SOUTHWEST FLORIDA Some Floridians want more alone time during the holidays The holidays are all about spending time with family and friends, but nearly half of Americans say they really want more alone time during the holiday.
LABELLE Hendry County rolls out cameras for school speed zones The Hendry County Sheriff’s Office has rolled out a new way of enforcing school zone speed limits by using cameras that will target drivers traveling over a certain speed in a school zone.
Aggressive driving concerns on the rise in Southwest Florida The arrest of a man who, the Lee County Sheriff’s Office said, killed a motorcyclist after crashing into him on purpose is raising concerns over aggressive driving in Southwest Florida.
SANIBEL Sanibel School students prepare for community Christmas performance The school that has had to claw and fight its way back more than once to reopen is getting the chance to celebrate.
FORT MYERS Rock For Equality: SWFL music scene to hold benefit concert for Palestine A two-venue, eight-band benefit concert is coming to Southwest Florida.
NAPLES Naples man sentenced in deadly bar shooting A man has been sentenced for a deadly shooting that took place at a Naples bar in March 2021.
New ovarian cancer treatments Ovarian cancer is a problematic disease because of symptoms such as nausea, bloating and diarrhea.
Largest Lee County land deal closes, $100M for 1,745 acres in northwest Cape Coral The most lucrative land deal in Lee County history just closed at a price of $100 million for 1,745 acres in northwest Cape Coral, where building up to 3,500 homes and commercial property to support it has been in the planning stages for almost two years.
CHARLOTTE HARBOR Crash between RV and semi temporarily shuts down NB lanes of U.S. 41 in Charlotte A major collision near Sunseeker Resort in Charlotte County temporarily closed all northbound lanes of U.S. 41, according to the Charlotte County Sherriff’s Office.
FORT MYERS Apple AirPods lead LCSO to an arrest; over $100,000 worth of stolen items recovered Through the use of Apple Airpods, the Lee County Sheriff’s Office was able to locate nearly $100,000 worth of stolen items, leading to an arrest.
CAPE CORAL Cape Coral officials approve replacement funding for hurricane-damaged stop signs The Cape Coral City Council has approved funding to replace stop signs damaged during Hurricane Milton, resulting in an emergency purchase.
Holiday events happening in Southwest Florida Southwest Florida is embracing the holiday spirit with a variety of festive events this Christmas season.
Collier man accused of supplying fentanyl-laced pills, enough to kill 531,500 people The Collier County Sheriff’s Office has arrested a man accused of supplying more than 10,000 fentanyl-laced pills disguised as prescription painkillers.
CAPE CORAL Cape Coral council supports construction of I-75 interchange into city The Cape Coral City Council has approved a resolution requesting support from Lee and Charlotte counties to prioritize state and federal funding for the Interstate 75 Interchange at Slater Road.
PUNTA GORDA Crews removing derelict boats from Gilchrist Park Crews are working to remove derelict boats from Gilchrist Park after several of them washed ashore during Hurricane Milton in October.
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA Some Floridians want more alone time during the holidays The holidays are all about spending time with family and friends, but nearly half of Americans say they really want more alone time during the holiday.
LABELLE Hendry County rolls out cameras for school speed zones The Hendry County Sheriff’s Office has rolled out a new way of enforcing school zone speed limits by using cameras that will target drivers traveling over a certain speed in a school zone.
Aggressive driving concerns on the rise in Southwest Florida The arrest of a man who, the Lee County Sheriff’s Office said, killed a motorcyclist after crashing into him on purpose is raising concerns over aggressive driving in Southwest Florida.
SANIBEL Sanibel School students prepare for community Christmas performance The school that has had to claw and fight its way back more than once to reopen is getting the chance to celebrate.
FORT MYERS Rock For Equality: SWFL music scene to hold benefit concert for Palestine A two-venue, eight-band benefit concert is coming to Southwest Florida.
NAPLES Naples man sentenced in deadly bar shooting A man has been sentenced for a deadly shooting that took place at a Naples bar in March 2021.
New ovarian cancer treatments Ovarian cancer is a problematic disease because of symptoms such as nausea, bloating and diarrhea.
Largest Lee County land deal closes, $100M for 1,745 acres in northwest Cape Coral The most lucrative land deal in Lee County history just closed at a price of $100 million for 1,745 acres in northwest Cape Coral, where building up to 3,500 homes and commercial property to support it has been in the planning stages for almost two years.
CHARLOTTE HARBOR Crash between RV and semi temporarily shuts down NB lanes of U.S. 41 in Charlotte A major collision near Sunseeker Resort in Charlotte County temporarily closed all northbound lanes of U.S. 41, according to the Charlotte County Sherriff’s Office.
FORT MYERS Apple AirPods lead LCSO to an arrest; over $100,000 worth of stolen items recovered Through the use of Apple Airpods, the Lee County Sheriff’s Office was able to locate nearly $100,000 worth of stolen items, leading to an arrest.
CAPE CORAL Cape Coral officials approve replacement funding for hurricane-damaged stop signs The Cape Coral City Council has approved funding to replace stop signs damaged during Hurricane Milton, resulting in an emergency purchase.
Holiday events happening in Southwest Florida Southwest Florida is embracing the holiday spirit with a variety of festive events this Christmas season.
