Florida Trend | Florida's Business Authority

Thursday's Afternoon Update

246,000 Florida Small Businesses Qualify for Healthcare Credits

Though critics of healthcare reform say many small businesses will be hammered by the new federal law, more than 80 percent of Florida's small businesses with fewer than 25 employees will be eligible for tax credits to help pay the cost of employee health coverage, according to a report released Thursday by a Washington-based consumer healthcare group. [Source: Miami Herald]

MUST-KNOW FLORIDIAN
Floridian

Meet Bill Haast, snake handler, venom researcher, Florida Icon. "The FDA always pooh-poohed it," he says, "but I think snake venom has the potential to cure disease. Multiple sclerosis, it would put on hold. Arthritis. Polio. This is my unfinished business."

Researchers Simplify Process to Make World’s Tiniest Wires

Nanowires are so tiny that a human hair would dwarf them — some have diameters 150 billionths of a meter. Because of their small size, surface tension that occurs during the manufacturing process pulls them together, limiting their usefulness. This is a problem because the wires are seen as a potential core element of new and more powerful microelectronics, solar cells, batteries and medical tools. But in a paper in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces now online, a University of Florida engineering researcher says he has found an inexpensive solution. [Source: UF News]


Want to Try a Product for Free? Blog About It

A video shows Bess Auer cruising through Mount Dora in a metallic-orange Camaro. "One biker actually stopped his buddy and pointed at me as I drove by," she wrote on Chevy's Girl on the Go blog, which she linked to her own blog. Auer is one of five bloggers — two in Tampa and three in the Orlando area — who received a 2010 Camaro recently to enjoy for a month at no cost. The only requirement: record a video and write two posts a week about their adventures in the cars. [Source: Orlando Sentinel]


Job Hunters Struggle to Remain Upbeat

When Burger King held a job fair last week, a 28-year-old mother of two with work experience in at-home nursing showed up an hour early. Along the Gulf Coast, where unemployment is near 12 percent, thousands of jobless people are competing for work. Instead of moving up and building careers, they are lowering expectations and settling for less. [Source: Sarasota Herald-Tribune]


Florida Home Sales Up Despite National Dip

Florida's sales of existing homes increased in June, bucking a national trend of declining purchases blamed on the end of the home buyer tax credit. Statewide, the number of single-family homes sold grew 10 percent compared to May and 17 percent over June of last year, according to data released this morning by the group Florida Realtors. [Source: Palm Beach Post]


Out of the Box
metropole Do not disturb
So much for the Snooki Suite. South Beach's Metropole hotel has scrapped plans to charge $2,000 a night for the apartment where Snooki, The Situation and the other Jersey Shore roommates lived this spring while filming the hit MTV show. Metropole executives decided fans couldn't afford five-star rates.
More from the Miami Herald.