Motorcycle crash leaves 1 deadLee Deputies work to track down transient sex offenders who fail to register
PUNTA GORDA Motorcycle crash leaves 1 dead One person has died after a motorcycle crash in Charlotte County.
LEE COUNTY Lee Deputies work to track down transient sex offenders who fail to register WINK News Anchor Corey Lazar goes on patrol with Lee County Deputies in search of transient sex offenders who don’t register.
National Hurricane Preparedness Week: Know your risk Hurricane season starts on June 1st, but the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has designated the week of May 5 through May 11 as National Hurricane Preparedness Week. Each day, Meteorologist Lauren Kreidler will be highlighting ways to stay prepared ahead of this year’s hurricane season.
Southwest Florida The Weather Authority: Stay alert – chance of showers and storms on Sunday Hot, humid, and more rain for parts of Southwest Florida on Sunday.
CAPE CORAL What we learned about Cape Coral’s water crisis after a ride along On Friday, WINK News got to ride along to see just what people are doing that could be wasting water.
The Weather Authority: A wet Saturday evening as storms move through Southwest Florida A rainy Saturday evening across much of southwest Florida.
FORT MYERS Lee Health Touch-A-Truck event educates families on Trauma Awareness On Saturday morning, sirens were ringing to celebrate Lee Health Trauma Center’s 30 years of service and to provide the public with trauma education and prevention methods.
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA (CBS) CDC says bird flu viruses “pose pandemic potential,” cites major knowledge gaps Bird flu continues to appear to pose a “low risk to the general public” for now, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. But the agency’s scientists ran into roadblocks investigating a human case of this “pandemic potential” virus this year, they said in a new report.
DOWNTOWN FORT MYERS Bay Street Yard set to open in late May A new place to hang out in Downtown Fort Myers is opening this spring.
Aetna agrees to settle lawsuit over fertility coverage for LGBTQ+ customers Aetna has agreed to settle a lawsuit that accused the health insurer of discriminating against LGBTQ+ customers in need of fertility treatment.
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA WINK Neighborhood Watch: Robbery, Pawn Shops, and Child Porn This week’s segment of Wink Neighborhood Watch features an armed robber, fraud at a pawn shop, and possession of child pornography.
Southwest Florida The Weather Authority: Sun, clouds, humidity, rain – it’s all in your weekend forecast Saturday afternoon will be hot and humid, with a mix of sun and clouds.
LEHIGH ACRES Chaotic lake getting fence and security Now, with all the negative attention it has gotten, some think putting up a fence is a great way to keep that bad activity out.
FORT MYERS Students affected by COVID-19 able to graduate for the first time For many young people, COVID stripped away one of their greatest rites of passage: graduation.
Deadly crash on State Road 29 in Hendry County Authorities are at the scene of a deadly crash on State Road 29 in Hendry County on Friday afternoon.
PUNTA GORDA Motorcycle crash leaves 1 dead One person has died after a motorcycle crash in Charlotte County.
LEE COUNTY Lee Deputies work to track down transient sex offenders who fail to register WINK News Anchor Corey Lazar goes on patrol with Lee County Deputies in search of transient sex offenders who don’t register.
National Hurricane Preparedness Week: Know your risk Hurricane season starts on June 1st, but the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has designated the week of May 5 through May 11 as National Hurricane Preparedness Week. Each day, Meteorologist Lauren Kreidler will be highlighting ways to stay prepared ahead of this year’s hurricane season.
Southwest Florida The Weather Authority: Stay alert – chance of showers and storms on Sunday Hot, humid, and more rain for parts of Southwest Florida on Sunday.
CAPE CORAL What we learned about Cape Coral’s water crisis after a ride along On Friday, WINK News got to ride along to see just what people are doing that could be wasting water.
The Weather Authority: A wet Saturday evening as storms move through Southwest Florida A rainy Saturday evening across much of southwest Florida.
FORT MYERS Lee Health Touch-A-Truck event educates families on Trauma Awareness On Saturday morning, sirens were ringing to celebrate Lee Health Trauma Center’s 30 years of service and to provide the public with trauma education and prevention methods.
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA (CBS) CDC says bird flu viruses “pose pandemic potential,” cites major knowledge gaps Bird flu continues to appear to pose a “low risk to the general public” for now, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. But the agency’s scientists ran into roadblocks investigating a human case of this “pandemic potential” virus this year, they said in a new report.
DOWNTOWN FORT MYERS Bay Street Yard set to open in late May A new place to hang out in Downtown Fort Myers is opening this spring.
Aetna agrees to settle lawsuit over fertility coverage for LGBTQ+ customers Aetna has agreed to settle a lawsuit that accused the health insurer of discriminating against LGBTQ+ customers in need of fertility treatment.
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA WINK Neighborhood Watch: Robbery, Pawn Shops, and Child Porn This week’s segment of Wink Neighborhood Watch features an armed robber, fraud at a pawn shop, and possession of child pornography.
