The hotel is planned near Sheltair Orlando Air Center Inc., which is an affiliate of Holland Hospitality and leases out hangar and airline service-related office space at the airport.

(Orlando, Florida) – Construction on a $4 million, 74-room hotel at Orlando Executive Airport may begin in the third quarter of 2013.

The Greater Orlando Aviation Authority approved Oct. 17 a 20-year lease on 1.78 acres with Holland Hospitality Group I LLC for a Microtel Inn & Suites near Amelia Street.

The hotel is planned near Sheltair Orlando Air Center Inc., which is an affiliate of Holland Hospitality and leases out hangar and airline service-related office space at the airport. The project has been in the works since 2009.

The hotel project was one of three new commercial projects approved by the airport board. The board also agreed to lease two parcels it owns on Colonial Drive.

• The board agreed to lease 2.12 acres to GFS Marketplace Realty Five LLC to build a 16,000-square-foot GFS Marketplace Food Store, a store run by Gordon Food Services that sells products to restaurant, catering and food service firms as well as the general public. Two of the company’s 150 stores are in Orlando.

• The board also agreed to lease 2.12 acres to Wawa Inc. The company is opening its sixth Central Florida store later this month.

The three new leases represent an additional $300,000 annually in rent payments for the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority, which operates Orlando Executive Airport and Orlando International Airport.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Civil Works Review Board approved Port Canaveral’s channel-widening and -deepening project.

The panel unanimously agreed that the port’s feasibility study can proceed to be reviewed by other state and federal agencies, Florida Today reports.

Canaveral Port Authority Vice Chairman Tom Weinberg told Florida Today that the approval was a “significant milestone” for the $32.5 million project, which is said to create about 3,400 construction jobs and 3,400 permanent direct and indirect jobs.

(Orlando, Florida) – President Barack Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney head into their second presidential debate on Tuesday night. As the candidates gear up to head into their second debate on Tuesday night, the latest Rasmussen Reports survey finds Gov. Mitt Romney leads President Barack Obama in Florida by a 51 percent to 47 percent margin with 2 percent of the vote undecided, the South Florida Business Journal reports.

The poll is notable because it’s the first time Romney has crossed the 50 percent mark in the state, Rasmussen said. Florida is widely considered among the four key major swing states nationally.

The survey was conducted Oct. 11 and has a sampling error of plus or minus four points.

On a national scale, a new poll shows that the economy, budget deficits and jobs are the top three concerns for voters, and they think that Republican nominee Mitt Romney would do a better job than President Barack Obama on all three, Bizjournals’ Washington Bureau reports.

The Politico/George Washington University Battleground Poll shows Obama and Romney in a statistical tie.

While Romney has a narrow edge on the economy and jobs, but a 54-42 percent lead on the federal budget and spending, Obama has a 54 percent to 42 percent edge over as far as standing up for the middle class, a 52-43 edge on Medicare, and leads 50-46 on the question of who shares your values.

Pick up an ATM card on the street, and experts say you have a one-in-five chance of unlocking its cash by trying to enter just five PIN combinations.

Special to Central Florida Politics from News 13

(Orlando, Florida) – You may use your credit or debit card all the time, but what you choose as your four-digit PIN could be putting you at risk if it’s too easy to guess.

A new report has revealed the most comment — and thus, easiest to guess — Personal Identification Numbers people actually use.

The worst of the worst: 1234. But according to a study examining nearly 3.4 million PINs, more than 10 percent used that easy-to-guess number.

Here are the top 20 most frequently used PINS, according to the study by Data Genetics

1234

1111

0000

1212

7777

1004

2000

4444

2222

6969

9999

3333

5555

6666

1122

1313

8888

4321

2001

1010

See a pattern? Lots of repeating digits and numbers in an obvious sequence.

“The problem is many people get complacent and lazy,” said James Copenhaver, an Orlando area private investigator in reaction to the study.

Copenhaver said 30 percent of his work is identity theft — situations like someone stealing a person’s PIN.

Pick up an ATM card on the street, and experts say you have a one-in-five chance of unlocking its cash by trying to enter just five PIN combinations.

“We’re going to the ATM. We take it for granted that we put our card in and we are going to take money out,” said Copenhaver. “The problem is you have these guys that will lurk, and all they have to do is look over your shoulder to intercept the PIN.”

