Veterans return to high unemployment, tight job market
Kyle Evans just missed certain death when a bomb exploded under his military-convoy vehicle in Iraq. The Army logistics expert survived and returned home to Orlando nearly two years ago, though for the longest time he could not find work.
"I applied for so many jobs, I lost count," said the 28-year-old husband and father of two, who finally landed a job earlier this year at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs clinic in Orlando. "It was getting pretty frustrating. This job market can be tough on anyone, but it can be twice as hard on veterans."
Amid the violence of combat, many veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan never imagined the added stress they would face in trying to find work back home, experts say.
Unemployment among these recent veterans is higher than among the rest of the population and among military veterans overall, according to the latest U.S. Labor Department data. In April, as the country continued its slow recovery from the worst recession since the 1930s, the jobless rate among Iraq and Afghanistan vets was nearly 11 percent, compared with 8.5 percent for nonveterans and 7.7 percent for veterans overall. "There is a disconnect with the private sector. Vets are finding it more difficult than ever to translate their military experience into a civilian career," retired Navy Rear Admiral T.L. McCreary, now president of the career-service website Military.com, said in congressional testimony last month.
[Source: Orlando Sentinel]
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Business Showcase brings home the value of buying local
Buying local doesn't just mean consumers buying from local businesses, it also means local businesses buying from each other. That was the purpose of the 2011 Business Showcase. More than 70 businesses displayed products and services at the Gainesville Area Chamber of Commerce's event Thursday evening at the University of Florida's Phillips Center for the Performing Arts. More than 500 people were expected to attend. Crime Prevention Security Systems and Custom Home Entertainment has gotten business from the event in the past, said Bobby McAfee, marketing director. They were trying to raise awareness Thursday about a new product — an emergency pendant two-way monitor for elderly people. Even if a company doesn't make a sale directly from the event, McAfee said buying local is about building relationships. "You may think of them three months from now or six months from now when you need them," he said. That's how the chamber is helping the local economy, said 2011 Chairman Tommy McIntosh of Prudential Trend Realty. "Every job we can save in this community is going to help us exit the bad times faster, and events like this ultimately help these folks save jobs and increase exposure to their businesses," he said. [Source: Gainesville Sun]
MetLife defends death-benefit approach to regulators
State regulators on Thursday took MetLife Inc. to task, saying the insurer used a database that tracked deaths when doing so proved beneficial for one side of the company, but for years didn't use the same database when doing so could have meant more payouts to families of its life-insurance clients who died. At issue are practices that had the appearance of selective use of the Social Security death database. MetLife and other insurers have maintained they are behaving lawfully. Under policy contracts, insurers aren't required to take steps to determine if a policyholder is still alive, but instead pay claims upon proper notification from beneficiaries or others. The issue of overdue payouts on life-insurance policies, which has heated up in recent weeks and is now the subject of a multistate investigation, surfaced in April when California and other states said they were looking at whether insurers were tardy in turning over unclaimed financial assets to states. At Thursday's hearing hosted by Florida's insurance department, senior MetLife executives testified that the company began regularly using the Social Security database to cut off payments to customers under annuities contracts soon after the database became available in the 1980s, and has used it on a monthly basis since the 1990s. Annuities are retirement-income products. Only in 2007 did MetLife move to match its huge life-insurance policyholder base against names in the database. [Source: Wall Street Journal]
Miss Destructo's mass Twitter appeal leads to business
Miss Destructo is 6 feet tall with cobalt blue hair, chiseled cheekbones and fingernails like daggers.
Her 17,000 Twitter loyalists want to know what she had for breakfast, where she's going for drinks. Her Internet fame is significant, hard for some to grasp. Fans assume she lives in a high-rise, breaking windows, smashing guitars, raising hell. And maybe Miss Destructo does.
Amber Osborne doesn't. At 25, she lives in the same small house in New Port Richey where she grew up, just past a pizza shop and some trucks in the grass. From a red chaise longue below a spray of peacock plumes, she types to fake friends, real friends, clients, people who hate her. An empire on a limitless canvas.
She works below a photograph of Nikola Tesla, the Serbian inventor everyone called a freak before he harnessed electricity. Twitter is a symbiotic mystery.
You follow people's mundane exploits in short bursts and come back for more, even if you don't know why. You hope they follow you, even if they don't know why.
It's a simulated home for people like Amber, people lusting to excel at something and find a niche. People who might not find it otherwise.
Miss Destructo has made business out of the ether.
[Source: St. Petersburg Times]
Disney Cruise Line reveals new features on Disney Fantasy
The Disney Fantasy will have a new interactive dinner show in the Animator's Palate restaurant, two new theater productions, re-imagined adult nightclubs and its own princess-and-pirate salon.
Animation Magic, the new dinner show, invites passengers to participate in the entertainment on a different scale than when Crush talks to them during Undersea Magic on the Disney Dream, the Fantasy's sister ship.
