Things To Do In SW Florida

NASA and SpaceX won’t be launching its next crew to the International Space Station as planned this week because of the threat from what is forecast to become Hurricane Helene.

NASA announced Tuesday that the planned launch that could have occurred Thursday will now be pushed to at least Saturday as the brewing storm aims to head up into the Gulf of Mexico and strike the Florida coast.

The wind field for the storm, though, is expected to be 250 miles wide as it grows into a strong Category 3 major hurricane by Thursday ahead of landfall.

Tropical Storm Helene forms, forecast to hit Florida as major hurricane

“Although Tropical Storm Helene is moving through the Gulf of Mexico and expected to impact the Florida panhandle, the storm system is large enough that high winds and heavy rain are expected in the Cape Canaveral and Merritt Island regions on Florida’s east coast,” reads a post on NASA’s website.

Now SpaceX is aiming for a Falcon 9 topped with the Crew Dragon Freedom to lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 no earlier than 1:17 p.m. Saturday with backups available Sunday-Tuesday. read more

By MAE ANDERSON

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Visa, alleging that the financial services behemoth uses its size and dominance to stifle competition in the debit card market, costing consumers and businesses billions of dollars.

The complaint filed Tuesday says Visa penalizes merchants and banks who don’t use Visa’s own payment processing technology to process debit transactions, even though alternatives exist. Visa earns an incremental fee from every transaction processed on its network.

According to the DOJ’s complaint, 60% of debit transactions in the United States run on Visa’s debit network, allowing it to charge over $7 billion in fees each year for processing those transactions.

“We allege that Visa has unlawfully amassed the power to extract fees that far exceed what it could charge in a competitive market,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland in a statement. “Merchants and banks pass along those costs to consumers, either by raising prices or reducing quality or service. As a result, Visa’s unlawful conduct affects not just the price of one thing – but the price of nearly everything.” read more