Things To Do In SW Florida

By Kurt Woock, NerdWallet

The holiday shopping season happens every year. So why can it still be so tough to be financially prepared? Thirty-one percent of 2024 holiday shoppers who used credit cards to buy gifts still hadn’t paid off the balances nearly one year later, according to NerdWallet’s 2025 Holiday Spending Report.

One reason behind the budgeting-spending disconnect could be the assumption that planning ahead looks the same for all expenses. It doesn’t. For large, predictable expenses, like holiday expenses, one solution is a sinking fund — money saved and earmarked for specific purchases.

The three types of expenses

Thinking about how frequent and predictable an expense is can help you decide how to plan for it.

1. Groceries, rent and other recurring expenses are both frequent and predictable. Typically, you’d pay for these with your regular income using your checking account (or with a credit card that you pay off each month). These expenses make up most of your budget, and are relatively easy to account for. read more

The former president of Walt Disney World, Josh D’Amaro, will replace the retiring CEO of Walt Disney Co., Bob Iger, the company announced Tuesday.

His appointment seemingly ends a closely-watched and high-stakes succession process, three years after a botched initial version led Iger to return to the top job.

D’Amaro, 54, has been chairman of Disney Experiences worldwide, which oversees the company’s theme parks, since May 2020. He was leader of WDW from November 2019 to May 2020.

“I am immensely grateful to the board for entrusting me with leading a company that means so much to me and millions around the world,” D’Amaro said in a Disney news release distributed Tuesday.

The Walt Disney Co. board of directors announced the unanimous pick of D’Amaro, a 28-year Disney veteran, on Monday. His new role is effective March 18.

“Josh D’Amaro is an exceptional leader and the right person to become our next CEO,” Iger said in the news release. “He has an instinctive appreciation of the Disney brand, and a deep understanding of what resonates with our audiences, paired with the rigor and attention to detail required to deliver some of our most ambitious projects.” read more

By SYLVIE CORBET, Associated Press

PARIS (AP) — French prosecutors raided the offices of social media platform X on Tuesday as part of a preliminary investigation into allegations including spreading child sexual abuse images and deepfakes. They have also summoned billionaire owner Elon Musk for questioning.

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X and Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI also face intensifying scrutiny from Britain’s data privacy regulator, which opened formal investigations into how they handled personal data when they developed and deployed Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok. read more

Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport saw its string of annual traveler growth snapped last year as some airlines serving Broward County encountered financial troubles, cut back service and flew passengers to other destinations.

Overall, passenger traffic was down 8.5% for 2025 to more than 32.2 million against the prior year’s 35.2 million, according to statistics posted by the airport for the full calendar year. Six of the airport’s “Top Ten” carriers flew fewer passengers to and from the airport last year than in 2024.

Among the contributing factors for the decline:

• Spirit Airlines, the financially-troubled Dania Beach-based discounter which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last August for the second time in a year, still ended up as the leader in market share at 28%. But it is now a smaller airline serving fewer destinations while operating a smaller fleet. The number of passengers carried fell by 18.3% from nearly 11.1 million  in 2024 to slightly more than 9 million last year. read more

Persistence and patience were the keys to the sale of a unique Orlando home.

You might remember Entrelagos, a 14,706-square-foot property with ornate wood carvings and metal railings with foliage throughout. It took nearly five years — and a price reduction of more than 50 percent to the original $25 million listing — to land its new owners.

When it first hit the market in 2021, listing agent Richard Dempsey with Saunders Real Estate said, “Almost every bit of the finishing on the interior of the property is done with woodwork that was hand-carved by Filipino artisans and then shipped to the site.”

A grand spiral staircase through a library was a focal point of the house, along with the flowers and leaves carved into multiple huge columns. Many of the interior doors had inlaid mother-of-pearl.

“The sellers had spent a lot of time and thought as to what exactly they wanted and fashioned it to their taste, for sure,” Dempsey said about the house after the sale closed.

Back in 2021, the home and an adjacent vacant lot were listed for $25 million, had a price reduction to $19.5 million in 2024, and just sold in January 2026 over two transactions for a combined $11 milllion, according to a report in GrowthSpotter.  read more