Things To Do In SW Florida

By ALEX VEIGA

The average rate on a 30-year mortgage in the U.S. eased for the second week in a row, but remains just below 7%, little relief for prospective home shoppers looking ahead to the spring homebuying season.

Attendance was flat for Universal’s theme parks in the fourth quarter of last year, and core earnings fell 3.9% because of spending on Epic Universe, set to debut in Orlando in May, according to Thursday’s financial report of parent company Comcast.

But overall, Comcast reported record revenue of $123.7 billion for the full year, up 1.8% from a year earlier. Among the boosts were the November release of “Wicked,” which earned $700 million at the global box office, and “The Wild Robot,” an animated film that brought in $300 million.

Quarterly revenue for Comcast’s content and experiences division —  which includes its theme parks, studios and media — was up 5% to $12.1 billion.  Revenue for its Peacock streaming service was $1.3 billion, up 28%. Peacock now has 36 million subscribers, Comcast said.

Results for theme parks were similar to previous quarters, with flat attendance and revenue domestically and improvements in international markets. Comcast reported $35 million in pre-operating costs related to Epic for the fourth quarter.  The attraction, Universal Orlando’s third theme park, is scheduled to open May 22, near the midpoint of the second quarter of the current financial year. read more

In a letter sent to President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, Duke Energy and other utility companies called for “swift and sustained action” to roll back new limits on both greenhouse gas emissions and coal ash produced by power plants.

The two regulations targeted by the utilities were unveiled by the Biden administration, and imposed landmark rules to try to clean up the country’s power generation to help mitigate climate change.

The letter, dated Jan. 15 and addressed to former U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin, has not been previously reported. Zeldin has not yet been confirmed by the Senate to lead the environmental agency, but that process could be completed by the end of the week.

The first category of rules cited by the companies, related to greenhouse gas emissions, essentially requires coal-fired plants to capture smokestack emissions or shut down by 2032, while many new natural gas-fired power plants must eliminate 90% of their carbon dioxide emissions. To do this, utilities must employ expensive carbon capture technology, likely making zero-emissions options like solar more attractive. The utilities have said carbon-capture technology is untested and “impossible to implement” by the 2032 deadline. read more

NASA’s commercial partners mounted a vigorous defense of the Artemis moon mission plans this week amid the specter of changes from the new Trump administration.

In a Wednesday panel discussion at the SpaceCom conference at the Orange County Convention Center, representatives from Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Amentum joined NASA officials to lay out progress toward Artemis II, the next flight in the agency’s plans to return to the moon.

“Don’t throw it all away or … we’ll be having the same discussion four years from now,” said Lockheed Martin’s Kirk Shireman.

Artemis II is targeting no later than April 2026 to fly its first crewed mission, which would launch the Lockheed Martin-built Orion spacecraft with four astronauts on board atop the Space Launch System rocket from Kennedy Space Center on a flight that will take them around, but not land on, the moon.

Despite DEI demise, NASA still touts goal to land 1st woman, 1st person of color on moon

That mission is slated to be followed up in summer 2027 with Artemis III, which aims to return humans and the first woman, to the lunar surface for the first time since 1972 and the end of the Apollo program. read more