Things To Do In SW Florida

Suddenly insurance companies seem to be falling out of the sky in Florida.

Another new company — it would be the 15th since lawmakers enacted reforms in 2022 and 2023 to quell litigation costs — has been permitted by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation and will begin to sell homeowner insurance in the state if the company’s application for a Certificate of Authority is approved.

Vision Insurance Exchange, headquartered in Cape Coral, plans to begin operating in November. According to its website, the company will offer coverage to homeowners in every Florida county except Monroe, where the Florida Keys are located.

Officials of the company did not immediately respond to an email and text message seeking comment late Monday.

The new company will build its initial book of business by participating in efforts to depopulate state-owned Citizens Property Insurance Company, the website says. It will offer all-perils home and condo insurance policies as well as dwelling/fire policies to Citizens customers. read more

By BRIAN WITTE

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Maryland’s first-in-the-nation tax on digital advertising violated the Constitution, a federal appeals court says, because blocking Big Tech from telling customers about the tax violates the companies’ right to free speech.

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Supporters say Maryland needed to overhaul its tax methods in response to significant changes in how businesses advertise. The tax focuses on large companies that make money advertising on the internet such as Meta, Google and Amazon, who say they’re being unfairly targeted.

The ongoing legal fight is being watched by other states that are considering taxes for online ads. Maryland estimated the tax could raise about $250 million a year to help pay for a sweeping K-12 education measure. read more

By ROD McGUIRK

MELBOURNE, Austalia (AP) — Google has agreed to pay a 55 million Australian dollar ($36 million) fine for signing anticompetitive deals with Australia’s two largest telcos that banned the installation of competing search engines on some smartphones, the U.S. tech giant and Australia’s competition watchdog said.

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The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said in a statement it had commenced proceedings in the Australian Federal Court on Monday against the Singapore-based Google Asia Pacific division. The court will decide whether the AU$50 million ($36 million) penalty is appropriate. read more

By DAVID BAUDER, AP Media Writer

Changing its mind about keeping its name, the MSNBC news network said Monday it will become My Source News Opinion World, or MS NOW for short, as part of its corporate divorce from NBC.

The TV network, which appeals to liberal audiences with a stable of personalities including Rachel Maddow, Ari Melber and Nicole Wallace, has been building its own separate news division from NBC News. It will also remove NBC’s peacock symbol from its logo as part of the change, which will take effect later this year.

The name change was ordered by NBC Universal, which last November spun off cable networks USA, CNBC, MSNBC, E! Entertainment, Oxygen and the Golf Channel into its own company, called Versant. None of the other networks are changing their name.

MSNBC got its name upon its formation in 1996, as a partnership then between Microsoft and NBC. Even back then, it was a puzzling moniker to many. But it stuck, even after the NBC partnership with Microsoft that produced it ended, and Versant CEO Mark Lazarus said in the initial days of the spinoff that it would stay, making Monday’s announcement an unexpected about-face. read more

Gene Caballero learned a hard lesson when he bought himself a Tesla, thinking it would be “the perfect upgrade” — and then discovered that it was hard to find an apartment in Nashville, Tennessee with sufficient electric vehicle chargers.

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“It’s become a headache constantly worrying about access,” says Caballero, who is a co-founder of lawn care platform GreenPal. “I wish I would have stuck with something more traditional.”

Ashley Carroll, CEO of business consulting firm Operations House in Philadelphia, spent $12,000 to join an upscale country club in the area. She hoped she and her husband would be able to make friends and do some networking. “This was a treat for us,” Carroll says. read more