creationism. President Bush says that "both sides ought to be properly taught." And some Florida science teachers are apparently doing so already.

"The fact that you've got 40-percent turnover tells me that 60 percent can't find another job," said Smith. The Gainesville Democrat, a former state attorney whose district includes the University of Florida and state prisons, realized how that might sound - and added that "dedication" also is another reason that people stay in the relatively low-paying, high-stress jobs of guarding young thugs.

and Republican legislative leaders tried to defeat the class-size amendment in 2002, the public didn't trust their scare tactics. A new study designed to pave the way for repeal of the amendment next year does nothing to improve that trust.

The study by the Council for Education Policy, which shills for Gov. Bush, says smaller classes will hurt education because the state will have to hire unqualified teachers for all those new classes. Yet the state has given away billions in tax "relief" to the wealthiest residents.

We can't afford educating kids, but we can afford cutting checks to millionaires in beachfront mansions.

Jeb Bush would beat on his thumb with a ball-peen hammer before raising taxes to reduce classroom crowding. But he is fine with raising taxes to subsidize investors who flip beachfront condos.

Bush says shrinking class sizes would "blot out the sun."

When a Category 4 or 5 hurricane hits Miami-Dade, Citizens Property will be a nuclear winter. ...

What do you think they'll say about the mastermind behind all this -- gubernatorial candidate Tom Gallagher.

While billing customers for hurricane cleanup and netting record profits, Florida Power & Light scrimped on tree-trimming, pole inspections and other basic maintenance -- leaving South Florida's power grid more vulnerable to widespread blackouts.

Florida's largest utility company slashed operating and maintenance costs per customer by 32 percent between 1991 and 2001. In the past three years, the company shaved about 4.5 percent more from those costs, company records show.

FPL insists that its cost-cutting -- which has helped stock prices soar in recent years -- has not pinched the reliability of its service.

Yet when Hurricane Wilma swept the region three weeks ago, its winds plunging 3.2 million FPL customers into darkness, overgrown trees and rotting poles played a crucial role in the record-setting outage, utility workers say.

20 out-of-state utility workers interviewed by The Herald in Miami-Dade and Broward counties say they were not surprised by the damage because overgrown trees were dangerously close to power lines and some utility poles were so rotted they were easily pierced by a screwdriver.

"We have the greatest governor in the history of Florida," Crist said. "And the greatest governor in the country."

For decades the state's governors and legislative leaders have avidly encouraged reckless coastal growth, beholden as they've been to mega-developers, road builders, banks and others getting rich from cramming more people into Florida.

Now our lawmakers sit around, scrounging for somebody to blame for the havoc caused by Hurricane Wilma. What boneheads. ...

I love the comments from Sen. Alex Díaz de la Portilla of Miami and Sen. Paula Dockery of Lakeland. They say Floridians need to take more personal responsibility for hurricane preparation.

Are you slackers listening? Next time a tropical storm is brewing, rush out and buy your 72 hours worth of food, ice and D batteries. You'll be just fine after the storm hits.

Forty days before the 2004 election, Fort Lauderdale congressman E. Clay Shaw's Democratic opponent, James R. Stork, dropped out. But although Secretary of State Glenda Hood had the discretion to let the Democrats substitute a candidate, she refused to let them do it. Too much trouble so late, she said. Too much confusion.

It wasn't the first time Floridians had reason to wonder whether Hood, a Republican appointee of a Republican governor, let partisanship taint a decision.

That time, however, justice intervened. Circuit Judge Janet Ferris reiterated what Florida's chief elections official should not have needed to be told: "the strong public policy . . . of providing voters with greater choice and ensuring ballot access." Ferris declared the law unconstitutional, under the separation of powers doctrine, for giving unguided discretion to Hood. The 1st District Court of Appeal agreed, and so did the Florida Supreme Court, which ruled last week.

Bush abandoned his pledge last month, encouraging a key committee in the U.S. House to approve drilling 213 miles from Tampa Bay. U.S. Reps. Jeff Miller, Mike Bilirakis and Cliff Stearns went along with it -- along with local Reps. Tom Feeney and John Mica.

Bush and Colleen Castile, secretary of the state's Department of Environmental Protection, say the deal they struck will protect Florida coastlines. That's silly: Drilling off Florida's coast is illegal now. If the deal Gov. Bush struck becomes law, 2.4 million underwater acres would be open for oil exploration.

With the possibility of more. The deal, approved last month by the U.S. House Resources Committee and last week by the House Budget Committee, gives state officials the authority to approve natural gas drilling within 25 miles of the shoreline and oil drilling within 50 miles (and gives the state half the royalties paid by energy companies that win leases inside a 125-mile buffer).

The obvious implication is that state officials can and should be trusted to say no to energy companies wanting to drill. Bush's capitulation proves how flimsy that assumption can be.

Despite looming fiscal crises, House Republicans took the first step Thursday in eliminating a tax largely paid by millionaires and businesses.

Gov. Jeb Bush has led the charge against the intangibles tax on stocks, bonds and other investments. During his term, lawmakers have reduced the tax by more than 75 percent since he took office in 1999, cutting the state's revenue by hundreds of millions of dollars.

Is indicted House Majority Leader Tom DeLay meddling in the Democratic primary for Florida governor?

No way, says state Sen. Rod Smith, who charges he's the victim of a prank e-mail that suggests the conservative Republican leader is endorsing the North Florida Democrat's run for governor.

