Things To Do In SW Florida

A Walt Disney World holiday production and a former UCF professor and Disney executive were among the recipients of Brass Ring Awards, honors presented by IAAPA.

“What’s This? Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas Singalong,” part of the Disney Jollywood Nights event at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, was named most creative winter holiday production.  The show features music and characters from the 1993 film directed by Burton.

One of three Inspiration Awards was given posthumously to Duncan Dickson, who was a professor in the Rosen College of Hospitality Management at the University of Central Florida for more than 20 years and the director of casting at Walt Disney World for almost 20 years before that. Dickson died in 2024.

Those were the only Orlando-oriented winners in the global competition, which salutes excellence in live entertainment, food and beverage, marketing, human resources, sustainability games and merchandise within the attractions industry. Winners were announced during the 2025 IAAPA Honors event at Europa-Park in Rust, Germany. read more

By JOSH JACQUOT, Edmunds

New car prices continue to rise for the latest high-performance sports cars. Even a new Chevrolet Corvette, long considered a performance bargain compared to the likes of the Porsche 911, has a starting price of almost $70,000. But that doesn’t mean driving enthusiasts on a budget can’t find a car that’s both fulfilling to drive and genuinely capable.

The auto experts at Edmunds have come up with their five favorite performance vehicles for under $35,000. True, you won’t be able to buy anything with a V8. The same applies to electric power — the best-value electric performers cost more. But the vehicles listed here have other distinct advantages. All of the following prices include destination fees.

Dodge Hornet GT

There’s some irony in the first vehicle in a list of budget-performance cars not being a car at all. But Dodge’s Hornet isn’t your usual small SUV. First off, it has an Italian heritage. Though you wouldn’t know it by its styling, the Hornet shares much of its mechanical design with the Alfa Romeo Tonale small luxury SUV. Second, it’s genuinely powerful for a pint-size SUV. The GT version has a turbocharged four-cylinder engine that cranks out 268 horsepower and is good enough to get you from 0 to 60 mph in about 6.5 seconds. Another bonus: It has standard all-wheel drive for all-season driving and more cargo space than the typical performance car. read more

By Lane Gillespie, Bankrate.com

Spend any time on FinTok (the personal finance corner of TikTok) and you may have heard of a “no-buy” month, which is a budgeting challenge to not spend money on certain discretionary purchases for a month. Whether you eliminate one spending category in particular or cut discretionary spending altogether, the point of a no-buy challenge remains the same: less spending, more saving.

As Americans try to rework their budgets amid today’s economic challenges, such as inflation and stagnant wages, people are taking on variations of no-buy challenges to save more and change their spending habits. These challenges come in a broad spectrum: While some people are just cutting a few expenses to free up room in their budget or are simply trying to spend less, others are taking the more dramatic route by cutting nearly all spending for a year.

Kelci Crawford, a 35-year-old in Toledo, Ohio, is one such person. Crawford has sworn off spending throughout the entirety of 2025, except for bills (such as rent and utilities), groceries, replacements of needed items (such as shampoo) and a limited amount of mutual aid for friends and community members. They won’t be spending any additional money on discretionary purchases. read more

The Federal Aviation Administration has announced that flights departing to Orlando International Airport from within 1,200 miles away are experiencing arrival delays due to thunderstorms.

The FAA alert said the average delay for flights scheduled to arrive during these time intervals is as follows: 3:15-3:59 p.m., 60 minutes; 4-4:59 p.m., 62 minutes; 5-5:59 p.m., 58 minutes; 6-6:59 p.m., 49 minutes; and 7-7:59 p.m., 35 minutes.

The FAA said all flights departing in the contiguous United States are affected within the noted distance.

The ground delay advisory was issued after a ground stop was in effect from 2:12-3:34 p.m. for flights departing to Orlando from numerous cities.

Departing flights from OIA are also delayed an average of 15 minutes and increasing, the FAA said in a 6:22 p.m. update.

Check the status of flights at the airport here.

By KELVIN CHAN, Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — Skype is dead. What now?

Microsoft’s shutdown of Skype on May 5 sent millions of users scrambling to find an alternative to the pioneering internet phone service.

Skype, which Microsoft bought in 2011, was beloved by a dwindling group of users who appreciated how it let them make cheap long-distance calls as well as communicate with other users through chat messages, voice or video calls.

Some liked its simplicity and ease of use — an advantage, for example, when setting up a communications app for an elderly parent living far away.

Or they just used it out of habit.

Skype was founded in 2003 and was among the first in a wave of communication services that used voice over internet protocol technology (VoIP), which converts audio into a digital signal.

Skype’s disappearance also inconveniences Americans and other expatriates living overseas who signed up because they needed an U.S.-based number to receive text authentication codes from, say, a bank back home. It was also handy for calling 800 numbers for free even if you weren’t living in North America. read more