Man hospitalized after struck by car while attempting to pick up trash bag on SR-80Partly cloudy and milder this Tuesday afternoon
Man hospitalized after struck by car while attempting to pick up trash bag on SR-80 The Florida Highway Patrol is investigating a crash involving a pickup truck and a car that hospitalized one man on State Road 80 in Hendry County.
the weather authority Partly cloudy and milder this Tuesday afternoon The Weather Authority is tracking increased cloud coverage along with milder conditions this Tuesday afternoon.
WINK NEWS Shell Factory & Nature Park’s final auction begins The Shell Factory & Nature Park has launched its final auction, allowing fans of the now-closed Southwest Florida landmark to take home several valued items.
FORT MYERS Fort Myers to discuss fluoride in water during next city council meeting The debate over fluoride in drinking water has been reignited following an announcement by the Florida surgeon general urging cities to halt fluoride treatment.
ESTERO Gator stuck on Estero porch gives homeowner a wild surprise Sunday night Imagine glancing out your back door and seeing a gator sliding around on your deck. That’s exactly what happened to an Estero homeowner who found an unexpected visitor on their property.
NORTH FORT MYERS North Fort Myers crash leaves motorcyclist with life-threatening injuries A motorcyclist is in critical condition following a collision with a sedan at the intersection of North East Pine Island Road and Judd Creek Boulevard in North Fort Myers.
FORT MYERS BEACH Hurricane Ian recovery delays impact tourism and local businesses Fort Myers Beach is still grappling with the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, which struck over two years ago.
FORT MYERS Alliance for the Arts hosting Jazz on the Green, celebrating historic music genre Catch Grammy winners and jazz virtuosos at the Jazz on the Green event hosted by the Alliance for the Arts in Fort Myers.
FORT MYERS Twins host fans for open house and first full squad workout The Minnesota Twins held their first full squad workout of Spring Training as well as hosted fans for an open house.
Potential changes to how shingle roofs are covered by insurance Florida Insurance Commissioner Michael Yaworsky recently made comments at the Florida Chamber Insurance Summit about the potential phasing out of shingle roofs in the state.
SANIBEL Sanibel islanders rally to restore beloved fishing pier after Ian damage The Sanibel Fishing Pier, a beloved spot for many, has been in disrepair since Hurricane Ian struck more than two years ago. Now, dedicated fishers are pushing to restore it using private funding.
PUNTA GORDA Gunfire erupts on US 41 bridge in Punta Gorda; bikers arrested A road rage incident escalated into gunfire on the U.S. 41 bridge connecting Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte, causing fear among drivers.
BONITA SPRINGS Will San Carlos Estates merge with Bonita Springs? Residents of San Carlos Estates in Bonita Springs are fighting to maintain their neighborhood’s independence.
PUNTA GORDA New flight routes at Punta Gorda Airport The Punta Gorda Airport is expanding its offerings, adding new flight options for travelers.
LEE COUNTY Bregman’s arrival and Devers’ denial highlight Red Sox first full squad The addition of Alex Bregman and Rafael Devers’ refusal to change positions highlighted the first full squad workout for the Red Sox.
Man hospitalized after struck by car while attempting to pick up trash bag on SR-80 The Florida Highway Patrol is investigating a crash involving a pickup truck and a car that hospitalized one man on State Road 80 in Hendry County.
the weather authority Partly cloudy and milder this Tuesday afternoon The Weather Authority is tracking increased cloud coverage along with milder conditions this Tuesday afternoon.
WINK NEWS Shell Factory & Nature Park’s final auction begins The Shell Factory & Nature Park has launched its final auction, allowing fans of the now-closed Southwest Florida landmark to take home several valued items.
FORT MYERS Fort Myers to discuss fluoride in water during next city council meeting The debate over fluoride in drinking water has been reignited following an announcement by the Florida surgeon general urging cities to halt fluoride treatment.
ESTERO Gator stuck on Estero porch gives homeowner a wild surprise Sunday night Imagine glancing out your back door and seeing a gator sliding around on your deck. That’s exactly what happened to an Estero homeowner who found an unexpected visitor on their property.
