Cases of technology-enabled stalking involving cars are emerging as automakers add ever-more-sophisticated features, such as location tracking and remote control of functions such as locking doors or honking the horn.
The moon is a big target for space launches in 2024, with NASA aiming to return the first humans in more than 50 years for a fly-by on the Artemis II mission while spate of commercial companies are lined up for their lunar landers’ shot to touch down safely.
It’s one big theme of the lineup of what could be yet another record year for launches on the Space Coast. Another is the introduction of new spacecraft to the manifest with both the first-ever crewed Boeing CST-100 Starliner and the first-ever uncrewed flight of the Sierra Space Dream Chaser on tap.
And it’s a year that should see the introduction of a new heavy lift rocket from United Launch Alliance and and maybe even one from Blue Origin, plus more private and NASA human spaceflight and one big science mission to an icy moon of Jupiter.
Artemis II: NASA’s target for the first crewed mission of the Orion capsule atop the Space Launch System rocket remains November, but could slip into 2025. But the crew of NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen will continue to prep while the pieces of the SLS make their way to Kennedy Space Center to be stacked in the Vehicle Assembly Building.
A Florida woman filed a federal lawsuit against The Hershey Company over claims some of its seasonal shaped Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups were advertised deceptively.
Cynthia Kelly, of the Tampa area, is suing the company for $5 million in Florida’s Middle District Court.
In the lawsuit, Kelly claims the company is misleading consumers with inaccurate packaging, including depicting Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Pumpkins with carved out eyes and mouths. However, she said the actual candies contain no such carvings.
Kelly’s class-action suit also points out Reese’s White Pumpkins, Reese’s Pieces Pumpkins, Reese’s Peanut Butter Ghost, Reese’s White Ghost, Reese’s Peanut Butter Bats, Reese’s Peanut Butter footballs and Reese’s Peanut Butter Shapes Assortment Snowmen Stockings Bells.
“Hershey’s labels for the Products are materially misleading and numerous consumers have been tricked and misled by the pictures on the Products’ packaging,” the lawsuit states.
December is a boom time for sales at Oldsmar Flea Market.
Thousands flock there on the weekend and search for parking spots at the sprawling bargain mall, which takes up 28 acres along Race Track Road.
Walking through the market, visitors can pass a candle stand, a knife vendor, a vintage clothing store, holiday decorations for sale, a music store and a smoke shop within dozens of feet of each other. Shoppers move in and out of the hundreds of vendor spaces at the 43-year-old market, some stopping to barter.
But several longtime vendors are missing from the market this holiday season after they say rising rent prices forced them elsewhere. The owners of one business that left say their rent nearly tripled over the past few years.
The market’s operations manager confirmed that rent prices have increased multiple times since a new owner took over in 2018, saying the extra funds are needed to pay for maintenance and crucial improvements.
Some vendors still at the market say they are worried about what the future might bring.
Allstate Insurance Company is accusing a Florida-based medical clinic of fraudulently performing unnecessary, life-threatening spinal surgeries and billing for surgeries not performed, then justifying them on invoices with falsified medical records.
The defendant, Florida Anesthesiology & Pain Clinic, is accused of violating laws originally created to fight organized crime.
The clinic has offices in six Florida locations: Pompano Beach, Palm Beach Gardens, Miami Gardens, Tampa, Orlando and Pensacola, according to its website.
Allstate, in a lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in West Palm Beach, accused the clinic and its owner, Dr. Ravi Xavier, of perpetrating an “insurance fraud scheme” designed to elicit payments from the insurer.
The insurer says it paid millions of dollars to resolve insurance claims “that were based on the false, fabricated, unlawful, and improper medical services” described in the lawsuit.
All of the bills submitted to Allstate named Xavier as the physician who rendered “the alleged services,” the suit states.