Things To Do In SW Florida

Queenie Wong and Wendy Lee | (TNS) Los Angeles Times

The patriotic image shows megastar Taylor Swift dressed up like Uncle Sam, falsely suggesting she endorses Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

“Taylor Wants You To Vote For Donald Trump,” the image, which appears to be generated by artificial intelligence, says.

Over the weekend, Trump amplified the lie when he shared the image along with others depicting support from Swift fans to his 7.6 million followers on his social network Truth Social.

Deception has long played a part in politics, but the rise of artificial intelligence tools that allow people to rapidly generate fake images or videos by typing out a phrase adds another complex layer to a familiar problem on social media. Known as deepfakes, these digitally-altered images and videos can make it appear someone is saying or doing something they aren’t.

As the race between Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris intensifies, disinformation experts are sounding the alarm about generative AI’s risks. read more

Vice President Kamala Harris, as part of her presidential run, pledged recently to spur construction of 3 million new housing units in her first four years.

The campaign said Harris would propose a new tax incentive for companies that build homes for first-time buyers, and other programs, said The Wall Street Journal.

Promising the construction of new homes hasn’t worked out well in California. Gov. Gavin Newsom pledged in 2017 to build 3.5 million new homes by 2025. As of this summer, he’s roughly 87 percent short of the target.

Harris also proposed a $40 billion fund to help local governments develop innovative solutions to the lack of housing supply and repurpose some federal land for affordable housing.

Question: Could a Harris administration spur construction of 3 million new housing units?

Economists

Caroline Freund, UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy

NO: But campaign promises are often excessive and prioritizing construction will support a much-needed increase in the supply of housing. In recent years, there have been about 1.4 million privately owned housing starts annually, according to U.S. Census data. Achieving 3 million total would take herculean subsidies and unprecedented deregulation. Currently there is limited fiscal space for such an effort, and deregulation happens at the local level and tends to be stymied by NIMBYism. read more

Amazon plans on expanding its footprint on the Space Coast with another $19.5 million facility in its efforts to launch thousands of internet-providing satellites for Project Kuiper, the company’s competitor to SpaceX’s Starlink.

To date, only two test satellites from Project Kuiper have flown when they took to space atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket in late 2023. Those two, though, paved the way for Amazon to sign off on the satellite design and begin manufacturing of what is planned to be a 3,232-satellite constellation.

While the satellites are built in Washington state, they will be prepped for launch and fueled up at the new $120 million satellite processing facility that is near completion at a nearly 80-acre site at the Kennedy Space Center’s former Shuttle Landing Facility.

Amazon to set up $120 million Space Coast shop in competition with SpaceX’s Starlink

Adjacent to that 100,000-square-foot building will be this 42,000-square-foot expansion that will allow Amazon to process and store more satellites for a busy schedule of launches from nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. read more

Gov. Ron DeSantis announced the state was awarding $5.8 million to Space Coast Regional Airport in Titusville to build road infrastructure connections to a forthcoming industrial park designed to attract more aerospace business to the region.

Appearing Thursday at the Valiant Air Command Warbird Museum located on the airport’s grounds, DeSantis said the funds are coming from the state’s job growth grant fund.

“We’re in a situation where we’re in this great commercial space investment boom, and I think we have a lot more runway to be able to do on that,” he said. “Though the federal government clearly is playing a role, but our role, I think, is to say, ‘What infrastructure do we need?’ particularly in this area, to be able to continue to make this part of Florida the number one place for space anywhere in the entire world.”

DeSantis said launch companies, for instance, have indicated to him that they would be happy to not only fly from Florida, but build here as well.

“I was talking to some of these guys who are involved in the launches, and they’re like, you know, we want to make everything in Florida and then just launch it right there,” he said. “You don’t want to be bringing stuff from around the country. So there’s a lot of industrial possibilities here.” read more