Things To Do In SW Florida

By BRIAN WITTE and BARBARA ORTUTAY, AP Technology Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the stand on Monday in a historic antitrust trial that could force the tech giant to break off Instagram and WhatsApp, startups it bought more than a decade ago that have since grown into social media powerhouses.

The Federal Trade Commission called Zuckerberg as its first witness, as it seeks to prove that Meta acquired Instagram and WhatsApp to preserve its monopoly in the social networking space.

In opening statements, FTC attorney Daniel Matheson said Meta has used its position to generate enormous profits even as consumer satisfaction has dropped. He said Meta was “erecting a moat” to protect its interests by buying the two startups because the company feared they were a threat to Meta’s dominance.

Zuckerberg and other key Meta witnesses will testify throughout the trial.

“We’re going to give them their chance to tell their side of the story,” Matheson said.

Mark Hansen, an attorney for Meta, said the FTC was making a “grab bag” of arguments that were wrong. He said Meta has plenty of competition and has made improvements to the startups it acquired. read more

Jeff Bezos’ fiancee Lauren Sánchez led an all-female crew including pop singer Katy Perry and CBS Mornings co-host Gayle King for a short trip to space Monday morning.

Riding on Bezos’ Blue Origin’s suborbital New Shepard rocket, the six women — a group which also included Aisha Bowe, Amanda Nguyen and Kerianne Flynn — lifted off from the company’s West Texas launch site at 9:30 a.m. EDT.

This was the 11th human spaceflight for New Shepard, and 31st mission overall. The flights have sent the capsule on short 10- to 12-minute trips that lets passengers experience a few minutes of weightlessness and see the curvature of the Earth before their capsule returns for a parachute-assisted landing.

They traveled above the Karman line, about 62 miles high, the internationally recognized altitude of having reached space.

Screams of excitement and raucous laughter could be heard over the live stream of the launch on both the way up and  the way down. While experiencing weightlessness, though, the crew became quieter. read more

By KELVIN CHAN, AP Business Writer

LONDON (AP) — Planning an international trip? Travelers should prepare for the possibility of extra scrutiny of their phones when crossing borders, especially when entering the United States.

The Canadian government warned travelers in a recent travel advisory that U.S. border agents are entitled to search your electronic devices and “don’t need to provide a reason when requesting a password to open your device.”

Some recent cases have made travelers nervous about their privacy, such as when a Brown University professor with a U.S. visa was deported to Lebanon after border agents found a photo of Hezbollah’s leader on her phone.

“While 100% privacy may be impossible in these situations, there are a few things you can easily do that make it much harder for someone to see your private data even with physical access to your device,” said Patricia Egger, head of security at encrypted service Proton Mail.

Here are tips on protecting your device privacy while travelling: read more

After years of staying mostly quiet about a cancer-linked chemical in county drinking water wells, Seminole officials have launched an aggressive effort to get the polluters to clean up what they say is rapidly expanding contamination.

Lawyers hired by the county say the concentration of 1,4-dioxane in the underground water supply —while currently posing no threat to residents — will grow to dangerously high levels in coming years as a toxic plume originating from a defunct telecommunications plant continues its spread west of I-4 into the northwest side of the county. This will come as Seminole’s population and demands for water will grow.

That’s according to a legal petition filed this month in the wake of a state Department of Environmental Protection report in February that for the first time definitively laid the blame for the contamination on General Dynamics, Siemens and MONI Holdings, owners and former operators of the factory site off Rinehart Road.

Seminole agrees with the DEP’s general findings, which are based on extensive chemical fingerprinting of wells tapping the Floridan Aquifer.  However, the county says the state report — done in coordination with the Florida Geological Survey — does not go far enough in mandating that the global companies pay to clean up the mess on Seminole’s side. read more

Sheryl Rowling of Morningstar

Beyond the emotional strain of a “gray divorce,” managing your finances is critical.

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The first step is hiring an experienced divorce attorney. Although it might be tempting to avoid legal fees, going without professional guidance could cost you more in the long run. Additionally, understanding the key financial and tax issues that come with gray divorce is essential.

1) How to budget after divorce

The cash flow you had while you were married supported one household. After a divorce, that available income stream will need to fund two households. At best, you can expect your income to be cut in half. read more