Milton strengthens to Category 5, winds at 180 mphCity of Cape Coral isn’t offering sandbags, but one Cape Coral local is
CAPE CORAL City of Cape Coral isn’t offering sandbags, but one Cape Coral local is One Cape Coral resident saw a need during Hurricane Milton and decided to do something about it.
FORT MYERS BEACH Fort Myers Beach braces for Hurricane Milton after Helene WINK News’ team coverage brings us to Fort Myers Beach, an area prone to storm surge and still recovering from Helene.
CAPE CORAL City of Cape Coral holds press conference; here are 10 takeaways Cape Coral held a press conference Monday morning to discuss Hurricane Milton. Cape Coral Mayor John Gunter says storm surge is the biggest threat of Hurricane Milton to the city. His message to his neighbors Monday morning is to make a plan and execute it now.
NORTH FORT MYERS Charlotte County man prepares what he can ahead of Milton Hurricane Helene ravaged many homes in Charlotte County, and now locals are getting ready for a potentially stronger Hurricane Milton.
SWFL Florida evacuation orders ahead of Milton There are now mandatory evacuation orders for some barrier islands in Southwest Florida ahead of Hurricane Milton.
What’s open and closed as Hurricane Milton looms As Hurricane Milton strengthens in the Gulf of Mexico, services and businesses in Southwest Florida are adjusting their hours or closing temporarily.
Punta Gorda residents, businesses brace for Hurricane Milton With Hurricane Milton expected to make landfall somewhere along Florida’s Gulf Coast on Oct. 9, some Punta Gorda hotels stopped taking reservations, flight disruptions are expected and residents and business owners spent Oct. 7 prepping.
Lee County coastal businesses evacuate merchandise as Hurricane Milton approaches As Hurricane Milton began making its way across the Gulf of Mexico to a precise destination yet unknown on Florida’s Gulf Coast, Lee County business owners on Fort Myers Beach, Sanibel Island and other coastal areas weren’t waiting around to find out.
WINK NEWS List of shelters in SWFL ahead of Milton As Hurricane Milton approaches, shelters are opening across Southwest Florida to provide safety and refuge for residents.
Know your zone: Evacuation zones ahead of Milton As Hurricane Milton approaches, get familiar with your evacuation zone.
SWFL schools affected due to Milton Southwest Florida schools are responding ahead of Hurricane Milton’s arrival.
NAPLES Collier County Board of Commissioners provide updates for Milton Collier County Board of County Commissioners is holding a meeting for Hurricane Milton.
FORT MYERS BEACH Bus routes onto Fort Myers Beach to stop, water to be cut off ahead of Milton The Lee County government announced that LeeTran will stop running routes onto Fort Myers Beach and cut off water to the island as Hurricane Milton approaches.
TALLAHASSEE DeSantis announces that tolls will be suspended in Western Florida, Central Florida and Alligator Alley Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced that the state has suspended all tolls in West Florida, Central Florida and Alligator Alley ahead of Hurricane Milton.
CAPE CORAL City of Cape Coral isn’t offering sandbags, but one Cape Coral local is One Cape Coral resident saw a need during Hurricane Milton and decided to do something about it.
FORT MYERS BEACH Fort Myers Beach braces for Hurricane Milton after Helene WINK News’ team coverage brings us to Fort Myers Beach, an area prone to storm surge and still recovering from Helene.
CAPE CORAL City of Cape Coral holds press conference; here are 10 takeaways Cape Coral held a press conference Monday morning to discuss Hurricane Milton. Cape Coral Mayor John Gunter says storm surge is the biggest threat of Hurricane Milton to the city. His message to his neighbors Monday morning is to make a plan and execute it now.
NORTH FORT MYERS Charlotte County man prepares what he can ahead of Milton Hurricane Helene ravaged many homes in Charlotte County, and now locals are getting ready for a potentially stronger Hurricane Milton.
SWFL Florida evacuation orders ahead of Milton There are now mandatory evacuation orders for some barrier islands in Southwest Florida ahead of Hurricane Milton.
