ALVA Woodpeckers build home in Alva woman’s house You may have heard of squatters, but this woman is dealing with squawkers. Who needs a rooster to wake up when you have woodpeckers?
FORT MYERS Man claims he was trapped in a high-rise for 5 days A 77-year-old man wants justice after he claims he spent days trapped on the 24th floor of a high-rise apartment building.
PUNTA GORDA Charlotte Correctional prisoner arrested for death of another inmate State Attorney Amira Fox convened a grand jury, which decided to move forward with a case against a Charlotte Correctional inmate.
SANIBEL Construction near Dairy Queen eagle nest on Sanibel raises concerns While many eagle nests may be a bit difficult to see, one nest has always been a favorite for Sanibel residents and tourists.
The environmental effects of artificial sweeteners Experts are studying how the foods we eat affect the environment, especially after we flush our waste down the toilet.
Victim reacts to man exposing himself to her Ring camera You get a notification on your phone from your ring camera app that someone is at the door, only to find out it is someone exposing themselves. It’s the last thing victim Maria Kivi wanted or expected to see last week.
LEE COUNTY The art of capturing your eye and drawing you in How do you capture young, hip, trendy, fun, movers and shakers, all in a pose? We take you behind the scenes of a Gulfshore Life cover shoot.
FORT MYERS The lives of two SJC Boxers changed in the ring Two SJC Boxers, Mario Nunez and Arbon Kurtishi, help each other in the ring as each of them had their lives changed because of boxing.
FORT MYERS Chlamydia cases rising sharply in Lee County If you think about a crowded space- something with more than 250 people- if it’s in Lee county, statistically one person has chlamydia.
SANIBEL Sanibel resort day passes hope to get more business on the island A pass will allow vacationers to hang out at a Sanibel beach club for a day in hopes of drumming up some business.
Voting equipment tested ahead of Lee County elections Voting equipment is being tested in Lee County. This is to ensure all ballots are printed and counted correctly for the upcoming election.
Collier County teen assaulted after leaving party The teen has been charged and the sheriff’s office said they’re aware that many believe felony charges are in order, but under Florida law, there are very specific criteria that must be met for felony charges to be filed.
WINK weather team watching tropical wave over Atlantic Ocean The Weather Authority is watching a tropical disturbance over the Central Atlantic Ocean.
CAPE CORAL Cape Coral drug bust leads investigators to fake fentanyl, cash and guns Cape Coral man arrest on drug charges. Investigators said they found, guns, drugs, and more than $32,000 in Richard Riley’s home.
NAPLES Naples youth flag football team to compete in Ohio tournament This weekend, the Naples Lunatics Green will compete in the Superhero Sports tournament in Canton, Ohio.
ALVA Woodpeckers build home in Alva woman’s house You may have heard of squatters, but this woman is dealing with squawkers. Who needs a rooster to wake up when you have woodpeckers?
FORT MYERS Man claims he was trapped in a high-rise for 5 days A 77-year-old man wants justice after he claims he spent days trapped on the 24th floor of a high-rise apartment building.
PUNTA GORDA Charlotte Correctional prisoner arrested for death of another inmate State Attorney Amira Fox convened a grand jury, which decided to move forward with a case against a Charlotte Correctional inmate.
SANIBEL Construction near Dairy Queen eagle nest on Sanibel raises concerns While many eagle nests may be a bit difficult to see, one nest has always been a favorite for Sanibel residents and tourists.
The environmental effects of artificial sweeteners Experts are studying how the foods we eat affect the environment, especially after we flush our waste down the toilet.
Victim reacts to man exposing himself to her Ring camera You get a notification on your phone from your ring camera app that someone is at the door, only to find out it is someone exposing themselves. It’s the last thing victim Maria Kivi wanted or expected to see last week.
LEE COUNTY The art of capturing your eye and drawing you in How do you capture young, hip, trendy, fun, movers and shakers, all in a pose? We take you behind the scenes of a Gulfshore Life cover shoot.
FORT MYERS The lives of two SJC Boxers changed in the ring Two SJC Boxers, Mario Nunez and Arbon Kurtishi, help each other in the ring as each of them had their lives changed because of boxing.
FORT MYERS Chlamydia cases rising sharply in Lee County If you think about a crowded space- something with more than 250 people- if it’s in Lee county, statistically one person has chlamydia.
SANIBEL Sanibel resort day passes hope to get more business on the island A pass will allow vacationers to hang out at a Sanibel beach club for a day in hopes of drumming up some business.
Voting equipment tested ahead of Lee County elections Voting equipment is being tested in Lee County. This is to ensure all ballots are printed and counted correctly for the upcoming election.
Collier County teen assaulted after leaving party The teen has been charged and the sheriff’s office said they’re aware that many believe felony charges are in order, but under Florida law, there are very specific criteria that must be met for felony charges to be filed.
WINK weather team watching tropical wave over Atlantic Ocean The Weather Authority is watching a tropical disturbance over the Central Atlantic Ocean.
CAPE CORAL Cape Coral drug bust leads investigators to fake fentanyl, cash and guns Cape Coral man arrest on drug charges. Investigators said they found, guns, drugs, and more than $32,000 in Richard Riley’s home.
NAPLES Naples youth flag football team to compete in Ohio tournament This weekend, the Naples Lunatics Green will compete in the Superhero Sports tournament in Canton, Ohio.
