Things To Do In SW Florida

SeaWorld Orlando has announced that it has now logged 1,000 manatee rescues.

“Manatees are an iconic part of Florida’s ecosystem, and we are honored to play a key role in their conservation,” Jon Peterson, park president, said in a news release. “By rescuing, rehabilitating and hopefully returning these animals, we not only save individual lives but also inspire our guests to join us in protecting these amazing creatures.”

In 2024, SeaWorld rescued 61 manatees and was able to rehabilitate and return 38 manatees.

Since 1976, SeaWorld Orlando’s rescue team has operated one of three critical-care facilities in the U.S., responding to manatees in need because of boat strikes, entanglements, cold stress and other life-threatening conditions. The park maintains a five-acre rescue center for wildlife, including sea turtles, birds and other marine animals. Park guests can also see manatees at the Manatee and Turtle  Rescue center on the north side of SeaWorld, between the Dolphin Encounter and Coral Rescue facilities. read more

By STAN CHOE, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is getting pulled in different directions Thursday as President Donald Trump’s latest tariff escalation creates winners and losers among auto stocks, while better-than-expected data on the economy helps support the market.

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  US applications for unemployment benefits hold steady, remain in recent healthy range

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The S&P 500 was 0.3% higher in midday trading after erasing a loss of 0.7% from the morning. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 6 points, or less than 0.1%, as of 11:25 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.3% higher.

General Motors sank 6.8% for one of the market’s sharper losses after Trump announced 25% tariffs on imported cars. Ford Motor dropped 2.2%. read more

TALLAHASSEE — As he calls for increasing the homestead exemption or possibly even eliminating property taxes, Gov. Ron DeSantis this week suggested such a move could be balanced by targeting spending by visitors to Florida.

“Tax the tourists. Tax some of the foreigners,” DeSantis said Tuesday, responding to a reporter’s question during an appearance in Palm Bay.

“You have the ability in some of those areas that draw a lot of people to shift the tax burden away from your own people to people that are not residents of Florida,” DeSantis continued. “I think that would be a better tax system than constantly having people pay higher property taxes.”

Skeptics of whacking property taxes have argued that the state would have to boost sales taxes to make up for lost revenue.

Meanwhile, House Speaker Daniel Perez came out Wednesday with a proposal to decrease the state sales-tax rate from 6 percent to 5.25 percent. Perez, R-Miami, told reporters such a reduction would include a decrease in the state’s commercial lease tax and that he remains open to asking voters in 2026 to cut property taxes. read more

Five years ago, tourism officials were wrapping their heads around a new world of theme park reservations, temperature checks at turnstiles, amped-up sanitization procedures and the very concept of social distance as the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic rapidly transformed their business.

Some procedures faded with the virus, and others evolved into practices that continue within the travel industry.

In 2020 and 2021, the Orlando Sentinel asked five tourism experts what trends to anticipate. Now, in 2025, they talk about the pandemic’s lasting effects as well as new trends in international travel, room service and rooftop bars.

Reservation station

Date-specific reservations for theme parks didn’t last in most places, but the technology used has accelerated related developments, said Curtis Parks, managing partner at Jacksonville-based Icon Experiences.

“From that, spawns all these new options that you can do with your ticketing systems, from dynamic pricing to bundling your hotel and your park tickets and food, and passholders can now add friends to their ticket purchases, and online tickets being sent to digital wallets,” he said. read more

By MATT OTT, Associated Press Business Writer

U.S. applications for unemployment benefits held steady last week, a sign that the labor market remains healthy as companies continue to retain their employees.

Jobless claim filings ticked down by 1,000 to 224,000 for the week ending March 22, the Labor Department said Thursday. That’s mostly in line with the 225,000 new applications analysts forecast.

Weekly applications for jobless benefits are considered a proxy for layoffs, and have remained mostly in a range between 200,000 and 250,000 for the past few years.

It remains unclear when job cuts ordered by the Department of Government Efficiency, or “DOGE,” will show up in the weekly layoffs report, though the Labor Department’s February jobs report showed that the federal government shed 10,000 jobs. That’s the most since June of 2022.

Economists don’t expect the federal workforce layoffs to have much of an impact until the March jobs report, which comes out April 4.

Those layoffs are part of the Trump administration’s efforts to shrink the size of the federal workforce through DOGE, spearheaded by billionaire Elon Musk. read more