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Friday's Daily Pulse
What you need to know about Florida today
› Florida surgery practice opens first Polk clinic
Florida Surgery Consultants has opened its first Polk County location and seventh clinic in the state. The new Surgery Consultants facility is located at 604 Robin Road, Suite 1, in Lakeland, according to a company statement. The Lakeland center created four new jobs, bringing the statewide total to 40 employees.
› Celebrity Cruises returning to Port Tampa Bay late next year
Celebrity Cruises will return to Tampa for the first time in more than a decade starting in October 2020. “Our guests and travel advisors have been asking us to return to Tampa since our last call there in 2007,” Celebrity president and chief executive officer Lisa Lutoff-Perlo said in an announcement of the service, which will feature the ship Celebrity Constellation.
› Key deer may lose federal endangered status
The federal government is proposing to strip the tiny Key deer of its endangered species status despite what environmentalists say are continuing threats to the animal due to development in the Florida Keys, its only known habitat. The deer is America’s smallest, growing to about 30 inches at the shoulder, and has become a tourist attraction in the Keys.
› After years of study, premium Flagler transit a decade away
Three years after state transportation personnel began studying the project, premium transit on Flagler Street connecting downtown Miami to West Miami-Dade remains nearly a decade off. A Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) milestone timeline, whose dates are “tentative and subject to change,” shows construction starting in early 2025 after 14 prior steps.
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