US Justice Department accuses six major landlords of scheming to keep rents high
By JESSE BEDAYN
DENVER (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department is suing several landlords for allegedly coordinating to keep Americans’ rents high by using both an algorithm to help set rents and privately sharing sensitive information with their own competitors to boost profits.
Unions back Orlando rental-car agency fighting for workers’ comp benefits after shooting
TALLAHASSEE — As the Florida Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments, a major police union and other labor groups are backing the general manager of an Orlando rental-car agency in a dispute about workers’ compensation insurance benefits after he was shot.
Attorneys for the Florida State Lodge Fraternal Order of Police and other unions filed briefs Monday urging the Supreme Court to overturn a decision that rejected benefits for Mohammed Bouayad. A divided panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal said Bouayad had not shown a “causal link” between the injuries he suffered and the work he performed for Value Car Rental.
Bouayad was walking between the Holiday Inn Orlando-International Airport hotel, where his rental-car kiosk was located, and an office in a separate building on June 28, 2019, when he was shot seven times by an unidentified person.
In its friend-of-the-court brief, the Fraternal Order of Police argued that the case “will significantly impact law enforcement officers’ ability to obtain workers’ compensation benefits when injured by an unidentified assailant.”
Pictures: Mecum Kissimmee car auction at Osceola Heritage Park
4 steps to becoming debt-free in 2025
By Jackie Veling, Nerdwallet
The end-of-year holidays can be a particularly indulgent time, full of looser schedules, crowded dinner plates and, yes, overextended budgets.
Americans were expected to spend $902 on average on holiday expenses in 2024 — a new record — according to the National Retail Federation, which tracks consumer spending. If any of those expenses ended up on your credit cards, you might be wondering how to get your balances under control in the new year.
Valerie Rivera, a certified financial planner based in Chicago, says it’s normal for her clients to see the start of the year as an opportunity to reign in spending.
“I always equate personal finance to physical health,” she says. “It’s almost like you go on a binge in December and then in January it’s like, ‘Okay, time to detox and get my health right.’”
If tackling debt is at the top of your 2025 resolution list, but you’re not sure where to start, these four steps can help guide the way.
1. Know what you owe
They say you can’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been — and by “they,” we mean financial planners.
NASA narrows down to 2 options its reworked Mars Sample Return mission
NASA announced Tuesday it had narrowed down to two options the reworked Mars Sample Return mission aiming for a cheaper and quicker completion than the version that had been killed last year.
One would be to use a version of the sky crane system that was used to land both the Mars rovers Perseverance and Curiosity safely on the Martian surface. The other would be to use a heavy lander from a commercial partner such as SpaceX or Blue Origin.
“Either of these two options are creating a much more simplified, faster and less expensive version of the original plan,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
The cost of the original MSR plan had ballooned to a projected cost of $11 billion with a sample not getting back to Earth until at least 2040.
“That was just simply unacceptable,” Nelson said. “It was my decision that, in consultation with everyone, we pulled the plug on it.”
That decision came last April, and Tuesday’s announcement was the culmination of an MSR strategy review team that was formed. NASA is still sticking with two options for now because the commercial company pitches need more time to gather information, Nelson said.