Things To Do In SW Florida

By KEN SWEET, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — The White House cannot lapse in its funding of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a federal district court judge ruled on Tuesday, only days before funds at the bureau would have likely run out and the consumer finance agency would have no money to pay its employees.

Judge Amy Berman ruled that the CFPB should continue to get its funds from the Federal Reserve, despite the Fed operating at a loss, and that the White House’s new legal argument about how the CFPB gets its funds is not valid.

At the heart of this case is whether Russell Vought, President Donald Trump’s budget director and the acting director of the CFPB, can effectively shut down the agency and lay off all of the bureau’s employees. The CFPB has largely been inoperable since President Trump has sworn into office nearly a year ago. Its employees are mostly forbidden from doing any work, and most of the bureau’s operations this year has been to unwind the work it did under President Biden and even under Trump’s first term. read more

Cool weather conditions and continually dropping temperatures have prompted Central Florida water parks to close for a few days.

Forecasts for overnight temps in the 30s pushed many attractions to adjust their schedules. Walt Disney World’s Typhoon Lagoon; Universal’s Volcano Bay; Aquatica Orlando, SeaWorld’s water park, and Discovery Cove, SeaWorld’s day resort, were all closed Tuesday.

Disney has scheduled Typhoon Lagoon’s reopening for Jan. 1. Blizzard Beach, the attraction’s sister park, already was closed for winter maintenance ahead of its Feb. 15 reopening. (That’s also the date that Typhoon Lagoon is scheduled to shut down for regular maintenance.)

Universal plans to reopen Volcano Bay on Jan. 1 as well.

Aquatica and Discovery Cove are closed through Wednesday, and the company is assessing operations for Thursday, including for Illuminate, the water park’s new after-hours walk-through experience at Aquatica.

It’s a date: When Orlando theme parks wrap up holiday celebrations read more

By DAMIAN J. TROISE, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks fell slightly on Wall Street Tuesday as trading for 2025 nudges closer to the finish line.

With just one trading day left before the year ends, most big investors have closed out their positions and volume has been thin. Every major index is headed for a double-digit gain for the year.

The S&P 500 fell 9.50 points, or 0.1%, to 6,894.24. Even with three straight days of small losses, the S&P 500 is on track for an annual gain of more than 17%.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 94.87 points, or 0.2%, to 48,367.06. The Nasdaq composite fell 55.27 points, or 0.2%, to 23,419.08.

The biggest weights on the market remained technology companies, especially those focused on advancements for artificial intelligence.

Nvidia fell 0.4% and Apple fell 0.2%. Both companies have outsized values that have a greater overall impact on the market’s broader direction.

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New Zealand’s Auckland kicks off 2026 celebrations with fireworks read more

NASA will spend 2026 shooting for the moon, with its ambitious plans marking the first time humans will fly out of low-Earth orbit since 1972.

The planned Artemis II launch is the highlight of what will be a busy year on the Space Coast, which just came off a record 109 launches at Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

The mission aims to fly from KSC as early as Feb. 5 and no later than April, sending its crew of four on a 10-day trip to ensure their ride, the Orion spacecraft, can support human spaceflight.

“We’re going to the moon. It has been an amazing journey the last two and a half years, and we really see the light at the end of the tunnel,” said NASA astronaut and mission commander Reid Wiseman. “We just do not anchor on dates. We are going to launch when this vehicle is ready, when this team is ready, and we are going to go execute this mission to the best of our abilities.”

The crew’s mission is to fly around, but not land on, the moon to pave the way for a future Artemis III mission that looks to return humans to the lunar surface for the first time since Apollo 17. read more

AI-powered platforms like ChatGPT and Google Gemini offer new ways to plan your 2026 financial goals. But how can you leverage them without compromising your privacy?

With a NerdWallet survey finding that more than 2 in 5 Americans (43%) say they’ve used AI for aspects of their personal financial planning, that’s an increasingly relevant question.

Here’s how to get the most out of AI tools.

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  It’s a date: When Orlando theme parks wrap up holiday celebrations

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  Stocks slip on Wall Street as 2025 winds down

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  Brightline seeks to raise $100 million as analysts warn of possible default

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  Epic Universe debut dominates, but Disney, others add to active 2025

Experiment with prompts

Help the chatbot help you. Give it some background about your current situation so it can offer customized advice, suggests Sierra Adare-Tasiwoopa api, an instructional technologist at Nevada State University. read more