Things To Do In SW Florida

NEW YORK (AP) — Starbucks will pay about $35 million to more than 15,000 New York City workers to settle claims it denied them stable schedules and arbitrarily cut their hours, city officials announced Monday, hours before Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders visited striking baristas on a picket line.

The development came amid a continuing strike by Starbucks’ union that began last month at dozens of locations around the country.

The workers want better hours and increased staffing, and they are angry that Starbucks hasn’t agreed on a contract nearly four years after workers voted to unionize at a Buffalo store. Union votes at other locations followed, and about 550 of Starbucks’ 10,000 company-owned stores are now unionized. The coffee giant also has around 7,000 licensed locations at airports, grocery stores and other locales.

Workers and the company dispute the extent and impact of the strike, but Mamdani, Sanders and some state and city officials sought to amplify the baristas’ message by mingling with scores of strikers and supporters outside a Starbucks shop in Brooklyn. read more

Associated Press

Bitcoin and companies tied to cryptocurrencies extended a nearly two-month swoon Monday, tracking with a broader market sell-off in technology companies that many see as overvalued.

Bitcoin slid 6.5% after being down nearly 12% earlier in the day, settling in just above $85,000. The most-traded cryptocurrency is down about 33% since hitting a record $126,210.50 on Oct. 6, according to crypto trading platform Coinbase. Bitcoin had soared since April in line with the stock market and driven partly by a more crypto-friendly tone in Washington.

Companies that enable investors to buy and sell cryptocurrencies, as well as the growing number of companies who have made investing in bitcoin their main business focus, were hammered in Monday’s sell-off.

Coinbase Global fell 5.4% and online trading platform Robinhood Markets lost 4.4%. Bitcoin mining company Riot Platforms dropped 2.8%.

Strategy, the biggest of the so-called crypto treasury companies that raises money just to buy bitcoin, tumbled 10%. The company has reported holding 649,870 bitcoin. As of 1 p.m. ET Monday they were worth about $55 billion. read more

Orange County Regional History Center will play host to multiple public events in December, including sessions that look back at Cypress Gardens and return to the early days of Orlando’ s Colonial Plaza shopping center.

On Dec. 5, the downtown Orlando museum’s Lunch & Learn session is titled “The Legacy of Cypress Gardens.”  Jeremy Hileman, assistant curator of collections, will guide participants through the origins of the Winter Haven attraction, its famed ski shows and its large gardens.  Cypress Gardens opened in 1936 and is now the site of Legoland Florida theme park.  Admission is $5 ($17 with pre-ordered lunch option).

On Dec. 6, a former history center Lunch & Learn ventures out of downtown for “Colonial Plaza and the Era of the Malls.” It will be held at the Nook on Robinson, a tavern that’s one block south of the shopping complex, which opened in 1956. The session, set for a 7 p.m. start, will be led by history center historian Rachel Williams.  The session looks at suburban grown and retail in Central Florida. read more

By THALIA BEATY

NEW YORK (AP) — “Times are tough. We take care of us.”

In early November, Kashish Ali posted those words to her Instagram story as part of a yearslong practice she’s had to fundraise for food and drop it off at community fridges in Atlanta, where she’s from, and now in New York, where she lives. Ali, who is 32 and a first generation Pakistani immigrant, estimated that her friends and family have trusted her with thousands of dollars over the past couple of years.

For her, it’s a practice of giving back and creating connection. It’s also part of a growing interest in grassroots efforts to meet community needs that many call “ mutual aid.” Often, mutual aid just comes down to neighbors helping neighbors, and as many face high prices, cuts to government programs and political uncertainty, organizers say interest has swelled. Donating effort or time to mutual aid organizing is also another way to mark GivingTuesday, which falls on Dec. 2 this year, and has become a major day to support nonprofits. read more

The Space Coast’s record rocket train of 2025 kept rolling with the first launch of December early Monday.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 with 29 of the company’s Starlink satellites lifted off from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-A at 2:44 a.m. marking the first of at least five planned launches on the Space Coast in the next two weeks.

This was the fourth launch of the first-stage booster, which made a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions stationed in the Atlantic.

It marked the 102nd launch from either KSC or neighboring Cape Canaveral Space Force Station this year, with SpaceX responsible for all but seven of them. SpaceX, United Launch Alliance and Blue Origin combined to surpass the 2024 record of 93 launches last month, and the Space Coast is on target to come close to 110 launches before the  end of the year.

SpaceX has another launch planned for Tuesday, as a Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-95 mission with 29 Starlink satellites aims to lift off from Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 40 during a launch window that runs from 3:16-7:16 p.m. and a backup Dec. 3 from 2:50-6:50 p.m. This will be the 25th flight for the first-stage booster, which is scheduled for a recovery landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic. read more