EDGEWATER, Fla. -- They say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but not when it comes to the pageantry career of Tia Winn McDonald, the 18-year-old Miss Teen Florida pageant winner, who competed for the national crown in Las Vegas.

Let's get it on! Winning, after all, is the goal isn’t it? Do we really fight because we think "I want to lose this argument?"

Atlantis touched down flawlessly at 5:56 Thursday morning after three decades of space shuttle missions to the International Space Station and the Russian station Mir and the Hubble Telescope. I heard the sonic booms of re-entry for the final time outside my Edgewater home.

As I have been advising you the cold water upwelling is now here in full bloom. It extends well offshore all the way to turtle mound. This upwelling will make some fish lie virtually motionless like in a hypnotic state while other fish will move to warmer waters.

As I have been advising you the cold water upwelling is now here in full bloom. It extends well offshore all the way to turtle mound. This upwelling will make some fish will lie virtually motionless like in a hypnotic state while other fish will move to warmer waters.

The deficit: America needs selflessness and wisdom from its leaders

By Stanley Escudero of Daytona Beach Shores

Congress is congenitally incapable of agreeing on politically controversial issues like the debt ceiling until the last possible moment. Even then they can be counted on to seek the safest common denominator which usually means a partial agreement. That in turn kicks the hardest part of the problem into future congresses or leaves loopholes which future congresses can use to avoid making these same hard decisions.

OAK HILL -- When a Jacksonville Beach cop pulled over Laura Goodearly for suspicion of DUI, he "immediately detected a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage coming from her breath which she became stronger as she spoke."

I live in Ponce Inlet at the end of a street that backs up to a greenway. My new neighbors tell me that I will see wildlife here like I have never seen it before. It’s been two weeks and so far, nothing.

All the elected officials, aides, politicians, czars, lobbyists, and janitors in Washington can’t seem to come up with a solution to our so-called “debt crisis.” It isn’t that I don’t believe there "is" a debt crisis; it’s that it could be solved so easily if the above-named dolts would set aside their egos and do the right thing.

DELAND -- The School District of Volusia County will hold a union negotiation meeting with the Volusia Teachers Organization at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, July 27.

The meeting will be held in the 2nd floor conference room at the DeLand Administrative Complex, 200 N. Clara Avenue, DeLand.