Things To Do In SW Florida

Florida property insurers are keeping secrets.

Empowered by industry-friendly state statutes and court rulings, they’re blocking access to information about how their firms set premiums, handle claims, and shift profits out of the reach of regulators. They insist it wouldn’t be fair for their competitors to learn these critical “trade secrets.”

But Florida’s trade secrets shield also blocks homeowners from comparing insurance companies, and keeps information from policy holders that could bolster claim payouts for repairs.

And state regulators won’t step in to decide whether all this information really needs to be kept confidential. Instead, they force aggrieved information-seekers to fight it out with insurers and their well-compensated lawyers in court.

Jeremy Berman could tell you how well that goes. The Fort Myers Beach homeowner fought for two years to see records his insurer, Olympus Insurance Co., compiled before denying coverage of damage Berman says was caused by Hurricane Ian’s winds in September 2022. He lost, like every one of the dozens of individuals who have challenged Florida insurers’ trade secret designations, according to a South Florida Sun Sentinel review of 15 years of court records. read more

An animatronic version of Olaf, the carefree snowman from “Frozen,” will front a new drawing experience at the animation area inside Disney’s Hollywood Studios beginning this summer.

The theme park’s reimagined and renamed land will be known as the Walt Disney Studios, and that will include the Magic of Disney Animation building housing an Animation Academy experience called “Olaf Draws.”  The space will have animator desk-inspired workstations, and the Olaf figure will also be seated at one on stage, just as he was in the “Once Upon a Studio” short film released in 2023.

As it turns out, Olaf can’t draw, so prerecorded instructions from Disney animators will be presented to park guests in the experience.

“Olaf is learning with us,” Danny Handke, senior creative director with Walt Disney Imagineering, said in a Disney video posted on YouTube and on the official Disney Parks Blog.

Among the characters that will be sketched in the lineup of classes are Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Genie, Moana, Stitch, Ursula, Judy Hopps, Nick Wilde and Olaf. The sessions are instructed by directors and animators from a range of Disney productions, from “Aladdin” to “Zootopia 2.” read more

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER and PAUL WISEMAN, Associated Press Writers

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump sought in his first State of the Union address to sell Americans on the idea of a booming economy, falling prices, and soaring jobs, yet he faces a skeptical public with a much gloomier view.

Barely 12 hours before his speech, in fact, The Conference Board, a business research group, released its latest consumer confidence report. It showed that overall confidence in the economy remains historically low, and is barely above the level it plunged to in the depths of the COVID recession.

In February, its index ticked up to 91.2, which is noticeably below a four-year peak reached in November 2024 of 112.8. Americans remain dejected by high prices and see few jobs available, the survey found.

Other polling has yielded similar results: Only 39% of Americans approve of Trump’s economic leadership, according to the latest Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey. And the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment survey remains mired at recessionary levels. read more

By DEE-ANN DURBIN, AP Business Writer

DoorDash said Wednesday that it’s ending operations in Qatar, Singapore, Japan and Uzbekistan.

The San Francisco-based delivery company said the decision comes after a monthslong review of country-specific conditions. DoorDash said it wants to focus its investments on places were it can build sustainable scale and long-term market leadership.

“Our priority is supporting our teams and partners through an orderly transition as we focus on the geographies where we can offer the best products and build for long-term success,” said Miki Kuusi, the head of DoorDash’s international division, in a statement.

DoorDash was a latecomer to some of the affected markets. The company began operations in Japan in 2021, five years after its rival Uber Eats. Deliveroo, a U.K. delivery company that was acquired by DoorDash last year, has only been operating in Qatar since 2022. That’s almost a decade after Dubai-based Talabat began making deliveries in Qatar.

DoorDash also faces stiff competition from entrenched rivals like GrabFood and Foodpanda in Singapore and Russia-based Yandex Eats in Uzbekistan. read more

By KAITLYN HUAMANI, AP Technology Writer

Discord, the popular platform for gamers to communicate online, is postponing its controversial age verification policy after receiving swift backlash from users with concerns about their privacy.

The global rollout of the system is now delayed to the second half of 2026, Discord’s Chief Technology Officer and co-founder Stanislav Vishnevskiy wrote in a Tuesday blog post acknowledging that the company “missed the mark.”

“Many of you are worried that this is just another Big Tech company finding new ways to collect your personal data. That we’re creating a problem to justify invasive solutions,” Vishnevskiy wrote. “I get that skepticism. It’s earned, not just toward us, but toward the entire tech industry. But that’s not what we’re doing.”

Discord, which says it has more than 200 million active users, will continue to meet specific legal obligations it has for age verification of users, the company said, but the global expansion of age verification will only come after it makes changes to the initial policy it laid out in early February. read more