Southwest Florida The Weather Authority: Sun, clouds, humidity, rain – it’s all in your weekend forecast Saturday afternoon will be hot and humid, with a mix of sun and clouds.
LEHIGH ACRES Chaotic lake getting fence and security Now, with all the negative attention it has gotten, some think putting up a fence is a great way to keep that bad activity out.
FORT MYERS Students affected by COVID-19 able to graduate for the first time For many young people, COVID stripped away one of their greatest rites of passage: graduation.
Deadly crash on State Road 29 in Hendry County Authorities are at the scene of a deadly crash on State Road 29 in Hendry County on Friday afternoon.
A plan to release over 750 million genetically modified mosquitoes into the Florida Keys in 2021 and 2022 received final approval from local authorities, against the objection of many local residents and a coalition of environmental advocacy groups. The proposal had already won state and federal approval. “With all the urgent crises facing our nation and the State of Florida — the Covid-19 pandemic, racial injustice, climate change — the administration has used tax dollars and government resources for a Jurassic Park experiment,” said Jaydee Hanson, policy director for the International Center for Technology Assessment and Center for Food Safety, in a statement released Wednesday. “Now the Monroe County Mosquito Control District has given the final permission needed. What could possibly go wrong? We don’t know, because EPA unlawfully refused to seriously analyze environmental risks, now without further review of the risks, the experiment can proceed,” she added. Approved by the Environment Protection Agency in May, the pilot project is designed to test if a genetically modified mosquito is a viable alternative to spraying insecticides to control the Aedes aegypti. It’s a species of mosquito that carries several deadly diseases, such as Zika, dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever. The mosquito, named OX5034, has been altered to produce female offspring that die in the larval stage, well before hatching and growing large enough to bite and spread disease. Only the female mosquito bites for blood, which she needs to mature her eggs. Males feed only on nectar, and are thus not a carrier for disease. The mosquito is also approved to be released into Harris County, Texas, beginning in 2021, according to Oxitec, the US-owned, British-based company that developed the genetically modified organism (GMO). The Environmental Protection Agency granted Oxitec’s request after years of investigating the impact of the genetically altered mosquito on human and environmental health. “This is an exciting development because it represents the ground-breaking work of hundreds of passionate people over more than a decade in multiple countries, all of whom want to protect communities from dengue, Zika, yellow fever, and other vector-borne diseases,” Oxitec CEO Grey Frandsen said in a statement at the time. A long fight in Florida In June the state of Florida issued an Experimental Use Permit after seven state agencies unanimously approved the project. But it’s taken over a decade to obtain that approval. In 2009 and 2010, local outbreaks of dengue fever, which is spread by the Aedes aegypti, left the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District desperate for new options. Despite an avalanche of effort — from aerial, truck and backpack spraying to the use of mosquito-eating fish — local control efforts to contain the Aedes aegypti with larvicide and pesticide had been largely ineffective. And costly, too. Even though Aedes aegypti is only 1% of its mosquito population, Florida Keys Mosquito Control typically budgets more than $1 million a year, a full tenth of its total funding, to fighting it. In 2012, the district reached out to Oxitec for help. The company had developed a male mosquito named OX513A, programmed to die before adulthood unless it was grown in water that contained the antibiotic tetracycline. Batches of the sterile OX513A would be allowed to live and mate with females; however, their male and female offspring would inherit the “kill” programming and die, thus limiting population growth. OX513A had been field tested in the Cayman Islands, Panama and Brazil, with Oxitec reporting a large success rate with each release. For example, a trial in an urban area of Brazil reduced the Aedes aegypti by 95%. But when word spread in the Florida Keys that the mosquito was on the way, public backlash was swift: More than 100,000 people signed a Change.org petition against the proposal; that number has grown to more than 242,000 today. Public relations campaigns reminding Floridians that the GMO mosquito doesn’t bite because he’s male didn’t completely solve the problem. Media reports quoted angry residents refusing to be treated as “guinea pigs” for the “superbug” or “Robo-Frankenstein” mosquito. The EPA spent years investigating the mosquito’s impact on both human health and the environment, allowing time for public input. But in the midst of the evaluation, Oxitec developed a second-generation “Friendly Mosquito” technology and withdrew the application for the first. The new male mosquito, OX5034, is programmed to kill only female mosquitoes, with males surviving for multiple generations and passing along the modified genes to subsequent male offspring. The EPA permit requires Oxitec to notify state officials 72 hours before releasing the mosquitoes and conduct ongoing tests for at least 10 weeks to ensure none of the female mosquitoes reach adulthood. However, environmental groups worry that the spread of the genetically modified male genes into the wild population could potentially harm threatened and endangered species of birds, insects and mammals that feed on the mosquitoes. “The release of genetically engineered mosquitoes will needlessly put Floridians, the environment and endangered species at risk in the midst of a pandemic,” said Dana Perls, food and technology program manager at Friends of the Earth, in Wednesday’s statement.