GAINESVILLE FGCU softball parents cherish NCAA Tournament experience The parents of the FGCU softball team are relishing seeing their daughters play in the NCAA Tournament.
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA The Weather Authority: Hot, hot, hot Heat advisory in place for Saturday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
FORT MYERS Fort Myers teen finds dead body in bed of his truck A 16-year-old in Fort Myers drove to school, drove home, drove to the barbershop and back home again. Then, he noticed a swarm of flies in the back of his truck.
Scottie Scheffler facing felony charges; local attorney reacts The attorney we spoke with told us that, at a minimum, we’d spend the night in jail before having our first appearance and getting bail.
GAINESVILLE FGCU softball falls to No. 4 Florida in NCAA Tournament The FGCU softball team couldn’t keep up with the No. 4 Florida Gators as the Eagles drop their first Regional game 6-0 to the Gators.
Summer Safety: Swim safety tips to know before the summer The pool is warming up to be the hot spot for kids and families this summer. It’s now also the number one leading cause of drowning deaths for children ages 1-4 in the state.
FORT MYERS BEACH ‘The Whale’ restaurant to break ground on new building The Whale is a place that has shown great strength and determination.
COLLIER COUNTY Endangered Florida panther deaths surpass 2023 total in 5 months It’s taken wildlife officials just over four and a half months to report finding more dead endangered Florida panthers than in all of 2023.
FORT MYERS FMPD honors 7 officers and 2 K-9s who died in the line of duty dating back to 1930 Nine lives were given, and all nine will remain remembered. A lifetime of gratitude for the fallen officers.
Firefighter recovering from heat exhaustion after battling flames in Collier County It happened at Progress Rail, a transit corporation on Mercantile Avenue just before 5am on Friday.
FORT MYERS How do SWFL graduation rates compare to the state average? How do graduation rates for Charlotte, Lee and Collier Counties stack up against the state? WINK News crunched the numbers.
FORT MYERS Community divisive over ‘justified’ officer-involved shooting of Christopher Jordan A detective who killed an unarmed black man in a controversial shooting will be back at work on Monday.
CAPE CORAL Family submits civil complaint against Cape Coral Police Department The family of a 13-year-old boy who was struck and killed while riding his scooter has officially filed a civil complaint.
FORT MYERS Community reacts to ‘justified’ officer-involved shooting of Christopher Jordan Leaders with the NAACP are saying there is a divide between the black community and Fort Myers police.
NAPLES Inside look at $21 million Naples Players Theater, set to open at the end of May On Friday, as the theater’s 70th season approached, leaders and organizers invited WINK News for a ‘hard-hat-tour’ to showcase the new additions and construction updates.
GAINESVILLE FGCU softball parents cherish NCAA Tournament experience The parents of the FGCU softball team are relishing seeing their daughters play in the NCAA Tournament.
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA The Weather Authority: Hot, hot, hot Heat advisory in place for Saturday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
FORT MYERS Fort Myers teen finds dead body in bed of his truck A 16-year-old in Fort Myers drove to school, drove home, drove to the barbershop and back home again. Then, he noticed a swarm of flies in the back of his truck.
Scottie Scheffler facing felony charges; local attorney reacts The attorney we spoke with told us that, at a minimum, we’d spend the night in jail before having our first appearance and getting bail.
GAINESVILLE FGCU softball falls to No. 4 Florida in NCAA Tournament The FGCU softball team couldn’t keep up with the No. 4 Florida Gators as the Eagles drop their first Regional game 6-0 to the Gators.
Summer Safety: Swim safety tips to know before the summer The pool is warming up to be the hot spot for kids and families this summer. It’s now also the number one leading cause of drowning deaths for children ages 1-4 in the state.
FORT MYERS BEACH ‘The Whale’ restaurant to break ground on new building The Whale is a place that has shown great strength and determination.
COLLIER COUNTY Endangered Florida panther deaths surpass 2023 total in 5 months It’s taken wildlife officials just over four and a half months to report finding more dead endangered Florida panthers than in all of 2023.
