March 29, 2024

Friday's Afternoon Update

What you need to know about Florida today

| 3/5/2021

Florida’s unemployment system cursed by bad design, lax oversight, audit says

An inspector general probe into Florida’s failed unemployment system found that the system was never prepared to handle even a modest amount of jobless claims, much less the historic number of claims that crushed it during the pandemic last year. In the report, released by Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday, Chief Inspector General Melinda Miguel found that state officials provided poor oversight and never fixed longstanding problems with the online system, known as CONNECT. More from the Miami Herald and the Orlando Sentinel.

Medical marijuana is booming in Florida, but the industry is nervous. Here’s why.

During a year when the state lost more than 400,000 jobs, Florida’s cannabis industry in 2020 added nearly 15,000 employees, according to the cannabis website Leafly. Four years after Florida voters approved its legalization for medical purposes, marijuana is a $1.2 billion business. Industry insiders say it’s growing every day. More from the Tampa Bay Tiimes.

Meet Florida’s newest invasive species, an ugly Amazonian river monster that can grow 10 feet long

The Burmese python, green iguana and lionfish are, by now, well-known invasive species that have established a dangerous foothold in Florida. But a fearsome new invasive predator has emerged in the state: the arapaima, a monster fish that can grow up to 10 feet long and weigh hundreds of pounds. A dead one recently washed ashore in Cape Coral’s Jaycee Park along the Caloosahatchee River, which runs from Lake Okeechobee west to the Gulf of Mexico. The arapaima is native to the Amazon River in South America and is one of the world’s largest predatory fish. More from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Global digital payment firm ACI Worldwide Corp. moving to Miami-Dade

A global digital payment firm currently headquartered in Collier County will get more than $360,000 in state and local incentives to move to Miami-Dade, with vows to spend millions on its new world headquarters and create 180-plus high-paying jobs. County commissioners Tuesday unanimously approved the incentives for ACI Worldwide Corp., which plans to hire 182 full-time equivalent employees earning an average $180,000 per year. More from Miami Today.

Jacksonville hotels continue to recover

In the week that ended Feb. 27, Jacksonville hotels reported occupancy at 70.8%, a growth of nearly 4% from the previous week and continuation of the market’s slow recovery from the pandemic’s effect on business travel and tourism. Weekend occupancies were at pre-COVID levels in the 80th percentile, according to information released March 4 by Visit Jacksonville. More from the Jacksonville Daiily Record.

Florida Trend's Business Beat
Top News to Know - Week of March 5th

 Check out the top news-to-know with Florida Trend's brand new, headline-focused video newsbrief, hosted by digital content specialist Aimée Alexander.

» Watch the video here

 

Out of the Box
Miami art collector just sold a free video clip for $6.6 million. It’s all crypto

floridaPablo Rodriguez-Fraile may hold one of the most important art collections in the world. It just happens to be all online. A Miami-based mathematician, Rodriguez-Fraile received his MBA from Columbia University and until recently, had been working a traditional investment job. That all changed when he became interested in cryptocurrencies and started trading in non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, on a blockchain platform.

» Read more from the Miami Herald.

Tags: Daily Pulse, Afternoon Pulse

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Bitter-to-swallow cocoa costs force chocolate shops to raise prices
Bitter-to-swallow cocoa costs force chocolate shops to raise prices

Central Floirda chocolate shops are left with a bitter taste as cocoa prices hit an all-time high earlier this week.

Video Picks | Viewpoints@FloridaTrend

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