NORTH FORT MYERS North Fort Myers crash leaves motorcyclist with life-threatening injuries A motorcyclist is in critical condition following a collision with a sedan at the intersection of North East Pine Island Road and Judd Creek Boulevard in North Fort Myers.
FORT MYERS BEACH Hurricane Ian recovery delays impact tourism and local businesses Fort Myers Beach is still grappling with the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, which struck over two years ago.
FORT MYERS Alliance for the Arts hosting Jazz on the Green, celebrating historic music genre Catch Grammy winners and jazz virtuosos at the Jazz on the Green event hosted by the Alliance for the Arts in Fort Myers.
FORT MYERS Twins host fans for open house and first full squad workout The Minnesota Twins held their first full squad workout of Spring Training as well as hosted fans for an open house.
Potential changes to how shingle roofs are covered by insurance Florida Insurance Commissioner Michael Yaworsky recently made comments at the Florida Chamber Insurance Summit about the potential phasing out of shingle roofs in the state.
SANIBEL Sanibel islanders rally to restore beloved fishing pier after Ian damage The Sanibel Fishing Pier, a beloved spot for many, has been in disrepair since Hurricane Ian struck more than two years ago. Now, dedicated fishers are pushing to restore it using private funding.
PUNTA GORDA Gunfire erupts on US 41 bridge in Punta Gorda; bikers arrested A road rage incident escalated into gunfire on the U.S. 41 bridge connecting Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte, causing fear among drivers.
BONITA SPRINGS Will San Carlos Estates merge with Bonita Springs? Residents of San Carlos Estates in Bonita Springs are fighting to maintain their neighborhood’s independence.
PUNTA GORDA New flight routes at Punta Gorda Airport The Punta Gorda Airport is expanding its offerings, adding new flight options for travelers.
LEE COUNTY Bregman’s arrival and Devers’ denial highlight Red Sox first full squad The addition of Alex Bregman and Rafael Devers’ refusal to change positions highlighted the first full squad workout for the Red Sox.
This Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2020 photo shows the icon for TikTok taken in New York. From the perspective of teens flooding onto TikTok, the Chinese-owned online video app is a major new outlet for self-expression, one proudly home to the silly, the loud and the weird. To others, though, the service is an unnerving black box that could be sharing information with the Chinese government, facilitating espionage, or just promoting videos and songs some parents consider lewd. (AP Photo) From the perspective of teens, TikTok is a major new outlet for self-expression, one proudly home to the silly, the loud and the weird. To others, the Chinese-owned online video service is an unnerving black box that could be sharing information with the Chinese government, facilitating espionage, or just promoting videos and songs some parents consider lewd. (TikTok denies the first two concerns and says it’s working on the third.) Welcome to the bifurcated world of TikTok, an emerging social-media powerhouse that lets users create and share short videos, many no longer than 15 seconds. “That’s where the Gen Z party is,” says Kory Marchisotto, chief marketer for e.l.f. Cosmetics. “That’s where they’re all hanging out.” There’s little doubt that TikTok users find it irresistible. But TikTok is also the subject of a U.S. national-security review and a Pentagon ban. U.S. lawmakers are worried about national security and censorship risks posed by TikTok’s Chinese ownership. TikTok draws so much attention because it’s the first China-owned social-media service to make serious inroads in the West. It’s a smash in the U.S. and other countries, attracting celebrities and companies eager to reach kids and young adults disconnected from traditional media. The NFL has an account. So do Chipotle, Reese Witherspoon, and The Washington Post. The U.S. Army previously used it to recruit soldiers. People have downloaded TikTok 1.65 billion times, the analysis firm Sensor Tower estimates. In 2019, it was the second-most downloaded app in the Apple and Google app stores, trailing only WhatsApp. Research firm eMarketer estimates that TikTok roughly doubled its U.S. user base to 37.2 million in 2019. To many users, what’s special is TikTok’s goofiness and sense of genuine fun. To use, just download the app and start swiping through videos. You don’t have to friend anyone or search for anything to watch. If you don’t go looking for it, you might not ever come across angry political discussions, much less envy-generating vacation shots from friends. Instead, you’ll likely to encounter a barrage of funny, meme-y videos from