Thursday's Afternoon Update

    Gas prices rising, could top $4 a gallon this summer

    Gas prices for 2011 set a record, and they're going even higher this year. Brace yourself for more than $4 a gallon during the summer. Increases already have been significant. Florida finished 2011 with prices averaging a $3.25 a gallon, up 20 cents from a year earlier and a year-end record. They rose to average $3.33 a gallon Wednesday. Prices usually rise at least 90 cents by summer, so that means gas topping $4 a gallon in July. Rising prices mean more than just higher costs to fill your tank. It also costs more to ship everything from flowers to groceries. [Source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel]

    Business Profile

    Floridian

    When Sandi Kemp asked a local newspaper a dozen years ago if she could help them with graphic design, they declined. "So I started my own newspaper," she says.

    "I didn't know what I was getting into," says Kemp. "I love it. I wish I'd discovered this earlier." She already had launched a graphics firm; she's now publisher and owner of Navarre Press. She's also a lifelong newspaper fan. Newspapers will survive, she says. "We can't hide behind a pseudonym or anonymity online. We are a trusted resource for news."

    » Full Profile of Navarre Press

    » Official site

    Two Florida furniture firms take shape

    All of a sudden, Southwest Florida's moribund furniture business is headed for a good old-fashioned retail war. In one corner is newcomer Robb & Stucky International, which bought the intellectual property of Fort Myers-based upscale retailer Robb & Stucky when that company went into bankruptcy. But two of the principals and top managers in the old Robb & Stucky are already in business in Naples with their own upscale furniture store: Clive Daniel Home, named after former Robb & Stucky CEO Clive Lubner and his son Dan, who was president of the company's hospitality division. [Source: Fort Myers News-Press]

    Florida Ponzi schemer implicates many others in crime

    Over two grueling weeks, convicted Florida Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein laid out in incriminating detail how far the tentacles stretched in his $1.2 billion fraud, pointing the finger at numerous lawyers, bankers, business people, relatives, friends and unnamed law enforcement officials and politicians. The testimony, made public in hundreds of pages of transcripts, could form the outline of another wave of indictments that federal prosecutors have been promising for months. [Source: AP]

    Davie home bakers can soon sell to public

    You think your baking is better than the rest? If you live in Davie, you'll soon be able to make up to $15,000 a year using those culinary skills, without worrying about food safety inspections by the state. Last year, the Legislature eliminated state licensing requirements for so-called cottage food businesses. But Davie still prohibits such home-based businesses. That's about to change. [Source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel]

    New — or improved — hotels popping up around Miami airport

    For budget travelers — and who isn't on a budget these days? — the area around MIA is becoming a more attractive option, with a handful of new hotels opening and more undergoing significant upgrades. [Source: Miami Herald]

    Out of the Box
    tag Florida businessman behind popular traveling mummy exhibit
    Mummies are among life's mysteries, an artifact of civilizations long ago. Unfortunately, through Hollywood films and fictional books, mummies have developed an undeserved reputation as an artifact limited to ancient Egypt. Now a Delray Beach man has developed an exhibit that shows the true diversity of the practice of mummification across the world, including South America, Europe and Asia. That exhibit is making its way around the United States in a show known as Mummies of the World. Read more from the Palm Beach Post and see the exhibit.

    See also: American Exhibitions, Inc.