Things To Do In SW Florida

By Melissa Lambarena | NerdWallet

Using a credit card to make purchases is straightforward, but understanding the ins and outs of how exactly they work can be more complicated.

On the back end, credit card issuers can take certain liberties that impact your cards’ features. If you dig into the fine print, you’ll find that card issuers generally mention they can make certain account decisions at their discretion. There are also unwritten liberties issuers can take, potentially in your favor. For instance, an issuer may be cooperative when you request lower interest rates, a higher credit limit or a switch to a different card entirely.

The more you understand your credit cards, the better you can navigate them.

Here are a few facts about credit cards that are good to know.

1. Some credit card terms can change with little if any warning

You may become accustomed to certain perks, rewards, fees or even interest rates over time, but those features can change — some more quickly than others. You’ll often find language supporting this in a card’s terms and conditions. read more

Florida is once again giving back some of the tax money it collects to residents.

As usual, the annual “sales tax holidays” are going into effect — periods during which sales tax isn’t levied on certain types of spending.

New this year: A one-year elimination of the tax on residential property and flood insurance premiums.

House Bill 7073, signed into law Tuesday by Gov. Ron DeSantis, had support from Democrats and Republicans. No one in the state Senate or the state House of Representatives voted against it.

The total of the tax relief is $1.07 billion, the governor’s office said. By contrast, the total state budget as passed by the Legislature totals $117.46 billion, an amount that’s likely to come down somewhat when DeSantis acts on the budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1.

He said Tuesday that would happen “probably in the not-too-distant future.” He’s been using the time since the Legislature passed the budget on March 8 to travel the state and tout his support for popular provisions in the spending plan, generating many days of positive publicity. read more

A pair of NASA astronauts were ready to go, but a single valve caused a scrub of their ride on Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner on Monday night. The next shot to fly won’t be until at least May 17.

“I know everybody was eager to see a launch,” said NASA’s Ken Bowersox, associate administrator of the Space Operations Mission Directorate during a Monday night news conference after the scrub. ” … But all I want to say first is that good things are worth waiting for, and we’ll get a chance to see that rocket and spacecraft lift off the pad here soon.”

Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were strapped into Starliner sitting atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station but with just over two hours before the planned liftoff, teams called off the launch attempt.

ULA scrubs attempt of 1st Boeing Starliner mission with humans

The reason was a technical issue with a valve within the upper Centaur stage on ULA’s rocket designed to regulate pressure on a liquid oxygen tank. read more