Things To Do In SW Florida

After naming the future performing arts center in NeoCity as a top priority, Osceola Commissioners are moving to issue $125 million in bonds backed by the county’s Tourist Development Tax to make the project a reality.

But County Manager Don Fisher said the county will have to embark on a capital campaign to finance the project, which will be the centerpiece of the long-awaited NeoCity city center.

“We estimate that it’s about a $225 million project,” Fisher told GrowthSpotter. “That includes the promenade and surface parking, but it does not include parking garages. We’ve got some cash reserves as well, but there needs to be a (capital) campaign — bringing in partners to see who wants to work with us.”

The county will seek a naming rights deal and seek contributions from donors and philanthropic organizations following last month’s vote on the bonds. Fisher said Kathy Ramsberger, CEO of the Dr. Phillips Center for Performing Arts, has “been helping us along the way.” read more

Mia Gindis

(Bloomberg) — While US President Donald Trump’s chaotic tariff strategy has disrupted the oil market for months, his renewed attacks on trading partners this week have solidified consensus on at least one matter: The outlook for crude demand is set to worsen.

Investors in oil had largely overlooked trade news for weeks as the conflict in the Middle East commanded price action, but Trump’s recent barrage of tariff letters — containing some of the highest tax rates yet — is reviving concerns that a global trade war will reduce crude consumption.

The prospect of waning demand is dealing another blow to a market already suffering from widespread expectations of a glut later this year. In addition to the trade war, a dour economic outlook for top crude importer China is fueling concerns that the market will struggle to absorb extra supply in the second half of the year.

“All the focus is on demand and tariffs,” said Joe DeLaura, global energy strategist at Rabobank.

The rapidly weakening outlook triggered the sharpest drop in hedge fund sentiment on oil since February. Money managers slashed their bullish position in US crude by 29,994 lots to 148,106 lots in the week ended July 8, according to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Short-only bets rose to a five-week high, the figures show. read more

By MATT O’BRIEN

The latest version of Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok is echoing the views of its billionaire creator, so much so that it will sometimes search online for Musk’s stance on an issue before offering up an opinion.

The unusual behavior of Grok 4, the AI model that Musk’s company xAI released late Wednesday, has surprised some experts.

Built using huge amounts of computing power at a Tennessee data center, Grok is Musk’s attempt to outdo rivals such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini in building an AI assistant that shows its reasoning before answering a question.

Musk’s deliberate efforts to mold Grok into a challenger of what he considers the tech industry’s “woke” orthodoxy on race, gender and politics has repeatedly got the chatbot into trouble, most recently when it spouted antisemitic tropes, praised Adolf Hitler and made other hateful commentary to users of Musk’s X social media platform just days before Grok 4’s launch.

But its tendency to consult with Musk’s opinions appears to be a different problem. read more

Brightline Florida is rolling forward with plans to extend its high-speed rail service from the Orlando International Airport to Tampa by seeking to borrow up to $400 million to help fund the first phase of the project.

Since September 2023, Brightline has run daily trains — with coach cars seating up to 60  — between Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Orlando. Riders zip through undeveloped ranchland and preserved properties east of Orlando at speeds of up to 125 mph before slowing down to about 80 mph in South Florida on the way to downtown Miami.

A current end-to-end trip between Orlando and Miami on a Brightline train is about 3 hours and 30 minutes. Brightline spent $6 billion in private funds to lay or upgrade 233 miles of tracks between Orlando and Miami, along with building stations, and manufacturing 10 trains.

Brightline’s long-range goal is to expand to Tampa mostly along the Interstate 4 corridor, bringing the entire length of the route from South Florida to roughly 320 miles. read more

By Sara Rathner, NerdWallet

Being an authorized user on another person’s credit card can help you establish your credit history. Parents might add their children to help launch them into adulthood. Or spouses may share an account, with one spouse as the authorized user. But if the primary cardholder passes away, the authorized user is left with a card in limbo.

After my grandfather passed away earlier this year, my grandmother — a longtime authorized user on her husband’s cards — was left without any in her own name. What followed was a brief scramble to figure out whether she could qualify for a new card, given the credit history she’d established.

In her case, she was able to qualify for several cards, but it was a mixed bag in terms of how issuers responded. One immediately offered the same card, under a new account in her name. Another asked her to reapply, rejected her, and then later approved her after another attempt at applying.

If you’re an authorized user, having a plan in place in case the primary cardholder’s account is closed for any reason (including death, as difficult as that can be to talk about), is a smart move. read more