The restaurant looks the same -- like a classic animation studio -- when diners enter. Once seated, however, they are asked to draw their own characters on simple templates. After a few minutes, servers collect the placemats, and Sorcerer Mickey appears on screens throughout the room to introduce a montage of food-themed animated scenes.
[Source: Orlando Sentinel]
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ALSO AROUND FLORIDA:
› Terremark CEO Manny Medina steps down
A month after finalizing Miami-based Terremark Worldwide's sale to Verizon Communications, Terremark CEO and founder Manuel "Manny" D. Medina, 58, has announced he is leaving the company.
Kerry Bailey, Verizon group president of enterprise cloud strategy and services, will take over Terremark's leadership as of May 31.
"I've had the privilege to lead Terremark and our amazing team of professionals for more than 30 years,'' Medina said via a statement.
"I feel that now is the perfect time to step aside and allow the next generation of leaders to build on the success we have achieved.'' He declined a request for an interview.
› Universal to build 'Despicable Me' ride, update Spider-Man
Universal Orlando will add "Despicable Me" as a new 3-D ride and update its popular Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man attraction at its theme parks next year.
The Despicable Me ride, based on the 2010 Universal Pictures movie of the same name, will replace the Jimmy Neutron's Nicktoon Blast attraction at Universal Studios theme park. Its story line will be different from the movie's — and passengers will be turned into minions, the goggled little yellow helpers of the main character, Gru.
"It's an original story set into a whole new story," Mark Woodbury, president of Universal Creative, said Thursday. "Gru, the world's most wonderful supervillain, and his three adorable daughters are coming to Universal Orlando, and Gru has a new invention and needs some help getting it deployed, so he's going to transform the whole audience into minions."
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› Large employer at Tampa International Airport moves headquarters
The company that took over two abandoned Tampa International Airport maintenance hangars and employs hundreds of mechanics has established its headquarters in Tampa.
Pemco World Air Services quietly moved its executive offices from Dothan, Ala., CEO Wake Smith confirmed today.
Pemco relocated 10 headquarters employees from Dothan in July and filled 50 other positions with new hires in Tampa and workers who lost jobs at its Alabama facility, he said.
"We intend for our Tampa facility to be the company's flagship, and we see Tampa as a better market to attract the sort of executive talent we need to lead the company,'' he said.
Pemco is one of the largest employers at Tampa International, with about 700 workers at two cavernous hangars where mechanics perform jet maintenance, repairs and modifications for airlines including United, JetBlue and Southwest.
› Advocate for nude beach in Delray Beach wants residents to vote
City resident and "naturist" Dave Armstrong has come up with what he said is a great way for the city to bring in revenue: nudity.
Designating a portion of the city's beach as clothing-optional would attract new tourists, fill hotels and restaurants and boost the city's sales-tax revenue, he said.
But in spite of spending eight years advocating for a clothing-optional beach, Armstrong's request to designate a portion of the municipal beach for nude sunbathing has fallen on deaf ears with elected officials. So Armstrong said he wants to hear from residents.
The 22-year resident spoke to city commissioners this week asking what he could do to get an answer directly from Delray Beach residents.
"You can contact Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher or our city clerk and either one of them can tell you how to get things on the ballot," Mayor Woodie McDuffie told Armstrong on Tuesday at a City Commission meeting. "But there will not be another election until March."
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› South Florida man who offered to buy AMR, Kodak remains a mystery
Allen E. Weintraub made news in March when his Davie-based firm offered to buy all the stock in Eastman Kodak Co. and AMR, the parent company of American Airlines, for more than their market price: $1.3 billion for Kodak and $3.5 billion for AMR.
But a visit to the address of his Sterling Global Holdings — whose letterhead also lists Atlanta, Cleveland, Denver, Dubai, London, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, and Tel Aviv — finds an office with little resemblance to the high-flying world of global finance.
The locale at 5001 S. University Drive sits off a suburban thoroughfare among strip malls. It's in an old office building, painted beige and brown, with stone and wood siding. The office door fronts a small outdoor parking lot rimmed by a wooden fence with barbed wire on top. The lot is mostly empty.
"I think he had one or two things dropped off here a couple of months ago," said Weintraub's former attorney Michael Paul Shienvold, who works at the office and opened the metal door pocked with old tape marks. He said the office no longer accepts mail for Weintraub and doesn't know where it goes.
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'Rocket docket' foreclosure courts may close due to budget cuts
In a move that consumer advocates are celebrating, Florida's infamous "rocket docket" foreclosure courts may be on the verge of extinction, thanks to state budget cuts, according to the Huffington Post.
Palm Beach County has already started cancelling foreclosure cases. "Because of the lack of funding from the Florida legislature, judges will be unable to preside over foreclosure trials beginning July 1, 2011," the order reads.
