Earth sets over the Moon in this photo shot by the Artemis II crew during their 10-day trip around the far side of the Moon in April. Having launched from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, the four astronauts embarked on the first human moon mission in more than 50 years and traveled farther from our home planet than anyone ever had before. Artemis III is scheduled for mid-2027 and Artemis IV, tentatively planned as a lunar landing mission, is slated for 2028.
PHILANTHROPY
- Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida received a $75,000 donation from the Poinsette Foundation, a philanthropic organization founded in 2022 that supports educational equity for K-12 students in Orange and Osceola counties. The gift will help the food bank expand its partnerships with area schools, increasing access to nutritious food for students and families during the 2027-28 school year.
LAYOFFS
- L3Harris laid off the entire workforce — 63 employees — at its Advanced Laser Systems Technology facility in Orlando, a result of the sale of the property to Perimeter Solutions. ALST workers met in January with Perimeter Solutions, which has expressed interest in hiring them.
- Milestone Reporting, an Orlando company that provides court reporting and legal videography services, laid off 80 workers — its entire staff — when it was acquired by Livingston, N.J.-based Veritext Legal Solutions. The affected employees were offered contractor positions with Veritext.
HIGHER EDUCATION
- Rollins College has launched an initiative for senior executives built on classic liberal arts educational objectives designed to help business leaders better navigate a world in "permacrisis," according to Anil Menon, CEO of the newly founded Rick Goings Institute for Management and Executive Leadership. He says executives need to be better equipped to act in a time of "fracturing political orders, collapsing alliances and technology eliminating entire categories of certainty."
- Lake-Sumter State College in Leesburg, Seminole State College in Sanford and Valencia College in Orlando have received $50,000 in donations from Duke Energy to support programs for training electrical line workers. St. Petersburg College and South Florida State College in Avon Park also received $50,000 gifts. Duke says it has hired more than 100 graduates from the colleges' line worker training programs over the past three years.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
- Sheena Fowler has returned to the Orlando Economic Partnership as vice president of innovation. She previously served as CEO of Innovate Orlando, which has been absorbed by OEP. Prior to joining Innovate Orlando, Fowler was OEP's film commissioner.
- Orange County wants to attract more film and television productions and has hired Jen Pennypacker as the administrator of its Film Incentive Program, a five-year, $25-million initiative approved by county commissioners in late 2025.
ENVIRONMENT
- The shoreline and vegetation of Bird Island, a significant rookery in the Indian River Lagoon, has been restored and made more resilient thanks to a project led by BlueTerra, a privately owned environmental services company based in Winter Garden, on behalf of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Bird Island is home to brown pelicans, herons and egrets.
TRANSPORTATION
- Orlando International Airport (MCO) won awards at Routes Americas, an annual conference for airline and airport leaders held this year in Rio de Janeiro. MCO was named top airport in the 20 million-plus passengers category.
- The Orlando-Daytona Beach area has the worst roads in the U.S., according to Pep Boys. The auto repair chain used its service data to rank the top 30 metro areas where vehicles experience the highest rates of road-related repairs. Pep Boys' list includes six other Florida metros, giving it the most of any state: Panama City (No. 3); Tampa-St. Petersburg-Sarasota (No. 5); West Palm Beach-Fort Pierce (No. 6); Tallahassee-Thomasville, Ga. (No. 9); Pensacola-Mobile, Ala. (No. 20); and Miami-Fort Lauderdale (No. 21).
DEVELOPMENT
- Amazon has submitted plans to the St. Johns River Water Management District for a 24-acre warehouse project in Titusville known as Project Satellite. The 112,000-sq.-ft. facility will be located on a 45-acre parcel along the Indian River that the e-commerce giant acquired in December for $6.1 million.
Face Time
We spoke with Greater Orlando Aviation Authority (GOAA) CEO Lance Lyttle about the increased use of facial recognition scanners at Orlando International Airport, the state's busiest, which in 2018 became the nation's first airport to commit to using the technology through a partnership with U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Who gets screened: "International arrivals and departures."
Benefits: "In 2024, we saw more than 7.8 million international passengers. For 2025, that number rose to nearly 8.5 million. Facial recognition technology enables Orlando International Airport to manage growing passenger volumes more efficiently without expanding facilities or staffing at the same pace."
Reliability of the technology: "Success is dependent on ensuring that we have robust processes in place to manage any errors in the system and ensure that travelers are not inconvenienced."
Privacy concerns: "GOAA has not received significant concerns from the traveling public regarding the use of facial recognition technology at Orlando International Airport. Passenger feedback to date has largely focused on the operational benefits of these programs, including improved passenger flow and reduced wait times."
Who can opt out: "U.S. citizens may still opt out of facial recognition screening."
Blossoming
A fast-growing, vertically integrated medical cannabis provider has opened its 13th location, and eight in as many months, in Florida. Goldflower Cannabis has set up shop in Summerfield, just minutes away from The Villages.
Tallahassee-based Trulieve Cannabis Corp. opened a new medical marijuana dispensary in Deland in mid-March. It offers discounts for military veterans. With 165 dispensaries, Trulieve is the largest medical cannabis company in Florida.