Things To Do In SW Florida

For nearly a year, residents at Lake Runnymeade Mobile Home Park in St. Cloud have turned on their faucets only to get discolored water with the aroma of rotten eggs. But often, nothing at all comes out.

The problem has gotten so bad that some residents take buckets of slimy green liquid from the park’s unchlorinated pool to flush toilets. The flow of water is sporadic, they say, but they can go as many as 13 hours a day without it.

“It was H-E-double hockey sticks,” said Angela Silas, a Lake Runnymeade resident of nearly 13 years, using a euphemism for “hell.” “I had to go out and get water bottles just so we could wash our hands … the kids couldn’t take showers until 10:30 at night.”

Runnymeade residents say park management tells them the water pump isn’t working consistently due to electrical issues that frequently trip the breaker. They have contacted local and state officials looking for a fix, but they say it’s been to no avail, although the state is now monitoring water quality in the park and insists it is safe to drink. Many residents say they want to leave as they face increasing rents and calls to management go unanswered — but they’re stuck as they can’t find anything affordable. read more

By STAN CHOE

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks tumbled Tuesday to their worst day since an early August sell-off, as a week full of updates on the economy got off to a discouragingly weak start.

The S&P 500 sank 2.1% to give back a chunk of the gains from a three-week winning streak that had carried it to the cusp of its all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 626 points, or 1.5%, from its own record set on Friday before Monday’s Labor Day holiday. The Nasdaq composite fell 3.3% as Nvidia and other Big Tech stocks led the way lower.

Treasury yields also stumbled in the bond market after a report showed U.S. manufacturing shrank again in August, sputtering under the weight of high interest rates. Manufacturing has been contracting for most of the past two years, and its performance for August was worse than economists expected.

“Demand remains subdued, as companies show an unwillingness to invest in capital and inventory due to current federal monetary policy and election uncertainty,” said Timothy Fiore, chair of the Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing business survey committee. read more

Struggling Spirit Airlines, which has invoked multiple measures this year to start making money again, distributed furlough notices to 186 of its pilots over the Labor Day weekend, but the number was considerably smaller than the discount carrier had projected earlier this year, the carrier’s pilots union said.

“Today, Spirit Airlines furloughed 186 pilots,” the Spirit contingent of the Air Line Pilots Association announced in a statement Sunday. The labor group represents the airline’s cockpit crews.

In April, management announced the need to furlough up to 260 pilots starting late this summer as a suspected manufacturing defect in aircraft engines made by Pratt & Whitney forced the airline to start an inspection program that requires the grounding of multiple jets. The company is also deferring the deliveries of new aircraft made by Airbus.

The furloughs were scheduled to start Sept. 1, and management followed through on the plan Sunday, the union said.

The company did not immediately respond to an emailed inquiry Monday to confirm the number announced by ALPA. which said the need for furloughs was mitigated by voluntary actions by the pilots. read more