Things To Do In SW Florida

With SpaceX champing at the bit to begin construction of a new Starship launch site at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, demolition began Thursday to remove structures used by the previous tenant, United Launch Alliance.

ULA used Space Launch Complex 37 for its Delta IV class of rockets, but the last Delta IV Heavy mission flew in April 2024 and ULA gave up its lease on the site.

A video posted to X by journalist Michael Seeley shows the moment the Mobile Service Tower emblazoned with ULA’s logo toppled over after a fiery explosion that also took out two lightning towers and a fixed umbilical tower. The site was previously used for eight Saturn 1 and 1B launches in the 1960s in support of the Apollo program.

End of an era: @elonmusk not wasting time as LC-37 was cleared Thursday morning, making way for Starship. pic.twitter.com/pg614jPPGr

— Michael Seeley (@Mike_Seeley) June 12, 2025

It then became home for what was initially Boeing Delta IV rockets starting in 2002. Boeing teamed up with Lockheed Martin to form ULA in 2006. read more

Real estate

Mary Lannin has joined Premier Sotheby’s International Realty, Southwest Orlando, as a sales advisor.

Tara Lovesee has joined Premier Sotheby’s International Realty, Port Orange, as a sales advisor.

Brady Richardson has joined Premier Sotheby’s International Realty, Southwest Orlando, as a sales advisor.

Lisa Saleeby has joined Premier Sotheby’s International Realty, Port Orange, as a sales advisor.

Juliana Zannoni has joined Premier Sotheby’s International Realty, Southwest Orlando, as a sales advisor.

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

A century ago, orchards were the primary source of income for Parker Flamm’s grandfather and many others in Cobden, a 1,000-person town in southern Illinois. Today, Flamm Orchards is one of the last standing. 

“Right now, it’s pretty much just us,” said Flamm, a sixth-generation orchard owner whose primary customer is a Kroger distribution center in Louisville that buys their peaches and apples.  

He blames the mass exodus of orchards on the challenges rising labor costs and a shortage of workers pose to an industry where the standard is to do everything by hand, from pruning trees and harvesting to packing and shipping. 

“For every dollar we make, you can safely say that half of it goes back into labor expenses,” he said. 

At peak season in June and July, Flamm Orchards employs about 90 workers from Oaxaca, Mexico, with temporary visas to do agricultural work. Flamm spends tens of thousands of dollars to get the workers into the country for just a few months at a time. 

Reporting for this story was supported by the MIT Environmental Solutions Journalism Fellowship. read more

By MATT O’BRIEN

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — Everything ever said on the internet was just the start of teaching artificial intelligence about humanity. Tech companies are now tapping into an older repository of knowledge: the library stacks.

Nearly one million books published as early as the 15th century — and in 254 languages — are part of a Harvard University collection being released to AI researchers Thursday. Also coming soon are troves of old newspapers and government documents held by Boston’s public library.

Cracking open the vaults to centuries-old tomes could be a data bonanza for tech companies battling lawsuits from living novelists, visual artists and others whose creative works have been scooped up without their consent to train AI chatbots.

“It is a prudent decision to start with public domain data because that’s less controversial right now than content that’s still under copyright,” said Burton Davis, a deputy general counsel at Microsoft.

Davis said libraries also hold “significant amounts of interesting cultural, historical and language data” that’s missing from the past few decades of online commentary that AI chatbots have mostly learned from. Fears of running out of data have also led AI developers to turn to “synthetic” data, made by the chatbots themselves and of a lower quality. read more

Chapter 11

Central Florida individuals and businesses that have filed for reorganization and protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code include:

Remax Marine Construction LLC, 690 Barcelona Court, Satellite Beach. Filed: May 30. Assets: $4,214. Liabilities: $87,278. Major creditors: Bartley & Crystal Gilmore, Melbourne, $68,996; Truist Bank, Wilson, N.C., $12,097; Gordon and Thalwitzer Attorneys at Law, Cocoa Beach, $6,186. Creditors meeting: June 23.

Remax Construction LLC, 690 Barcelona Court, Satellite Beach. Filed: May 30. Assets: $4,430. Liabilities: $75,182. Major creditors: Bartley & Crystal Gilmore, Melbourne, $68,996;  Gordon and Thalwitzer Attorneys at Law, Cocoa Beach, $6,186. Creditors meeting: June 25.

iCoreConnect Inc., 529 E. Crown Point Road, Suite 250, Ocoee. Filed: June 2. Assets: $1,000,001-$10 million. Liabilities: $1,000,001-$10 million. Major creditors: Not available. Creditors meeting: July 7.

iCore Midco Inc., 529 E. Crown Point Road, Suite 250, Ocoee. Filed: June 2. Assets: $1,000,001-$10 million. Liabilities: $1,000,001-$10 million. Major creditors: Not available. Creditors meeting: July 7. read more