CDK outage fuels 86% drop in Asbury Q2 net income
Lost business and one-time costs related to the CDK Global outage contributed to an 86 percent drop in Asbury’s net income, though the retailer managed to post record revenue of $4.2 billion.
Junk fee ban sparks price transparency wave for cruise fares
By Sally French | NerdWallet
Until recently, the upfront price of a cruise was often hardly reflective of the final price. That’s because hidden fees, such as port fees and taxes, on cruise lines lurked like unwelcome stowaways. However, a California junk fee law banishing these surprise charges went into effect July 1, and it’s changing how people nationwide see cruise fares displayed.
Under California Senate Bill 478, companies can no longer advertise one low cost for a product or service sold in California — only to impose additional or mandatory fees later. That’s impacted all sorts of aspects of travel, from resort fees to vacation rental cleaning fees to, yes, cruise fees.
“It’s much easier now to find a good deal on a cruise, rather than a deal that looks good until all the port charges and fees are added,” Aaron Saunders, an editor at Cruise Critic, said in an email.
Though the law is specific to California, many major cruise operators have recently adopted transparent pricing models that all U.S. shoppers can see. For example, as of July 1, Royal Caribbean, Carnival Cruise Line and Holland America began including all mandatory taxes, fees and port expenses in their U.S. price displays.
Halloween Horror Nights: All the haunted houses at a glance
Universal Orlando has released its entire haunted house lineup for the 2024 edition of Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Florida theme park. It’s been a drip-drip-drip announcement process, with the news popping up in different online locations, pretty much one by one.
More details were revealed in the ensuing weeks, sometimes via Universal’s official podcast, sometimes presented as the back stories of the event’s original houses.
We’ll know more, probably, before HHN begins Aug. 30. For now, here are clues about what to expect in all 10 houses in one place.
• A Quiet Place – In a location where screams are standard fare, a shhhhhhh theme stands out. This house will be based on two “A Quiet Place” movies, which feature minimal dialogue and invisible creatures with super-hearing. How might that work?
“We haven’t seen how the guests interact with the house yet. So, really it’s kind of this contract with the guests as they go through. It’s like, ‘OK, if you make a noise, they will get you,” Charles Gray, senior show director, said in a Discover Universal podcast.
Florida regulators dig into Citizens proposal for double-digit insurance rate increases
TALLAHASSEE — Florida regulators Thursday dug into a proposal that would lead to double-digit rate increases for customers of Citizens Property Insurance Corp., as the state insurer of last resort continues trying to push policies into the private market.
The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, which would have to sign off on increases, held a three-hour hearing on the proposal, which in part would lead to an average 13.5 percent rate increase for the most-common type of Citizens policy, known as homeowners’ multi-peril coverage.
That would translate to the average price of homeowners multi-peril policies going from $3,560 to $4,041, said Brian Donovan, chief actuary for Citizens.
Other types of policies would see varying increases, but all averages would be in double digits. For example, condominium-unit owners would see an average 14.2 percent increase for multi-peril coverage. The hikes would take effect in 2025.
The hearing put on display longstanding tensions surrounding Citizens’ rates, as many homeowners struggle to find affordable coverage — or any coverage — in the private market. Meanwhile, Citizens says it typically charges lower rates than private carriers, which effectively creates a disincentive for property owners to turn to the private market.
SpaceX lines up next 2 Space Coast launches on Friday and Saturday
SpaceX shot up three Falcon 9 rockets from three launch pads last weekend once the Federal Aviation Administration gave its grounded rocket the OK to return to flight. Now it’s set to go another round.
First up is a Falcon 9 launch of 23 more Starlink satellites from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-A during a four-hour window that opens at 12:19 a.m. Friday. Backup options fall to early Saturday starting at 12:19 a.m.
Space Launch Delta 45’s weather squadron forecasts a 95% chance of favorable conditions, which drops to 80% in the event of a 24-hour delay.
The first-stage booster for the mission is making its 12th flight and will attempt a recovery landing downrange in the Atlantic Ocean on board the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas.
The launch would be the 54th from the Space Coast for the year and 50th for SpaceX with United Launch Alliance responsible for the other four.
SpaceX’s record pace was slowed for a couple of weeks in July after an issue with the Falcon 9’s upper stage during a launch from California that was tracked to a liquid oxygen leak blamed on a sense line connected to a supply tank. The end result was a frozen-over upper stage engine that caused SpaceX to not be able to relight its engine ultimately leading to a loss of its payload.