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Monday's Daily Pulse
What you need to know about Florida today
Record number of tourists visited Florida
The number of tourists flocking to Florida continues to grow to record numbers. Despite the record year Florida fell a little bit short of reaching Scott's goal of having 100 million tourists visit in 2014. Nearly 94 million people visited the state the previous year. [Source: AP]
See also:
» Florida targeting Chinese tourists
» Brazilian tourists reshape business offerings in Central Florida
» Easier travel from United States to Cuba likely to divert tourists from Jacksonville area
Professional organizers take stress out of decluttering
There are 15 certified professional organizers in Florida. Some specialize in people with attention-deficit disorder, who tend to have chronic problems with organization. Others work with seniors planning to downsize, people about to relocate or bereaved families culling loved ones' belongings. A few confine themselves to digital organizing. [Source: Orlando Sentinel]
New import rules for Cuba represent historic change
For the first time in more than a half-century, a U.S. company will be allowed to hire private Cuban workers to provide services and to import some products from independent Cuban entrepreneurs. [Source: Miami Herald]
Lifetime alimony may be eliminated in Florida
Paying alimony for life soon could be dead in Florida, if the state Legislature approves radical reforms this year. This would be the second such attempt to do away with an alimony system that some call outdated. [Source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel]
How growing income inequality is hurting Social Security
Here’s another reason to be concerned about income inequality: it poses a direct threat to the already shaky fiscal health of Social Security, according to a report released last week by the left-leaning Center for American Progress. [Source: Washington Post]
ALSO AROUND FLORIDA:
› Is Tampa Bay 'Ritz-y' enough for a five-star hotel?
In the past eight months, Tampa Bay has emerged as an exciting place to be in the hospitality business. Three new hotels opened in Tampa. Two upscale resorts are under construction at Clearwater Beach. A new Hyatt is planned for downtown St. Petersburg. Yet none of these is a top-rated luxury hotel.
› Rulings could breathe new life into dead foreclosure cases
It took seven years for Florida’s court systems to erase a backlog of nearly half a million home defaults left over from the Great Recession. But just as that logjam is clearing, a pair of recent appellate court rulings could bring thousands of seemingly dead foreclosure cases back to life.
› Unions ask Tampa to help grow skilled-trade apprenticeships
In 2013, the St. Petersburg City Council passed a local hiring ordinance that, among other things, allows contractors on city projects to get paid more of their money sooner if a certain percentage of their workers are in state-registered apprenticeship programs.
› Russia sending more jets to Melbourne for maintenance
Eight wide-body 747-400s from Russia's Transaero Airlines are now parked at the MidAirUSA hangar at Melbourne International Airport. But despite speculation, the planes' sudden appearance in Brevard County has nothing to do with the current turmoil in Russia,
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