What’s open and closed as Hurricane Milton looms As Hurricane Milton strengthens in the Gulf of Mexico, services and businesses in Southwest Florida are adjusting their hours or closing temporarily.
Punta Gorda residents, businesses brace for Hurricane Milton With Hurricane Milton expected to make landfall somewhere along Florida’s Gulf Coast on Oct. 9, some Punta Gorda hotels stopped taking reservations, flight disruptions are expected and residents and business owners spent Oct. 7 prepping.
Lee County coastal businesses evacuate merchandise as Hurricane Milton approaches As Hurricane Milton began making its way across the Gulf of Mexico to a precise destination yet unknown on Florida’s Gulf Coast, Lee County business owners on Fort Myers Beach, Sanibel Island and other coastal areas weren’t waiting around to find out.
WINK NEWS List of shelters in SWFL ahead of Milton As Hurricane Milton approaches, shelters are opening across Southwest Florida to provide safety and refuge for residents.
Know your zone: Evacuation zones ahead of Milton As Hurricane Milton approaches, get familiar with your evacuation zone.
SWFL schools affected due to Milton Southwest Florida schools are responding ahead of Hurricane Milton’s arrival.
NAPLES Collier County Board of Commissioners provide updates for Milton Collier County Board of County Commissioners is holding a meeting for Hurricane Milton.
FORT MYERS BEACH Bus routes onto Fort Myers Beach to stop, water to be cut off ahead of Milton The Lee County government announced that LeeTran will stop running routes onto Fort Myers Beach and cut off water to the island as Hurricane Milton approaches.
TALLAHASSEE DeSantis announces that tolls will be suspended in Western Florida, Central Florida and Alligator Alley Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced that the state has suspended all tolls in West Florida, Central Florida and Alligator Alley ahead of Hurricane Milton.
FILE – This April 26, 2017, file photo shows the Twitter app icon on a mobile phone in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File) Twitter banned President Donald Trump’s account Friday, citing “the risk of further incitement of violence.” The social platform has been under growing pressure to take further action against Trump following Wednesday’s deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Twitter initially suspended Trump’s account for 12 hours after he posted a video that repeated false claims about election fraud and praised the rioters who stormed the Capitol. Twitter’s move deprives Trump of a potent tool he has used to communicate directly with the American people for more than a decade. He has used Twitter to announce policy changes, challenge opponents, insult enemies, praise his allies and himself – and to spread misinformation, flirt with inciting violence and denounce targets of his ire in capital letters. Twitter has long given Trump and other world leaders broad exemptions from its rules against personal attacks, hate speech and other behaviors. But in a detailed explanation posted on its blog Friday, the company said recent Trump tweets amounted to glorification of violence when read in the context of the Capitol riot and plans circulating online for future armed protests around the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden. In those tweets, Trump stated that he will not be attending the inauguration and referred to his supporters as “American Patriots,” saying they will have “a GIANT VOICE long into the future.” Twitter said these statements “are likely to inspire others to replicate the violent acts that took place on January 6, 2021, and that there are multiple indicators that they are being received and understood as encouragement to do so.” The company said “plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating on and off-Twitter, including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021. ” Twitter said its policy enables world leaders to speak to the public, but that these accounts “are not above our rules entirely” and can’t use Twitter to incite violence. Trump had roughly 89 million followers. Trump’s persona on Twitter has long functioned as a mix of policy announcements — often out of the blue; complaints about the media; disparagement of women, minorities and his perceived enemies; and praise for his supporters, replete with exclamation marks, all-caps, and one-word declarations such as “Sad!” He has fired numerous officials on Twitter and his posts, like his speeches at rallies, are a torrent of misinformation. