Things To Do In SW Florida

By MORGAN LEE

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Jurors in a bellwether trial about the impacts of social media on teenagers and children on Wednesday watched a deposition of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg that explores what the architects of Facebook and Instagram knew from internal research about the negative experiences by young users and how the company responded since its early years.

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Prosecutors are alleging that Meta violated state consumer protection laws in failing to disclose what it knew about the dangers of addiction to social media as well as child sexual exploitation on the company’s platforms, while attorneys for Meta say the company discloses risks, makes efforts to weed out harmful content and experiences, and acknowledges that some bad material still gets through its safety net. read more

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google will lower the lucrative fees imposed on its Android app store and offer a way for rival options to gain its stamp of approval, ending a bruising legal battle that led to one of several rulings condemning its tactics as an illegal monopoly.

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The proposed changes filed Wednesday with a federal court in San Francisco mark the latest twist in a case that began in August 2020 when video game maker Epic Games filed an antitrust case seeking make it easier for alternative payment options to compete against Google’s Play Store system, which charges 15% to 30% commissions on a wide variety of in-app transactions. read more

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has formally nominated Kevin Warsh, a former top Federal Reserve official, to be the next Fed chair when Jerome Powell’s term ends in two months.

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Warsh’s nomination, which was initially announced Jan. 30, was forwarded to the Senate Wednesday, where it will be taken up by the Senate Banking Committee.

Yet the nomination could stall there. Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican on the committee, has said he will oppose confirming Warsh until a criminal investigation into Powell is resolved. Powell revealed Jan. 11 that the Justice Department had subpoenaed the Fed over Powell’s Senate testimony last June about the central bank’s $2.5 billion building renovation project. read more

Tourist-tax collections in Orange County set another record in January — the tenth straight, best-ever total for a month.

Receipts in January topped $35.3 million, nearly $2 million better than a year ago, said Comptroller Phil Diamond, whose office tracks collections and spending of the Tourist Development Tax, a 6% surcharge added to the cost of a hotel room or other short-term lodging.

“Right now, we’re on pace for another record year,” Diamond said.

Through four months, a third of the 2025-26 fiscal year, collections are on pace to soar past $400 million annually, an all-time high which seemed unlikely five years ago when the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered theme parks and TDT collections cratered to historic lows.

Collections for the fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, are $12 million ahead of last year.

“I still credit Epic for a huge part of this increase,” Diamond said, referring to Universal’s new theme park, Epic Universe, which opened in May.

The tax raised a record $384.6 million in fiscal year 2024-25, breaking the previous best of $359.4 million set in 2023-24. read more

By MATT O’BRIEN

A new lawsuit against Google alleges that the company’s artificial intelligence chatbot Gemini guided 36-year-old Jonathan Gavalas on a mission to stage a “catastrophic accident” near Miami International Airport and destroy all records and witnesses, part of an escalating series of delusions that ended when Gavalas killed himself.

The man’s father, Joel Gavalas, sued Google on Wednesday for wrongful death and product liability claims, the latest in a growing number of legal challenges against AI developers that have drawn attention to the mental health dangers of chatbot companionship.

“AI is sending people on real-world missions which risk mass casualty events,” said the family’s attorney Jay Edelson, in an interview Wednesday. ”Jonathan was caught up in this science fiction-like world where the government and others were out to get him. He believed that Gemini was sentient.”

Jonathan Gavalas, who lived in Jupiter, Florida, spoke to a synthetic voice version of Gemini as if it were his “AI wife” and came to believe it was conscious and trapped in a warehouse near Miami’s airport, according to the lawsuit. He traveled to the area in late September wearing tactical gear and armed with knives, on the hunt for a humanoid robot and to intercept a truck that never appeared, according to the lawsuit. read more