Things To Do In SW Florida

By CALEIGH WELLS, Associated Press

Marissa Loewen first started using artificial intelligence in 2014 as a project management tool. She has autism and ADHD and said it helped immensely with organizing her thoughts.

“We try to use it conscientiously though because we do realize that there is an impact on the environment,” she said.

Her personal AI use isn’t unique anymore. Now it’s a feature in smartphones, search engines, word processors and email services. Every time someone uses AI, it uses energy that is often generated by fossil fuels. That releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and contributes to climate change.

And it’s getting harder to live without it.

The climate cost

AI is largely powered by data centers that field queries, store data and deploy information. As AI becomes ubiquitous, the power demand for data centers increases, leading to grid reliability problems for people living nearby.

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As Orange County commissioners prepare to discuss a scathing audit of Visit Orlando, the tax-funded marketing agency hosted a video conference Thursday to make the case for tourism’s impact on the local economy.

The industry welcomed 75.3 million visitors to Central Florida in 2024 and those paying guests spent about $59.9 billion here, said Adam Sacks, president of Tourism Economics, who has been measuring the economic impact of visitors in the region for 15 years.

Both figures were up over 2023 data.

“If you break that out on a daily basis, that’d be $164 million every single day, 85% of it [spent] in Orange County, 12% in Osceola and 3% in Seminole County,” said Sacks, whose team works with 500 destinations world-wide, hotel companies and attractions.

While there is little argument over the vast importance of tourism to the theme park capital of Central Florida, there is burgeoning controversy over the role of tax money in promoting it, making the timing of Visit Orlando’s Thursday conference apt. Constrained by state laws that limit its use of a six percent hotel tax, also called a tourism development tax, Orange County hands over $100 million-plus to Visit Orlando annually. read more

By ALEX VEIGA, Associated Press

The average rate on a 30-year U.S. mortgage held steady this week at its lowest level in nearly 10 months, an encouraging sign for prospective homebuyers who have been held back by stubbornly high home financing costs.

The long-term rate was unchanged from last week at 6.58%, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. A year ago, the rate averaged 6.46%.

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Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, popular with homeowners refinancing their home loans, edged lower. The average rate dropped to 5.69% from 5.71% last week. A year ago, it was 5.62%, Freddie Mac said. read more

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump this week called on a Federal Reserve governor to resign over an accusation of mortgage fraud, the latest effort by his administration to exert greater control over one of the few remaining independent agencies in Washington.

Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook says she won’t leave her post.

Trump has repeatedly attacked the Fed’s chair, Jerome Powell, for not cutting its short-term interest rate, and even threatened to fire him. Powell, who will speak Friday at an economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, says the Fed wants to see how the economy responds to Trump’s sweeping tariffs on imports, which Powell says could push up inflation.

Powell’s caution has infuriated Trump, who has demanded the Fed cut borrowing costs to spur the economy and reduce the interest rates the federal government pays on its debt. Trump has also accused Powell of mismanaging the U.S. central bank’s $2.5 billion building renovation project. read more

By STAN CHOE, Associated Press Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stock indexes are edging lower on Thursday as Wall Street makes its final moves before the head of the Federal Reserve gives a highly anticipated speech on Friday that could hint at where interest rates are going.

The S&P 500 dipped 0.2% following four straight modest loss since it set an all-time high last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 101 points, or 0.2%, as of 10:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.1% lower.

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Walmart was one of the market’s biggest movers and fell 4.4% after reporting a profit for the spring that came up short of analysts’ expectations, while Big Tech stocks were holding a bit steadier following two days of sharp swings. read more