20th annual Hibiscus Festival begins in Punta GordaLehigh Acres senior caretaker accused of stealing over $70K of patients’ jewelry
PUNTA GORDA 20th annual Hibiscus Festival begins in Punta Gorda The 20th annual Hibiscus Festival at Gilchrist Park in Punta Gorda begins Friday morning and runs all weekend.
WINK NEWS Lehigh Acres senior caretaker accused of stealing over $70K of patients’ jewelry A senior caretaker has been arrested for allegedly stealing over $70,000 of her patients’ jewelry and pawning it.
Tim Aten Knows: Next phase of Restaurant Row Naples under way Construction of the final phase of Restaurant Row Naples was stalled for months because of financial issues but the three-building project was recently revived.
NAPLES Alamo Drafthouse Cinema’s first Florida theater opens in Naples The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema has now opened at the company’s first-ever Florida location at Mercato in Naples.
FORT MYERS Friday’s Furry Friends: Rhett, Tag For this week’s Friday’s Furry Friends, WINK visits the Gulf Coast Humane Society to showcase two adorable animals ready to be adopted.
WINK NEWS Recall issued for ground beef sold with possible E. coli at Walmart The Food Safety and Inspection Service has issued a recall for several ground beef products distributed from Pennsylvania to Walmart’s nationwide.
The Weather Authority Hotter and more humid this Friday afternoon The Weather Authority is tracking a mild Friday morning with dry afternoon conditions and isolated storms appearing in the evening.
PUNTA GORDA ‘Party’s Over’: Dirt biking ends at Barefoot Lake The Lee County Sheriff’s Office has made it clear, the party at Barefoot Lake is over.
ESTERO Crews battle brushfire near Alico Road and Eagle Village Drive San Carlos Park Fire District is on the scene fighting a 2.5-acre brushfire near Alico and Eagle Village Drive.
FORT MYERS Jake’s story: A mother’s mission to share her son’s story and help other young people One Fort Myers mom is turning her pain into purpose after her son, who she refers to as her “heavenly Angel,” took his own life.
CAPE CORAL New renderings for the Cape Coral Yacht Club promise a bright future The Cape Coral Yacht Club, which has been part of this community since the 1960s, will now have a new look after Hurricane Ian’s devastating effects.
LEHIGH ACRES Owner bars public from Barefoot Lake, LCSO installs Watch Tower Every weekend, roughly 200 people go to Barefoot Lake in Lehigh Acres to relax, fish, swim and have a good time.
CAPE CORAL Concern over water shortage in Cape Coral Concern is flowing through Cape Coral as neighbors are seeing their canal levels low and their wells run dry.
FORT MYERS FSW softball swinging for success in the postseason Now their focus shifts to states which means the newbies are looking to the experienced sophomores for advice.
BONITA SPRINGS Young SWFL tennis player competing with professionals You may not know her name now, but you might want remember it because 16-year-old Cookie Jarvis-Tredgett is already competing with professionals.
PUNTA GORDA 20th annual Hibiscus Festival begins in Punta Gorda The 20th annual Hibiscus Festival at Gilchrist Park in Punta Gorda begins Friday morning and runs all weekend.
WINK NEWS Lehigh Acres senior caretaker accused of stealing over $70K of patients’ jewelry A senior caretaker has been arrested for allegedly stealing over $70,000 of her patients’ jewelry and pawning it.
Tim Aten Knows: Next phase of Restaurant Row Naples under way Construction of the final phase of Restaurant Row Naples was stalled for months because of financial issues but the three-building project was recently revived.
NAPLES Alamo Drafthouse Cinema’s first Florida theater opens in Naples The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema has now opened at the company’s first-ever Florida location at Mercato in Naples.
FORT MYERS Friday’s Furry Friends: Rhett, Tag For this week’s Friday’s Furry Friends, WINK visits the Gulf Coast Humane Society to showcase two adorable animals ready to be adopted.
WINK NEWS Recall issued for ground beef sold with possible E. coli at Walmart The Food Safety and Inspection Service has issued a recall for several ground beef products distributed from Pennsylvania to Walmart’s nationwide.