In a victory for opponents of more oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, U.S. House leaders dropped a plan to allow oil and gas exploration closer to Florida.

The deal that Bush and several Florida Republicans endorsed [and is now dead] would allow oil rigs 125 miles off the Gulf Coast, beyond sight, and would permit energy companies to negotiate directly with the state Legislature to put drilling operations closer.

The current patchwork of deals prohibits drilling within 200 miles of Tampa Bay, which has preserved an area off the Pinellas County coast called Lease Sale Area 181, a region that energy experts believe is rich in oil reserves.

As recently as 2001, Bush staunchly opposed drilling in Area 181.

Disaster-preparedness officials want to create a "culture of preparedness" in Florida, encouraging personal responsibility first and governmental response as a supplement to recovery from hurricanes.

Bush will ask lawmakers to enact another sales tax holiday for hurricane supplies, in which state residents would not pay taxes on items such as generators.

is retiring. At least, she is putting the position of bureau chief into the capable hands of Steve Bousquet, but she is still going to work on "special projects."

The U.S. House could vote by Thursday to allow oil and gas drilling closer to Florida, but Rep. Clay Shaw, trying to defuse a sensitive political issue, is working to kill a legislative provision that would open the door to more drilling.

Shaw, a Fort Lauderdale Republican who faces a tough reelection race next year, said Tuesday he is negotiating with House GOP leaders to remove a provision in a $54 billion deficit reduction package that would loosen a national ban on drilling.

"Although intuitively . . . the idea of small classrooms is a fine idea, when you magnify that issue across the state, the negative impact greatly outweighs a qualitative benefit," said W.C. Gentry of Jacksonville, chairman of the Council for Education Policy, Research and Improvement, a group appointed by the governor and legislative leaders.

Two high-ranking prison officers and the recently resigned Panhandle district director of the Department of Corrections were charged with felony battery Tuesday in the beating of a former correctional officer who was injured in a fracas during a party at the Tallahassee armory.

The latest twist in a long-running state and federal inquiry into corruption in the prison system resulted from an investigation by the Tallahassee Police Department. James Edward O'Bryan suffered a bloody nose, cuts to his mouth and bruised ribs in the April 1 incident but told investigators he did not want to pursue criminal charges because he feared of reprisals against his wife, a Department of Corrections employee.

With South Florida residents still fuming about downed power poles and endless days without electricity, two South Florida lawmakers said Wednesday they want legislative leaders to investigate Florida Power & Light's maintenance practices and review the decision by state regulators to allow the utility to charge consumers for last year's hurricane repairs.

Sen. Steve Geller, a Hallandale Beach Democrat, has asked the Senate Communications and Utilities Committee to put FPL executives under oath and grill them about maintenance of its power poles.

Rep. Ron Greenstein, a Coconut Creek Democrat, has asked House Speaker Allan Bense to investigate a Public Service Commission decision to allow FPL to charge customers for what they have called ''lost revenue'' to cover their hurricane costs last year.

''I am greatly concerned when I hear that a power company with a complete monopoly on electrical service in my district has no financial incentive to restore power quickly, because they can just ask the PSC for a surcharge to make up for lost revenue,'' he wrote.

The leaders of two Senate committees said Tuesday they will look into whether the power outages after Hurricane Wilma were preventable and conduct a broader investigation into how well prepared all state utility companies are for hurricanes.

crowed loudly last month that the state senator from Alachua had raised more money - $322,000 to $320,000 - than his U.S. Rep. Jim Davis of Tampa, his rival for the Democratic nomination. ...

Well, since then the Smith campaign has quietly amended its report. Its new total for the quarter: $317,857, less than Davis.

Florida's sickest Medicaid patients might get inadequate care if Gov. Jeb Bush succeeds in placing them into private managed care programs, a group [of 84 state and local health and low-income advocacy organizations] warned legislators in a letter Monday.

Technically, the fuel-increase surcharge is not a ''rate increase'' -- a point that PSC Chairman Braulio Baez emphasized Monday, saying that the improper use of rate-related terms is a "pet peeve" of his. Baez helped lead the charge in July to tack a $1.68 monthly surcharge on FPL customers' bills to help pay for storm damage last year. That charge, to last through February 2008, includes $34 million to reimburse FPL for "lost revenue" -- money it lost out on because it wasn't providing electricity to blacked-out homes after storms.

Consumer advocates, among them AARP lawyer Mike Twomey, say that fee amounts to charging customers for power they didn't use. Swank said the "lost revenue" term was used by PSC staff, not FPL. He said the company is charging people for the recovery of costs incurred in restoring power, but that no one was charged for power they didn't use. Baez said he wasn't sure if the PSC would consider another such fee, pegged to Hurricane Wilma's damage. "I don't know what to foresee," he said.

As for the latest fuel-related surcharge request, advocates from the Office of Public Counsel, the state consumer-advocacy agency, say there's little it can challenge before the PSC, except for a portion of the fuel-recovery money sought by Progress Energy, which might have bought coal from a subsidiary for more than the market rate. The group is also protesting FPL's decision to use $25 million in fuel-recovery money to repair steam-generator pipes for one of its nuclear generators in Port St. Lucie.

"It doesn't make sense. What they're basically asking for is a tune-up, and they're claiming it should be paid with gas money," Twomey said. "They should pay this out of their base rates, not take even more from the consumer's pockets. People are paying enough already."