Things To Do In SW Florida

Six months after top Florida officials advanced a deal that would swap 324 acres of state forest to a golf course company, Chase Pirtle hiked through the woods to document the creatures that stood to lose their home.

He found a threatened indigo snake basking in the sun, a rare animal some scientists spend years trying to spot. Florida mice, an imperiled species with distinctive big ears and hind feet, scurried through the sand, captured on a night camera. And Pirtle, who leads a nonprofit research group hired by the Sierra Club, tallied at least 112 burrows of endangered gopher tortoises — more than half of which showed signs of active use.

“Every acre serves significant importance,” said Pirtle, director of the Ashton Biological Preserve, considered a leader of gopher tortoise protections in Florida. “The loss of sandhill habitat in this state is horrific, and every little habitat that we can hang on to is extremely important right now.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis, along with the three members of the Florida Cabinet, spent less than 30 seconds in June discussing the swap before voting to move it forward. The deal meant the state would give the forest land to Cabot Citrus Farms, a luxury golf resort in Hernando County looking to expand its neighboring operation, in exchange for 861 acres of timber land in Cedar Key. Environmental groups have decried the proposal, saying the state forest is home to fragile habitat in need of protection. read more

By TOM KRISHER, AP Business Writer

DETROIT (AP) — Elon Musk says the Securities and Exchange Commission wants him to pay a penalty or face charges involving what he disclosed — or failed to disclose — about his purchases of Twitter stock before he bought the social media platform in 2022.

In a letter posted by Musk on the platform now called X, his lawyer Alex Spiro tells the outgoing SEC chairman, Gary Gensler, that the commission’s demand for a monetary payment is a “misguided scheme” that won’t intimidate Musk. The letter also alleges that the commission reopened an investigation this week into Neuralink, Musk’s computer-to-human brain interface company.

The SEC has not released the letter. Nor would it comment on it or confirm whether it has issued such a demand to Musk.

“It is the policy of the SEC to conduct investigations on a confidential basis to preserve the integrity of its investigative process,” an agency spokesperson said in an email Friday.

Messages also were left Friday by The Associated Press seeking comment from Spiro. read more

By MICHELLE CHAPMAN, AP Business Writer

Some banks and banking trade groups are suing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau over a finalized rule that limits overdraft fees banks can charge.

The rule is part of President Joe Biden administration’s campaign to reduce junk fees that hit consumers on everyday purchases, including banking services.

But banks argue that without overdraft protection, desperate consumers will instead lean on worse, unregulated services to ease their crunch.

Under the finalized rule from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that was announced on Thursday, banks will be able to choose from three options: they may charge a flat overdraft fee of $5, they may charge a fee that covers their costs and losses, or they may charge any fee so long as they disclose the terms of the overdraft loan the way they would for any other loan, typically expressed as an annual percentage rate, or APR.

While banks have cut back on overdraft fees in the past decade, the nation’s biggest banks still take in roughly $8 billion in the charges every year, according to data from the CFPB and bank public records. Currently, there is no cap on the overdraft fees that banks can legally charge. read more

By Kimberly Palmer, NerdWallet

The festivity of December is replaced all too quickly by the due dates of January, when the bills from holiday spending and travel arrive. This kind of financial hangover can make the start of the year a little less joyful, but there are ways to prevent it.

“People often go into the holiday season without a plan. They might know who they want to give gifts to, but may not put numbers to it or think of what they want to spend overall, and that’s where people get into trouble,” says Rob Wurzburg, a Chicago, Illinois-based financial advisor at Forum Financial Management, a registered investment adviser.

To counteract the tendency to overspend, financial experts recommend the following six strategies:

1. Plan early and often

Wurzburg urges people to start planning for holiday spending as soon as possible.