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.
The full 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will take up a dispute about a St. Johns County policy on the use of bathrooms by transgender students. Credit: News Service Florida. Tossing out a July decision, a full federal appeals court will hear a battle about whether a transgender male student should have been allowed to use boys’ bathrooms at a St. Johns County high school. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday vacated a July 14 ruling by a three-judge panel that said a St. Johns County School Board policy preventing Drew Adams from using boys’ bathrooms was “arbitrary” and violated equal protection rights. After the 2-1 panel ruling, the school board asked the full Atlanta-based appeals court to hear the case — a request known as seeking an “en banc” hearing. The court issued a one-paragraph order Monday granting the request and vacating the panel ruling. As is common, the notice did not explain the court’s decision. Adams was born a biological female but in eighth grade told his parents he was a transgender male, according to the July ruling. The lawsuit, which Adams and his mother filed in 2017, stemmed from Nease High School requiring Adams to use a gender-neutral, single-stall bathroom or girls’ bathrooms. U.S. District Judge Timothy Corrigan ruled in favor of Adams in 2018, prompting the school board to appeal. The appellate panel in July said the school district’s policy about bathroom use is arbitrary because it relies on information submitted when students enroll in the district, rather than on updated information. Adams enrolled in the district in fourth grade, with information listing him as a female, but he later obtained legal documents listing him as a male. He has graduated from Nease High School as the court fight has continued. The panel said, in part, that the policy could lead to a transgender male being able to use boys’ bathrooms if he is listed as a male on enrollment information, while Adams was barred because his initial information listed him as female. The panel said the policy “runs afoul of the Fourteenth Amendment (guaranteeing equal protection) because it does not even succeed in treating all transgender students alike.” “The school district gives no explanation for why a birth certificate provided at the time of enrollment takes priority over the same document provided at the time the bathroom policy is applied to the student,” said the panel ruling, written by Judge Beverly Martin and joined by Judge Jill Pryor. “And we have come up with no explanation of our own. Mr. Adams has a birth certificate and a driver’s license issued by the state of Florida stating that he is male. But the school district refuses to accept for the purposes of the bathroom policy Mr. Adams’s sex listed on those current government-issued documents.” But Chief Judge William Pryor wrote a lengthy dissent to the panel decision. “When shorn of misunderstandings of the school policy and the legal standards that govern sex-based classifications, this appeal is straightforward,” the chief judge wrote. “The school policy protects longstanding privacy interests inherent in using the bathroom, and it does so in an ancient and unremarkable way — by separating bathrooms on the basis of sex. That policy is not unconstitutional.” But in the majority opinion, Martin fired back at the dissent, writing that “this case is not about challenging sex-segregated bathrooms.” “The policy turns solely on the information provided at the time of enrollment, and a transgender student who updates his documents prior to enrollment would not be barred from using the bathroom matching the sex on his legal documents,” Martin wrote. “This, of course, is in contrast to the treatment Mr. Adams received. Despite the dissent’s imagined parade of horribles, this opinion does not resolve any other issue of student privacy.” In a document this month asking the full court to hear the case, attorneys for the school board argued that the panel ignored broader issues in the dispute. “This case has always been about whether a definition of sex founded in the real and enduring biological differences between boys and girls substantially advances the important privacy interests of students to use the bathroom free from members of the opposite biological sex,” the document said. “Yet, the court has not answered that question. The school board requests that the entire panel of this court do so.”