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 new year brings new pay hikes for hundreds of thousands of workers making the least legally allowed, with a record number of cities, counties and states raising their minimum hourly wage — many of them hitting or surpassing $15 an hour. On January 1, 2022, the minimum wage will rise in 21 states and 35 cities and countries, with that hourly floor hitting or surpassing $15 in 33 of those jurisdictions, according to an analysis released this month by the National Employment Law Project, or NELP, which advocates for low-wage and unemployed workers. “A lot of people call it a ‘labor shortage’ but this is a slow-moving general strike,” says @GeorgetownKILWP associate director @LaneWindham. “People are not accepting these low-wage, no-benefit jobs anymore that leave them feeling so burned out.”https://t.co/7C8RXYMABN — Your Call Radio (@yourcallradio) December 28, 2021 Four more states and 22 localities will follow suit later in the year —17 of them to $15 or more, according to NELP. All told, 25 states and 56 municipalities will raise their minimum wage over the course of 2022, a record high of 81 jurisdictions. The higher wages come amid worker shortages and ongoing activism on the labor front. The coming year will also mark the 10-year anniversary of the grassroots campaign by fast-food workers demanding $15 an hour and a union. Even as the minimum wage remains frozen in much of the country — the federal rate has been $7.25 since 2009 —corporations including Hobby Lobby are upping pay, with the crafts chain offering $18.50 an hour to full-time workers as of January 1. “Faced with a tight labor market, employers will have to act quickly in order to retain discontented workers,” Rebecca Dixon, NELP’s executive director, said in a statement. Those due to receive pay increases as of Saturday include workers now making at least $12 an hour in three states: Arizona (which is hiking its base rate to $12.80 from $12.15), Colorado (where the minimum is rising to $12.56 from $12.32) and Maine (where it’ll be $12.75, an increase of 50 cents). In Delaware and Illinois —two states on course to pay workers at the bottom rung of the earnings ladder $15.00 an hour by 2025 — the hourly base is rising to $10.50 and $12, respectively, when the new year lands. Minimum wage earners in Ohio and South Dakota are getting hourly increases of 50 cents when 2022 begins, boosting the rate in the former to $9.30 and the latter to $9.95. The minimum wage in Connecticut is going up a buck to $14 an hour as of July 1, 2022. Low-wage earners now making $10 an hour in Florida will also see a $1hourly increase on September 30, 2022. Workers in Flagstaff, Arizona, will make an hourly minimum of $15.50 when the new year rolls in, a level that is slated to be surpassed in a slew of other towns and cities, most of them in California. In Sunnyvale, California, for instance, workers will be making an hourly minimum of $17.10 when 2022 begins. SeaTac, Washington, is increasing its living wage rate 5.83% to $17.54, effective January 1, 2022. The mandatory annual adjustment is calculated using the consumer price index for urban wage earners and clerical workers for the 12 months prior to September 1, the city noted in announcing the new rate in November. Even so, 20 states have not raised their wage floors above the federal level for more than a decade, with that minimum stalling at $7.25 an hour since Congress last increased it in July 2009. The federal tipped wage has been stuck at $2.13 since 1991. Federal minimum wage: 2009: $7.25 2010: $7.25 2011: $7.25 2012: $7.25 2013: $7.25 2014: $7.25 2015: $7.25 2016: $7.25 2017: $7.25 2018: $7.25 2019: $7.25 2020: $7.25 2021: $7.25 2022 must be the year this changes. #RaiseTheWage — The Leadership Conference (@civilrightsorg) December 27, 2021 The decades of inaction are at odds with much of the public: A CBS News poll over the summer found that 71% of Americans support hiking it. Another 17% believed the minimum should stay where it is, 4% thought it should be less than $7.25 and 8% thought the minimum should not exist. Frontline employees like grocery clerks and retail workers have seen wages grow at their fastest pace in years, but rising prices mean those seemingly robust wage gains amount to “pennies” an hour once inflation is included, according to an analysis from the Brookings Institution. “The living wage is closer to $18 an hour,” said Molly Kinder, a fellow at Brookings Metro and a co-author of the new study on wages for frontline workers. If the minimum wage had kept pace with the growth of the U.S. economy over the last 50 years, it would be nearly $26 an hour today, or more than $50,000 a year in annual income, as one economist has noted. “That’s roughly what the minimum wage would be today if it had kept pace with productivity growth since its value peaked in 1968,” wrote Dean Baker, senior economist at the left-leaning Center for Economic and Policy Research, in a recent blog post.