Things To Do In SW Florida

By WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS, Associated Press Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Verizon said it resolved an outage that disrupted many U.S. customers’ calling and other cellular services for more than 10 hours on Wednesday.

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The New York-based carrier didn’t specify what caused Wednesday’s disruptions, but confirmed that the outage was resolved by 10:20 p.m. ET. Verizon previously said it had deployed its engineering teams to address “an issue impacting wireless voice and data services.”

“Today, we let many of our customers down and for that, we are truly sorry,” Verizon wrote in updates shared on social media. A spokesperson later added that the company would give those impacted a $20 account credit through Verizon’s app, which on average “covers multiple days of service,” and directly contact its business customers with compensation. read more

Forty years ago, Walt Disney World introduced an Epcot pavilion known as the Living Seas. In 1986, the company reportedly spent $90 million on the project, which the Orlando Sentinel called “its most ambitious and expensive pavilion to date.”

Disney publicists referred to it as “the world’s sixth ocean.”

This all happened before a short-attention-span fish hit big screens, and park visitors knew nothing of something called a “clamobile.” Things change, and in 2006 — half its lifetime ago — the area was rethemed and renamed The Seas With Nemo & Friends.

Other things stay the same, including the 5.7-million-gallon saltwater tank, said to have enough volume to hold Epcot’s iconic Spaceship Earth and then some. The emphasis on animal care and conservation continues.

Disney World recently invited the Sentinel and other members of the media to see the latest version of the Seas from both the visitor side and behind the scenes. Here are a few takeaways.

Minding the manatees

The Seas visitors can see two manatees on the ground floor, but they aren’t Little Joe and Inigo, long-term residents who were moved to another Florida facility last year. read more

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is strengthening on Thursday as tech stocks bounce back following an encouraging report from a Taiwanese chip giant and as oil prices ease sharply.

The S&P 500 rose 0.6% and was on track to break the two-day losing streak it’s been on since setting an all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 328 points, or 0.7%, as of 11 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.8% higher.

Nvidia and other formerly high-flying tech stocks helped lift the market after Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., a major supplier to the industry, reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. TSMC also said it could boost its investment in equipment to $56 billion this year to take advantage of the boom in artificial intelligence.

The frenzy around AI has already sent Nvidia and other superstar stocks to dizzying heights, but that created criticism that their prices had shot too high. Nvidia was one of the heaviest weights on the S&P 500 Wednesday after sinking 1.4%. But it rose 2.5% after TSMC Chief Financial Officer Wendell Huang said it’s seeing “continued strong demand” in an encouraging signal for the entire AI industry. read more

By Matt Barnum for Chalkbeat

American colleges are under siege.

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The Trump administration has waged a legal and rhetorical battle against the country’s elite universities. Voters have grown increasingly skeptical of higher education. Some high school students are questioning the value of a college diploma. In turn, there’s been a veritable firehose of news stories about a generational pivot away from college due to some combination of ruinous costs, close-minded campus cultures, and appealing alternatives.

It is a disorienting experience, then, to examine the cold, hard data of higher education.

College tuition has become more affordable in recent years. The economic return on a bachelor’s degree has stopped growing but remains near historic highs. After a post-pandemic dip, four-year college enrollment has almost fully recovered to near-record levels. Students are increasingly flocking to flagship public universities like UCLA and the University of Michigan. read more

The next ship to join Norwegian Cruise Line‘s fleet will be its largest yet, expanding on the Prima class with a design that is 10% larger than its predecessors.

Set to homeport in Miami beginning in June 2027, the 169,000-gross-ton Norwegian Aura is the third Prima Plus-class ship following the Aqua and the forthcoming Luna, which will debut out of Miami in April. The Aura will be the cruise line’s 22d ship overall and fifth vessel in the Prima class, which is expected to grow to include a sixth ship by the end of 2028.

“Norwegian Aura represents the evolution of Norwegian Cruise Line and the celebration of bringing together families, friends and travelers from around the world,” said Harry Sommer, president and chief executive officer of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. “With brilliance and connection at her core, the ship was created to give all guests the freedom to vacation their very own way – offering the chance to exhale, connect and effortlessly escape into the moment.” read more