Copenhaver said when you use an ATM, make sure you take a look at your surroundings. If there are people in waiting in line, let them go before you.

But how can you make sure you pick a number that’s not easy to guess?

Tony Tate, a social media and IT expert in Lake Mary, said Rule No. 1 is never pick numbers that relate to you.

“You want to make sure it has nothing to do with any events — birth of a child, wedding anniversary date, when you bought your first home,” said Tate.

If your PIN is one of the 20 listed above, or has a similar pattern, experts said you should change it as soon as possible.

Need help picking a new PIN? Copenhaver suggested using the Password Generator app for iOS. It will pick a random password or PIN for any account, but it costs 99 cents to download.

Tate recommended secure apps like Google Wallet, or Apple’s new Passbook app when possible as alternatives to taking out cash.

The bottom line: You don’t want to become another number in a growing list of identity theft victims.

(Orlando, Florida) – Florida ranked No. 1 in the nation for foreclosures. Florida ranked No. 1 in the nation for foreclosures for the first time since 2005, according to a third-quarter report by RealtyTrac Inc., the Orlando Sentinel reports.

Florida had the highest foreclosure rate in the country, with one foreclosure legal filing for every 117 houses during the third quarter. The rate was also double the rate for the entire country, the Sentinel reports.

In the past, Florida has ranked among the top five states for foreclosures, usually behind Arizona and California.

Locally, foreclosure actions increased 14 percent in metro Orlando during the third quarter compared to the year ago period. Central Florida also had a higher foreclosure rate than the state, with 8,896 actions filed during the third quarter, or one for every 106 houses, the Sentinel reports.

Courtesy Marvel/Paramount Pictures

SLMI claims in the lawsuit that Stan Lee assigned to it all copyrights to Marvel properties, meaning that his later deal with Marvel Enterprises and its subsequent deal with Disney, “actually assigned nothing.”Who owns The Avengers and the other Marvel comic book characters? That question is at the heart of a $5.5 billion copyright infringement lawsuit filed Tuesday in the district court of Colorado, according to Business Insider, L.A. Biz reports.

In 2009, the Walt Disney Co. paid $4 billion to purchase Marvel and its roughly 5,000 characters. Since then, Disney has earned significant profits off the Stan Lee creations in the form of merchandise – action figures, toys, costumes and, of course, The Avengers film, which earned more than a billion dollars in global box office revenue.

Colorado-based Stan Lee Media Inc. (SLMI), formerly affiliated with Lee, alleges in its complaint “in November 1998, Stan Lee signed a written agreement with Marvel Enterprises Inc. in which he purportedly assigned to Marvel the rights to the characters. However, Lee no longer owned those rights since they had been assigned … previously. Accordingly, the Marvel agreement actually assigned nothing.”

Walt Disney Co. operates the Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, Epcot and Hollywood Studios theme parks in Orlando.

As Mack Tours Tampa’s CEMEX Cement Factory, he Slams Nelson’s Support of EPA Measures That Would Kill up to 15,000 Jobs

(Tampa, Florida) – Republican Senate candidate, Congressman Connie Mack took aim today at Bill Nelson’s support of the federal government’s runaway regulatory power while touring CEMEX in Brooksville, just outside Tampa. On August 9, 2010, EPA announced the “Cement MACT” rules, placing new regulations on over 100 Portland cement plants across the country. The rules dictated by the EPA have to be implemented by 2013 and many estimates suggest it would cost the cement industry upwards of $2.2 billion to implement. This would most likely shut down 20% of domestic cement production and could create layoffs of up to 15,000 jobs between the cement and construction industries.

Congressional action supported by Congressman Connie Mack was taken to stop the burdensome EPA when the Congress passed the “Cement Sector Regulatory Relief Act of 2011” on October 6, 2011. At present, Bill Nelson and Harry Reid are not taking action in the Senate to stop the EPA and prevent the job killing measure from going into effect.

“Meeting with the men and women who work at CEMEX reminds us all what is at stake in this election. Allowing the Nelson-Obama team to continue their big government agenda, would kill job growth in our fragile economy. Whether it’s an EPA run amok, wasteful stimulus spending or ObamaCare, the Nelson-Obama agenda kills jobs. Enough is enough.”

