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.
Prosecutor Linda Dunikoski speaks during opening statementsin the trial of Greg McMichael and his son, Travis McMichael, and a neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan at the Glynn County Courthouse, Friday, Nov. 5, 2021, in Brunswick, Ga. The three are charged with the February 2020 slaying of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery. (Octavio Jones/Pool Photo via AP) White men in pickup trucks chased Ahmaud Arbery for five minutes, and one threatened to shoot him, as they cut off his escape from a Georgia subdivision and ultimately killed the 25-year-old Black man with a shotgun, a prosecutor told a trial jury Friday. In her opening statement, prosecutor Linda Dunikoski said the short cellphone video that stirred national outrage over the slaying gave only a glimpse of the attack on Arbery, who gave his pursuers no reason to suspect him of any wrongdoing. “They assumed that he must have committed some crime that day,” Dunikoski said. “He tried to run around their truck and get way from these strangers, total strangers, who had already told him that they would kill him. And then they killed him.” Arbery’s killing on Feb. 23, 2020, was largely ignored until the video leaked and deepened a national reckoning over racial injustice. Greg McMichael and his adult son, Travis McMichael, armed themselves and pursued Arbery in a pickup truck as he ran through their neighborhood just outside the port city of Brunswick. A neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, joined the chase and recorded graphic video of Travis McMichael shooting Arbery three times. The chase started on a Sunday afternoon when a neighbor called a nonemergency police number after seeing Arbery wandering inside a home under construction, where security cameras had recorded him before. Greg McMichael saw Arbery run past his home and ran inside to alert his son. They grabbed guns, jumped in their truck and gave chase, Dunikoski said. Bryan joined them after seeing Arbery run past the McMichaels’ truck outside his home. She said Greg McMichael later told police that at one point during the chase he shouted at Arbery, “Stop or I’ll blow your f—-ing head off!” When a police officer who responded to the shooting asked Greg McMichael if Arbery had broken into a house, he told the officer: “That’s just it. I don’t know… I don’t know, he might have gone in somebody’s house,” according to Dunikoski. “All three of these defendants did everything they did based on assumptions — not on facts, not on evidence,” Dunikoski said. “And they made decisions in their driveways based on those assumptions that took a young man’s life.” Defense attorneys planned to give their own opening statements later Friday. Georgia’s response to the killing has become part of a broader effort to address racial injustice in the criminal legal system after a string of fatal encounters between police and Black people such as George Floyd in Minnesota and Breonna Taylor in Kentucky. Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley swore in the disproportionately white jury Friday before proceedings began. All three defendants are standing trial together, charged with murder and other felonies. Arbery had been dead for more than two months before the three men were charged and jailed last year. Greg McMichael, a retired investigator for the local district attorney, told police the men were trying to stop Arbery because they suspected he was a burglar. Security cameras had recorded him entering a nearby house under construction. Greg McMichael said his son killed Arbery in self-defense after Arbery attacked him with his fists and tried to take Travis McMichael’s gun. Prosecutors say Arbery was merely out jogging, was unarmed and had committed no crimes in the neighborhood. When Bryan’s video of the killing leaked online in May 2020, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation took over the case from local police. GBI agents arrested the McMichaels the next day, and charged Bryan two weeks later. The judge and attorneys took two and a half weeks to select a jury. Nearly 200 people summoned to jury duty were questioned extensively about what they knew about the case, how many times they had seen the video and if they had any personal connection to Arbery or the defendants. Controversy erupted on Wednesday, the final day of jury selection, when prosecutors objected to a final jury consisting of 11 whites and one Black juror. They argued that defense attorneys had cut eight potential jurors from the final panel because they are Black, which the U.S. Supreme Court has declared unconstitutional. The judge agreed that there appeared to be “intentional discrimination,” but said Georgia law limited his authority to intervene because defense attorneys stated non-racial reasons for excluding Black panelists from the jury. One juror, a white woman, was dismissed Thursday for medical reasons. Fifteen total panelists will hear the trial — 12 jurors plus three alternates. The judge has not given the races of the alternate jurors, and they were not asked to state their race in open court. Court officials have said the trial could last two weeks or more. If the defendants are acquitted, their legal troubles won’t be over. They have also been indicted on federal hate crime charges. A U.S. District Court judge has scheduled that trial to begin Feb. 7.