Beautiful Saturday in store with temps in the low to mid 70sNaples falls to Jones in state semifinals
Beautiful Saturday in store with temps in the low to mid 70s The Weather Authority says it will be another beautiful weekend across Southwest Florida.
ORLANDO Naples falls to Jones in state semifinals One win stood in between the Golden Eagles and a trip to the state title as Naples competed in its 12th state semifinal.
ESTERO 1 dead after crashing into tree in Estero According to the Florida Highway Patrol, one person is dead after crashing into a tree in Estero on Friday night.
IMMOKALEE 1 dead after hit-and-run crash in Immokalee Authorities are investigating a fatal hit-and-run crash that occurred Friday night in Immokalee.
NAPLES Vigil held for teen shot and killed at Collier party Family, friends and loved ones gathered at a candlelight vigil to remember and honor the life of 18-year-old D’eisha Arthur.
FORT MYERS Florida Gulf Coast University holds “Night at the Nest” fundraiser FGCU is holding its “Night at the Nest” fundraiser and gala on Friday. The money raised will go toward university scholarships.
PUNTA GORDA Punta Gorda Veterans Village helping veterans during the holidays Residents and businesses at the Punta Gorda Veterans Village are stepping up to make military transitions a little easier this holiday season.
NORTH PORT Family pushes for class action against Heritage Insurance A North Port family is battling against Heritage Insurance over the damage Hurricane Ian did to their home.
Trails End Drive suspected double murder hit man and organizers back in court There are new developments in the murder-for-hire case that made headlines for weeks at the start of the year. The defendants are back in court.
CAPE CORAL 4 arrested on drug-related charges after FBI investigation Some Cape Coral residents woke up in the early morning hours to their neighbors’ homes being raided by federal agents.
Hope Card program protects victims of domestic violence in Lee County Lee County has implemented the Hope Card Program, a new statewide initiative to help victims of domestic violence.
SANIBEL 36th annual Sanibel Luminary Festival begins The Luminary Festival kicked off on Sanibel Island on Friday. This community-wide holiday event puts residents and visitors in the holiday spirit.
FORT MYERS Future unsure for Rachel at the Well During Hurricane Ian, Rachel at the well was uprooted from its spot in front of the Edison Park neighborhood.
NAPLES Naples Yacht Club appoints first woman commodore After 78 years, the Naples Yacht Club has appointed its first woman commodore. Kathy Parks King is her name.
Beautiful Saturday in store with temps in the low to mid 70s The Weather Authority says it will be another beautiful weekend across Southwest Florida.
ORLANDO Naples falls to Jones in state semifinals One win stood in between the Golden Eagles and a trip to the state title as Naples competed in its 12th state semifinal.
ESTERO 1 dead after crashing into tree in Estero According to the Florida Highway Patrol, one person is dead after crashing into a tree in Estero on Friday night.
IMMOKALEE 1 dead after hit-and-run crash in Immokalee Authorities are investigating a fatal hit-and-run crash that occurred Friday night in Immokalee.
NAPLES Vigil held for teen shot and killed at Collier party Family, friends and loved ones gathered at a candlelight vigil to remember and honor the life of 18-year-old D’eisha Arthur.
FORT MYERS Florida Gulf Coast University holds “Night at the Nest” fundraiser FGCU is holding its “Night at the Nest” fundraiser and gala on Friday. The money raised will go toward university scholarships.
PUNTA GORDA Punta Gorda Veterans Village helping veterans during the holidays Residents and businesses at the Punta Gorda Veterans Village are stepping up to make military transitions a little easier this holiday season.
NORTH PORT Family pushes for class action against Heritage Insurance A North Port family is battling against Heritage Insurance over the damage Hurricane Ian did to their home.
Trails End Drive suspected double murder hit man and organizers back in court There are new developments in the murder-for-hire case that made headlines for weeks at the start of the year. The defendants are back in court.
CAPE CORAL 4 arrested on drug-related charges after FBI investigation Some Cape Coral residents woke up in the early morning hours to their neighbors’ homes being raided by federal agents.
Hope Card program protects victims of domestic violence in Lee County Lee County has implemented the Hope Card Program, a new statewide initiative to help victims of domestic violence.
SANIBEL 36th annual Sanibel Luminary Festival begins The Luminary Festival kicked off on Sanibel Island on Friday. This community-wide holiday event puts residents and visitors in the holiday spirit.
FORT MYERS Future unsure for Rachel at the Well During Hurricane Ian, Rachel at the well was uprooted from its spot in front of the Edison Park neighborhood.
NAPLES Naples Yacht Club appoints first woman commodore After 78 years, the Naples Yacht Club has appointed its first woman commodore. Kathy Parks King is her name.