The Weather Authority Hotter and more humid this Friday afternoon The Weather Authority is tracking a mild Friday morning with dry afternoon conditions and isolated storms appearing in the evening.
PUNTA GORDA ‘Party’s Over’: Dirt biking ends at Barefoot Lake The Lee County Sheriff’s Office has made it clear, the party at Barefoot Lake is over.
ESTERO Crews battle brushfire near Alico Road and Eagle Village Drive San Carlos Park Fire District is on the scene fighting a 2.5-acre brushfire near Alico and Eagle Village Drive.
FORT MYERS Jake’s story: A mother’s mission to share her son’s story and help other young people One Fort Myers mom is turning her pain into purpose after her son, who she refers to as her “heavenly Angel,” took his own life.
CAPE CORAL New renderings for the Cape Coral Yacht Club promise a bright future The Cape Coral Yacht Club, which has been part of this community since the 1960s, will now have a new look after Hurricane Ian’s devastating effects.
LEHIGH ACRES Owner bars public from Barefoot Lake, LCSO installs Watch Tower Every weekend, roughly 200 people go to Barefoot Lake in Lehigh Acres to relax, fish, swim and have a good time.
CAPE CORAL Concern over water shortage in Cape Coral Concern is flowing through Cape Coral as neighbors are seeing their canal levels low and their wells run dry.
FORT MYERS FSW softball swinging for success in the postseason Now their focus shifts to states which means the newbies are looking to the experienced sophomores for advice.
BONITA SPRINGS Young SWFL tennis player competing with professionals You may not know her name now, but you might want remember it because 16-year-old Cookie Jarvis-Tredgett is already competing with professionals.
Ahmaud Arbery. Credit: Photo via CBS News. A framed photo on the wall of Travis Riddle’s soul food restaurant shows the local sheriff arresting a gray-bearded white man with hands cuffed behind his back, a reminder to all who enter that for Riddle justice still waits to be served in the slaying of Ahmaud Arbery. It shows Greg McMichael on the day last year that he and his son, Travis McMichael, were jailed on murder charges in the 25-year-old Black man’s killing. The McMichaels are charged with chasing Arbery in a pickup truck and fatally shooting him after spotting him running in their neighborhood. More than two months passed before their arrests after video of the shooting was leaked online and sparked a national outcry. Jury selection in the murder trial of the McMichaels and William “Roddie” Bryan, a neighbor who joined the pursuit and took the video, is scheduled to begin Monday. For many, it’s not just the three white defendants on trial, but rather a justice system that allowed them to remain free for weeks after they pursued and killed a Black man. “You’ve got the corruption, then the good ole boy system, then the racism — that’s how I see it,” said Riddle, who hopes to break away from his restaurant, Country Boy Cooking, to attend some of the trial. Local activists plan a weekend rally at the Glynn County Courthouse in Brunswick, a working-class port city 70 miles (112 kilometers) south of Savannah, and a car caravan through the neighborhood where Arbery was slain. “It’s shaken the faith of the Black and brown community in their ability to trust the justice system,” said the Rev. John Perry, who was president of the Brunswick NAACP chapter when Arbery was killed. Arbery’s death on Feb. 23, 2020, later became part of the broader reckoning on racial injustice in the criminal legal system after a string of fatal encounters between Black people and police — George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Rayshard Brooks, among others. Akeem Baker, a close friend of Arbery’s, still takes runs on the 23rd day of each month for a distance of exactly 2.23 miles to keep his memory alive. Baker said he is frequently tagged in social media posts by people doing similar memorial runs as far away as the U.K. “I have to believe that this is going to bring needed changes to Brunswick and to the nation, in terms of racial justice,” Baker said. The McMichaels and Bryan are charged with nine counts each, including malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault and other crimes. The men told police they used pickup trucks to keep Arbery from fleeing the Satilla Shores neighborhood. Security cameras in an open-framed house under construction had previously recorded him on the site, and they suspected he was stealing. FILE – In this image made from video, from left, father and son, Gregory and Travis McMichael, accused in the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia on February 2020, listen via closed circuit tv in the Glynn County Detention center in Brunswick, Ga., on Thursday, Nov. 12, as lawyers argue for bond to be set at the Glynn County courthouse. Jury selection in the murder trial of the McMichaels and William “Roddie” Bryan, a neighbor who joined the pursuit and took