Goth Gala for the Forlorn; How the alt scene honored Valentine’s DayFort Myers gears up for Edison Festival parade; road closures in place
CAPE CORAL Goth Gala for the Forlorn; How the alt scene honored Valentine’s Day Love Your Rebellion hosted the Goth Gala for the Forlorn at Nice Guys Pizza in Cape Coral on Friday night.
FORT MYERS Fort Myers gears up for Edison Festival parade; road closures in place Downtown Fort Myers is buzzing with excitement as the Edison Festival of Light Parade is set to begin.
the weather authority Near-record heat with sun and clouds for your Saturday The Weather Authority says the above-normal temperatures that Southwest Florida has been experiencing will stick around yet again for Saturday.
LEE COUNTY Savannah Bananas bring fun on the diamond at JetBlue Park The Savannah Bananas amazed and entertained a sold out JetBlue Park Friday night for the first time in Southwest Florida.
CAPE CORAL Caught on Camera: Cape Coral mailbox hit by drifting car A Cape Coral homeowner was left in shock after a car sent her mailbox flying through the air and left tire tracks next to her home.
ARCADIA DeSoto County man sentenced for deadly DUI crash Justice for a mother and son killed by a man driving under the influence.
NAPLES Oldest Black-owned business in SWFL continues to serve community Cleveland Bass Movers, founded in 1969, stands as the oldest Black-owned business in Southwest Florida.
FORT MYERS BEACH Broken gate on Lovers Key Beach Resort frustrating residents Residents of Lover’s Key Beach Club in Fort Myers Beach are frustrated with a gate that remains wide open, despite “No Trespassing” signs, since Hurricane Ian struck two years ago.
St. James City Church plans $700k flood-proofing project for future safety Hurricanes have caused flood after flood, and one island church, The First Baptist Church of Saint James City, wants to build higher.
Romance scams rise in the US, AARP warns residents to beware Romance scams are on the rise, with the Federal Trade Commission reporting over 64,000 cases in the U.S. in 2023.
Fort Myers Savannah Bananas make their way to Fort Myers for first time The Savannah Bananas have made their way to JetBlue Park for Friday’s sold-out game in Fort Myers to watch “the greatest show in sports.”
CAPE CORAL Cape Coral Yacht Club receives key permit Cape Coral received a key permit for a Yacht Club Community Park. This permit opens up the necessary steps for the park to be built.
PORT CHARLOTTE Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church holds 31st annual Greek Fest The Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church of Port Charlotte kicked off its 31st annual Greek Fest on Friday.
Donations helping young kids get fed Food insecurity is a pressing issue in the community, and organizations like the Harry Chapin Food Bank, Meals of Hope and the Guadalupe Center are stepping up to help.
New risk factors contribute to heart disease February is American Heart Month, a perfect time to assess your heart health.
CAPE CORAL Goth Gala for the Forlorn; How the alt scene honored Valentine’s Day Love Your Rebellion hosted the Goth Gala for the Forlorn at Nice Guys Pizza in Cape Coral on Friday night.
FORT MYERS Fort Myers gears up for Edison Festival parade; road closures in place Downtown Fort Myers is buzzing with excitement as the Edison Festival of Light Parade is set to begin.
the weather authority Near-record heat with sun and clouds for your Saturday The Weather Authority says the above-normal temperatures that Southwest Florida has been experiencing will stick around yet again for Saturday.
LEE COUNTY Savannah Bananas bring fun on the diamond at JetBlue Park The Savannah Bananas amazed and entertained a sold out JetBlue Park Friday night for the first time in Southwest Florida.
CAPE CORAL Caught on Camera: Cape Coral mailbox hit by drifting car A Cape Coral homeowner was left in shock after a car sent her mailbox flying through the air and left tire tracks next to her home.
ARCADIA DeSoto County man sentenced for deadly DUI crash Justice for a mother and son killed by a man driving under the influence.
NAPLES Oldest Black-owned business in SWFL continues to serve community Cleveland Bass Movers, founded in 1969, stands as the oldest Black-owned business in Southwest Florida.
FORT MYERS BEACH Broken gate on Lovers Key Beach Resort frustrating residents Residents of Lover’s Key Beach Club in Fort Myers Beach are frustrated with a gate that remains wide open, despite “No Trespassing” signs, since Hurricane Ian struck two years ago.
St. James City Church plans $700k flood-proofing project for future safety Hurricanes have caused flood after flood, and one island church, The First Baptist Church of Saint James City, wants to build higher.
Romance scams rise in the US, AARP warns residents to beware Romance scams are on the rise, with the Federal Trade Commission reporting over 64,000 cases in the U.S. in 2023.
Fort Myers Savannah Bananas make their way to Fort Myers for first time The Savannah Bananas have made their way to JetBlue Park for Friday’s sold-out game in Fort Myers to watch “the greatest show in sports.”
CAPE CORAL Cape Coral Yacht Club receives key permit Cape Coral received a key permit for a Yacht Club Community Park. This permit opens up the necessary steps for the park to be built.