Florida created its special foreclosure-only courts in order to prevent the enormous load of eviction cases from overwhelming other judicial functions. These courts earned their "rocket docket" label as judges began pushing through foreclosure cases as fast as possible, under circumstances that consumer advocates claim make it difficult for borrowers to receive a fair hearing.
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› Scott signs controversial election bill into law
Gov. Rick Scott on Thursday signed a controversial overhaul of the election laws that Republicans say is needed to prevent voter fraud and Democrats call a cynical act of partisanship to improve GOP chances in Florida next year.
"I want people to vote, but I also want to make sure there's no fraud involved in elections," Scott said. "All of us as individuals that vote want to make sure that our elections are fair and honest."
But election supervisors, who run elections in Florida, say the state's voter registration database is highly accurate and warn Scott that the changes could cause chaos and confusion at the polls next year. The League of Women Voters says it will suspend voter-registration activity in Florida because the bill requires such groups to register with the state and face fines of up to $1,000 for mistakes.
The bill cuts days of early voting from 15 to eight, imposes fines on third-party groups that fail to submit voter registration forms within 48 hours, and requires some voters who have moved to cast provisional ballots, a change most likely to affect college students.
The bill wipes out a 4-decade-old policy in Florida that allowed voters to update their legal address when they vote. Republicans call that an invitation to fraud, so the new law allows only voters who have moved within the same county to update their addresses.
› Bradenton woman cooking up $1M winner?
A Bradenton woman's ingredients for a breakfast quiche could turn out to be the recipe to winning $1 million. JoAnn Belack's recipe for Italian Brunch Stratas with cheeses and Italian salami is competing for online votes against a Pennsylvania woman's Breakfast Crostatas for a spot in the finals of the Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest.
Voting lasts until next Thursday, May 26, and can be cast at http://www.pillsbury.com/BakeOff.
Belack made it to the finals in the 2010 baking contest, which is held every other year. Pillsbury accepts 100 finalists to the Orlando competition. Some are invited and others are voted in.
› Three private companies vie for school bus contract
Three of the nation's biggest bus transportation companies gave presentations Thursday before a bid evaluation committee — a seven-member group that ultimately will recommend one to the Marion County School Board to operate the district's transportation department.
One question still looms: Will the School Board even agree to allow an outside company to run the district's $20 million transportation department? So far, two of the five board members are against the idea and the three others are undecided. It appears that on June 14 the board will vote on the issue. By then, the Request For Bid evaluation committee will have made its recommendation to the board. It is just the first step in a process that has caused much controversy in recent months.
› St. Petersburg's homeless population dropping downtown
The number of homeless on the City Hall block at night has dropped by nearly half since October. Safe Harbor, a new shelter started in January, is now the largest in Pinellas County.
That's the good news.
Families with children face a critical shortage of care, with shelters turning away between 10 to 20 a day, and some shelters are splitting up families because they won't let teen boys or fathers stay there out of security concerns, according to a report given to the City Council on Thursday.
One of the largest shelters in the county, Pinellas Hope, floods too easily and needs major renovations. The recent closing of a Clearwater shelter will have a worrisome ripple effect, causing other shelters to fill up faster.
This snapshot of one of the most intractable problems the city has faced in the last few years was taken by Robert Marbut, a consultant the council hired to help nearly eight months ago.
He was to help come up with plan to unify countywide services, which he says are too disjointed and inefficient now.
› Dunedin to spend $73,150 to find better way to promote itself
Goodbye, "Delightful Dunedin." Hello, ... well, that remains to be seen.
A new city image — including a slogan and a logo — is in the works, thanks to the City Commission's recent 4-1 approval of a $73,150 contract with a company that will study how Dunedin can better promote itself to local, national and international visitors.
The West Palm Beach-based Wilesmith Advertising will spend six to nine months developing a unified branding theme that the city's government and businesses can incorporate into items such as Dunedin's website, visitor guides and the next batch of letterhead.
The goal is to increase visitor and business traffic, which, in turn, could translate into more employment opportunities, a higher tax base and more revenue to spend on residents.
› 'Glee' star Jane Lynch helps raise $40,000 for Palmetto High rowing club
The celebrity of Jane Lynch, who plays the cheerleading coach on Fox's hit TV show "Glee," helped raise $40,000 for the Palmetto High School Rowing Club last weekend. Lynch and her wife, Lara Embry, a former Sarasota resident, donated another $5,000 on top of their initial $15,000 and then purchased $5,000 worth of tickets for the "Chopper Dropper" event last Saturday.
A helicopter dropped 2,000 numbered golf balls on the Rive Isle Golf Course in Parrish.
A family and another individual will split the $25,000 grand prize because their claimed golf balls both landed in the hole.
Two $5,000 prizes were donated back to the rowing club by an anonymous donor and Katie Jones of Northwest Natural Products who bought $2,000 worth of tickets.
Rowing Coach Trish Jackson said the funds will go toward the purchase of another eight-person boat and a set of oars.