St Pete Mayor Bill Foster has asked Sweetbay executives to at least delay closing the Midtown store until they can talk. While the mayor says he had no idea how badly the store was doing, Sweetbay says they had a meeting with the mayor almost two years ago to talk about just that.

A six year old kindergartner from Cypress Grove Elementary collapsed at school yesterday and later died at the hospital. Jose Pinta-Rosa’s family said he was a happy, healthy child and that he didn’t have any health problems they knew of.

Governor Scott would like to give teachers a $2,500 raise. That pay raise will be a part of the 2013 budget and is expected to cost $480 million. School boards in local counties will also have to approve it. The Governor made the announcement at Ocoee Middle School yesterday.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified before Congress yesterday on the attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi. She took responsibility for what she described as failures that led up to the attack. But she also said the requests for increased security there never made it to her desk.

The Pentagon announced yesterday that women will now be allowed in combat. The Joint Chiefs of Staff made the recommendation, and will give military services until 2016 to decide on any special exceptions on positions they think should remain closed to women.

He was tired. That was the official excuse from the pilot of the C-17 that mistakenly landed at the small airport on Davis Islands instead of MacDill. A reporter for the Tampa Tribune finally got a copy of the report on the landing after many news outlets asked for it under the Freedom of Information Act.

A family that had just taken a cruise on the Disney Dream had a rude awakening when they came off the ship in Port Canaveral. Police arrested Robin Hall on a warrant from 1991for shoplifting and not paying an $85 fine. Police found that warrant when they checked the ships manifest for possible terrorists. The mother of two is in jail now unable to pay court costs.