PORT CHARLOTTE Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church holds 31st annual Greek Fest The Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church of Port Charlotte kicked off its 31st annual Greek Fest on Friday.
Donations helping young kids get fed Food insecurity is a pressing issue in the community, and organizations like the Harry Chapin Food Bank, Meals of Hope and the Guadalupe Center are stepping up to help.
New risk factors contribute to heart disease February is American Heart Month, a perfect time to assess your heart health.
FILE: Voter election photo. (Credit: AP News/FILE) Gov. Ron DeSantis extended the state’s voter registration deadline Tuesday after he said heavy traffic crashed the state’s online system and potentially prevented thousands of enrolling to cast ballots in next month’s presidential election. Several progressive groups are suing for a longer extension. DeSantis extended the deadline that expired Monday until 7 p.m. Tuesday. In addition to online registration, DeSantis ordered elections, motor vehicle and tax collectors offices to stay open until that hour for anyone who wants to register in person. He also said any forms postmarked by Tuesday will be accepted. LINK: Click here to register to vote in Florida Collier County Supervisor of Elections Jennifer Edwards said they’re trying to help voters. “We accepted their emails and responded to their emails and we asked them to send them a screenshot if they could,” she said. With DeSantis giving people a second chance to register, “we’ll be able to help them and we encourage them not to wait to 6:45 or the last minute again,” Edwards said. Voting and minority rights groups responded with a federal lawsuit, saying the confusion requires more time, but DeSantis disagreed, saying the seven-hour outage requires a comparable extension. The problems began about 5 p.m. Monday and continued until the midnight deadline. “You can have the best site in the world, but sometimes there are hiccups,” DeSantis said during a press conference at The Villages, a large retirement community in central Florida. “If 500,000 people descend at the same time, it creates a bottleneck.” But Dream Defenders, New Florida Majority, Organize Florida, LatinoJustice PRLDEF and others filed their lawsuit in Tallahassee, saying at least two additional days are needed to give those denied access enough time to learn of the extension and respond. They said that anything less is voter suppression. “Florida has had multiple years and multiple elections to address the site’s digital security and update its faulty online voter registration system. No voter should be denied their right to vote during a global health pandemic because Florida did not have a functioning online voter registration system,” said Jorge Vasquez, power and democracy director at Advancement Project National Office, one of the suing groups. No hearing has been set. Florida Secretary of State Laurel Lee, who oversees the voting system, said the online registration system “was accessed by an unprecedented 1.1 million requests per hour” at times Monday. Officials said many of the requests were likely repeated attempts by those who failed to get into the system, which went online in 2017. There were complaints before the 2018 registration deadline that the system was sluggish. Lee’s office is investigating the overload. CEO Matthew Prince of Cloudflare, the internet infrastructure company that protects Florida’s elections website, tweeted that he has seen no indication that any voter registration systems it protects had been hit by a cyberattack. The company declined further comment. The FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency warned elections officials nationwide last week that cyberattacks could disrupt their systems during the run-up to the election. They particularly noted “distributed denial-of-service” attacks, which inundate a computer system with requests, potentially clogging up servers until the system becomes inaccessible to legitimate users. The volume of requests that overwhelmed the Florida registration site Monday was not consistent with denial-of-service attacks, which typically render websites unavailable with barrages of several hundred million requests per second. The potential for outside meddling is an especially sensitive issue in Florida, a key battleground state in November’s election between President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden. The state has lingering questions about Russian hacking during the election four years ago. Biden tweeted Tuesday that the Republican governor’s decision to extend the deadline “is a win for our democracy.” Whatever caused the disruption, it threw up a roadblock for those trying to register. Sarah Dinkins, a Florida State University student, tried to help her younger sister register Monday night. They began trying about 9 p.m. and by 10:30 p.m. had not been successful. “I feel very frustrated,” she said. “If the voting website doesn’t work, fewer people potentially Democratic voters will be able to vote.” The outage impacted many Florida felons, who just received the right to vote in a 2018 state referendum that passed overwhelmingly – if they have completed probation and don’t have any outstanding fines or fees. Murderers and sex offenders are still banned. Desmond Meade, executive director of The Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, said the group heard from dozens of felons who couldn’t register. This is not the first major computer shutdown to affect the state government this year. For weeks in the spring, tens of thousands of Floridians who lost their jobs because of the coronavirus pandemic couldn’t file for unemployment benefits because of repeated crashes by that overwhelmed computer system, delaying their payments. DeSantis replaced the director overseeing that system but blamed the problems on his predecessor, fellow Republican Rick Scott, who is now a U.S. senator. Democrats jumped on the latest issue, saying it and the unemployment fiasco show that the DeSantis administration is inept and accused it of trying to stop people from voting. “The utter incompetence of Gov. Ron DeSantis in allowing the state’s voter registration website to crash on the very last day to register for the upcoming November election is, sadly, completely believable,” U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz said. “His administrative buffoonery in operating the state’s unemployment system telegraphed today’s executive ineptitude. However, this particular blunder intimates a continuing pattern of voter suppression that the governor has become notorious for.” WINK News reporter Gina Tomlinson contributed to this report.