FORT MYERS FMPD honors 7 officers and 2 K-9s who died in the line of duty dating back to 1930 Nine lives were given, and all nine will remain remembered. A lifetime of gratitude for the fallen officers.
Firefighter recovering from heat exhaustion after battling flames in Collier County It happened at Progress Rail, a transit corporation on Mercantile Avenue just before 5am on Friday.
FORT MYERS How do SWFL graduation rates compare to the state average? How do graduation rates for Charlotte, Lee and Collier Counties stack up against the state? WINK News crunched the numbers.
FORT MYERS Community divisive over ‘justified’ officer-involved shooting of Christopher Jordan A detective who killed an unarmed black man in a controversial shooting will be back at work on Monday.
CAPE CORAL Family submits civil complaint against Cape Coral Police Department The family of a 13-year-old boy who was struck and killed while riding his scooter has officially filed a civil complaint.
FORT MYERS Community reacts to ‘justified’ officer-involved shooting of Christopher Jordan Leaders with the NAACP are saying there is a divide between the black community and Fort Myers police.
NAPLES Inside look at $21 million Naples Players Theater, set to open at the end of May On Friday, as the theater’s 70th season approached, leaders and organizers invited WINK News for a ‘hard-hat-tour’ to showcase the new additions and construction updates.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) – NASA’s Mars-orbiting Maven spacecraft has discovered that the sun likely robbed the red planet of its once-thick atmosphere and water. On Thursday, scientists reported that even today, the solar wind is stripping away about 100 grams of atmospheric gas every second. That’s about a quarter-pound a second lost to the stream of charged particles shooting away from the sun at 1 million mph (1.61 million kph). Big solar storms traveling at twice that speed increase the escape rate by 10 to 20 times – and more. Because of their prevalence billions of years ago, these storms would have been enough to gut the atmosphere of ancient Mars and transform it from a moist, warm place potentially capable of microscopic life to the cold, dry desert of today. “I can’t help but imagine hamburgers flying out of the Martian atmosphere, one per second,” Maven scientist Dave Brain told reporters with a smile. “It’s instead oxygen and carbon dioxide that are leaving the planet, which are important both for water and for the climate of the planet overall.” These latest Mars findings by robotic scouts such as Maven are a key part of NASA’s push to send human explorers to the red planet in the 2030s. Just over a month ago, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter revealed evidence of salt water trickling down Martian slopes, at least in the summer. NASA’s next mission begins in March with the launch of another orbiting explorer. Principal scientist Bruce Jakosky and his team reported that during massive solar ejections of gas in March, the spacecraft noticed oxygen ions were flung higher into the atmosphere than expected. At the same time, streams of fast-moving magnetic activity shot 3,100 miles out into space. That led the researchers to conclude Mars’ atmospheric decline may have been driven in large part by major solar events such as this, early in the planet’s history. The atmosphere likely would have disappeared over a period of a few hundred-millions years. Mars no longer has a global magnetic field, but when it did 4 billion years ago, that would have prevented this wholesale loss of atmosphere, the researchers said. Earth’s strong magnetic field seals in our own atmosphere, preventing direct erosion by the solar wind. Jakosky said further analysis will allow scientists to better define the atmospheric escape rate of ancient Mars. In any event, given the current loss, the existing thin atmosphere would be gone in another few billions of years, he noted, although the gas is also locked up in the polar caps and in the subsurface. Jakosky and Brain work at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Their findings appear in this week’s Science journal. The issue includes four studies conducted by the spacecraft, which has been circling Mars and studying its atmosphere for the past year. Maven, about the size of a school bus, was launched from Cape Canaveral in 2013. Maven also was able to observe a Martian aurora thought to be in the same category as Earth’s northern lights. Researchers suspect the remnant magnetic field of Mars’ crust is driving the auroras. ___ Online: NASA: http://mars.nasa.gov/maven/ Maven: http://lasp.colorado.edu/home/maven/