Collier man accused of supplying fentanyl-laced pills, enough to kill 531,500 people The Collier County Sheriff’s Office has arrested a man accused of supplying more than 10,000 fentanyl-laced pills disguised as prescription painkillers.
CAPE CORAL Cape Coral council supports construction of I-75 interchange into city The Cape Coral City Council has approved a resolution requesting support from Lee and Charlotte counties to prioritize state and federal funding for the Interstate 75 Interchange at Slater Road.
PUNTA GORDA Crews removing derelict boats from Gilchrist Park Crews are working to remove derelict boats from Gilchrist Park after several of them washed ashore during Hurricane Milton in October.
FILE – In this Sept. 2, 2008, file photo Google co-founders Sergey Brin, left, and Larry Page talk about the new Google Browser, “Chrome,” during a news conference at Google Inc. headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. Page and Brin are stepping down from their roles within the parent company, Alphabet. Page, who had been serving as CEO of Alphabet, and Brin, who had been president of Alphabet, will remain on the board of the company. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File) The co-founders of Google are stepping down as executives of its parent company, Alphabet, ending a remarkable two decades during which Larry Page and Sergey Brin shaped a startup born in a Silicon Valley garage into one of the world’s largest, most powerful – and, increasingly, most feared – firms in the world. Sundar Pichai, who has been leading Google as CEO for more than four years, will take on additional duties as Alphabet’s CEO, the position held by Page. The company isn’t filling Brin’s position as president. Brin and Page met as Stanford University graduate students in 1995 and started the company soon after. What started as a way to catalog the growing internet has now become one of the most powerful companies in the world. Google dominates online search and digital advertising and makes the world’s most widely used operating system for smartphones, Android. It’s hard to make it through a whole day without using one of Google’s services – ranging from online tools to email, cloud computing systems, phones and smart speaker hardware. Page and Brin, in announcing the news Tuesday, said the company has “evolved and matured” in the two decades since its founding. Both promised to stay active as board members and shareholders. “Today, in 2019, if the company was a person, it would be a young adult of 21 and it would be time to leave the roost,” they wrote in a blog post. Alphabet – an umbrella corporation that the two created in 2015 – still boasts Google as its central fixture and key moneymaker. But it’s also made up of what are known as “other bets,” or longshot projects. That includes drone company Wing and self-driving car firm Waymo. Page and Brin both have been noticeably absent from Google events in the past year. Both stopped making appearances at the weekly question-and-answer sessions with employees, and Page didn’t attend this summer’s Alphabet shareholders meeting even though he was still in the CEO role. Alphabet has been positioning Pichai as the de facto leader for quite some time. Pichai, 47, has worked at the company for 15 years, serving as a leader in projects to build the company’s Chrome browser and overseeing Android. Pichai, who has an engineering background, took over as the head of Google’s products before being promoted to CEO when Alphabet was created. Pichai is known as a soft-spoken and respected manager. Longtime tech analyst Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies said that for all intents and purposes, Pichai has been the public face and the most instrumental person inside Google for the past few years. Alphabet has made him the top executive voice at shareholders meetings, on earnings call and as a spokesman at congressional hearings. So far, the company has shown no signs that it intends to replace Pichai at Google. But Bajarin said doing so might make sense, given that Pichai will have so much on his plate as CEO of the overall business, including regulatory pressures from the U.S. and Europe. Google is facing strong pushback from privacy groups, which are concerned about the personal information that Google has collected on its users, mostly to target advertising. Google also faces complaints that it abuses its dominance in search and online advertising to push out rivals. Google is the subject of antitrust inquiries from Congress, the Department of Justice and a contingency of states in the U.S. and from European authorities. The company has also faced harsh criticism about the material on its sites – and was slapped with a $170 million fine because its video streaming site YouTube improperly collected personal data on children without their parents’ consent. In the short term, Bajarin doesn’t expect much to change at the company. And if anything does, it will be due to government regulation – not the executive shuffle. As for Page and Brin, Bajarin added, “keep in mind, they are not losing their title as billionaires, but they are changing their roles.” Brin and Page still hold more than 50% voting shares of Alphabet. According to a regulatory filing in April, Page holds 42.9% of the company’s Class B shares and 26.1% of its voting power. Brin holds 41.3% of the Class B shares and 25.2% of the voting power. Google has nearly doubled its headcount since Pichai took over as chief executive, growing from a company of 59,000 employees to 114,000 now. Google’s stock increased less than 1% in after-hours trading after the news was announced. Google’s longest serving CEO is still Eric Schmidt, the former executive brought into the role in 2001 as a so-called “adult supervisor” for Brin and Page. Schmidt stepped into the position as the company’s board worried about the relative inexperience of Brin and Page to manage the growing company. He stayed on until 2011, when Page once again became chief executive. Schmidt stayed on the board until June. Page dropped out of graduate school at Stanford to start Google and doesn’t have a business degree. He grew up in Michigan, where his late father, Carl, was a computer scientist and pioneer in artificial intelligence, and his mother taught computer programming. Page began working on personal computers when he was just 6 years old in 1979, when home computers were a rarity. The geeky impulses carried into his adulthood, leading him to once build an inkjet printer out of Legos.