Things To Do In SW Florida

This holiday season at Orlando’s theme parks is a bit like that comfy cardigan you’ve had stowed away for several months. It’s totally familiar, full of memories, and, oh, there are a couple of things in the pockets you’ve completely forgotten about.

Let’s unpack the proceedings at SeaWorld Orlando and the Disney Jollywood Nights after-hours event at Disney’s Hollywood Studios theme park as examples.

SeaWorld’s Christmas Celebration features multiple activities throughout the day, including “O Wondrous Night,” a stage show with carols and puppets surrounding the birth of Jesus story, and the “Sesame Street Christmas Parade.”

Returning to its holiday entertainment lineup after a seven-year absence is “Clyde & Seamore’s Countdown to Christmas.” The stage show starring a pair of sea lions has been reworked but kept a humorous approach and a few local jokes. This year, there’s an unexpected nod to The Villages, although it feels like maybe there was more snark in previous editions. read more

By MARC LEVY

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The forecasts are eye-popping: utilities saying they’ll need two or three times more electricity within a few years to power massive new data centers that are feeding a fast-growing AI economy.

But the challenges — some say the impossibility — of building new power plants to meet that demand so quickly has set off alarm bells for lawmakers, policymakers and regulators who wonder if those utility forecasts can be trusted.

One burning question is whether the forecasts are based on data center projects that may never get built — eliciting concern that regular ratepayers could be stuck with the bill to build unnecessary power plants and grid infrastructure at a cost of billions of dollars.

The scrutiny comes as analysts warn of the risk of an artificial intelligence investment bubble that’s ballooned tech stock prices and could burst.

Meanwhile, consumer advocates are finding that ratepayers in some areas — such as the mid-Atlantic electricity grid, which encompasses all or parts of 13 states stretching from New Jersey to Illinois, as well as Washington, D.C. — are already underwriting the cost to supply power to data centers, some of them built, some not. read more

State-owned Citizens Property Insurance Corp. may continue to pursue more than 400 claims through an alternative dispute system that critics say produces rulings favorable to the insurer.

A circuit judge from Leon County, Jonathan Sjostrom, signed an order on Friday saying that state law authorizes the company to send pending lawsuits to the Department of Administrative Hearings rather than the court system.

The ruling requires DOAH to move forward on pending arbitration cases that have been stalled since Aug. 1. A Citizens spokesman said Monday that he doesn’t know whether the order allows it to send new cases to the panel. Seven other cases recently approved by judges will proceed, the spokesman said.

The ruling by Sjostrom overturns a statewide injunction issued by Melissa Mary Polo, a Hillsborough County circuit judge overseeing Citizens policyholder Martin Alvarez’s challenge of Citizens’ right to divert a claim to the DOAH panel.

Alvarez and other plaintiffs have argued that Citizens’ diversion of the cases — permitted under a 2023 law and required by a policy provision that cannot be declined — violates policyholders’ constitutionally guaranteed access to the courts. read more

By KELVIN CHAN, Associated Press

Just in time for the busy holiday travel season, iPhone users can now add their passport details to their Apple digital wallets.

The company on Wednesday unveiled its new “Digital ID” system for users to add their U.S. passport information to Apple Wallet, which can be scanned at airport readers if travelers don’t have a Real ID.

Digital ID acceptance “will roll out first in beta” at Transportation Security Administration checkpoints at more than 250 U.S. airports for “in-person identity verification during domestic travel.”

The company warned that Digital ID doesn’t replace a physical passport and can’t be used for international travel and crossing borders.

Apple already allowed people in 12 states and Puerto Rico to add their driver’s license or state ID to Apple Wallet, while TSA already accepts some form of a digital ID in at least 16 states and Puerto Rico.

“You can breeze through more than 250 TSA checkpoints faster and more securely than ever before,” the agency’s website says. read more

Out on his farm in Dundee Township, Cliff McConville sees geese landing in the fields where his turkeys and chickens graze. It’s a sight that often unnerves poultry producers, as migratory waterfowl carry and spread a highly infectious strain of bird flu that has been resurging in the United States for the last three years.

So far this year, McConville’s farm and most turkey farms in Illinois — of which there are more than 400 — have not been affected by the disease. Eight farms in the state have reported cases to the federal government, and only two of those were turkey flocks.

“We raise them outdoors,” McConville said of the poultry operations at All Grass Farms in the northwest suburbs. “They’re going to mix with (wild) birds. So we just have to do our best to keep them healthy. … That’s worked for us so far. Knock on wood.”

But larger turkey-producing states have been hit hard in the past couple of months. Nearly 2 million turkeys have been affected by bird flu across the country since August, accounting for roughly 24% of all new cases in commercial and backyard flocks, even though turkeys only account for approximately 2% of the U.S. poultry inventory. read more