the video, is scheduled to begin Monday, Oct. 18. (AP Photo/Lewis Levine, File) Greg McMichael, a retired investigator for the area district attorney, can be seen playing up his law enforcement ties on recordings taken by police body cameras of officers dispatched to the scene after the shooting. Prosecutors contend Arbery was merely jogging on a street just 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) from his home. They say he was unarmed and police found no evidence he had stolen anything. What remains to be seen is how much prosecutors emphasize evidence of racism in Arbery’s killing. At a court hearing last year, a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent testified that Bryan told investigators he witnessed Travis McMichael stand over Arbery and utter a racist slur — “f – – – ing n – – – er” — while Arbery bled in the street from three shotgun blasts. Travis McMichael’s attorneys deny that. Investigators also found text messages on Travis McMichael’s cellphone from a year before the shooting in which he used the N-word twice in one exchange. Prosecutors included the texts in evidence filed in the public court record, but haven’t requested to use them during the trial. Meanwhile, defense attorneys want the judge to block prosecutors from showing the jury photos of the truck the McMichaels used to chase Arbery, which show a front bumper vanity plate of Georgia’s former state flag with the Confederate battle emblem. Attorneys for the McMichaels and Bryan have insisted they committed no crimes, saying they had reason to suspect Arbery was a burglar and were legally trying to stop him. At the time, Georgia law allowed arrests by private citizens. They contend Travis McMichael shot Arbery in self-defense after Arbery attacked him with his fists and grappled for his gun. “The jury will see this case is simply about protecting one’s neighbors and oneself,” Jason Sheffield, an attorney for Travis McMichael, said in an email to The Associated Press. Arbery’s family has long said he was targeted because of his race. His relatives cheered when the U.S. Justice Department brought federal hate crimes charges against the McMichaels and Bryan in April. A separate trial in that case is scheduled for February. “Race will be all over this case,” said Lee Merritt, a civil rights attorney for the Arbery family. “The nation is going to get a front-row seat into where culturally Glynn County, Georgia, is in 2021, or where it was in 2020 at the very least.” Georgia was one of just four U.S. states without a hate crimes law at the time Arbery was slain, though Georgia lawmakers quickly adopted one amid the outcry over his death. They also all but gutted the state citizen’s arrest statute. Thea Brooks, Arbery’s aunt, says he was the victim of a “modern-day lynching.” She noted that security cameras at the same construction site the McMichaels suspected Arbery of looting had recorded others entering to look around — including white people and children. “It really makes me feel like, on that day, it was a racially profiled situation,” Brooks said. For local activist Elijah Bobby Henderson, Arbery’s killing exposed boundaries between white and Black Brunswick residents to maintain what he called “a comfortable tension between races.” He recalled being told as a child that Black children shouldn’t go trick-or-treating in the Satilla Shores neighborhood where Arbery died. “As long as everyone respects those boundaries, there can be peace,” Henderson said. “Ahmaud dared to cross one of those boundaries.” James Yancey Jr., a Black criminal defense attorney in Brunswick who is not involved in the Arbery case, said issues of race will likely loom large in the trial whether prosecutors emphasize it or not. “Any time you have a case involving particularly a white person and a Black person … I think it’s probably impossible to overlook that fact,” Yancy said. Arbery’s death prompted Henderson and other Black activists in Glynn County to form the group A Better Glynn to promote racial and socio-economic justice. In its first year, the nonprofit registered voters ahead of a 2020 election that saw longtime District Attorney Jackie Johnson defeated. The county also hired its first full-time Black police chief after the group pressed for a national search. Meanwhile, Perry and Riddle are among eight candidates running in the Nov. 2 election to be Brunswick’s next mayor. The Rev. James Woodall, a former president of the Georgia NAACP, called the electoral strides a sign more changes would come to Brunswick and other communities like it. “You’re seeing a wave of organizing to lift up the issues of people in that community and to get folks engaged like never before,” said Woodall, now a public policy associate at the Southern Center for Human Rights. “We’re looking forward to building a state where justice is literally the order of the day and not just an expectation of a small, minute portion of our community.”