Pictures: Electrify Expo features electric cars, bikes, scooters
Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Fla., Saturday, March 16, 2024. (Willie J. Allen Jr./Orlando Sentinel)
Oceanfront estate on Ormond Beach hits the market for $5 million
A modern beach house that Coca-Cola money built is on the market for $5 million.
The 5,673-square-foot Ormond Beach house was built in 1994.
“It was just ahead of its time when it was built, and if you look at it now and you look at it from the ocean, it looks like a beach home in Miami that’s being built right now,” said listing agent Chadd Going with Premier Sotheby’s International Realty.
The Root family originally built the house with architect William Morgan, who once described it as the “crown jewel” of his career, according to a report in GrowthSpotter.
“The architecture is definitely different than in most homes, and the location is amazing,” Going told GrowthSpotter. “It’s right in the middle of a row of homes on the beach. There are 14 houses to the left and 14 houses to the right, so you’re right in the middle, and there’s just complete privacy. It’s like having your own private beach.”
The Root family is credited with creating the recognizable Coca-Cola bottle back in the early 1900s. At one point, Chapman Shaw Root, grandson of the Coca-Cola bottle creator, was one of America’s richest men and was the one who moved the bottling company from Indiana to Daytona Beach. His son, Chapman J Root, is the one who built this house.
Facing public backlash, some health care companies are abandoning hospital deals
Worried about hospitals closing and higher costs for patients, state lawmakers are increasingly tangling with hospitals over potential health care mergers, in some cases derailing deals they think don’t serve the public interest.
Financially strapped hospitals often look to merge with or be acquired by other systems. After a pandemic-era slowdown, health care mergers and acquisitions have risen steadily over the past two years. But some proposed hospital deals in Connecticut, Louisiana, Minnesota and elsewhere have fizzled amid heavy pushback from lawmakers, organized labor and grassroots organizations.
At least 10 health care “megadeals” were called off or unwound just last year, due in part to increased oversight, reported Becker’s Hospital Review, an industry publication.
“We have seen situations nationally in certain health care transactions where a lot of promises were made, but when you look into it, clinics are closing, prices are going up, access is down,” Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a Democrat, told Stateline.
Wendy’s isn’t the first: Dynamic pricing is everywhere
By Anna Helhoski | NerdWallet
When word got around that the burger chain Wendy’s would start surging prices in 2025, the backlash was swift. What followed was a swarm of media coverage, outraged customers, late-night TV jokes and a bevy of spicy memes.
It seemed the fast food chain’s alleged dastardly plans were dead on arrival. That is, they might have been if surging prices for your Frosty and fries was what Wendy’s was really planning to do. Wendy’s quickly clarified that it wasn’t surge pricing, after all; it was actually using “dynamic pricing.” That distinction is key, but it’s still business-school speak that’s not clear to most people.
“I think they didn’t think through how people would interpret that phrase,” says Robert Shumsky, a professor of operations management at Dartmouth University’s Tuck School of Business.
Here’s the difference: Surge pricing uses real-time supply and demand data to raise — and only raise — prices. If you’ve ever tried to get a rideshare during rush hour, you’ve experienced how surge pricing hikes up the cost of your fare. Dynamic pricing, on the other hand, uses real-time supply and demand data to fluctuate prices up or down.
More medical-marijuana licenses could go to Black Florida farmers
TALLAHASSEE — State lawmakers have signed off again on expanding the number of medical-marijuana licenses earmarked for Black farmers, opening the door for three applicants who lost out earlier.
Expansion of such licenses was included in a wide-ranging Department of Health bill (SB 1582) that also addresses such issues as septic-tank inspections and screening for newborns and pregnant women.
A provision added to the bill in the last week of this year’s legislative session would help at least three Black farmers who had sought medical-pot licenses but were deemed ineligible to apply by state officials.
Passage of the bill is the latest twist in a drawn-out effort to allow Black farmers to join the state’s cannabis program, which has exploded in size since voters approved a constitutional amendment broadly authorizing medical marijuana in 2016.
If signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis, the bill would bring to six the number of potentially lucrative medical-marijuana licenses earmarked for Black farmers with ties to decades-old litigation about discriminatory lending practices by federal officials.