Things To Do In SW Florida

Patrick and Holly Kahn have made it official: The Snap! art gallery concept they brought to Orlando 15 years ago has closed down. Patrick Kahn disclosed last month that he is being treated for a rare and aggressive form of cancer.

“While difficult to do, it now feels like the right time to close this chapter,” Kahn wrote in a statement to supporters. “My health and personal battle with cancer over the years has become increasingly difficult, leading to many heart-to-heart conversations between my wife and partner, Holly, and I. We decided that while Snap! as an organization will not continue, its legacy and the love of the arts it spawned will.”

The statement was part of the photography and digital art gallery’s December newsletter, titled “Farewell: Thank You for 15 Years.”

Separately, in a phone call, Kahn said he wanted people to remember the gallery as inspiration to be boldly creative: “to keep Snap! more of a spark, a memory or something that ignited something new here.” read more

By WILL WEISSERT, JUAN ZAMORANO and GARY FIELDS

PANAMA CITY (AP) — Teddy Roosevelt once declared the Panama Canal “one of the feats to which the people of this republic will look back with the highest pride.” More than a century later, Donald Trump is threatening to take back the waterway for the same republic.

By SUSAN HAIGH, Associated Press

Approximately 1 million taxpayers will automatically receive special payments of up to $1,400 from the IRS in the coming weeks. The money will be directly deposited into eligible people’s bank accounts or sent in the mail by a paper check.

The IRS said it’s distributing about $2.4 billion to taxpayers who failed to claim a Recovery Rebate Credit on their 2021 tax returns. People who missed one of the COVID stimulus payments or had received less than the full amount were able to claim the credit. But the IRS on Friday said it discovered many eligible taxpayers hadn’t done so.

“Looking at our internal data, we realized that one million taxpayers overlooked claiming this complex credit when they were actually eligible,” IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said in a statement.

Here’s more about the unexpected cash this group of taxpayers will soon receive:

What’s the likelihood I’ll receive a check?

Sorry, it’s probably pretty low. The IRS said most taxpayers eligible for the federal stimulus payments, formally known as Economic Impact Payments, have already received them. read more

By ALI SWENSON and BARARA ORTUTAY

Bluesky has seen its user base soar since the U.S. presidential election, boosted by people seeking refuge from Elon Musk’s X, which they view as increasingly leaning too far to the right given its owner’s support of President-elect Donald Trump, or wanting an alternative to Meta’s Threads and its algorithms.

By HALELUYA HADERO

The emergence of generative artificial intelligence tools that allow people to efficiently produce novel and detailed online reviews with almost no work has put merchants, service providers and consumers in uncharted territory, watchdog groups and researchers say.