FORT MYERS Students make goodie bags for kids fighting Cancer A special delivery, straight from the heart, to Galisano’s Children’s Hospital. Three 8th graders from Lexington Middle School delivered 100 goodie bags to bring smiles to kids fighting cancer.
TICE Large police presence at park in Tice Deputies and K9s are investigating Schandler Hall Community Park on Palm Beach Boulevard in Tice.
CAPE CORAL Lee County superintendent candidates face off in debate These three people, Denise Carlin, Morgan Wright and Sheridan Chester, are making it clear that they want the job.
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA DEA to reclassify Marijuana as Schedule Three drug When you think of marijuana in Florida, You might think of an illegal drug seized by law enforcement. Kim Rivers, the CEO of Florida-based cannabis retailer Trulieve, says when used medicinally, it can help a lot of people.
FORT MYERS Expect more delays on Colonial and Fowler due to intersection project Work on the Colonial Fowler intersection in Fort Myers is underway, and there are many moving parts.
FORT MYERS Possible pay-by-text scam in downtown Fort Myers may have cost woman nearly $1,000 Pay-by-text parking may have cost one woman nearly a thousand dollars after her credit card was hacked.
FORT MYERS Lee County STET team protecting our schools with cameras There are cameras in our kid’s schools, dozens of them, but did you know that Lee County Schools sends those live video feeds to the sheriff’s office, and it’s someone’s job to watch them?
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA Six-week abortion ban to take effect soon A stricter abortion ban will take effect in Florida on Wednesday.
Estero’s Golf Coast Driving Range shuts down, visitors devastated A place to relax, let loose and hit a few drives, has come to the end of an era for this community. “This is the first place we came to,” said Roxanne Henningsen, a Bonita Springs resident. “And it like became our second home. The people are wonderful. It’s just a great atmosphere. And we’ve […]
CAPE CORAL Business owners reeling after massive fire in Cape Coral “Very scary” are the words Denise Creacy used to describe what she felt when she saw plumes of black smoke, firefighters, and police fill her neighborhood.
LEHIGH ACRES Changing how you are represented in Lee County Leaders want to hear your thoughts this week at a town hall on how you elect county commissioners.
FORT MYERS Frontier Airlines announces nonstop flights from RSW to San Juan, PR These flights will take off on June 2 and run 3 times a week.
NAPLES Fight to save the trees in Naples neighborhood When Sue Canfield looks up in her front yard she sees light shining through the sprawling branches of a 25-year-old Oak towering above her. The trees, which line every road in the waterways of naples, is why she choose this neighborhood but soon those very trees will be taken down.
City of Naples hosts open house workshop for Naples road projects The City of Naples is hosting an open house workshop to hear from the public regarding road improvements.
CAPE CORAL Ollie’s Pub, the home of SWFL’s local music scene, closes after 4 memorable years Ollie’s Pub, once the center of local original music in Southwest Florida, is closing after a prosperous yet arduous four years.
FORT MYERS Students make goodie bags for kids fighting Cancer A special delivery, straight from the heart, to Galisano’s Children’s Hospital. Three 8th graders from Lexington Middle School delivered 100 goodie bags to bring smiles to kids fighting cancer.
TICE Large police presence at park in Tice Deputies and K9s are investigating Schandler Hall Community Park on Palm Beach Boulevard in Tice.
CAPE CORAL Lee County superintendent candidates face off in debate These three people, Denise Carlin, Morgan Wright and Sheridan Chester, are making it clear that they want the job.
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA DEA to reclassify Marijuana as Schedule Three drug When you think of marijuana in Florida, You might think of an illegal drug seized by law enforcement. Kim Rivers, the CEO of Florida-based cannabis retailer Trulieve, says when used medicinally, it can help a lot of people.
FORT MYERS Expect more delays on Colonial and Fowler due to intersection project Work on the Colonial Fowler intersection in Fort Myers is underway, and there are many moving parts.
FORT MYERS Possible pay-by-text scam in downtown Fort Myers may have cost woman nearly $1,000 Pay-by-text parking may have cost one woman nearly a thousand dollars after her credit card was hacked.
FORT MYERS Lee County STET team protecting our schools with cameras There are cameras in our kid’s schools, dozens of them, but did you know that Lee County Schools sends those live video feeds to the sheriff’s office, and it’s someone’s job to watch them?
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA Six-week abortion ban to take effect soon A stricter abortion ban will take effect in Florida on Wednesday.
Estero’s Golf Coast Driving Range shuts down, visitors devastated A place to relax, let loose and hit a few drives, has come to the end of an era for this community. “This is the first place we came to,” said Roxanne Henningsen, a Bonita Springs resident. “And it like became our second home. The people are wonderful. It’s just a great atmosphere. And we’ve […]
CAPE CORAL Business owners reeling after massive fire in Cape Coral “Very scary” are the words Denise Creacy used to describe what she felt when she saw plumes of black smoke, firefighters, and police fill her neighborhood.
