Things To Do In SW Florida

By Kimberly Palmer, NerdWallet

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB, and other government agencies have scaled back their consumer protection work in recent months, but there are still steps people can take to keep their money safe.

In fact, consumer advocates say doing so is more important than ever.

“We as consumers are quite vulnerable right now,” says Christine Hines, senior policy director at the National Association of Consumer Advocates.

“We all need to be much more diligent about the products and services that we sign up for,” she adds.

Here are four ways to be your own advocate:

Enter new financial relationships with skepticism

Before taking out a new loan, insurance policy or any other kind of financial product, research the company, says Jeanine Skowronski, author of the “Money As If” newsletter.

Read reviews on Google, Trustpilot, Reddit, the Better Business Bureau and other sources that collect consumer feedback and complaints, she says. The CFPB complaint database is still available, too.

“You want to take everything in aggregate. Look at a lot of sources and identify themes,” Skowronski says. “Use many voices to help you decide.” read more

By PAUL WISEMAN, Associated Press Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. employers added just 73,000 jobs last month and Labor Department revisions showed that hiring was much weaker than previously reported in May and June. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2%.

The deterioration in the job market is taking place with companies paralyzed by uncertainty over President Donald Trump’s erratic trade policies.

The Labor Department reported Friday that revisions shaved a stunning 258,000 jobs off May and June payrolls.

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The stock market tumbled on the news. read more

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER — SpaceX is back one day after a weather-related scrub to send the Crew-11 mission to the International Space Station.

A Falcon 9 rocket topped with the Crew Dragon Endeavour is slated to lift off from KSC’s Launch Pad 39-A at 11:43 a.m. carrying NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, JAXA astronaut Kimiya Yui and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov to space.

The first-stage booster for this mission is making its third flight and will aim for what will be SpaceX’s final use of Landing Zone 1 at nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

SpaceX warns of the possibility that one or more sonic booms could be heard across parts of Central Florida including Brevard, Orange, Osceola, Indian River, Seminole, Volusia, Polk, St. Lucie, and Okeechobee counties. The last use of the landing zone during the Axiom Space Ax-4 launch had reports of the boom heard as far as Lake County.

The quartet were sitting in Endeavour with one minute and seven seconds on the countdown clock Thursday when a storm cell forced a scrub of the mission’s first launch attempt. read more

By JOSH FUNK, Associated Press Transportation Writer

The National Transportation Safety Board on Friday enters its third and final day of public testimony over the fatal midair crash between an Army helicopter and commercial jet in January.

Two previous days of testimony underscored a number of factors that likely contributed to the collision that left all 67 people aboard both aircrafts dead, sparking Board Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy to urge the Federal Aviation Administration to “do better” as she pointed to warnings the agency ignored years earlier.

Some of the major issues that have emerged so far include the Black Hawk helicopter flying above prescribed levels near Ronald Reagan National Airport as well as the warnings to FAA officials for years about the hazards related to the heavy chopper traffic there.

It’s too early for the board to identify what exactly caused the crash. A final report from the board won’t come until next year.

But it became clear this week how small a margin of error there was for helicopters flying the route the Black Hawk took the night of the nation’s deadliest plane crash since November 2001. read more