Things To Do In SW Florida

An object that hit a Florida home in March was part of debris released from the International Space Station three years earlier, NASA has revealed.

Homeowner Alejandro Otero recently told television station WINK that he was on vacation when his son told him what had happened to his house in Naples. Otero came home early to check on the house, finding the object had ripped through his ceiling and torn up the flooring.

“I was shaking. I was completely in disbelief. What are the chances of something landing on my house with such force to cause so much damage,” Otero said. “I’m super grateful that nobody got hurt.”

NASA said the hand-sized chunk of metal came from a pallet of nickel hydride batteries jettisoned from the ISS in March 2021 after new lithium-ion batteries arrived at the station.

The debris, weighing less than 2 pounds, was determined to be part of the support equipment in space used to mount the batteries onto a cargo pallet. The entire pallet weighed about 5,800 pounds, and NASA expected it to burn up entirely on reentry. read more

A year after St. Cloud adopted strict new architectural standards, the City Council is considering another ordinance requiring developers to install public art in their new subdivisions or pay into a public art fund.

Slated for a final public hearing and vote on April 25, it states that developers of non-residential commercial projects and residential subdivisions must pay 1% of the total development costs for public art in their project or on city property, or to pay that amount into the city’s public art fund before they can start construction.

The contribution is capped at $500,000 for commercial projects and $1 million for residential projects, according to a report in GrowthSpotter.

Community Development Director Melissa Dunklin said the ordinance was drafted at the direction of the City Council, who wanted the existing ordinance expanded beyond just the central business district.

Public art fees or requirements are fairly common for commercial projects, especially in urban areas. What is less common is for cities to apply the standards citywide, particularly to new residential neighborhoods. read more

NASA still wants to bring samples back from Mars being gathered by the Perseverance rover, but ballooning costs for the return trip to Earth under a limited budget that would force years of delays is prompting the agency to seek out a cheaper, faster plan. 

“We are committed to retrieving the samples that are there, at least some of those samples,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said during a news conference Monday. “This bottom line is that $11 billion is too expensive and not returning samples until 2040 is unacceptably too long.”

He noted that Perseverance, which launched from Cape Canaveral in 2020 on a ULA  Atlas V and arrived at Mars in 2021, continues to collect what will be more than 30 rock and soil samples, some of which will be in the rover and others left in preplanned spots on the surface.

The original Mars Sample Return (MSR) plan called for a new spacecraft to land on Mars with an ascent vehicle that would take the samples to a rendezvous with a second spacecraft launched by the European Space Agency orbiting Mars. It would then make the return flight home to Earth. read more

By Drew Gula | NerdWallet

Inflation and supply chain problems continue to impact Americans. Auto insurance rates have risen as a result, along with the prices of new and used cars, medical care and even car maintenance.

State-required car insurance limits haven’t followed suit, however, and even drivers with higher limits may not be protected. But if you’re driving around with only the minimum amount of car insurance required, then you’re probably underinsured.

Here are four ways to make sure you have enough coverage before a potential car accident puts you at risk.

Think twice about minimum coverage

Almost every state requires drivers to carry a minimum amount of liability insurance, which pays for injuries and property damage you cause in an accident. While minimum coverage is typically the cheapest policy you can get, your state’s minimum-required limits likely aren’t high enough to cover the full cost of injuries or property damage caused by an accident.

For example, the average bodily injury liability claim in 2020 included more than $24,000 in medical bills, according to the Insurance Information Institute’s analysis of data from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. And medical costs have only increased since that study, with some reaching up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. read more

It’s rare for buyers to want to keep everything in a multimillion-dollar home, but that’s just what happened in an $11.8 million sale on Bentley Park Circle in Bay Hill.

“I know the buyers were big fans of the furnishings and plan to embrace it and add to it,” Ben Becton with Keller Williams Realty, told GrowthSpotter. He represented the sellers in the deal that closed late last month.

“The seller took his entire art collection. The new owners will be able to bring in their own art collection and really make the house their own, even though they will be embracing the furnishings that are there.”

The list price for the home was $15 million and was on the market for about 18 months.

Public records show the sellers as Adrian and Josie Everett, and the buyer is the CEO of Brazilian travel company A.H. Voyage.

Everett is the former CEO and founder of E-Lites e-cigarette company. Along with Becton, the Everetts are founders of London House, a private dining and social club on restaurant row. There were plans to open another location in downtown. read more