Things To Do In SW Florida

TALLAHASSEE — Florida’s once-dominant citrus industry is being squeezed for land at an accelerating rate.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture this week reported that the industry is entering the 2025-2026 growing season with 208,183 acres in use for producing oranges, grapefruit and specialty fruits, 24% fewer acres than a year ago.

That follows a 17% reduction in acreage heading into the 2024-2025 season, which was the worst for production in a century. Since 2020, the land is down 75%, according to USDA figures.

During the past 25 years, the industry has been hammered by deadly citrus greening disease, hurricanes and development pressure. In that time, production of oranges has dropped 94% and grapefruit is down 97%.

Matt Joyner, executive vice president and CEO of Florida Citrus Mutual, said the federal report matches what the industry is experiencing.

“Certainly we need some good weather years. There’s no doubt about that,” Joyner said. “We cannot continue to have hurricane on top of hurricane every season and continue to move forward in any measurable manner.” read more

By ALEX VEIGA, AP Business Writer

The average rate on a 30-year U.S. mortgage fell again this week, extending a recent trend that should give prospective homebuyers more purchasing power.

The long-term rate eased to 6.5% from 6.56% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. A year ago, the rate averaged 6.35%.

Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, popular with homeowners refinancing their home loans, also fell. The average rate slipped to 5.6% from 5.69% last week. A year ago, it was 5.47%, Freddie Mac said.

Mortgage rates are influenced by several factors, from the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy decisions to bond market investors’ expectations for the economy and inflation.

Rates have been mostly declining since late July amid growing expectations that the Fed will cut its benchmark short-term interest rate at the central bank’s meeting of policymakers later this month.

A similar trend happened in the leadup to September last year, when the Fed cut its rate in for the first time in more than four years. At that time, the average rate on a 30-year mortgage got down to a 2-year low of 6.08%, but soon after climbed again, reaching above 7% by mid-January. read more

Despite remaining in custody on charges of murdering a health care executive, Luigi Mangione seemingly and briefly appeared to be modeling a shirt on the website of Shein, the giant Chinese retailer of cheap and fast fashion.

While the image of the Towson native — or someone or something generated that could pass for his twin — has been taken down from the Shein site, it continues to circulate online, depicting him in a patterned, short-sleeved shirt that apparently had sold for $11.69, according to TMZ.

“I doubt he posed for the picture while he’s in custody,” one of Mangione’s lawyers, Tom Dickey of Altoona, Pennsylvania, told The Baltimore Sun on Wednesday. “The sad thing is that some people will stoop to any level to make a buck off of someone.”

Mangione, 27, the one-time valedictorian of his Gilman class, remains at a detention center in Brooklyn, New York, awaiting trial on state and federal charges in connection to the fatal shooting of Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, on Dec. 4. The case has drawn widespread attention, turning Mangione, a member of a large and prominent Maryland family, into a folk hero to those angered by an insurance industry they believe puts cost saving ahead of their medical needs. read more

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