Total tally: An estimated $1.5 billion for Southwest Florida businesses, more than $30 billion statewide.
While largely considered a success for getting businesses through the toughest times, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio has called for a second round of aid.
Rubio, who chairs the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, called for a second round of PPP at a hearing he convened Thursday to “fix problems identified” with the first round of PPP and “protect small businesses through the winter.”
In a statement issued at the hearing, Rubio said “The pandemic is still raging. Lockdowns are again being placed on small businesses, and consumer activity is falling.”
PPE becoming pollution problem
Published: December 16, 2020 11:23 AM EST
Dirty face masks left all along our roads and parking lots have become an unfortunately common sight. But it is not just masks that are causing problems.
If you choose to wear single-use masks, environmentalist Jennifer Jones from Florida Gulf Coast University recommends you break or cut the earloops before you toss the masks in the garbage, since those can strangle animals who might mistake your dirty mask for food.
Now that masks and gloves have become a part of our daily lives, more and more of them are ending up not just on the ground, but in our waterways. This year, the International Coastal Cleanup in September added personal protective equipment as a category after volunteers picked up more than 62,000 single-use masks and gloves worldwide.
SWFL businesses prepare for COVID-19 vaccine
Published: December 16, 2020 10:11 AM EST
Since the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine, Wall Street has started to stabilize, and new optimism has emerged for the places where we shop. Now local business owners wonder what the next step will be to get back to normal.
Cole Peacock, owner of Seed & Bean Market in Fort Myers, says the key to keeping the doors of his coffee shop open has been safety, and if vaccinations become part of that, he is not opposed.
“I think it’s just going to have to come down to, sometimes, employee choice, and really what’s best for the business, and in the restaurant industry what’s best for the patrons that are coming in and out,” Peacock said.
Another option for controlling Florida’s python invasion: Put them on your dinner plates
Updated Dec 15, 2020;
Posted Dec 15, 2020
Wildlife officials say this snake is the largest Burmese python ever to be removed from Big Cypress National Preserve in the Florida Everglades. MUST CREDIT: National Park Service.NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
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A Miami native gave up her real estate job to become a full-time python hunter - and now she eats the invasive species regularly.
According to a Sun Sentinel report, by Donna Kalil’s estimation, in the last three years she’s probably eaten about a dozen pythons.
The Sun Sentinel cited Kalil, a python hunter for the South Florida Water Management District, who said, that number doesn’t include the python jerky she eats several times a week, when she takes it with her on python hunts.