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below. In the wake of Wednesday’s deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, calls are mounting for Twitter, Facebook and other social platforms to suspend President Donald Trump’s access to social media – permanently. Facebook and Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, on Thursday suspended Trump’s account for at least two weeks, and possibly indefinitely. Twitter, however, merely revoked Trump’s posting privileges for 12 hours after he posted a video that repeated false claims about election fraud and praised the rioters who stormed the Capitol. On Friday, the company permanently banned two Trump loyalists – former national security adviser Michael Flynn and attorney Sidney Powell – as part of a broader purge of accounts promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory. Twitter said it will take action on behavior that has the potential to lead to offline harm. “Given the renewed potential for violence surrounding this type of behavior in the coming days, we will permanently suspend accounts that are solely dedicated to sharing QAnon content,” Twitter said in an emailed statement. The company also said Trump attorney Lin Wood was permanently suspended Tuesday for violating its rules, but provided no additional details. The company says that when it determines a group or campaign is engaged in “coordinated harmful activity,” it may suspend accounts that it finds primarily encourages that behavior. Social media companies have been under intensified pressure to crack down on hate speech since a violent mob egged on by Trump stormed the Capitol. Dozens of QAnon social media accounts were hyping up Trump’s Jan. 6 rally in the heart of Washington, expressing hope that it could lead to the overturn of the election results. On Friday, the advocacy coalition Stop Hate for Profit launched a campaign to pressure the major platforms, including YouTube owner Google, to kick Trump off their services for good. The organization, which includes the Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, Free Press and Color of Change, said it will call for an advertiser boycott if the platforms don’t take action by Jan. 20, the date of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration. Last summer, the coalition organized a monthlong ad boycott of Facebook that ultimately involved hundreds of companies to push for more assertive action on hate speech at the social network. Some federal lawmakers and celebrities have likewise called on the tech companies to extend suspensions or ban Trump altogether. Frank Pallone, a powerful Democratic congressman from New Jersey, tweeted that “It’s time for (Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey) and Mark Zuckerberg to remove Trump from their platforms.” “President Trump’s platform on social media has been used to incite violence and insurrection,” said Sen. Joe Manchin, a centrist Democrat from West Virginia, in an emailed statement. “Facebook and Instagram made the correct decision in banning President Trump for at least the remainder of his term and I will continue to urge Twitter and other platforms to do the same.” Former First Lady Michelle Obama tweeted Thursday that Silicon Valley companies should stop enabling Trump’s “monstrous behavior” and called for them to permanently ban Trump and enact policies to prevent their technology from being used by national leaders to ”fuel insurrection.” One former Twitter official has called on the platform to suspend Trump’s account in a way that would block anyone from following him and keep past tweets invisible for an indefinite period. It’s a change in position for Adam Sharp, Twitter’s former head of news, government, and elections, who tweeted Thursday that he had “long been a defender of Twitter’s permissiveness” regarding Trump’s violations of its rules. Sharp left the company in 2016. Trump resumed tweeting Thursday. Twitter has said it could take further action as it kept track of “activity on the ground and statements made off Twitter.” Other tech companies also acted against Trump’s accounts, citing threats of violence. Snapchat locked Trump’s account “indefinitely.” Twitch, the live-streaming site owned by Amazon and used by Trump’s campaign to stream speeches, disabled Trump’s account until he leaves office. E-commerce company Shopify shut down two online Trump memorabilia stores. YouTube announced more general changes that will penalize accounts spreading misinformation about voter fraud in the 2020 election, with repeat offenders facing permanent removal. Reddit on Friday banned a forum for Trump supporters, called “donaldtrump.” Whether the external pressure will lead to a policy change at Twitter is unclear, said Sinan Aral, social media researcher and director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy. But it is more in the spotlight because other companies have taken more aggressive steps, which could influence its decision-making. “Being the platform that is now making the proactive decision to give the microphone back kind of puts you in the spotlight,” he said. Some criticized tech companies for blocking or barring Trump. Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who is seen as friendly to Trump, on Thursday said, “I don’t like anybody being censored or taking away from the the right to post a message on Twitter or Face(book). I don’t agree with that, I don’t accept that.” He said the issue should be decided by government and not private companies.