LEHIGH ACRES Changing how you are represented in Lee County Leaders want to hear your thoughts this week at a town hall on how you elect county commissioners.
FORT MYERS Frontier Airlines announces nonstop flights from RSW to San Juan, PR These flights will take off on June 2 and run 3 times a week.
NAPLES Fight to save the trees in Naples neighborhood When Sue Canfield looks up in her front yard she sees light shining through the sprawling branches of a 25-year-old Oak towering above her. The trees, which line every road in the waterways of naples, is why she choose this neighborhood but soon those very trees will be taken down.
City of Naples hosts open house workshop for Naples road projects The City of Naples is hosting an open house workshop to hear from the public regarding road improvements.
CAPE CORAL Ollie’s Pub, the home of SWFL’s local music scene, closes after 4 memorable years Ollie’s Pub, once the center of local original music in Southwest Florida, is closing after a prosperous yet arduous four years.
Gage Skidmore / CC BY-SA 2.0 WASHINGTON (AP) – House Speaker Paul Ryan promises a bold election-year agenda of replacing the health care law and fighting poverty. Until then, it’s the BRICK Act. While GOP task forces are talking about national security, jobs and health care, the House floor has largely been turned over to the obscure and the arcane. Instead of wrapping up a typical day’s work at suppertime, early afternoon getaways are the norm. And it could remain that way for much of the year. This week is typical. Monday was reserved for noncontroversial bills like a measure to renew authorization of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Tuesday was largely devoted to naming post offices. Wednesday’s legislation, passed 406-0, sought to ensure health care providers terminated from a state’s Medicaid and children’s health insurance programs can’t keep doing business in other states. Then, on Thursday, after a debate to delay new Environmental Protection Agency rules for brick makers – that’s the Blocking Regulatory Interference from Closing Kilns, or BRICK, Act – the House will exit Washington by early afternoon for a week’s vacation. “There’s not a single priority issue,” said No. 2 House Democrat Steny Hoyer of Maryland, citing issues absent from the floor such as renewal of federal aviation programs, financial relief for Puerto Rico, aid to Flint, Michigan, as it grapples with tainted drinking water and funds to combat the Zika virus. “That is a substantial dereliction of duty.” The light schedule is due in part to a battle over spending that has stalled the budget, which GOP leaders had hoped to consider this week. There is also disagreement over a Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill. Those measures could bring more heft to the floor schedule this spring, along with upcoming legislation to combat heroin and opioid abuse and reform the criminal justice system. House Speaker Ryan doesn’t set the day-to-day schedule of the House, and spokeswoman Ashlee Strong reminds that Ryan’s chief focus is on the longer term. “The agenda project House Republicans are currently working on is to prepare for 2017 and demonstrate to the American people what we will achieve if they elect a Republican president,” Strong said. But last year, GOP leaders filled the floor with initiatives taking on President Barack Obama. “There was an enormous amount of energy expended doing nothing, but it takes effort to have shutdown votes or defund Planned Parenthood, knowing it’ll go nowhere. But I’ll give credit to the Republican leadership: They put energy into getting nothing done,” said Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt. “This year, there’s not even an effort to fake it. We’re just not doing anything.” Well, the House is in fact passing some legislation. It’s just that most of it is not very important. There was a bill to require the White House to re-bundle information about the national debt. On Monday, the House voted to scrub outdated and offensive terms like “negro” and “oriental” from a 1976 statute. On Tuesday, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who sets the floor schedule, praised the Medicaid measure for stopping fraud and abuse, and Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., said the measure protects taxpayers. “This will save millions of dollars for taxpayers who are tired of seeing their money, their taxpayer dollars being wasted in Washington,” Scalise said. A spokesman for McCarthy cited a number of other bills – on new sanctions on North Korea, and holding Veterans Administration bureaucrats more accountable for agency missteps, among others – as evidence the House has been keeping busy. But for now, the floor schedule is remarkably thin. One of last week’s marquee items was a bill called the Fraudulent Joinder Prevention Act, dealing with whether lawsuits belong in state or federal courts. Another was an amalgam of provisions billed as boosting the rights of sportsmen, including allowing the importation of about 40 banned polar bear hides and heads from Canada and making sure the government doesn’t restrict lead content in ammunition. In the Senate, where most legislation crawls along even if it’s got sweeping bipartisan support, it’s easier to stretch out a thin floor schedule. That’s been the case with a still-unfinished energy bill that occupied much of February. Meanwhile, the trouble in putting together a GOP budget resolution could mean that the floor agenda remains light. While debate on the budget resolution – a nonbinding measure setting out tax and spending goals for the upcoming decade – usually only takes a couple of days or so, passage of the measure clears the way for action on follow-up spending bills. These appropriations bills typically occupy the House for weeks in late spring and into the summer and if they’re not available later in the year to occupy lawmakers, the early afternoon adjournments and long weekends could multiply. The House is only slated to work more than 100 days this year, a schedule truncated in part because the national political parties are holding their conventions in July.