Collier commissioners consider guesthouse rentals in Urban EstatesLCSO needs help locating man wanted for animal cruelty
Collier commissioners consider guesthouse rentals in Urban Estates Collier commissioners moved forward with a plan to allow urban estates homeowners to rent guesthouses to address a critical shortage of workforce housing.
LCSO needs help locating man wanted for animal cruelty The Lee County Sheriff’s office is looking for a man who is wanted for violating the conditions of his release from jail after he was arrested for animal cruelty.
LOS ANGELES (AP) Matthew Perry’s death under investigation over ketamine level found in actor’s blood An investigation has been opened into the death of Matthew Perry and how the “Friends” actor received the anesthetic ketamine, which was ruled a contributing factor in his death.
FORT MYERS What you need to know about the Caloosahatchee Bridge closure The Florida Department of Transportation has made the decision to close the Caloosahatchee Bridge for 10 weeks while crews work on the bridge. Here’s what you need to know.
Lee County allocates $41.6M in federal money for affordable housing The money comes from the federal government’s Department of Housing and Urban Development. Lee County commissioners voted 5-0 in allocating the money, part of a $1.1 billion Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery fund.
Poached closing longtime restaurant in North Naples Poached soon is going to be toast—as in defunct. The local breakfast-lunch restaurant is permanently closing next week in Galleria Shoppes at Vanderbilt in North Naples.
PINE ISLAND ‘We’re Pine Island proud,’ Pine Island artists paint power poles Relaunching 20 years later, Pine Island artists have been painting power poles up and down Stringfellow Road to bring back color and vibrancy after Hurricane Ian.
Naples Airport presented with 4 site options in eastern Collier County Environmental Science Associates conducted an exploratory study and met with landowners interested in selling land. ESA whittled that to a list of four sites for a general airport.
Expert: Buying or renting depends on your situation Shelton Weeks, Lucas professor of real estate and director of the Lucas Institute for Real Estate Development and Finance, is asked a lot by students whether they should rent or buy.
Attorneys offer update on Bonita Estero Rail Trail project The proposed project hit a milestone in February when the Trust for Public Land secured a purchase and sale agreement for $82 million with the Seminole Gulf Railway on a 14.9-mile segment stretching from Alico Road to Collier County for conversion to a hiking and biking trail.
NAPLES Woman arrested for stealing over $150K from Naples Ballet The Naples Police Department arrested a woman for allegedly stealing over $150,000 from the Naples Ballet, a non-profit organization.
NORTH FORT MYERS Duo accused of stealing from North Fort Myers store Southwest Florida Crime Stoppers is seeking information on two people accused of stealing from a North Fort Myers store.
WINK NEWS Lee Commissioners award over $41.6M for rehabilitation of affordable housing units The Lee Board of County Commissioners voted to award more than $41.6 million in Community Development Block Grants-Disaster Recovery funds.
New York (AP) Defense rests without Trump testifying in hush money case The defense rests its case without ex-President Donald Trump taking the witness stand in his New York hush money case. Closing arguments are expected next Tuesday.
IMMOKALEE Immokalee girls robotics team competes at VEX Worlds The Immokalee High School girls robotics team got to compete and learn at the VEX Robotics World Championships in Dallas.
Collier commissioners consider guesthouse rentals in Urban Estates Collier commissioners moved forward with a plan to allow urban estates homeowners to rent guesthouses to address a critical shortage of workforce housing.
LCSO needs help locating man wanted for animal cruelty The Lee County Sheriff’s office is looking for a man who is wanted for violating the conditions of his release from jail after he was arrested for animal cruelty.
LOS ANGELES (AP) Matthew Perry’s death under investigation over ketamine level found in actor’s blood An investigation has been opened into the death of Matthew Perry and how the “Friends” actor received the anesthetic ketamine, which was ruled a contributing factor in his death.
FORT MYERS What you need to know about the Caloosahatchee Bridge closure The Florida Department of Transportation has made the decision to close the Caloosahatchee Bridge for 10 weeks while crews work on the bridge. Here’s what you need to know.
Lee County allocates $41.6M in federal money for affordable housing The money comes from the federal government’s Department of Housing and Urban Development. Lee County commissioners voted 5-0 in allocating the money, part of a $1.1 billion Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery fund.
Poached closing longtime restaurant in North Naples Poached soon is going to be toast—as in defunct. The local breakfast-lunch restaurant is permanently closing next week in Galleria Shoppes at Vanderbilt in North Naples.