This image shows an 1876 engraving titled “Declaration of Independence, July 4th, 1776” made available by the Library of Congress. On that day, the Continental Congress formally endorsed the Declaration of Independence. Celebrations began within days: parades and public readings, bonfires and candles and the firing of 13 musket rounds, one for each of the original states. Nearly a century passed before the country officially named its founding a holiday. ( J. Trumbull, W.L. Ormsby via AP) On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress formally endorsed the Declaration of Independence. Celebrations began within days: parades and public readings, bonfires and candles and the firing of 13 musket rounds, one for each of the original states. Nearly a century passed before the country officially named its founding a holiday. With the recent passage of the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, commemorating the end of slavery in the United States, the country now has 12 federal holidays. Many are fixtures in the American calendar, but their presence isn’t only a story of continuity. They reflect how the U.S. has evolved — from an affiliation of states with a relatively small federal government to a more centralized nation. Statewide and local gatherings for Independence Day and other holidays are as old as the country itself. But the first round of federal holidays, identified as such because federal employees (initially only federal employees in Washington, D.C.) were given the day off, was only signed into law in 1870, by President Ulysses S. Grant, five years after the Civil War ended. “The Civil War consolidated national power in all sorts of ways, and national holidays are an illustration of that,” says the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Eric Foner. “There were many, many firsts after the Civil War.” Juneteenth and other federal holidays have passed with substantial majorities in Congress, suggesting broad, bipartisan consensus. The first holidays, notes Grant biographer Ron Chernow, were the safest ones at the time — New Year’s Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas and George Washington’s birthday (enacted in 1879). “They followed the Civil War, but, by no accident, they had nothing to do with the Civil War. The war wounds were still deep and irrevocable, and any commemoration of the war itself would have been seen as divisive,” Chernow says. He notes that Memorial Day, the honoring of those who died in war, did not become a federal holiday until 1888. “The first five federal holidays … attempted to restore common ground between North and South,” Chernow says. “Both sides in the Civil War claimed to have fought in the spirit of the American Revolution. It was therefore easy for both sides to honor Washington’s birthday and Independence Day.” Whether statements of patriotism or social justice, federal holidays mirror a part of the country’s sense of itself and how it changes. Public support to make the Rev. Martin Luther King’s birthday a holiday was so strong that it was signed into law in 1983 by President Ronald Reagan, who had opposed the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act in the 1960s and privately believed the late civil rights leader’s standing was “based on an image, not reality.” Even then, Arizona, New Hampshire and South Carolina resisted making it a state holiday, with South Carolina waiting until 2000. Alabama and Mississippi still pair King’s birthday with the birthday of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. Columbus Day became a national holiday in 1968, endorsed by Congress and President Lyndon Johnson as a tribute to immigrants and as a “declaration of willingness to face with confidence the imponderables of unknown tomorrows,” according to a Senate report at the time. But over the past 40 years, as Columbus’ image has shifted from the “discoverer of America” to that of a racist and imperialist, cities and states have either changed the holiday’s name (Hawaii calls it “Discovery Day”) or used the day to honor others; since 1989, South Dakoka has called it “Native American Day.” “You can think of federal holidays as being like monuments erected in parks,” says Matthew Dennis, author of “Red, White, and Blue Letter Days,” a 2002 book on American holidays. “With a monument, you try to set the meaning of the past in stone. But that can change, and people might say, ‘Wait, who is this guy?’” Among national holidays, July 4 stands as the most complex and debated, a reflection of the questions and contradictions about the country’s origins and about the Declaration of Independence itself. Independence Day has been caught up in the country’s divisions almost from the start. In the 1780s and 1790s, supporters of a stronger central government (Federalists) and those who worried about a return to British-style monarchy (sometimes called Jeffersonian Republicans), argued over the authorship of the Declaration of Independence, with Republicans giving sole credit to their own Thomas Jefferson and Federalists countering (correctly) that many others had worked on it. In the decades before the Civil War, Black Americans were often excluded from official July 4 events and instead would celebrate on July 5, both acknowledging July 4 and their distance from it. Frederick Douglass delivered his famed 1852 speech, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July,” on July 5. The Civil War itself was a time for competing interpretations. Southerners embraced the Declaration of Independence’s message of defiance against tyranny. The North looked to it as a blueprint. In a letter to Congress sent on July 4, 1861, just months after the Civil War began, President Abraham Lincoln spoke of Independence Day as inspiration for a new and more humane society. “Our adversaries have adopted some declarations of independence in which, unlike the good old one penned by Jefferson, they omit the words `all men are created equal,’” Lincoln wrote, adding that the Union was upholding “government whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men; to lift artificial weights from all shoulders; to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all; to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life.” The meaning of July 4 has continued to evolve from president to president. Franklin D. Roosevelt and George W. Bush are among those who dedicated Independence Day speeches to the military, whether during World War II or in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. John F. Kennedy’s 1962 address, in the midst of the Cold War, called independence the “single issue that divides the world today” and invoked “the longing for independence behind the Iron Curtain.” In 2014, President Barack Obama cited the promise of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” as a reason “immigrants from around the world dream of coming to our shores.” For Independence Day in 2020, less than two months after the murder of George Floyd, President Donald Trump denounced Black Lives Matters protesters and what he called “a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values and indoctrinate our children.” His eventual successor, Joe Biden, issued a brief video saying the country had yet to live up to its promise of equality, noting that even Jefferson was a slaveholder. “But once proposed, it (equality) was an idea that couldn’t be constrained,” he said. “It survived the rages of the Civil War, the dogs of Bull Connor, the assassination of Martin Luther King and more 200 years of systematic racism.” “America is no fairy tale,” Biden added. “It’s been a constant push and pull between two parts of our character: the idea that all men and women — all people — are created equal and the racism that has torn us apart.”