Things To Do In SW Florida

By JAMIE STENGLE

DALLAS (AP) — Whether it’s a road trip to a nearby lake or jumping on a plane to explore a big city, Americans are expected to get away in record numbers over the long Memorial Day weekend even as economic and technical worries rattle the U.S. travel industry.

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Over 45 million people — 1.4 million more than last year — will venture at least 50 miles from their homes between Thursday and next Monday, with the vast majority going by car, auto club organization AAA predicts. The holiday’s previous domestic travel record was set 20 years ago. read more

By PAUL WISEMAN, CHRISTOPHER RUGABER and ANNE D’INNOCENZIO, Associated Press Business Writers

WASHINGTON (AP) — For months, American consumers and businesses have been hearing that President Trump’s massive import taxes – tariffs – would drive up prices and hurt the U.S. economy. But the latest economic reports don’t match the doom and gloom: Inflation actually eased last month, and hiring was solid in April.

For now, the disconnect has businesses and consumers struggling to reconcile what they were told to expect, what the numbers say and what they are seeing on the ground. Trump and his supporters are quick to point out that the trade wars of his first term didn’t translate into higher overall inflation across the economy.

So is it time to breathe easy?

Not yet, economists say. Trump’s tariffs are still huge – the highest since the Great Depression of the 1930s. They’re unpredictable: The president frequently announces tariffs only to suspend them days later and to conjure up new ones. And they are still working their way through the system. read more

By STAN CHOE, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — After recovering from an initial jolt, U.S. stocks, bonds and the value of the U.S. dollar drifted through a quiet Monday following the latest reminder that the U.S government may be hurtling toward an unsustainable mountain of debt.

The S&P 500 edged up by 0.1% after Moody’s Ratings became the last of the three major credit-rating agencies to say the U.S. federal government no longer deserves a top-tier “Aaa” rating. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 137 points, or 0.3%, and the Nasdaq composite inched up by less than 0.`%.

Moody’s pointed to how the U.S. government continues to borrow more and more money to pay for its expenses, with political bickering making it difficult to either rein in Washington’s spending or raise its revenue in order to get its ballooning debt under more control.

They’re serious problems, but nothing Moody’s said is new, and critics have been railing against Washington’s inability to control its debt for many years. Standard & Poor’s lowered its credit rating for the U.S. government in 2011. read more

The nation’s largest for-profit developer of affordable housing plans to expand its Orlando-area portfolio with two more projects in Osceola County, including one next to the Crossprairie master-planned community.

The two projects from Dominium would add 624 rent-restricted apartments for families in Osceola earning no more than 60% of the Area Median Income, according to a report by GrowthSpotter. That gives Dominium a total of seven affordable housing communities either built or in the pipeline in the county.

Osceola County Commissioners recently authorized tax-exempt bonds totaling $154 million for the two new projects. The larger of the two is a 420-unit family community on Clay Whaley Road just west of the Cross Prairie Parkway. Dominium is under contract for 25 acres in the mixed-use district and has applied for annexation into St. Cloud. The site is about a block from the future K-8 school in Crossprairie.

The Osceola board approved a $105 million bond package for the project, which would be the first affordable housing community in the East of Lake Toho mixed-use district. The company also uses Florida’s 4% Low Income Housing Tax Credits, in combination with the bonds and equity and bridge loans to finance its projects. read more