Things To Do In SW Florida

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER — The business of hurtling humans into space is getting routine on the Space Coast with the fourth flight of a SpaceX Crew Dragon queued up for this week. The crew going for that ride arrived in Florida on Saturday.

NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya Yui and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, the quartet for SpaceX’s Crew-11 mission to the International Space Station, flew into the former space shuttle landing site at KSC after noon under the searing sun as temperatures on the tarmac climbed into the 90s.

“Sorry for the heat, but it’s Florida in the summertime,” said veteran Fincke, who kept cracking jokes and even made bunny ears behind Platonov’s head during a photo as the crewmates talked to media.

They’re slated to lift off as early as 12:09 p.m. Thursday from KSC’s Launch Pad 39-A atop a Falcon 9 rocket riding in the Crew Dragon Endeavour.

“We’ve been training together for over a year now and we are ready to fly,” said Cardman, who is making her first spaceflight. “As a first-time flyer, this is the first moment when it’s really starting to feel real.” read more

By CATHY BUSSEWITZ

NEW YORK (AP) — After five years of working long nights as a truck driver, Julius Mosley wanted a change. He found driving unfulfilling, and his teenage son needed him to spend more time at home.

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So Mosley took a job as a customer service representative at a telecommunications company near his home. The employee benefits included being able to take job-related classes for free. He decided he wanted to study leadership so he could learn about managing teams and helping people become the best versions of themselves.

His company, Spectrum, paid for a 10-week front-line manager certificate program that Mosley went on to complete. Then it covered the tuition cost for a bachelor’s degree in leadership and organization studies that he’s currently pursuing. The company also promoted him to a management position while he took college courses online. read more

Margaret Giles, Morningstar

Many of the best investing moves are made on autopilot. Just look at the track record of automatic payroll deductions and savings increases.

Other investing decisions, like a transition into retirement, require a more hands-on approach.

Christine Benz, Morningstar’s director of personal finance and retirement planning, recommends taking a preemptive approach as you get closer to retirement. The key is to visualize what you want your retirement to look like while you have enough time to make any adjustments you might need to get you there.

Here are five steps to take now if you plan to retire in the next five years:

1. Consider the role of work in retirement

Decide whether some kind of work is realistically part of your retirement plan. That income stream can make your retirement spending simpler, but it shouldn’t be the linchpin of your whole plan. That’s because you may not be able to work even if you want to.

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For some employees, education benefits such as tuition assistance prove life-changing read more

Since SunRail first rolled down the tracks just over a decade ago as a weekday commuter train, passengers have grumbled about why it doesn’t run more frequently, isn’t available on the weekends and can’t be ridden to the Orlando International Airport, despite the high demand for such services.

On Thursday, the Central Florida Commuter Rail Commission received an answer on one of those wishlist items: an eye-popping staff report that showed running SunRail trains on Saturdays and Sundays would cost the Central Florida region nearly $26.3 million more annually in operating costs.

On top of that, SunRail would need to spend an estimated $61.8 million to purchase three additional locomotives and cab cars for the weekends, according to the study.

“We have to educate residents that if you want to have nice things, you have to pay for them,” said Luis Nieves-Ruiz, chair of SunRail’s customer advisory committee. “It’s difficult, but that’s the reality.”

Charles Heffinger, SunRail’s chief operating officer, estimated that SunRail service would generate between 4,600 and 9,500 trips. The average daily ridership — or trips — from April through June was 5,184, a 13% jump from a year ago. read more

By DAVID BAUDER

With this week’s FCC approval, the merger between Paramount Global and Skydance Media is expected to be completed in the coming weeks at a value of $8 billion. The question for the new company is whether the psychic cost is much higher.

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It has been a particularly rough few months at Paramount-owned CBS, where the settlement of a lawsuit regarding “60 Minutes” and announced end of Stephen Colbert’s late-night show has led critics to suggest corporate leaders were bowing to President Donald Trump.

Following the Federal Communications Commission approval Thursday, one of the triumvirate of current Paramount leaders, Chris McCarthy, said that he would be leaving the company. McCarthy has been in charge of fading cable properties like MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon, expected to bear the brunt of an estimated $2 billion in cost cuts identified by Skydance leaders. read more