Thursday's Afternoon Update

What you need to know about Florida today

| 12/13/2018

Florida stores say holiday shopping is going strong

The final days of the holiday shopping season are here, and shop owners say sales are living up to the lofty expectations analysts set before the season started. Local shops and national retailers are finding ways to counter the flight of customers to online purchasing, by offering custom gifts and even using online shopping to lure consumers into stores. More from the Orlando Sentinel.

Wetlands rule rollback makes about 6 million acres in Florida unprotected

The EPA's own figures show the rolback of Obama-era regulations will leave 51 percent of the nation's wetlands unprotected. Florida has 12 million acres of wetlands, more than all but one other state. More from the Tampa Bay Times.

Sarasota County approves controversial Siesta Promenade

The fiercely opposed Siesta Promenade development project, criticized by hundreds of residents on and around Siesta Key who claim the mixed-use development plan is incompatible with the area and will worsen traffic snarls, received approval by the Sarasota County Commission on Wednesday. More from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

Orlando has grown faster than most cities in the U.S. — but it's also growing poorer

While Orlando’s population has increased at a rate to dwarf the national average, that growth has been in the low-wage jobs that have been stalwarts of Orlando’s economy — not in technology and other industries. More from the Orlando Sentinel.

How Mayors Jewelers is going more upscale with revamped stores

Mayors Jewelers, a South Florida fixture for more than a century, is getting a reboot with new and revamped stores that have more luxury watch lines and higher-end jewelry. The new merchandise is just one of the changes for Fort Lauderdale-based Mayors, after the company was acquired last year by the London parent of Watches of Switzerland. More from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Profile
Retina Health Center

In a corner office on the second floor of Dr. Alexander Eaton’s Retina Health Center in Fort Myers is a laboratory, but not the kind you might expect. It’s a lab that has produced 13 U.S. and 22 foreign patents held by Eaton and colleagues, as well as their latest invention, XactDrop.

» More from the Business Observer.

Florida History
A vivid, surreal Kodachrome love poem to 1980s Florida

Photographer Nathan Benn’s new book, “A Peculiar Paradise: Florida Photographs” (Powerhouse, 2018), brings together images he shot as a National Geographic photographer. The book is a rich source of the kinds of things that make the state such an interesting place, and a look back at one of the most fertile times in its history, the 1980s.