FILE – In this March 16, 2021, file photo, President Joe Biden waves from the top of the steps of Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Md. On Biden’s first foreign trip as president, he will find many of his hosts in Europe welcoming but wary after a tense four years between Europe and the U.S. under former President Donald Trump. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File) Set to embark on the first overseas trip of his term, President Joe Biden is eager to reassert the United States on the world stage, steadying European allies deeply shaken by his predecessor and pushing democracy as the only bulwark to rising forces of authoritarianism. Biden has set the stakes for his eight-day trip in sweeping terms, believing that the West must publicly demonstrate it can compete economically with China as the world emerges from the coronavirus pandemic. Building toward his trip-ending summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Biden will aim to reassure European capitals that the United States can once again be counted on as a dependable partner to thwart Moscow’s aggression both on their eastern front and their internet battlefields. The trip will be far more about messaging than specific actions or deals. And the paramount priority for Biden, who leaves Wednesday for his first stop in the United Kingdom, is to convince the world that his Democratic administration is not just a fleeting deviation in the trajectory of an American foreign policy that many allies fear irrevocably drifted toward a more transactional outlook under former President Donald Trump. “The trip, at its core, will advance the fundamental thrust of Joe Biden’s foreign policy,” said national security adviser Jake Sullivan, “to rally the world’s democracies to tackle the great challenges of our time.” Biden’s to-do list is ambitious. In their face-to-face sit-down in Geneva, Biden wants to privately pressure Putin to end myriad provocations, including cybersecurity attacks on American businesses by Russian-based hackers, the jailing of opposition leader Alexei Navalny and repeated overt and covert efforts by the Kremlin to interfere in U.S. elections. Biden is also looking to rally allies on their COVID-19 response and to urge them to coalesce around a strategy to check emerging economic and national security competitor China even as the U.S. expresses concern about Europe’s economic links to Moscow. Biden also wants to nudge outlying allies, including Australia, to make more aggressive commitments to the worldwide effort to curb global warming. The week-plus journey is a big moment for Biden, who traveled the world for decades as vice president and as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and will now step off Air Force One on international soil as commander in chief. He will face world leaders still grappling with the virus and rattled by four years of Trump’s inward-looking foreign policy and moves that strained longtime alliances as the Republican former president made overtures to strongmen. “In this moment of global uncertainty, as the world still grapples with a once-in-a-century pandemic,” Biden wrote in a Washington Post op-ed previewing his diplomatic efforts, “this trip is about realizing America’s renewed commitment to our allies and partners, and demonstrating the capacity of democracies to both meet the challenges and deter the threats of this new age.” The president first travels to Britain for a summit of the Group of Seven leaders and then Brussels for a NATO summit and a meeting with the heads of the European Union. It comes at a moment when Europeans have diminished expectations for what they can expect of U.S. leadership on the foreign stage. Central and Eastern Europeans are desperately hoping to bind the U.S. more tightly to their security. Germany is looking to see the U.S. troop presence maintained there so it doesn’t need to build up its own. France, meanwhile, has taken the tack that the U.S. can’t be trusted as it once was and that the European Union must pursue greater strategic autonomy going forward. “I think the concern is real that the Trumpian tendencies in the U.S. could return full bore in the midterms or in the next presidential election,” said Alexander Vershbow, a former U.S. diplomat and once deputy secretary general of NATO. The sequencing of the trip is deliberate: Biden consulting with Western European allies for much of a week as a show of unity before his summit with Putin. His first stop late Wednesday will be an address to U.S. troops stationed in Britain, and the next day he sits down with British Prime Minster Boris Johnson. The two men will meet a day ahead of the G-7 summit to be held above the craggy cliffs of Cornwall overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. The most tactile of politicians, Biden has grown frustrated by the diplomacy-via-Zoom dynamics of the pandemic and has relished the ability to again have face-to-face meetings that allow him to size up and connect with world leaders. While Biden himself is a veteran statesman, many of the world leaders he will see in England, including Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron, took office after Biden left the vice presidency. Another, Germany’s Angela Merkel, will leave office later this year. There are several potential areas of tension. On climate change, the U.S. is aiming to regain its credibility after Trump pulled the country back from the fight against global warming. Biden could also feel pressure on trade, an issue to which he’s yet to give much attention. And with the United States well supplied with COVID-19 vaccines yet struggling to persuade some of its own citizens to use it, leaders whose inoculation campaigns have been slower will surely pressure Biden to share more surplus around the globe. Another central focus will be China. Biden and the other G-7 leaders will announce an infrastructure financing program for developing countries that is meant to compete directly with Beijing’s Belt-and-Road Initiative. But not every European power has viewed China in as harsh a light as Biden, who has painted the rivalry with the techno-security state as the defining competition for the 21st century. The European Union has avoided taking as strong a stance on Beijing’s crackdown on Hong Kong’s democracy movement or treatment of Uyghur Muslims and other ethnic minorities in the western Xinjiang province as the Biden administration may like. But there are signs that Europe is willing to put greater scrutiny on Beijing. The EU in March announced sanctions targeting four Chinese officials involved with human rights abuses in Xinjiang. Beijing, in turn, responded by imposing sanctions on several members of the European Parliament and other Europeans critical of the Chinese Communist Party. Biden is also scheduled to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan while in Brussels, a face-to-face meeting between two leaders who have had many fraught moments in their relationship over the years. Biden waited until April to call Erdogan for the first time as president. In that call, he informed the Turkish leader that he would formally recognize that the systematic killings and deportations of hundreds of thousands of Armenians by Ottoman Empire forces in the early 20th century were “genocide” — using a term for the atrocities that his White House predecessors had avoided for decades over concerns of alienating Turkey. The trip finale will be Biden’s meeting with Putin. Biden has taken a very different approach to Russia than Trump’s friendly outreach. Their sole summit, held in July 2018 in Helsinki, was marked by Trump’s refusal to side with U.S. intelligence agencies over Putin’s denials of Russian interference in the election two years earlier. Biden could well be challenged by unrest at home as Russia looks to exploit the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection and the debate over voting rights to undermine the U.S. position as a global role model. The American president, in turn, is expected to push Russia to quell its global meddling. “By and large, these are not meetings on outcomes, these are ‘get to know you again’ meetings for the U.S. and Europe,” said Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. “It’s about delivering a message to Putin, to reviving old alliances and to demonstrate again that the U.S. is back on the right course.”