Things To Do In SW Florida

When Preacher Lawson started work as a comedian 14 years ago, the stage at Austin’s Coffee helped strengthen his chops at stand-up during its weekly Comedy Night.

Years later when the Winter Park fixture for arts and entertainment was threatened with closure, Lawson joined two others to buy and relocate it. His role was quiet at first, but Austin’s new management revealed it this week as the shop prepares to shut its doors on Saturday night at its longtime 929 W. Fairbanks Ave. home.

A week later, on Nov. 1, Austin’s is eyeing a soft opening at its new 2240 W. Fairbanks Ave. location — about a mile west of its current site near Interstate 4.

“I just wanted to make sure Austin’s is OK,” Lawson told the Sentinel on Tuesday in his first interview about it. “It’s really a pillar for comedy in the Orlando scene.

“It’s one of my favorite mics ever. It really helped me grow as a comedian.”

In 2011 he came to Orlando from his native Portland, Oregon, because his mother lived here. He became a regular at Austin’s Comedy Nights until he left the area in 2016. read more

An group that includes activist investor Jana Partners and NFL player Travis Kelce says it has accumulated one of the largest ownership stakes in Six Flags Entertainment and intends to press the company’s leadership on ways to improve the struggling amusement park operator’s business.

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Jana said Tuesday that the investor group now owns an economic interest of approximately 9% in Six Flags. The group plans to “engage” with Six Flags’ management and board of directors to discuss ways to enhance shareholder value and improve visitors’ experience. read more

By ALEXANDRA OLSON and CLAIRE SAVAGE, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — A former Amazon delivery driver has filed a lawsuit accusing a federal civil right agency of abruptly and unlawfully abandoning her sex discrimination case and others like it following an executive order from President Donald Trump.

The lawsuit filed by the former Colorado driver demands that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission resume investigating her claims that Amazon discriminates against female drivers by failing to provide adequate bathroom breaks.

The lawsuit is the latest example of workers and others scrambling to find recourse as federal agencies abandon their cases in response to Trump’s shake-up of the country’s civil rights enforcement infrastructure.

The EEOC, which enforces civil rights laws in the workplace, decided last month to discharge any complaints based on “disparate impact liability,” which holds that policies that are neutral on their face can be discriminatory if they impose unnecessary barriers that disadvantage different demographic groups. read more

By Olivia Carville, Bloomberg News

Thousands of plaintiffs’ complaints, millions of pages of internal documents and transcripts of countless hours of depositions are about to land in U.S. courtrooms, threatening the future of the biggest social media companies.

The blizzard of paperwork is a byproduct of two consolidated lawsuits accusing Snap Inc.’s Snapchat; Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook and Instagram; ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok; and Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube of knowingly designing their platforms to addict users — allegedly resulting in youth depression, anxiety, insomnia, eating disorders, self-harm and even suicide.

The litigation, brewing for more than three years, has had to overcome numerous hurdles, including the liability shield that has protected social media platforms from facing user-harm lawsuits. The social media companies have filed multiple motions to dismiss the cases on the grounds that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act prevents them from being held accountable for content posted on their sites. read more

By Megan Ulu-Lani Boyanton, The Seattle Times

The annual membership cost to enter Costco’s big-box warehouses and stock up on bulk groceries — not to mention the free food samples — has gone up. But that’s not stopping fans from becoming or remaining loyal members.

Since September 2024, individual members in the U.S. pay $65 per year, a $5 increase from past dues. Executive memberships have been $130 per year, up from $120.

But loyalists of the Issaquah, Washington-based retailer weren’t dissuaded: 68.3 million people held individual memberships by the end of fiscal 2025 — an upsurge from 63.7 million in 2024 and 58.8 million in 2023, according to Costco’s annual report filed this month with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The number of business memberships also increased to 12.7 million in 2025 from 12.5 million in 2024 and 12.2 million in 2023.

Despite the increases, the growth rate of total paid members has slowed slightly, with a 6% increase year over year, compared to a 7% increase in 2024 from 2023. read more