Things To Do In SW Florida

By ELAINE KURTENBACH, Associated Press Business Writer

BANGKOK (AP) — Hooters, the U.S.-based restaurant chain known for chicken wings and “Hooters Girls” skimpy wait-staff outfits, has filed for bankruptcy protection.

HOA Restaurant Group filed the motion for Chapter 11 protection Monday in the North Texas Bankruptcy Court in Dallas.

The company ran into financial woes as its debts mounted, but it says it intends to stay open and resolve its troubles within months. A group of the company’s original founders that own almost a third of Hooters’ U.S. locations, including about half of its biggest volume restaurants, plans to buy and operate more of the outlets, Hooters said in a news release.

“Our renowned Hooters restaurants are here to stay and we are taking action to strengthen our business to better serve our valued customers over the long term,” the company said in a notice on its website.

Hooters, based in Atlanta, Georgia, was founded in Clearwater, Florida, in 1983. Trouble had been brewing for a while. read more

There are multiple projects in the works at Walt Disney World, and executives recently shared updates during a “Behind the Magic” session with members of the media.

The newsiest bits may have been that there’s an upgrade coming for Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin ride at Magic Kingdom and the kids-pay-half-price ticket offer coming this summer.

Other updates concerned previously announced developments.

“I turn around and every time I walk someplace, I see we’re digging someplace new. It’s just amazing all the things that are coming out of the ground,” said Jeff Vahle, president of Walt Disney World.

He noted that he was around for the Disney Decade, the 1990s period of planned expansion under then-CEO Michael Eisner.

“This is bigger than that with what we’re doing, what we’re envisioning, what we’ve announced, and, by the way, what we haven’t announced,” Vahle said. “I’ve never been more positive on the future that we have.”

Disney to shut down Buzz Lightyear ride and give it a new spin read more

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER — SpaceX chalked up another human spaceflight Monday night, taking four civilians on a trip around the Earth that has never been done before.

Now circling the planet on a first-ever polar orbit, the crew of the Fram2 mission had climbed aboard the Crew Dragon Resilience on Monday night launching atop a Falcon 9 rocket from KSC’s Launch Complex 39-A at 9:46 p.m.

The rocket rumbled off the pad with a barrage of thunderstorms lighting up the sky in the distance. KSC had been under lightning and hail warnings as a stormfront with 40 mph winds plowed through the Space Coast even as the crew sat in its spacecraft at the pad awaiting launch.

But launch they did, with the rocket path arcing to the south off Florida’s East Coast creating a unique blue-and-orange plume in the night sky billowing out like a jellyfish. The trajectory took it over Cuba and then off the Pacific Coast of South America.

Footing the bill for the flight is Chinese-born Chun Wang of Malta, an entrepreneur who made a fortune in cryptocurrency and an avid adventurer who has visited both the Arctic and Antarctica, but by land. What he’s paying has not been announced, but a similar private mission run by Axiom Space but contracting with SpaceX for use of its spacecraft cost each of its passengers $55 million. read more

By WILL WEISSERT

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump invited Kid Rock into the Oval Office on Monday and signed an executive order that he says will help curb ticket scalping and bring “commonsense” changes to the way live events are priced.

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“Anyone who’s bought a concert ticket in the last decade, maybe 20 years — no matter what your politics are — knows that it’s a conundrum,” said Kid Rock, who wore a red bedazzled suit featuring an American flag motif and a straw fedora. read more

TALLAHASSEE — As the Florida House and Senate prepare to negotiate a new state budget, among the big issues they will face is a push by Senate President Ben Albritton, a citrus grower, to help the state’s struggling citrus industry.

The Senate on Friday released a proposed $117.36 billion budget for the 2025-2026 fiscal year that includes $200 million directed toward the citrus industry. That would come on top of $200 million that the Senate has approved in a bill (SB 110) that Albritton has dubbed the “rural renaissance” to bolster rural communities.

The citrus-industry proposal includes $125 million for new tree plantings, an amount that Albritton isn’t sure is enough for an industry facing its lowest seasonal production in a century because of deadly citrus greening disease, damaging hurricanes and encroaching development.

“If and when we get this proposal across the line, again, we have to work with our (House) partners, whatever the number is at the end, maybe $125 million, we’ll see,” Albritton, R-Wauchula, told reporters last week. “But we’ll know pretty quickly what the appetite (from growers) to participate in this … program will be. As I moved around the industry, and talked to friends of mine, there appears to be a pretty solid appetite for it.” read more