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Nominations are now open for the Orlando Sentinel’s 2024 Top Workplaces program, which seeks to identify and recognize the area’s top companies and what employees say makes them great places to work.

Any company, nonprofit, public organization or government agency with 35 or more employees in Orange, Seminole, Osceola, Lake, Sumter, Polk, Brevard, Volusia, Flagler or Marion counties may participate in Top Workplaces.

Company owners or workers may nominate themselves at OrlandoSentinel.com/nominate or by calling 407-428-2696. The deadline for entries is March 8, and winners will be announced in September.

The Top Workplaces process involves having employees evaluate their companies with a short, 24-question survey. Companies will be surveyed through May..

For the sixth consecutive year, the Sentinel is partnering with Energage as the program’s survey company. Last year Energage collected results from more than 31,000 employees locally.

Based on the surveys, a record 116 companies and organizations in Central Florida were recognized as Top Workplaces for 2023. read more

TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Ron DeSantis had thrown his weight behind legislation to ban what he and Republican colleagues are calling “fake meat” – beef, chicken, pork and seafood grown from animal cells cultivated in a lab.

“You need meat, OK? We are going to have meat in Florida,” DeSantis said at a recent news conference while blasting corporations for forcing “woke” ideology on consumers. “You can’t have fake meat. It doesn’t work.”

But lab-cultivated meat isn’t grown, researched or sold in Florida, and it isn’t fake. The federal government has approved it for sale after years of testing but has licensed just two companies to sell it so far.

So the day Floridians could see it is a long way off.

“This is going to feed people on their way to Mars,” House bill sponsor Rep. Danny Alvarez, R- Hillsborough County, told the members of a committee.

So, why do DeSantis and lawmakers have such a beef with cultured meat?

They’ve said it’s to protect Florida’s cattle industry, but they also appear to be serving up a fresh batch of red meat hot off the grill for their conservative base. read more