COVID-19 legal protections going to DeSantis’ desk

A little more than a year after COVID-19 began wrecking the economy and infecting and killing Floridians, state lawmakers gave final approval to a bill that will shield from coronavirus-related lawsuits businesses ranging from nursing homes to grocery stores to restaurants. The measure, which the House passed in an 83-31 vote, was a top priority for politically powerful business groups that had been pushing for the legal protections since the pandemic began in spring 2020. The Senate passed the bill (SB 72) last week, meaning it is now ready for Gov. Ron DeSantis’ signature. [Source: News Service of Florida]

Opinion: The bill that can save Florida’s economy

Of all the bills filed this spring in the Legislature, Senate Bill 76 is far and away the session’s most important legislation. Not election integrity. Not COVID-19 liability. Not education. Not even the budget. It’s SB 76. Filed by Bradenton Sen. Jim Boyd, SB 76 deals with the mundane subject of property insurance. [Source: Business Observer]

NASA prepares for arrival of giant SLS rocket at KSC

For the first time since the retiring of the space shuttle a decade ago, a massive spacecraft is being constructed inside the Vehicle Assembly building at Kennedy Space Center. In High Bay Three, twin solid rocket boosters stand at attention ready for the arrival of the core stage of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket, known as SLS, the rocket slated to return humans to the moon by 2024. [Source: Florida Today]

Survey: office employees don't want to give up remote work

Talk of returning to an office — albeit a much different one, and some cases, smaller — has begun to percolate in businesses nationwide. But getting employees to embrace the office again could be a big challenge for some executives and landlords, according to a new survey from real estate data firm Clever. To start with, 63% of respondents say they prefer working remotely to a traditional office, and nearly 30% say they plan to continue to work remotely in the future, even after the pandemic, the survey found. [Source: Business Observer]

DeSantis pushes CDC to let Florida cruise ships sail again

Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday urged the federal government to allow Florida-based cruise ships to start sailing again this June. “We need to be able to get these cruise lines operating again,” DeSantis said during a discussion with cruise industry leaders at Port Canaveral, a crucial dock for Florida-based cruise ships. “In Florida, we have everything going on except the cruise lines because the federal government won’t let the cruise lines sail.” [Source: Orlando Sentinel]

Trend Mention

UF research spending at record $942.2 million in 2020 despite pandemic UF Research spending reached a record $942.2 million in fiscal year 2020, despite a two-month pause in most operations due to the pandemic. According to a new report to the National Science Foundation, research expenditures supported by the federal government increased to $397.2 million, while state and local expenditures increased to $169.2 million. Learn about ongoing UF research in areas such as Alzheimer’s, early childhood learning and agriculture.

ALSO AROUND FLORIDA:

› ‘Like paying for a luxury car’: Childcare costs in Miami are holding families back [Miami Herald]
With the average cost of center-based care for a toddler in Florida at $8,618 annually, paying for care is the second-biggest income guzzler for Miami-Dade families with children, just behind housing. Infant care in the state is even more expensive, averaging around $9,600 a year — roughly 35% of a single parent’s median income.

› Florida's CFO to Trump: Start your tech business in Florida [WTXL]
Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis wrote a letter to former President Donald Trump asking him to start his new tech and media business in the state of Florida. The letter comes after Trump spokesperson Jason Miller told Fox News on Sunday that the former president would be launching his own network in the coming months.

› Facing backlash from Orlando workers, HMSHost is rehiring employees laid off during pandemic [Orlando Sentinel]
After nine months waging an emotional campaign to get their jobs back, displaced restaurant workers from the Orlando International Airport celebrated a triumph: They’re being rehired. HMSHost, one of the country’s largest airport concessionaires, emailed former employees on Friday inviting them back, according to copies reviewed by the Orlando Sentinel. In the email, the company’s human resources department also announced a $2 per hour wage increase and free monthly Lynx bus passes for returning employees.

› This Miami company wants to be like Airbnb — but for early childhood care [Miami Herald]
After nearly a decade in the childcare business, Andy Zwick and Ben Mayer realized that most parents found childcare for young children through word-of-mouth. “That was shocking that millennial parents need to go ask their friends who maybe don’t have kids, their neighbors – or people that they may not even know – where they should be sending their child,” said Mayer. The duo founded PreK.com in January 2019 and launched a year later.

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› Are all the Florida Keys’ Kmarts closing for good? Indications suggest most likely [Miami Herald]
Two venerable Kmart stores in the Florida Keys advertised temporary job openings on Friday. “Temporary” because the listings for customer service reps, cashiers and fixture removal positions on the Transform Holdco website, the parent company of Kmart and Sears, are all marked “*Store Closing.”

› Lake Okeechobee recedes, but not enough. Discharges continue. [Tampa Bay Times]
Lake Okeechobee discharges will be reduced to the Caloosahatchee River but will continue at the same rate to the St. Lucie River — indefinitely. The Caloosahatchee will get 969 million gallons per day, down from an average 1.3 billion gallons a day since Feb. 13, Col. Andrew Kelly, Florida commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, announced in a news conference call.

› Tampa pet food company aims to increase sales through in-store recommendations [Business Observer]
Statistics suggest in the pet food industry, if a company gets a customer to buy three bags of food in three months, the loyalty rate — the likelihood they’ll stick with the brand — is about 80%, says Better Choice Co. CEO Scott Lerner. “It’s pretty rare for people to switch,” Lerner says. “That’s an opportunity. If you gain a consumer, you can keep them a long time. The challenge is to get people when they need to switch.”

› Port Canaveral to host conversion work for five cargo ships to allow use by military [Florida Today]
Port Canaveral will be the site this spring and summer of a project that will convert five cargo container ships so they can be used to transport U.S. military supplies. The Hapag-Lloyd ships will undergo various upgrades so they can qualify for inclusion in the federal Maritime Security Program, thus meeting Department of Defense requirements for carrying military supplies.