total strangers that TikTok spools up for you, personalizing the feed as you go. Politics, of course, is still there; so is the social-media plague of misinformation. TikTok says it prohibits harmful misinformation. TikTok makes money from ads, and sometimes the campaigns aren’t readily identifiable as ads. Companies can start hashtag-based “challenges” that invite users to participate by posting their own videos, often incorporating a particular dance or dance move. E.l.f. Cosmetics’ “eyeslipsface” campaign, for example, had people wink and purse their lips to go with the lyrics of an original song. Users created 3 million videos, with 4 billion views. The service has helped launch musical stars like Lil Nas X, whose “Old Town Road” is the longest-running No. 1 song in the history of Billboard’s charts. There are pranksters, funny skits, behind-the-scenes of fast-food operations and “glow-ups” — before-and-after shots of someone making themselves look cuter. Some are more random: Kim Kardashian cooking parodies? Some users say TikTok is more authentic than the self-consciously pretty and polished Instagram. Emilie Richer, a 19-year-old from Simcoe, Ontario, says she uses Instagram for “photos that look nice, or the good things I’m doing” and TikTok to “get loose, make jokes, pull pranks and stuff, dress up weird.” A TikTok video of Richer catching a pickle thrown into her mouth went viral in November. A Chinese startup, ByteDance, launched TikTok internationally over two years ago. It then bought Musical.ly, another Chinese video service popular with teens in the U.S. and Europe. ByteDance combined the two, but kept TikTok separate from a twin service called Douyin, which it offers only in China. Until recently, Chinese social media services, built in a country hemmed in by censorship, have largely been confined to a domestic audience. TikTok’s rise, fueled in part by ads on Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, has in turn shaken those U.S. services. The company behind Snapchat started listing TikTok as a competitor in 2019. Facebook, which famously copies features of its rivals, launched a knockoff called Lasso in 2018 and added TikTok-ian video-editing features to Instagram. Beyond rivalries, concerns range from the sexual nature of some videos to censorship by China’s communist government. India and Indonesia temporarily banned TikTok because of worries about children. Anastasia Basil, a Los Angeles writer whose children are 10 and 12, says she was upset by the explicit lyrics in songs and “extremes of sexualized content” she saw. Her 10-year-old’s best friend loves TikTok, she says; she told the friend’s mother not to let Basil’s daughter use it during sleepovers. TikTok is working hard to ensure that it’s a “safe and positive environment,” says Kudzi Chikumbu, the company’s head of creator partnerships. TikTok has fleshed out its community guidelines on what’s allowed. It offers a restricted mode for inappropriate content and limited accounts for under-13 users, although it doesn’t verify ages. Last year, the company agreed to a $5.7 million U.S fine over collecting personal information from kids under 13. The company says it deletes “wrongly created” accounts, such as those of underage users with fake birthdates, when they’re reported by other users. But many security experts worry about the information sucked up by the service. People’s social connections, biometric data and interests that would be useful to an advertiser could also assist a hostile government in cultivating spies or tracking dissidents, says John Dermody, a former official with the National Security Council and Department of Homeland Security. These national-security worries parallel a broader U.S. security crackdown on Chinese companies and President Donald Trump’s trade war with China. A U.S. national-security agency is reviewing ByteDance’s Musical.ly deal, while the Army, Navy and Marine Corps recently banned service members and personnel from installing TikTok on government-issued phones. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has criticized TikTok for allegedly censoring protests. Newsreports have asserted that TikTok has banned videos and topics in line with Beijing’s own censorship rules. TikTok now insists that it doesn’t do so, nor would it even if the Chinese government asked it to. As for spying, the company denies it and says it stores U.S. user data in the U.S. and Singapore, not China. Not everyone buys that. The Chinese government “can exert a fair amount of soft pressure” and get what it wants, says Chris Calabrese of the U.S. tech watchdog group Center for Democracy & Technology. AP Business Writer Joe McDonald in Beijing and AP Technology Writer Matt O’Brien in Providence, Rhode Island, contributed to this report.