Things To Do In SW Florida

Astronaut Thomas P. Stafford, who commanded the Apollo 10 dress rehearsal flight for the 1969 moon landing and the first U.S.-Soviet space linkup, died Monday. He was 93.

Stafford, a retired Air Force three-star general, took part in four space missions. Before Apollo 10, he flew on two Gemini flights, including the first rendezvous of two U.S. capsules in orbit. He died in a hospital near his Space Coast Florida home, said Max Ary, director of the Stafford Air & Space Museum in Weatherford, Oklahoma.

Stafford was one of 24 NASA astronauts who flew to the moon, but he did not land on it. Only seven of them are still alive.

“Today General Tom Stafford went to the eternal heavens which he so courageously explored as a Gemini and Apollo astronaut as well as a peacemaker in Apollo Soyuz,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said via X, formerly known as Twitter. “Those of us privileged to know him are very sad but grateful we knew a giant.”

After he put away his flight suit, Stafford was the go-to guy for NASA when it sought independent advice on everything from human Mars missions to safety issues to returning to flight after the 2003 space shuttle Columbia accident. He chaired an oversight group that looked into how to fix the then-flawed Hubble Space Telescope, earning a NASA public service award. read more

By WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS (AP Business Writer)

NEW YORK (AP) — Eclipse-themed beer. Jewelry and ornaments. And doughnuts that capture the sun’s disappearing act with the help of buttercream frosting.

With April 8’s total solar eclipse right around the corner, businesses are ready for the celestial event that will dim skies along a generous path across North America.

There are oodles of special eclipse safety glasses for sale, along with T-shirts emblazoned with clever slogans and other souvenirs — just like the last time the U.S. got a big piece of the total solar eclipse action in 2017.

Hotels and resorts along the prime path are luring in visitors with special packages and Southwest and Delta are selling seats on eclipse-viewing flights. Cities, museums and parks are staging watch parties to draw in tourists as well as residents.

“This is a special event and … the travel industry certainly is in a very good spot,” said Jie Zhang, a marketing professor at the University of Maryland’s business school. She also noted the eclipse craze arrives at a time when consumers are continuing to ramp up spending on new experiences. read more

Fabric and crafts retailer Joann, which has four locations in the Orlando area, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection but the company says its stores will stay open.

In a Monday release, the Hudson, Ohio-based company said that it expected to emerge from bankruptcy as early as the end of next month. Following this process, Joann will likely become privately owned by certain lenders and industry parties, the company added — meaning its shares would no longer be publicly traded on stock exchanges.

Joann’s more than 800 stores and its website will continue to operate normally during the bankruptcy process, the company said. Its Orlando-area locations include one at the Waterford Lakes Town Center on Alafaya Trail and at Colonial Landing on East Colonial Drive, as well as locations in Winter Garden and Altamonte Springs.

Vendors, landlords and other trade creditors should also not see any pay disruptions, the company said, pointing to a deal it had struck with most of its shareholders for financial support. read more

If you are a bibliophile, you may want to consider collecting rare books and manuscripts, which have active markets. For example, in 2022, book and paper auction sales totaled $1.06 billion, according to Rare Books Hub.

One advantage of investing in this field is diversification. As you know, the values of equities, bonds and cryptocurrencies can be extremely volatile, while investment in books is likely to be more stable.

A good first step is to visit a variety of bookstores, book fairs, reputable dealers and experts in the field. For example, if you visit a bookstore, ask the owners how they got into the business, what specific areas they are most interested in, and how they determine which parts of the market are likely to be most the promising in the future.

This is an investing area in which you would be taking a long-term approach. If you are the type of investor fascinated with short-term trading and buying and selling stocks with quick turnovers, rare books are not the type of investment you are likely to do well with. read more

TALLAHASSEE — Florida’s agriculture industry hopes that a newly passed bill designed to limit local regulations on farmworker housing will bolster efforts to bring in more non-immigrant foreign workers.

The bill (SB 1082), which lawmakers unanimously passed, would prevent cities and counties from taking steps to “inhibit” housing construction for farmworkers on agricultural land. The bill has not been sent to Gov. Ron DeSantis, who can sign, veto or allow the legislation to become law without his signature.

The industry says some growers have cut back on planting this year, and might again next year, in part because of a labor shortage related to the state’s crackdown on undocumented migrants.

The bill could help with bringing in temporary, non-immigrant foreign workers through what is known as the federal H-2A visa, which places housing requirements on employers.

“There are some farmers who did not plant as much this season because they couldn’t get the workers they needed,” said Jim Spratt, a lobbyist for the Florida Ag Coalition. “One of the big reasons they couldn’t is they could not secure housing quick enough or at the level they needed for the number of guest workers they needed.” read more