Things To Do In SW Florida

Rollins College finally received the OK from the City of Winter Park for a faculty and staff housing project after months of controversy and several revisions to the scope and design of the building.

On Tuesday night, the Winter Park City Commission voted to approve the 45,842-square-foot building at 340 W. Welbourne Ave. that will provide 30 attainable residential units, including 6 one-bedroom, 19 two-bedroom, and 5 three-bedroom apartments for Rollins College faculty and staff, according to GrowthSpotter.

Rollins College hasn’t specified what rental rates it will charge faculty and staff — no student renters will be allowed — but representatives from the college have said the costs will be well below market rate.

The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Winter Park is $1,650, RentCafe reports. Rollins College President Grant Cornwell explained that entry-level faculty and staff can’t pay that.

“These units are going to be available to younger faculty just out of graduate school, who right now when they look at coming to Rollins, they say, ‘What an attractive college but look at those rents. I couldn’t possibly afford that with the compensation package that is being offered’,” he explained. read more

By GABRIELA SÁ PESSOA and MAURICIO SAVARESE

SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil started blocking Elon Musk’s social media platform X early Saturday, making it largely inaccessible on both the web and through its mobile app after the company refused to comply with a judge’s order.

X missed a deadline imposed by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes to name a legal representative in Brazil, triggering the suspension. It marks an escalation in the monthslong feud between Musk and de Moraes over free speech, far-right accounts and misinformation.

To block X, Brazil’s telecommunications regulator, Anatel, told internet service providers to suspend users’ access to the social media platform. As of Saturday at midnight local time, major operators began doing so.

De Moraes had warned Musk on Wednesday night that X could be blocked in Brazil if he failed to comply with his order to name a representative, and established a 24-hour deadline. The company hasn’t had a representative in the country since earlier this month. read more

Alex Tanzi | (TNS) Bloomberg News

The U.S. labor market is expected to grow by 0.4% a year through 2033, less than one-third of the pace in the preceding decade, according to new Bureau of Labor Statistics projections.

The annual rate translates to 6.7 million additional jobs over the decade, or about 55,000 a month, the BLS said in a report published Thursday.

The main driver is slower population growth. The BLS forecasts that the “non-institutional population” — which excludes categories like prisoners or people in military service — will rise by 16.4 million through 2033. That’s about 5 million fewer than in the previous decade, and it translates to the slowest growth rate that the Bureau has projected since it began publishing the data in 1948.

One implication of the slowdown is that older people will make up a larger share of the population. Since those Americans are less likely to be working, the overall labor force participation rate is projected to fall some 1.4 percentage points over the decade, to 61.2% with both men and women experiencing declines. read more

A Russian and the first Space Force astronaut will get to fly up to the International Space Station on the SpaceX Crew-9 mission next month as NASA chose which two of four previously assigned crew will have to sit the flight out to make room for the two astronauts of Boeing’s Starliner who need a ride home.

NASA announced it was sticking with veteran NASA astronaut and now U.S. Space Force Col. Nick Hague along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov to act as commander and mission specialist, respectively, for the mission while previously assigned Crew-9 members and NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson will have to stay home.

That will leave two seats on board the SpaceX Crew Dragon Freedom for NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who flew up to the ISS on Boeing’s Starliner having arrived on June 6. NASA last week decided Starliner wasn’t safe enough for them to return home after the Boeing spacecraft suffered thruster issues and helium leaks on the trip up. Starliner is slated to undock and leave the ISS as an uncrewed spacecraft as early as next Friday making room for Crew-9’s arrival. read more

It’s time again for the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival, the annual Walt Disney World showcase of smallish plates and sips.

The format remains much the same this year, with marketplaces surrounding the lagoon and up into the area formerly known as Future World. There are scavenger hunts, cheese-based challenges and the nightly Eat to the Beat concert series.

We made a loop and at least looked at everything. Some items will be more suited for cooler weather, so mental notes were made. But here are some first impressions from the 2024 event.

New view

A brand-new space that opened at Epcot this year is CommuniCore Hall, a flexible-use building. During festivals, it will serve food inside and from a counter outside. The interior of Food & Wine features the new Macatizers marketplace with four varieties of mac and cheese. (There are nine adult beverages for sale here, too, but we’re not seeing macaroni there.)

Nearly half the inside of the hall is devoted to merchandise, including a cap with a logo representing Spaceship Earth. Are those slabs of cheese as legs? (I also overheard a woman talking smack about Figment on the merch: “This isn’t his festival!”) read more