Things To Do In SW Florida

Orlando is preparing to annex nearly 6,300 acres of the long-planned – and enormous – Sunbridge development being built by Tavistock on both sides of the Orange/Osceola County line.

The proposed annexation of land currently in unincorporated Orange County would give the city control of a hugely lucrative project that will have enormous environmental impacts. But Orlando’s move caught Orange County leaders who would lose their jurisdiction by surprise, vexing some, though under state law there is little they can do to stop it.

“We got this sprung on us,” said Orange County Commissioner Nicole Wilson, an advocate for environmental protection and rural areas. “It’s really troublesome. This is a gigantic development in a very ecologically sensitive area.”

Sunbridge is planned as a mixed-use development with up to 7,370 residential units, 5.4 million square feet of office space, 2.9 million square feet of industrial uses and 880,000 square feet of retail, according to documents provided to the county Feb. 23 by Brooke R. Bonnett, Orlando’s economic development director. read more

Lily Girma | (TNS) Bloomberg News

Imagine it’s the year 2030 and you’re heading to the airport to catch a flight. At the curb, you hop onto a Segway-like scooter that will serve as your personal airport vehicle. It scans data from your phone to determine your gate number and glides in and out of massive elevator banks — no escalators — to move between check-in and security floors. Along the way, a machine scans your face to verify your identity and directs you to an individual security tunnel where you self-screen your luggage.

None of this is science fiction. Within six years, architecture firm Gensler says it will install such a prototype at a major North American airport, including all of the above features.

“Airports are starting to shift toward autonomy,” says Ty Osbaugh, who is heading up the project as Gensler’s global cities sector leader. Airport innovation is happening faster than we think, he says, foreseeing a focus on self-service in keeping with an already dominant lifestyle that prefers digitization to real-life interactions. read more

NASA’s astronauts corps swelled with a new class of graduates Tuesday, including one man who grew up watching space shuttles launch from his Volusia County schoolyard.

Luke Delaney, 44, who was born in Miami but raised in DeBary and attended both DeLand and Deltona High School in Volusia, was one of 10 NASA astronaut candidates along with two international candidates from the United Arab Emirates chosen as members of the 23rd astronaut group in December 2021 from among 12,000 applicants.

“At Enterprise Elementary where I went, we definitely came out for a few launches,” he said. “They can see it from the playground. … Just then you’re wondering how humans are going to space. How’s this even possible? And now I’m thinking, not a matter of how, not even a matter of when, but just where? Where will I go and what will I be able to do to help forward space exploration for humanity.”

Now more than two years later, he and the rest of his class received their official astronaut pins on stage at Johnson Space Center in Houston during a ceremony that included congratulations from one of the 12 men who walked on the moon, Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt. read more

By JIMMY GOLEN (AP Sports Writer)

HANOVER, N.H. (AP) — The Dartmouth men’s basketball team voted to unionize Tuesday in an unprecedented step toward forming the first labor union for college athletes and another blow to the NCAA’s deteriorating amateur business model.

In an election supervised by the National Labor Relations Board in the school’s human resources offices, the players voted 13-2 to join Service Employees International Union Local 560, which already represents some Dartmouth workers. Every player on the roster voted.

“Today is a big day for our team,” said Dartmouth juniors Cade Haskins and Romeo Myrthil, who have led the effort. “We stuck together all season and won this election. It is self-evident that we, as students, can also be both campus workers and union members. Dartmouth seems to be stuck in the past. It’s time for the age of amateurism to end.”

The school quickly appealed to the full NLRB, seeking to overturn last month’s decision by the board’s regional official that the Dartmouth players are employees and thus entitled to unionize. Both sides also have until March 12 to file an objection with the NLRB over the election procedures; barring that, the SEIU will be certified as the workers’ bargaining representative. read more

Associated Press

Users of Meta’s Facebook, Instagram, Threads and Messenger platforms are experiencing login issues in what appears to be a widespread outage.

London-based internet monitoring firm Netblocks said on X that four Meta platforms — Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Threads — are “currently experiencing outages related to login sessions in multiple countries.” But the firm, which advocates for internet freedom, said there was no sign of “country-level internet disruptions or filtering,” which are typically imposed by governments.

Andy Stone, Meta’s head communications, acknowledged the issues on X, formerly known as Twitter, and said the company is “working on this now.”

Some users reported they were locked out of their Facebook accounts and were unable to get back in. Others said they were experiencing difficultly refreshing their Threads and Instagram feeds. Meanwhile, WhatsApp, which is also owned by Meta, did not appear to be experiencing problems early Tuesday. read more