Things To Do In SW Florida

Universal Orlando has announced another original haunted house concept for the 2025 edition of Halloween Horror Nights. It’s called Dolls: Let’s Play Dead.

“You’re about to become doll-sized and be hunted by toys that have been burnt, melded and stitched together by a twisted little girl,” reads the entire description of the maze, which was posted on social media outlets on Wednesday morning.

This is the fifth HHN house identified for the event, an intense after-hours/extra ticket fright fest held on select nights between Aug. 29 and Nov. 2 at Universal Studios Florida theme park. That puts fans at the halfway point of the house reveals. Universal says there will be 10 mazes plus scare zones and on-stage entertainment.

It’s also the third original house announced. In recent days Universal also posted information about mazes named Hatchet and Chains: Demon Bounty Hunters as well as El Artista: A Spanish Haunting. Before that, houses tied to “Fallout,” a Prime series and videogame, and Jason Universe, based on “Friday the 13th” characters, were revealed. read more

By JOCELYN GECKER, AP Education Writer

For her 6th grade honors class, math teacher Ana Sepúlveda wanted to make geometry fun. She figured her students “who live and breathe soccer” would be interested to learn how mathematical concepts apply to the sport. She asked ChatGPT for help.

Within seconds, the chatbot delivered a five-page lesson plan, even offering a theme: “Geometry is everywhere in soccer — on the field, in the ball, and even in the design of stadiums!”

It explained the place of shapes and angles on a soccer field. It suggested classroom conversation starters: Why are those shapes important to the game? It proposed a project for students to design their own soccer field or stadium using rulers and protractors.

“Using AI has been a game changer for me,” said Sepúlveda, who teaches at a dual language school in Dallas and has ChatGPT translate everything into Spanish. “It’s helping me with lesson planning, communicating with parents and increasing student engagement.” read more

By FATIMA HUSSEIN

WASHINGTON (AP) — The budget bill championed by President Donald Trump could complicate next year’s tax filing season after the IRS lost one-quarter of its employees through staffing cuts, an independent watchdog reported Wednesday.

The IRS workforce has fallen from 102,113 workers to 75,702 over the past year, according to the latest National Taxpayer Advocate report to Congress. The report Wednesday offered the first official numbers on the IRS job losses associated with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

Most of the employees took the “fork in the road” resignation offer from DOGE rather than waiting to get laid off.

Some of the findings from the report:

Taxpayers will likely see effects of staffing reductions

The Trump administration’s efforts to shrink the size of the federal bureaucracy led to a mass exodus of probationary employees who had not yet gained civil service protections and were offered buyouts through a “deferred resignation program.” More than 17,500 IRS workers took that route. The biggest cuts were in taxpayer services, the small business/self-employed office and information technology. read more

By STAN CHOE AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are hanging near their all-time high on Wednesday as financial markets catch a breath following two big days bolstered by hopes that the Israel-Iran war will not disrupt the global flow of crude oil.

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The S&P 500 was 0.2% higher in midday trading and sitting just 0.7% below its all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 52 points, or 0.1%, as of 11 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.5% higher.

In the oil market, which has been the center of much of this week’s action, crude prices stabilized after plunging by roughly $10 per barrel in the last two days. Benchmark U.S. crude rose 1.4% to $65.26 per barrel, though it still remains below where it was before the fighting between Israel and Iran broke out nearly two weeks ago. read more

By BERNARD CONDON

Federal traffic safety regulators are looking into suspected problems with Elon Musk’s test run of self-driving “robotaxis” in Texas after videos surfaced showing them braking suddenly or going straight through an intersection from a turning lane and driving down the wrong side of the road.

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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Tuesday that it has asked Tesla for information about the apparent errors. Though many other videos show robotaxis driving perfectly, if regulators find any major issues, that would likely raise questions about Musk’s repeated statements that the robotaxis are safe and his claim that Tesla will dominate a future in which nearly all cars on road will have no one behind the wheel — or even need a steering wheel at all. read more