Things To Do In SW Florida

Construction

Brian R. Cline has joined T&T Construction Management Group Inc., Casselberry, as senior project manager working on projects in Central Florida and the Southeast Region.

Clete Luartes was appointed executive vice president of operations at T&T Construction Management Group Inc., Casselberry.

Health care

Jonathan Armstrong was appointed chief financial officer at AdventHealth DeLand.

Technology

Amanda Allen has joined the Florida High Tech Corridor as its Cenfluence Learning Sciences + Human Performance Cluster Manager.

Carol Nasseh has joined the Florida High Tech Corridor as its Cenfluence Life Sciences Cluster Manager.

Lisa Rain has joined the Florida High Tech Corridor as its Cenfluence Energy + Environmental Sciences Cluster Manager.

Submit professional appointments, management-level promotions and significant awards for individuals, along with photos as .jpg attachments, to peopleonmove@orlandosentinel.com.

Christopher Snowbeck | Star Tribune (TNS)

A hugely disruptive cyberattack in February exposed clear technology flaws at a UnitedHealth Group subsidiary, lawmakers said Wednesday, and raised difficult questions about whether the Minnetonka-based health care giant has just gotten too big.

Andrew Witty, the UnitedHealth chief exeutive, offered an apology during testimony before the Senate Finance Committee as he disclosed that a hacked server at the company’s Change Healthcare unit lacked multifactor authentication protections.

This was a significant failure to comply with “cybersecurity 101,” said committee chair Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon.

Sen. John Barrasso, a Republican from Wyoming, said he was “just not sure why you haven’t had this in place yet.”

Witty said he was “disappointed and frustrated” by the flaw, as well, explaining that UnitedHealth was in the process of upgrading security and systems after acquiring Change Healthcare in October 2022. While the CEO said the company’s massive size and scope has enabled a speedy response to the incident, Wyden promised further investigation both of the cyberattack and broader questions surrounding the company. read more

By Jim Rossman, Tribune News Service

It is high school (and college) graduation time and that usually means some gift-giving.

I’ve got a few gift ideas for your graduates that will be welcomed whether they’re headed off to college or still trying to figure out what’s next.

Here are three gadgets, and oddly, two of them are named Flow.

Tribit Stormbox Flow

I think Bluetooth speakers are an underrated gift.

Everyone loves listening to music or podcasts, and if you’re not wearing earbuds, you’ll want to be listening through a nice wireless speaker like the Tribit StormBox Flow ($79.99 at Amazon, but it’s been on sale for a bit less).

The Flow measures 3.5 inches by 7.9 inches by 2.1 inches and it weighs 1.5 pounds. It is made of smooth plastic with rubber feet on the bottom and the back, so you can have the sound pointing toward you or straight up.

Once you pair the Flow to your phone, it’ll stream all the sound, including phone calls. The Flow has a microphone so it acts as a speakerphone. There are buttons on the top of the Flow to turn it on and to raise and lower the volume and to pickup and hang up phone calls. read more

By Holden Lewis | NerdWallet

If you’re in the market for a home, you might wonder how you’ll be affected by a class-action lawsuit involving real estate agents and commissions. On April 23, a judge granted preliminary approval to the settlement proposed in March by the National Association of Realtors, which means new rules are on track to go into effect in July or August.

None of which means you have to suspend your home search. Here’s what to know about working with a buyer’s agent this season.

What are the new rules?

In the lawsuit Burnett v. National Association of Realtors et al., a group of home sellers argued that NAR and some major real estate brokerages had enforced rules that effectively limited the sellers’ ability to negotiate on commissions. Sellers have traditionally set the commissions for the agents on both sides of the deal.

As part of the settlement, NAR promised to alter some business practices. The three main changes are:

• Buyers, not sellers, will decide how much the buyer’s agent will be paid for a completed sale.
• Commissions for buyer’s agents will no longer be listed on the multiple listing service, a database of properties for sale in a geographic area. Previously, MLS fields visible only to agents, but not consumers, specified what percentage commission sellers were offering for each property.
• Your agent will be required to “enter into a written agreement” with you before giving you a tour of a home. While such contracts — often called buyer’s agency or buyer-broker agreements — are not new, there’s variation in how they’re implemented. Some states require them already. Some agents sign up buyers before showing properties, while others may explain the arrangement but not ask the buyer to sign anything until there’s a house to make an offer on.

These contracts will likely be mandatory by mid-July, and you can expect your agent to ask you to sign one sometime between now and then. read more