NAPLES Increasing amount of homeless seniors in SWFL Saint Matthew House told Wink News that 20% of the people they shelter are over 60 years old.
NAPLES Man suspected of threatening pickelballers with machete A man has been arrested after authorities say he chased a group of pickleball players off a Naples court. “I don’t know. It just seemed like he snapped,” said William Nehrkorn, father of one of the pickleball players. 53-year-old Pelican Marsh maintenance worker Joseph Devalle ran toward Nehrkorn’s son and friends, not with a paddle […]
NAPLES Turtle Club in Naples reopens Following a 19-month closure because of Hurricane Ian, the Turtle Club has reopened.
FORT MYERS BEACH Hurricane season preparations at Lee County construction sites Many already know the drill when hurricane season is around the corner.
SANIBEL Bones found on Sanibel concern beachgoers A husband and wife found what appeared to be bones. What type and where they came from is being investigated.
FGCU FGCU president reflects on first year with graduating class Alico Arena was packed this weekend as Florida Gulf Coast University graduated 1,900 students in four ceremonies.
Reverse shoulder replacement offers new approach to pain management Shoulder replacement is the third most common replacement in the US, following hip and knee replacement.
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA Lee County teachers bargain for new raises Kevin Daly is the voice of the Lee County Teachers Union, and he says he knows firsthand the struggle teachers experience across the state.
FORT MYERS New Starbucks off Colonial expected to add to traffic headaches It’s a venti-sized traffic nightmare. That’s how Gina O’Donnell envisions the future of this plaza.
NAPLES Feeding families through Meals of Hope They’re a Naples-based non-profit organization whose mission is to alleviate hunger both locally and throughout the country.
Family dealing with two losses in quick succession A teenager will not get to celebrate turning 21 years old with friends, can’t put a smile on his family member’s faces and will never get to see his mother again.
JERUSALEM (AP) Israeli leaders have approved a military operation into the Gaza Strip city of Rafah Israeli leaders approved a military operation into the Gaza Strip city of Rafah, and Israeli forces were striking targets in the area, officials announced Monday, hours after Hamas announced it had accepted an Egyptian-Qatari cease-fire proposal.
FORT MYERS Middle school tech worker uses CPR skills to save pickleball player’s life It was the right place, at the right time, and that right place was near the pickleball court.
EVERGLADES Big Sugar’s lawsuit for control over Lake Okeechobee water A local non-profit is calling one lawsuit a battle for who controls the water in the State of Florida. Three major sugar companies filed a lawsuit in 2021 against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over the design and intended use of the Everglades Agriculture Area (EAA) Reservoir.
NAPLES Annual Holocaust Remembrance Day program returns to Jewish Federation of Greater Naples Sunday was a day to remember the six million men, women and children lost in the Holocaust.
NAPLES Increasing amount of homeless seniors in SWFL Saint Matthew House told Wink News that 20% of the people they shelter are over 60 years old.
NAPLES Man suspected of threatening pickelballers with machete A man has been arrested after authorities say he chased a group of pickleball players off a Naples court. “I don’t know. It just seemed like he snapped,” said William Nehrkorn, father of one of the pickleball players. 53-year-old Pelican Marsh maintenance worker Joseph Devalle ran toward Nehrkorn’s son and friends, not with a paddle […]
NAPLES Turtle Club in Naples reopens Following a 19-month closure because of Hurricane Ian, the Turtle Club has reopened.
FORT MYERS BEACH Hurricane season preparations at Lee County construction sites Many already know the drill when hurricane season is around the corner.
SANIBEL Bones found on Sanibel concern beachgoers A husband and wife found what appeared to be bones. What type and where they came from is being investigated.
FGCU FGCU president reflects on first year with graduating class Alico Arena was packed this weekend as Florida Gulf Coast University graduated 1,900 students in four ceremonies.
Reverse shoulder replacement offers new approach to pain management Shoulder replacement is the third most common replacement in the US, following hip and knee replacement.
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA Lee County teachers bargain for new raises Kevin Daly is the voice of the Lee County Teachers Union, and he says he knows firsthand the struggle teachers experience across the state.
FORT MYERS New Starbucks off Colonial expected to add to traffic headaches It’s a venti-sized traffic nightmare. That’s how Gina O’Donnell envisions the future of this plaza.
NAPLES Feeding families through Meals of Hope They’re a Naples-based non-profit organization whose mission is to alleviate hunger both locally and throughout the country.
Family dealing with two losses in quick succession A teenager will not get to celebrate turning 21 years old with friends, can’t put a smile on his family member’s faces and will never get to see his mother again.
JERUSALEM (AP) Israeli leaders have approved a military operation into the Gaza Strip city of Rafah Israeli leaders approved a military operation into the Gaza Strip city of Rafah, and Israeli forces were striking targets in the area, officials announced Monday, hours after Hamas announced it had accepted an Egyptian-Qatari cease-fire proposal.
FORT MYERS Middle school tech worker uses CPR skills to save pickleball player’s life It was the right place, at the right time, and that right place was near the pickleball court.
EVERGLADES Big Sugar’s lawsuit for control over Lake Okeechobee water A local non-profit is calling one lawsuit a battle for who controls the water in the State of Florida. Three major sugar companies filed a lawsuit in 2021 against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over the design and intended use of the Everglades Agriculture Area (EAA) Reservoir.
