Florida Gov. Charlie Crist said Friday that Florida has been hurricane free thanks to prayer notes he placed on the Western Wall in Jerusalem. He said every year he's placed them there or has asked someone else to do it.

"Dear God," he said the notes read, "Please protect our Florida from storms and other difficulties. Charlie."

Crist, a candidate for the U.S. Senate seat to replace the soon-to-be-exited Mel Martinez, was speaking before a group of Florida real estate agents, who certainly have an interest in a storm-free state.

President Obama will meet with Pope Benedict XVI on July 10, during Obama's upcoming visit to Italy, the White House announced this afternoon. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the president and holy father would "discuss a range of issues, including their shared belief in the dignity of all people."

Never mind yesterday's announcement. That scheduled speech this coming Sunday evening by President Obama's faith-based programs director, Joshua DuBois, which was at first open to the press and, as of yesterday, closed to media coverage, is once again open for coverage, says a spokeswoman for the Consultation on Conscience program being hosted in Washington by the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.

No explanation about the change of heart by the administration.

Joshua DuBois, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, will not allow the media to cover a speech to the Religion Action Center of Reform Judaism as scheduled, the group said Thursday.

“As the result of a mutual, last-minute decision between our office and Mr. DuBois’, his presentation on Sunday night at the Consultation on Conscience will no longer be open to the media and will instead only be open to private donors,” the group said in an email.

The news media is welcome to cover other speeches and sessions at the conference, apparently including scheduled remarks by senior White House adviser David Axelrod, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele and House Majority Whip Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., as well as several other members of Congress.

Last year, Passover came as then-candidate Barack Obama was campaigning in Pennsylvania. A couple of the campaign staffers on the bus who are Jewish and couldn't get home to be with their families decided to put together a Seder (the traditional meal marking the start of the holiday) as best they could. They were delighted when Obama showed.

This year, President Obama, who is Christian, is continuing the tradition; he'll attend a Seder on Thursday night at the White House with some staffers, some Jewish and some not. His wife and daughters will be there according to a list of attendees released by White House aides this evening, but some key staff have other commitments. Senior adviser David Axelrod and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel aren't expected. Axelrod said he'll be in Chicago with family.

The White House list does not include any key Jewish campaign supporters outside the administration or any religious or community leaders, and aides would not say for sure whether others are invited or would attend. The list released included: senior adviser Valerie Jarrett; the president's personal aide, Reggie Love; the Obamas' friend Eric Whitaker; the first lady's counsel Susan Sher, deputy chief of staff Melissa Winter and personal aide Dana Lewis; Axelrod's assistant Eric Lesser; White House videographer Arun Chaudhary; Herbie Ziskend, the staff assistant to the vice president's policy and economic advisers; Lisa Kohnke, a deputy director of advance and special events; associate social Secretary Samantha Tubman; and several of their family members.

Despite a broad charge to guard against religious discrimination, President Obama’s order creating a Council for Faith-Based & Neighborhood Partnerships leaves in place executive orders from George W. Bush, one of which allows such discrimination, according to the watchdog group Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
“President George W. Bush’s faith-based initiative allowed religious groups that accept tax funding to engage in discriminatory hiring and celebrated faith-based groups that proselytize,” says Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United.
“Today’s Obama action leaves the Bush executive orders in place including one that specifically authorizes religion-based employment discrimination in publicly funded programs.”
Lynn said he was “very disappointed” that Obama stopped short of directly barring evangelism and religion-based hiring bias in tax-financed programs.
“I would rather there be no ‘faith-based’ office,” Lynn said. “But if it exists, it must comply with long-established protections guaranteeing civil rights and civil liberties.”
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs insisted the new Obama office will not replicate the same faith-based policies of the Bush White House. He said the order creating the new council included language barring discrimination in the job description for the panel’s new executive director.

After President Obama speaks Thursday morning at the National Prayer Breakfast, he's scheduled to return to the White House to sign an executive order forming the President's Advisory Council on Faith. An administration official released some details tonight on condition of anonymity because the formal roll-out had not yet occured. The initiatives will include creating a 25-member council of secular and religious leaders to advise on policy issues; and a continuation of the basic structure of President Bush's office of faith-based initiatives, with a White House Office, and Centers for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships in the executive agencies. These could run programs including job training, assimilation for ex-offenders and international programs for HIV/AIDS. 

Obama last July, while campaigning, promised to roll out such a program and said it would "help set our national agenda." He had criticized Bush's program as politicized and underfunded. Obama also said then that he would insist that federal funds to religious groups go only to secular programs that don't proselytize. Some advocates of faith-based groups predicted that if Obama insisted on secular hiring mandates as a result, it would frustrate religious groups of all kinds including black churches. But groups advocating church-state separation praised Obama's pledge.