PINE ISLAND ‘We’re Pine Island proud,’ Pine Island artists paint power poles Relaunching 20 years later, Pine Island artists have been painting power poles up and down Stringfellow Road to bring back color and vibrancy after Hurricane Ian.
Naples Airport presented with 4 site options in eastern Collier County Environmental Science Associates conducted an exploratory study and met with landowners interested in selling land. ESA whittled that to a list of four sites for a general airport.
Expert: Buying or renting depends on your situation Shelton Weeks, Lucas professor of real estate and director of the Lucas Institute for Real Estate Development and Finance, is asked a lot by students whether they should rent or buy.
Attorneys offer update on Bonita Estero Rail Trail project The proposed project hit a milestone in February when the Trust for Public Land secured a purchase and sale agreement for $82 million with the Seminole Gulf Railway on a 14.9-mile segment stretching from Alico Road to Collier County for conversion to a hiking and biking trail.
NAPLES Woman arrested for stealing over $150K from Naples Ballet The Naples Police Department arrested a woman for allegedly stealing over $150,000 from the Naples Ballet, a non-profit organization.
NORTH FORT MYERS Duo accused of stealing from North Fort Myers store Southwest Florida Crime Stoppers is seeking information on two people accused of stealing from a North Fort Myers store.
WINK NEWS Lee Commissioners award over $41.6M for rehabilitation of affordable housing units The Lee Board of County Commissioners voted to award more than $41.6 million in Community Development Block Grants-Disaster Recovery funds.
New York (AP) Defense rests without Trump testifying in hush money case The defense rests its case without ex-President Donald Trump taking the witness stand in his New York hush money case. Closing arguments are expected next Tuesday.
IMMOKALEE Immokalee girls robotics team competes at VEX Worlds The Immokalee High School girls robotics team got to compete and learn at the VEX Robotics World Championships in Dallas.
Photo via Max.dai.yang / Wikipedia / CC BY-SA 4.0 HAVANA (AP) – Former President Fidel Castro, who led a rebel army to improbable victory in Cuba, embraced Soviet-style communism and defied the power of 10 U.S. presidents during his half century rule, has died at age 90. With a shaking voice, President Raul Castro said on state television that his older brother died at 10:29 p.m. Friday. He ended the announcement by shouting the revolutionary slogan: “Towards victory, always!” Castro’s reign over the island-nation 90 miles (145 kilometers) from Florida was marked by the U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis a year later that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. The bearded revolutionary, who survived a crippling U.S. trade embargo as well as dozens, possibly hundreds, of assassination plots, died eight years after ill health forced him to formally hand power over to Raul. Castro overcame imprisonment at the hands of dictator Fulgencio Batista, exile in Mexico and a disastrous start to his rebellion before triumphantly riding into Havana in January 1959 to become, at age 32, the youngest leader in Latin America. For decades, he served as an inspiration and source of support to revolutionaries from Latin America to Africa. His commitment to socialism was unwavering, though his power finally began to fade in mid-2006 when a gastrointestinal ailment forced him to hand over the presidency to Raul in 2008, provisionally at first and then permanently. His defiant image lingered long after he gave up his trademark Cohiba cigars for health reasons and his tall frame grew stooped. “Socialism or death” remained Castro’s rallying cry even as Western-style democracy swept the globe and other communist regimes in China and Vietnam embraced capitalism, leaving this island of 11 million people an economically crippled Marxist curiosity. He survived long enough to see Raul Castro negotiate an opening with U.S. President Barack Obama on Dec. 17, 2014, when Washington and Havana announced they would move to restore diplomatic ties for the first time since they were severed in 1961. He cautiously blessed the historic deal with his lifelong enemy in a letter published after a month-long silence. “It’s a tragedy,” said 22-year-old nurse Dayan Montalvo about Fidel Castro’s death. “We all grew up with him. I feel really hurt by the news that we just heard.” Fidel Castro Ruz was born Aug. 13, 1926, in eastern Cuba’s sugar country, where his Spanish immigrant father worked first recruiting labor for U.S. sugar companies and later built up a prosperous plantation of his own. Castro attended Jesuit schools, then the University of Havana, where he received law and social science degrees. His life as a rebel began in 1953 with a reckless attack on the Moncada military barracks in the eastern city of Santiago. Most of his comrades were killed and Fidel and his brother Raul went to prison. Fidel turned his trial defense into a manifesto that he smuggled out of jail, famously declaring, “History will absolve me.” Freed under a pardon, Castro fled to Mexico and organized a rebel band that returned in 1956, sailing across the Gulf of Mexico to Cuba on a yacht named Granma. After losing