NAPLES Annual Holocaust Remembrance Day program returns to Jewish Federation of Greater Naples Sunday was a day to remember the six million men, women and children lost in the Holocaust.
Credit: CBS News Civil-rights attorneys are challenging a new set of state laws that establish a crime of “mob intimidation” and enhance penalties for riot-related violence and looting, arguing in a federal lawsuit that the measures unconstitutionally “seek to arrest the peaceful expression of free speech.” The challenge was filed Wednesday, two days after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the controversial package (HB 1), one of his top legislative priorities. The governor laid out a framework for the legislation in September in response to nationwide protests after the May 2020 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Republican lawmakers gave final approval to the changes last week, ignoring objections by Democrats and civil-rights groups that predicted the proposal would be challenged in court. A nonprofit organization known as the Lawyers Matter Task Force and other plaintiffs filed the lawsuit in federal court in Orlando, naming as defendants DeSantis, Attorney General Ashley Moody and Orange County Sheriff John Mina. The legislation “is a horrendous injustice to Florida citizens and infringes on multiple constitutional rights,” Shannon Ligon, founder of the Lawyers Matter Task Force, said in a prepared statement Wednesday. The laws, among other things, create a new felony crime of “aggravated rioting” that carries a sentence of up to 15 years in prison and a new crime of “mob intimidation,” which makes it unlawful “for a person, assembled with two or more other persons and acting with a common intent, to use force or threaten to use imminent force, to compel or induce, or attempt to compel or induce, another person to do or refrain from doing any act or to assume, abandon, or maintain a particular viewpoint against his or her will.” But the plaintiffs allege the laws expose “peaceful demonstrators and social justice advocacy organizations to civil and/or criminal liability” for other peoples’ conduct. The laws also fail “to adequately describe what conduct or speech will subject an individual or an organization to liability for ‘inciting a riot,’” the lawsuit said. The measures “target protected speech under the First Amendment” and “retaliate against” protesters by imposing “excessive bail, fines, or cruel and unusual punishment as a means of hindering the speech of dissenting opinions,” Orlando lawyer Aaron Carter Bates, who represents the plaintiffs, wrote in the 22-page lawsuit. The legislation “unconstitutionally threatens to impose liability on individuals expressing their rights to free speech regardless of their intent to incite violence, the likelihood that their speech will result in violence, or the imminence of the intended violence,” Bates wrote. In a prepared statement provided to The News Service of Florida, Bates called the measures an overreach. “The purpose of these laws are nothing more than an attempt to silence the Black Lives Matter movement and other civil organizations by limiting the ability to protest,” he said. “The First Amendment is a pillar of American democracy, and the anti-riot laws clearly strip Floridians of their freedom of speech and right to assemble.” In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs said they planned on holding a peaceful demonstration Saturday to honor Floyd “and other victims of racism and police brutality.” But DeSantis’ signature on the legislation, which went into effect immediately, “effectively barred plaintiffs from exercising their free speech rights because of the resulting penalty of arrest” by Mina and imprisonment by Moody, the lawsuit said. Peaceful protests could be “characterized as a ‘riot’ due solely on the misconduct of one or two individuals — without any intent by plaintiffs,” Bates wrote on behalf of the plaintiffs. “As it relates to the planned demonstration, perceived unlawful violence, acts of force, or arrests may occur, even violence perpetrated by law enforcement,” the lawyer argued, adding that the plaintiffs fear criminal and civil liability though their intent is for the protest to be peaceful. “Plaintiffs must choose between encouraging and advising peaceful demonstrations, on the one hand, and exposing themselves to prosecution and civil liability under the denounced laws, on the other. Refraining from encouraging and advising peaceful demonstrations constitutes self-censorship at a loss of plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights,” the lawsuit alleged. Also, the laws will inhibit other organizers and groups, the lawsuit said. “The potential liability to organizations prevents them from effectively advocating for their views, even though group association enhances advocacies,” Bates wrote. “In effect, the bill creates a perpetual threat of liability to plaintiffs and others in the event that anyone plaintiffs encourage or assist is arrested at any point in the future. Accordingly, the bill illegally restricts protected speech and association.” The legislation, titled “Combatting Public Disorder,” is not tailored narrowly enough to protect the government’s interests, Bates argued. “Unwarranted violence or public disorder during a demonstration is already illegal under Florida law,” he wrote. “The governments’ reported interest in preventing ‘riots’ is already established by existing Florida criminal statutes.” The lawsuit also alleged the new measures violate constitutional due-process rights because they “invite arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement.” At a ceremonial bill-signing event Monday in Polk County, DeSantis boasted that the bill is “the strongest, anti-rioting, pro-law enforcement piece of legislation in the country.” The legislation “strikes the appropriate balance of safeguarding every Floridians’ constitutional right to peacefully assemble, while ensuring that those who hide behind peaceful protest to cause violence in our communities will be punished,” he said. But the plaintiffs’ lawyer argued that the laws are impeding organizers’ ability to follow through on Saturday’s event, which they spent money to plan. The organizers of the rally “are no longer able” to obtain co-sponsors or co-organizers because others are afraid of criminal prosecution, the lawsuit said. “DeSantis’ signing of the bill into law … generated what appears to be the intended effect (but whatever intentional or inadvertent the effect, the bill’s violation of the Constitution happens and continues.) The ability of plaintiffs to conduct peaceful demonstration without fear of retaliation was impaired,” Bates wrote.