(Cape Canaveral, Florida ) — Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) today successfully launched its Dragon spacecraft aboard a Falcon 9 rocket on the first official cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station. The launch went off on schedule at 8:35 p.m. ET from Launch Complex 40 in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The SpaceX CRS-1 mission marks the first of at least 12 SpaceX missions to the space station under the company’s cargo resupply contract with NASA. On board the Dragon spacecraft are materials to support investigations planned for the station’s Expedition 33 crew, as well as crew supplies and space station hardware.

Dragon – the only space station cargo craft capable of returning a significant amount of supplies back to Earth — will return with scientific materials and space station hardware.

The Falcon 9 rocket, powered by nine Merlin engines, performed nominally today during every phase of its approach to orbit, including two stage separations, solar array deployment, and the final push of Dragon into its intended orbit. Dragon will now chase the space station before beginning a series of burns that will bring it into close proximity to the station. If all goes well, Dragon will attach to the complex on October 10 and spend over two weeks there before an expected return to Earth on October 28.

“We are right where we need to be at this stage in the mission,” said Elon Musk, CEO and Chief Technical Officer, SpaceX. “We still have a lot of work to do, of course, as we guide Dragon’s approach to the space station. But the launch was an unqualified success.”

The CRS-1 mission follows a historic demonstration flight last May when SpaceX’s Dragon became the first commercial spacecraft to attach to the space station, exchange cargo, and return safely to Earth. The flight signaled restoration of American capability to resupply the space station, not possible since the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011.

Special to Central Florida Politics from Orlando Business Journal by Bill Orben, Associate Managing Editor

Bill Orben

Whether you sell wiring or operate a hotel in Orlando, your business will be impacted by the $1.2 trillion in U.S. Department of Defense cuts schedule to take effect Jan. 2.

The predicted loss of 56,600 jobs in Florida by 2014 from cuts to the defense budget will be felt by every small business, manufacturing groups are expected to say in Orlando on Oct. 4.

Brian Domian, director of business development for SAAB Training USA, sits at a training simulator that uses the program JFist.

A press conference on the impact of the defense cuts was planned today at the National Center for Simulation near University of Central Florida in east Orlando. Results of that press conference were not available at press time, but the National Association of Manufacturers said it intended to get out the message of how damaging the cuts could be to the state’s economy. Orlando’s 100 companies in modeling and simulation companies employ 12,500 and have combined revenue of $3 billion annually.

With $5.5 billion worth of annual defense spending occurring in the Orlando area, the expected cuts mandated by the Budget Control Act of 2011 may mean about $500 million less for the area’s modeling and simulation industries, which attracts the lion’s share of defense spending in the region.

“It will affect virtually every business in Florida in a negative way,” said Thomas C. Feeney III, president and CEO of Associated Industries of Florida.

Although Republicans and Democrats agree the defense cuts would harm the economy, it’s not a guarantee both sides will be able to reach a deal. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, expressed a lack of confidence in early September that Congress could reach a deal on those cuts and other tax issues scheduled to go into effect in January.

The press conference at UCF — coming after similar events in Washington, D.C., June 21 and Raleigh, N.C., July 26 — is part of a 10-city tour in the states most impacted by the defense cuts.

“We want to get our message out there to draw attention that the impact is much broader than people think,” said Dorothy Coleman, vice president for tax and domestic economic policy for the national manufacturers group.

Thomas L. Baptiste, president and executive director of the National Center for Simulation, said he was contacted by the national group because it wanted to explain the impact the defense cuts will have on small business.

Impact from the proposed cuts in the defense budget is already being felt in Orlando because companies are being conservative and not spending money on research and development or hiring workers, Baptiste said.

For instance, Saab Training USA, a 65-employee modeling and simulation company based near UCF, has a hiring freeze and cannot fill five open electrical, software and radio engineering positions. Those positions command a salary of between $62,000 and $66,000, according to Simply Hired Inc., which operates a salary estimation website.

“There is a tremendous amount of uncertainty,” said Brian Domian, director of business development for Saab Training USA.

Regardless of the action taken by Congress and whoever occupies the White House, cuts to the nation’s budget are expected because of pressure to trim the $16 trillion budget deficit.

However, there is an unexpected upside to the discussions: Efforts to make dollars stretch could actually benefit Orlando’s modeling and simulation industry.

“If we are looking for costs savings, nothing can save more than simulation,” said U.S. Rep. John Mica, a Winter Park Republican who chairs the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.