most of his group in a bungled landing, he rallied support in Cuba’s eastern Sierra Maestra mountains. Three years later, tens of thousands spilled into the streets of Havana to celebrate Batista’s downfall and catch a glimpse of Castro as his rebel caravan arrived in the capital on Jan. 8, 1959. The U.S. was among the first to formally recognize his government, cautiously trusting Castro’s early assurances he merely wanted to restore democracy, not install socialism. Within months, Castro was imposing radical economic reforms. Members of the old government went before summary courts, and at least 582 were shot by firing squads over two years. Independent newspapers were closed and in the early years, homosexuals were herded into camps for “re-education.” In 1964, Castro acknowledged holding 15,000 political prisoners. Hundreds of thousands of Cubans fled, including Castro’s daughter Alina Fernandez Revuelta and his younger sister Juana. Still, the revolution thrilled millions in Cuba and across Latin America who saw it as an example of how the seemingly arrogant Yankees could be defied. And many on the island were happy to see the seizure of property of the landed class, the expulsion of American gangsters and the closure of their casinos. Castro’s speeches, lasting up to six hours, became the soundtrack of Cuban life and his 269-minute speech to the U.N. General Assembly in 1960 set the world body’s record for length that still stood more than five decades later. As Castro moved into the Soviet bloc, Washington began working to oust him, cutting U.S. purchases of sugar, the island’s economic mainstay. Castro, in turn, confiscated $1 billion in U.S. assets. The American government imposed a trade embargo, banning virtually all U.S. exports to the island except for food and medicine, and it severed diplomatic ties on Jan. 3, 1961. On April 16 of that year, Castro declared his revolution to be socialist, and the next day, about 1,400 Cuban exiles stormed the beach at the Bay of Pigs on Cuba’s south coast. But the CIA-backed invasion failed. The debacle forced the U.S. to give up on the idea of invading Cuba, but that didn’t stop Washington and Castro’s exiled enemies from trying to do him in. By Cuban count, he was the target of more than 630 assassination plots by militant Cuban exiles or the U.S. government. The biggest crisis of the Cold War between Washington and Moscow exploded on Oct. 22, 1962, when President John F. Kennedy announced there were Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba and imposed a naval blockade of the island. Humankind held its breath, and after a tense week of diplomacy, Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev removed them. Never had the world felt so close to nuclear war. Castro cobbled revolutionary groups together into the new Cuban Communist Party, with him as first secretary. Labor unions lost the right to strike. The Catholic Church and other religious institutions were harassed. Neighborhood “revolutionary defense committees” kept an eye on everyone. Castro exported revolution to Latin American countries in the 1960s, and dispatched Cuban troops to Africa to fight Western-backed regimes in the 1970s. Over the decades, he sent Cuban doctors abroad to tend to the poor, and gave sanctuary to fugitive Black Panther leaders from the U.S. But the collapse of the Soviet bloc ended billions in preferential trade and subsidies for Cuba, sending its economy into a tailspin. Castro briefly experimented with an opening to foreign capitalists and limited private enterprise. As the end of the Cold War eased global tensions, many Latin American and European countries re-established relations with Cuba. In January 1998, Pope John Paul II visited a nation that had been officially atheist until the early 1990s. Aided by a tourism boom, the economy slowly recovered and Castro steadily reasserted government control, stifling much of the limited free enterprise tolerated during harder times. As flamboyant as he was in public, Castro tried to lead a discreet private life. He and his first wife, Mirta Diaz Balart, had one son before divorcing in 1956. Then, for more than four decades, Castro had a relationship with Dalia Soto del Valle. They had five sons together and were said to have married quietly in 1980. By the time Castro resigned 49 years after his triumphant arrival in Havana, he was the world’s longest ruling head of government, aside from monarchs. In retirement, Castro voiced unwavering support as Raul slowly but deliberately enacted sweeping changes to the Marxist system he had built. His longevity allowed the younger brother to consolidate control, perhaps lengthening the revolution well past both men’s lives. In February 2013, Raul announced that he would retire as president in 2018 and named newly minted Vice President Miguel Diaz-Canel as his successor. “I’ll be 90 years old soon,” Castro said at an April 2016 communist party congress where he made his most extensive public appearance in years. “Soon I’ll be like all the others. The time will come for all of us, but the ideas of the Cuban Communists will remain as proof that on this planet, if one works with fervor and dignity, they can produce the material and cultural goods that human beings need and that need to be fought for without ever giving up.”