Things To Do In SW Florida

Boutique grocer Trader Joe’s is planning another Central Florida location — the third such new store disclosed in the last month — at the Waterford Oaks shopping center in eastern Orange County.

The news suggests a rapid expansion in the region for the popular chain, whose two existing Central Florida stores regularly draw large crowds. Company officials have not commented, but public building documents indicate what plans are afoot.

A building permit was filed Dec. 22 for the space at 1444 N. Alafaya Trail in the Waterford Lakes neighborhood by Mitch Collins P.E., an Orlando engineering firm. The property is owned by BluRock Development LLC.

The permit states that minor site modifications to the existing 15,000-square-foot space are needed for the incoming tenant, Trader Joe’s. Party City was the previous tenant, but the company filed for bankruptcy in December 2024 and closed most of its stores last year.

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By MATT O’BRIEN

Hyundai-owned Boston Dynamics publicly demonstrated its humanoid robot Atlas for the first time Monday at the CES tech showcase, ratcheting up a competition with Tesla and other rivals to build robots that look like people and do things that people do.

“For the first time ever in public, please welcome Atlas to the stage,” said Boston Dynamics’ Zachary Jackowski as a life-sized robot with two arms and two legs picked itself up from the floor at a Las Vegas hotel ballroom.

It then fluidly walked around the stage for several minutes, sometimes waving to the crowd and swiveling its head like an owl. An engineer remotely piloted the robot from nearby for the purpose of the demonstration, though in real life Atlas will move around on its own, said Jackowski, the company’s general manager for humanoid robots.

The company said a product version of the robot that will help assemble cars is already in production and will be deployed by 2028 at Hyundai’s electric vehicle manufacturing facility near Savannah, Georgia. read more

McDonald’s is facing a class action lawsuit from plaintiffs who allege the fast food chain has long deceived customers about what type of meat is in the popular, limited McRib sandwich.

The lawsuit was filed late last month in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois by eaters from California, New York, Illinois and Washington, D.C. who claim the sandwich is marketed as containing pork rib meat but actually has none.

The complaint alleges that despite the patty’s rib shape, the item’s name and price, the sandwich is actually made of lower-quality grounded up pork — from cuts like shoulder and tripe — not rib meat.

The company’s website claims the meat is a “pork patty” made of “seasoned boneless pork.”

“The name ‘McRib’ is a deliberate sleight of hand,” the lawsuit reads. “McDonald’s willfully, falsely, and knowingly omitted various material facts regarding the quality and character of the McRib — namely, that despite its name and distinctive rib-like shape, it does not actually contain any actual pork rib meat. McDonald’s knew these facts would be material to reasonable consumers but still chose not to disclose them.” read more

Melbourne-based L3Harris acquired the vast rocket engine company Aerojet Rocketdyne in 2023, but on Monday announced it was selling a controlling interest in the majority of those operations to private investment firm AE Industrial Partners.

The Boca Raton-based company plans to revive the Rocketdyne name for the business “in recognition of its heritage and longstanding innovation within space propulsion technology,” according to a press release.

The deal calls for it to acquire a 60% controlling interest in L3Harris’ Space Propulsion and Power Systems at a value of $845 million. L3Harris Technologies will retain a 40% minority share.

The transaction is not expected to close until the second half of 2026, and is subject to regulatory approval.

A big portion of the deal is the RL-10 manufacturing facilities located in Palm Beach County. The RL-10 engines have been used for 60 years, including for the upper stages of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan and remaining Atlas V rockets.

“Rocketdyne is more than just a company, it is the birthplace of U.S. rocket propulsion,” said Kirk Konert, managing partner at AE Industrial. “This transaction will not only modernize and give new life to a pioneer of space and national defense technology, but it will also create a new hybrid model of agile collaboration, combining the stability and power of a national defense prime with the innovation of a specialized investor.” read more

By FATIMA HUSSEIN

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. multinational corporations will be exempted from paying more corporate taxes overseas in a deal finalized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The OECD announced Monday that nearly 150 countries have agreed on the plan, initially crafted in 2021, to stop large global companies from shifting profits to low-tax countries, no matter where they operate in the world.

The amended version excludes large U.S.-based multinational corporations from the 15% global minimum tax after negotiations between President Donald Trump’s administration and other members of the Group of Seven wealthy nations.

OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann said in a statement that the agreement is a “landmark decision in international tax co-operation” and “enhances tax certainty, reduces complexity, and protects tax bases.”

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called the agreement “a historic victory in preserving U.S. sovereignty and protecting American workers and businesses from extraterritorial overreach.” read more