Things To Do In SW Florida

No Central Florida restaurants shut down the week of May 26-June 1, according to data from the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation.

Complaints and warnings

Orange County had the top spot for most warnings and other complaints in Central Florida, with 21.

Volusia had 14, Osceola seven, Brevard had three, Seminole had one and Lake had five.

Warnings given with required follow-up inspections could lead to a business being shut down if problems remain.

DEAR TRAVEL TROUBLESHOOTER: Last year, I bought two round-trip flights from Amman to Tel Aviv through Booking.com. The tickets on Royal Jordanian Airlines were refundable. In November, I called to cancel my tickets and spoke with a Booking.com representative, who said I would get my money back — minus a cancellation fee of about $16 — in about two weeks.

Two weeks later, there was no sign of the money. I called Royal Jordanian Airlines, and they referred me back to Booking.com. I called back and reached out to someone on the “advanced” support team. A representative promised to call me back within 72 hours, but I never heard from anyone.

I called a month later and spoke with another representative who gave me a different reference number to contact their customer service by phone. But it failed to get me access to Booking.com. Without the correct number, you can’t even gain access to an agent or an operator.

The Booking.com website showed my tickets as “canceled” with a refund due of $16. But I paid $589 for them. After 11 weeks of contacting both Royal Jordanian Airlines and Booking.com, I’m still no closer to receiving a refund. Can you help me get my money back? read more

It’s so Florida.

A yearslong effort to stabilize the home insurance industry is finally paying dividends, according to state officials and insurance insiders, just as forecasters are predicting a super-charged, La Niña-driven hurricane season.

What could possibly go wrong?

Let’s start with what insurers say has gone right: Reduced losses from the reforms that quelled high litigation rates, combined with a single hurricane that hit a sparely populated area last year, convinced reinsurers — the global financiers that insure insurers — to ease back on rates charged for the upcoming hurricane season.

So companies purchased more reinsurance than they needed to and say they are prepared to pay off losses after not one but two hurricanes that could hit the state this year.

If more than two strike Florida, however, “that’s not something you normally budget for,” said Paul Handerhan, president of the Fort Lauderdale-based Federal Association for Insurance Reform.

“If that were to happen, you could see some companies experience some financial stress.” read more

By KEVIN MCGILL (Associated Press)

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Whether a flight attendant was fired for her religious beliefs or for improper conduct when she sent graphic anti-abortion material and disparaging messages to a union leader was at the heart of appeals court arguments Monday, as Southwest Airlines and the union sought to reverse an $800,000 award to the woman.

The case also involves an earlier judge’s contempt order requiring three of the airline’s attorneys to undergo religious liberty training from a conservative advocacy group.

Three judges with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments Monday. Appellate Judge Corey Wilson closely questioned attorneys on both sides of the lawsuit, filed by flight attendant Charlene Carter against the airline and her union.

Wilson said the key question in the case was how an employer should balance allowing actions such as Carter’s messages, while also not creating a hostile workplace for other employees.

Southwest argues it broke no laws firing Carter because she violated company rules requiring civility in the workplace by sending “hostile and graphic” anti-abortion messages to the union leader, who was a fellow flight attendant. read more

On a day Boeing’s Starliner was the focus on the Space Coast, SpaceX went about the business of building up and shipping out more infrastructure to support its massive Starship rocket.

Some rather large steel pieces that make up the Starship and Super Heavy launch tower that were fabricated at SpaceX’s manufacturing facilities on base at KSC made their way to the turn basin adjacent the press site awaiting a barge headed up the Banana River.

The materials are headed to Texas where SpaceX conducts its test flights of its next-generation rocket. The company announced Saturday that it was pushing its target launch for the fourth orbital flight attempt to June 6, one day later than planned.

It still needs approval from the Federal Aviation Administration, but if it flies, SpaceX will attempt to further progress on the most powerful orbital rocket to ever launch from Earth.

Capable of producing more than 16 million pounds of thrust on liftoff, the 396-foot-tall rocket lifts off from a tower that Elon Musk refers to as Mechazilla. It’s designed to eventually be able to capture back the Super Heavy first stage during return landings through the use of what Musk calls “chopsticks,” which were one of the two massive steel structures being shipped from KSC. read more