Things To Do In SW Florida

Three months after the debut of Universal Epic Universe theme park, Mark Woodbury, the CEO of Universal Destinations & Experiences is talking about the future – not just in Orlando, but also in other U.S. cities plus the U.K. and Asia.

In an interview with Jessica Reif Ehrlich, BofA Securities Inc. analyst, this week, Woodbury addressed bringing the Universal brand to new markets, including the year-round haunt in Las Vegas and the under-construction kids park in Texas.

And Orlando’s newest park is off to a “pretty great start,” Woodbury said, and he covered ticket prices, financial priorities and the looming possibility of expansion at Epic Universe.

Here are highlights of Woodbury’s thoughts from the session.

Woodbury on Epic’s performance so far

“It’s doing exactly what we wanted it to do, in terms of driving incremental attendance to the resort as a whole and the performance line for caps, very strong since we opened the doors. And you can see it in merchandise. You see it in the food offerings. A lot of great creative work went into both of those. Not without challenges when you open an entire theme park at once. … It’s always a little complicated to get it to ramp up to full speed, and we’re in the process of doing that now. Nothing that we didn’t expect.” read more

By KEN SWEET, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Americans would save roughly $100 billion a year in interest costs if President Donald Trump’s campaign proposal to cap credit card interest rates at 10% were implemented, according to a paper published by Vanderbilt University on Thursday.

Further, the banks and credit card companies would be able to withstand, and even still be profitable, if there were to be a national cap on interest rates. While limited in scope, the paper gives some academic backing to President Trump’s campaign promise.

The paper found that banks would still be able to earn a profit on most of their customers even if credit card interest rates were capped at 15%, and if the banks continued to offer rewards and perks like points and airport lounge access. If interest rates were capped at 10%, the business model gets more difficult for the banks, but they could still make money off most card customers by cutting back on some rewards.

Usury laws are as old as the Bible but have gotten traction again through Trump’s populist politics. When he was a candidate in the 2024 election, Trump proposed a temporary 10% cap on credit card interest rates. He has not spoken about it since the election. read more

Chapter 7

Central Florida individuals and businesses that have filed for liquidation under Chapter 7 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code include:

Buffalo Body Works LLC, 657 E. Bay Ave., Longwood. Filed: Aug. 19. Assets: $2,500. Liabilities: $106,600. Major creditors: Not available. Creditors meeting: Oct. 1.

Chapter 11

Central Florida individuals and businesses that have filed for reorganization and protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code include:

Bravo Brio Restaurants LLC, 4700 Millenia Blvd., Suite 400, Orlando. Filed: Aug. 18. Assets: $50,000,001-$100 million. Liabilities: $50,000,001-$100 million. Major creditors: Sysco Corp., Cypress, Texas, $1,933,757; C.H. Robinson Co. Inc., Eden Prairie, Minn., $721,164; Greene Town Center LLC, New York City, $401,660. Creditors meeting: Sept. 16.

Bravo (Louisville) LLC doing business as Bravo! Italian Kitchen, 4700 Millenia Blvd., Suite 400, Orlando. Filed: Aug. 18. Assets: $1,000,001-$10 million. Liabilities: $0-$50,000.  Major creditors: PNC Bank c/o SS&C/Innovest, Fort Worth, Texas, $12,190; TWB Oxmoor 2 LLC, c/o Baird Trust Co., Louisville, Ky., $6,099. Creditors meeting: Sept. 16. read more

By PAUL WISEMAN, AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump likes to boast about how much money the U.S. Treasury is raking in from the massive taxes – tariffs — he’s slapped this year on imports from almost every country in the world.

“We have trillions of dollars coming into our country,” Trump said Wednesday. “If we didn’t have tariffs, we would be a very poor nation and we would be taken advantage of by every other nation in the world, friend and foe.”

But two courts have now ruled that his biggest and boldest import taxes are illegal. If the Supreme Court agrees and strikes them down for good, the federal government could have to pay back many of the taxes it’s already collected from companies that import foreign products into the United States.

“We’re talking about hundreds of billions of dollars potentially in refunds affecting thousands and thousands of importers,” said trade lawyer Luis Arandia, a partner with the law firm of Barnes & Thornburg. “Unwinding all that will be the largest administrative effort in U.S. government history.’’ read more

By LINDSAY WHITEHURST and MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is seeking a swift and definitive decision on tariffs from the Supreme Court that he helped shape, saying the country would be on “the brink of economic catastrophe” without the import taxes he has imposed on U.S. rivals and allies alike.

The administration used near-apocalyptic terms that are highly unusual in Supreme Court filings as it asked the justices late Wednesday to intervene and reverse an appeals court ruling that found most of Trump’s tariffs are an illegal use of an emergency powers law. The tariffs remain in place, for now.

The case comes to a court that has so far been reluctant to check Trump’s extraordinary flex of executive power. One big question is whether the justice’s own expansive view of presidential authority allows for Trump’s tariffs without the explicit approval of Congress, which the Constitution endows with the power over tariffs. Three of the justices on conservative-majority court were nominated by Trump in his first term. read more