Things To Do In SW Florida

A new U-Haul survey ranked Florida highly for attracting and maintaining residents.

Florida ranked second on the U-Haul Growth Index, which analyzes one-way customer transactions during 2025, according to the moving company.

It’s a two-spot improvement over 2024 and consistent with the state’s top-five finish in 2023.

U-Haul’s report focuses on the net gain or loss of customers who rented a one-way truck, trailer, or U-Box moving container in one state and dropped their equipment off in another state.

The company’s data is compiled from more than 2.5 million one-way transactions across America and Canada.

The report said rankings aren’t tied directly to population or economic growth, but are good indicators of how well cities and states attract and maintain residents.

Chad Rome is the marketing president for U-Haul Company of southern Alabama, whose territory also covers the Florida panhandle.

Rome said people are moving to Florida thanks to “low barriers for entry” and “low regulatory hurdles” for both corporate and smaller businesses. read more

Orlando Auto Museum will unveil the restored version of the pink, guitar-styled Cadillac once used by Elvis Presley on Jan. 8 — the rock star’s birthday.

The Dezerland Park attraction plans to make the 41-foot-long vehicle its centerpiece, and it’s planning some Elvis-related promotions for the following days.

The car, a 1970 Cadillac Eldorado that was modified to include strings and frets, was driven once by Elvis Presley a concert in Las Vegas. It was purchased this year by Michael Dezer, a South Florida developer, car collector and the owner of Dezerland Park. The car had been in France, spending an extended amounts of time in a junkyard and on top of a mall.

It arrived in Orlando in September and has been undergoing refurbishment to address rusted-out spots and other damage.

“Few cars capture the spirit of American music and culture the way this one does,” Dezer said in a news release last fall. “We are proud to bring this extraordinary piece of Elvis history back to the U.S. and to make it available for fans to see up close.” read more

Last year President Trump pitched a severe chop to NASA’s proposed annual budget for 2026, but the House and Senate on Monday released an appropriations bill that would mostly ignore those cuts.

The minibus bill put forth by both congressional bodies’ appropriation committees includes NASA as well as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and National Science Foundation, It aims to put $24.44 billion into NASA’s hands for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, 2025 and runs through Sept. 30, 2026.

That’s slightly less than the $24.8 billion that the agency worked with in 2025, but a far larger number than what Trump had proposed, which was only $18.8 billion.

The bill still has to be passed by both House and Senate, and then signed by Trump.

Part of Trump’s proposed cuts were to nearly halve the science and technology budgets, but also kill off future launches of NASA’s Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft after Artemis III. This congressional bill keeps those mostly intact. read more

Boutique grocer Trader Joe’s is planning another Central Florida location — the third such new store disclosed in the last month — at the Waterford Oaks shopping center in eastern Orange County.

The news suggests a rapid expansion in the region for the popular chain, whose two existing Central Florida stores regularly draw large crowds. Company officials have not commented, but public building documents indicate what plans are afoot.

A building permit was filed Dec. 22 for the space at 1444 N. Alafaya Trail in the Waterford Lakes neighborhood by Mitch Collins P.E., an Orlando engineering firm. The property is owned by BluRock Development LLC.

The permit states that minor site modifications to the existing 15,000-square-foot space are needed for the incoming tenant, Trader Joe’s. Party City was the previous tenant, but the company filed for bankruptcy in December 2024 and closed most of its stores last year.

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By MATT O’BRIEN

Hyundai-owned Boston Dynamics publicly demonstrated its humanoid robot Atlas for the first time Monday at the CES tech showcase, ratcheting up a competition with Tesla and other rivals to build robots that look like people and do things that people do.

“For the first time ever in public, please welcome Atlas to the stage,” said Boston Dynamics’ Zachary Jackowski as a life-sized robot with two arms and two legs picked itself up from the floor at a Las Vegas hotel ballroom.

It then fluidly walked around the stage for several minutes, sometimes waving to the crowd and swiveling its head like an owl. An engineer remotely piloted the robot from nearby for the purpose of the demonstration, though in real life Atlas will move around on its own, said Jackowski, the company’s general manager for humanoid robots.

The company said a product version of the robot that will help assemble cars is already in production and will be deployed by 2028 at Hyundai’s electric vehicle manufacturing facility near Savannah, Georgia. read more