TALLAHASSEE - The Florida Supreme Court will review an appellate court decision that threw out a $145-billion verdict against the tobacco industry.
The court on Wednesday set oral arguments in the case for the first week in October.
The 3rd District Court of Appeal ruled last year that smokers could not group themselves together in a single lawsuit against the nation's big cigarettemakers.
In 2000, a lower court awarded the judgment against the tobacco industry to compensate sick Florida smokers. The case, the first class-action suit against the tobacco industry to move to trial, produced the largest punitive damages verdict in U.S. history.
Bush signs canker search, early-graduation bills
TALLAHASSEE - Gov. Jeb Bush on Wednesday signed a measure (SB 2484) extending from 10 to 60 days the validity of search warrants for officials looking to destroy trees infected or exposed to citrus canker.
Bush also signed a bill (SB 364) that says high school students who opt for an 18-credit three-year high school diploma must maintain a 3.0 grade point average. The former requirement was a 2.0 GPA.
Lew Brantley, former Senate president, dies
JACKSONVILLE - Former Florida Senate President Lew Brantley, who also was a top Shriner, died Tuesday at his home of lung cancer. He was 66.
Mr. Brantley, first elected to the state House of Representatives in 1965 at age 26, was elected to the Senate in 1970. He was Senate president in 1976-78.
He resigned from the Senate to run for mayor of Jacksonville in 1979, but lost. He served as board chairman of Shriners Hospitals for Children in 1997 and 1998.
His wife of 35 years, Catherine Dent Brantley, and four children are among the survivors.
