Visit Florida gets one year lease on life

Florida’s tourism industry and the 140 employees at Visit Florida, the state’s tourism marketing agency, can breathe easier — at least for a few months. House and Senate budget negotiators agreed Monday evening to put $50 million toward Visit Florida next year, extending it until June 30, 2020. The public-private agency had been set to expire Oct. 1, and House Speaker Jose Oliva, no fan of corporate subsidies, appeared happy to let it fade away. More from the Orlando Sentinel and WPEC.

New Yorkers fleeing for Florida more than any other state

Florida last year had the most people in the U.S. move in from other states. It has New York to thank. New York contributed the most to Florida’s inflow of people, with 63,722 people moving from the Empire State to the Sunshine State between July 2017 and July 2018, the U.S. Census Bureau said Monday. [Source: Democrat and Chronicle]

Gov. Ron DeSantis signs vaping ban, police dog protection bills

Floridians will have to keep their e-cigarettes on the shelf while in most enclosed workplaces starting this summer, under one of 10 new laws signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis. The workplace ban on vapor-generating electronic devices (SB 7012), better known as “vaping,” implements part of a constitutional amendment that also asked voters to ban oil and gas drilling off Florida’s shorelines. [Source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel]

Orlando Magic co-founder Pat Williams is retiring after more than 50 years in NBA

The legendary Pat Williams announced his official retirement from the Orlando Magic on Monday, but can you really ever retire from being the father and founder of a franchise? Yes, Williams announced his retirement as the Magic’s senior vice president on Monday, but he’ll always be the co-founder of the Magic and one of the most influential figures in Orlando sports history. [Source: Orlando Sentinel]

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Florida researchers find success breeding colorful aquarium fish

Researchers in Florida, helped by donations from SeaWorld and Busch Gardens, are behind a successful and growing effort to breed aquarium fish in captivity. Once almost impossible, captive breeding colorful reef fish is quickly growing in scope and variety at a University of Florida research station near Tampa and in a few other research facilities around the world. [Source: UPI]

ALSO AROUND FLORIDA:

› Commissioners want new leadership for Collier County's business accelerators [Naples Daily News]
Economic Incubators Inc., the nonprofit tasked with operating the Naples and Immokalee accelerators, will lose control of the county accelerator program following longstanding questions about how the organization has spent its money, managed the program and delivered results.

› Miami is a finalist for an artificial intelligence hub, tech giant announces [Miami Herald]
Speaking at the keynote address kicking off the 2019 eMerge Americas technology conference at the Miami Beach convention center, Paulo Passoni, managing investment partner for Tokyo-based SoftBank, said Miami was among the finalist cities for a planned artificial intelligence hub it is seeking to locate in the Caribbean-Latin America region.

› Charting when the bottom fell out of Tampa Bay's housing market [Tampa Bay Times]
The rise and fall and rise of the bay area housing market is dramatically reflected in figures released this month by ATTOM Data Solutions, a California-based firm that tracks sales and prices of more than 155 million U.S. properties. The data show just how frothy Tampa Bay's market was in the mid-2000s, how swiftly it tanked and how long it took to recover from one of the worst housing crashes ever.

› Angel investing just got a whole lot easier, thanks to one Florida startup [Miami Herald]
It’s no secret that there are many wealthy South Florida residents — including 30 billionaires at last count. So it shouldn’t be surprising that the region has given birth to a company that says it plans to update large-scale private investing (think companies, not stocks) for the 21st century.

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› SeaWorld shakeup continues as Mark Pauls, Orlando parks chief, quits [Orlando Sentinel]
Mark Pauls, president of SeaWorld Orlando and Aquatica, has left the company after only seven months of running the two theme parks. Orlando-based SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment said Pauls made the decision to resign but didn’t say if he took a new job elsewhere.

› More states aim to knock air out of festive balloon launches [Tampa Bay Times]
The tradition of releasing balloons at weddings, birthdays and memorials may soon get deflated by lawmakers in more than half a dozen states. Critics say the helium-filled balloons pollute the environment, and threaten birds and other wildlife when they fall to earth.

› Florida Recycler Aims to Outfit the World from Head to Toe [Waste360]
Creating socioeconomic synergy by addressing the wealth and waste in the United States and the privation and need in developing nations has been the passion of philanthropist-entrepreneur Wayne Elsey for the last two decades. Elsey's latest venture in that arena, Head2Toe Recycling, opened in Orlando, Fla., late last month.

› Pensacola downtown renaissance focus of state historic preservation conference [Pensacola News Journal]
From museums and forts, to mid-century architecture, to the site of what is arguably America's oldest settlement, Pensacola has a lot to offer history buffs. Next month, historians and preservationists from across the state will flock to Pensacola to take it all in. From May 16-18, the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation will host the 2019 Florida Preservation Conference in Pensacola.