“One kiss wouldn’t hurt”: Arrest report for volunteer softball coach accused of inappropriate behavior releasedDry, warm, and humid morning before isolated storms pop up this afternoon and evening
CAPE CORAL “One kiss wouldn’t hurt”: Arrest report for volunteer softball coach accused of inappropriate behavior released A Cape Coral volunteer softball coach stands accused of sending nude photos and touching a 17-year-old student.
the weather authority Dry, warm, and humid morning before isolated storms pop up this afternoon and evening The Weather Authority is tracking a dry and humid Wednesday morning before afternoon isolated storms in Southwest Florida.
FORT MYERS BEACH Fort Myers Beach to test hurricane emergency messaging alert The Town of Fort Myers Beach is set to test its CodeRED alert system as hurricane season begins in 31 days.
FORT MYERS Students make goodie bags for kids fighting Cancer A special delivery, straight from the heart, to Galisano’s Children’s Hospital. Three 8th graders from Lexington Middle School delivered 100 goodie bags to bring smiles to kids fighting cancer.
TICE Large police presence at park in Tice Deputies and K9s are investigating Schandler Hall Community Park on Palm Beach Boulevard in Tice.
CAPE CORAL Lee County superintendent candidates face off in debate These three people, Denise Carlin, Morgan Wright and Sheridan Chester, are making it clear that they want the job.
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA DEA to reclassify Marijuana as Schedule Three drug When you think of marijuana in Florida, You might think of an illegal drug seized by law enforcement. Kim Rivers, the CEO of Florida-based cannabis retailer Trulieve, says when used medicinally, it can help a lot of people.
FORT MYERS Expect more delays on Colonial and Fowler due to intersection project Work on the Colonial Fowler intersection in Fort Myers is underway, and there are many moving parts.
FORT MYERS Possible pay-by-text scam in downtown Fort Myers may have cost woman nearly $1,000 Pay-by-text parking may have cost one woman nearly a thousand dollars after her credit card was hacked.
FORT MYERS Lee County STET team protecting our schools with cameras There are cameras in our kid’s schools, dozens of them, but did you know that Lee County Schools sends those live video feeds to the sheriff’s office, and it’s someone’s job to watch them?
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA Six-week abortion ban to take effect soon A stricter abortion ban will take effect in Florida on Wednesday.
Estero’s Golf Coast Driving Range shuts down, visitors devastated A place to relax, let loose and hit a few drives, has come to the end of an era for this community. “This is the first place we came to,” said Roxanne Henningsen, a Bonita Springs resident. “And it like became our second home. The people are wonderful. It’s just a great atmosphere. And we’ve […]
CAPE CORAL Business owners reeling after massive fire in Cape Coral “Very scary” are the words Denise Creacy used to describe what she felt when she saw plumes of black smoke, firefighters, and police fill her neighborhood.
LEHIGH ACRES Changing how you are represented in Lee County Leaders want to hear your thoughts this week at a town hall on how you elect county commissioners.
FORT MYERS Frontier Airlines announces nonstop flights from RSW to San Juan, PR These flights will take off on June 2 and run 3 times a week.
CAPE CORAL “One kiss wouldn’t hurt”: Arrest report for volunteer softball coach accused of inappropriate behavior released A Cape Coral volunteer softball coach stands accused of sending nude photos and touching a 17-year-old student.
the weather authority Dry, warm, and humid morning before isolated storms pop up this afternoon and evening The Weather Authority is tracking a dry and humid Wednesday morning before afternoon isolated storms in Southwest Florida.
FORT MYERS BEACH Fort Myers Beach to test hurricane emergency messaging alert The Town of Fort Myers Beach is set to test its CodeRED alert system as hurricane season begins in 31 days.
FORT MYERS Students make goodie bags for kids fighting Cancer A special delivery, straight from the heart, to Galisano’s Children’s Hospital. Three 8th graders from Lexington Middle School delivered 100 goodie bags to bring smiles to kids fighting cancer.
TICE Large police presence at park in Tice Deputies and K9s are investigating Schandler Hall Community Park on Palm Beach Boulevard in Tice.
CAPE CORAL Lee County superintendent candidates face off in debate These three people, Denise Carlin, Morgan Wright and Sheridan Chester, are making it clear that they want the job.
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA DEA to reclassify Marijuana as Schedule Three drug When you think of marijuana in Florida, You might think of an illegal drug seized by law enforcement. Kim Rivers, the CEO of Florida-based cannabis retailer Trulieve, says when used medicinally, it can help a lot of people.
FORT MYERS Expect more delays on Colonial and Fowler due to intersection project Work on the Colonial Fowler intersection in Fort Myers is underway, and there are many moving parts.
FORT MYERS Possible pay-by-text scam in downtown Fort Myers may have cost woman nearly $1,000 Pay-by-text parking may have cost one woman nearly a thousand dollars after her credit card was hacked.
FORT MYERS Lee County STET team protecting our schools with cameras There are cameras in our kid’s schools, dozens of them, but did you know that Lee County Schools sends those live video feeds to the sheriff’s office, and it’s someone’s job to watch them?
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA Six-week abortion ban to take effect soon A stricter abortion ban will take effect in Florida on Wednesday.
Estero’s Golf Coast Driving Range shuts down, visitors devastated A place to relax, let loose and hit a few drives, has come to the end of an era for this community. “This is the first place we came to,” said Roxanne Henningsen, a Bonita Springs resident. “And it like became our second home. The people are wonderful. It’s just a great atmosphere. And we’ve […]
CAPE CORAL Business owners reeling after massive fire in Cape Coral “Very scary” are the words Denise Creacy used to describe what she felt when she saw plumes of black smoke, firefighters, and police fill her neighborhood.
LEHIGH ACRES Changing how you are represented in Lee County Leaders want to hear your thoughts this week at a town hall on how you elect county commissioners.
FORT MYERS Frontier Airlines announces nonstop flights from RSW to San Juan, PR These flights will take off on June 2 and run 3 times a week.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks to the press after giving his State of the State speech on the first day of the 2021 Legislative Session in Tallahassee, Fla. Tuesday, March 2, 2021. (Tori Lynn Schneider/Tallahassee Democrat via AP) Continuing to target what he calls “woke” corporations, Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to prohibit the state from investing using “environmental, social and governance” ratings, which can include taking into account the impacts of climate change. DeSantis plans to have the State Board of Administration, which oversees investments, direct pension-fund managers against “using political factors when investing the state’s money.” So-called ESG policies have drawn criticism from Republicans across the country. “We want them (fund managers) to invest the state’s money for the best interests of the beneficiaries of those funds, which is, again, the people that are retired cops and teachers and other public employees,” DeSantis said Wednesday during an appearance at Harpoon Harry’s Crab House in Tampa. DeSantis also intends to work during the 2023 legislative session with incoming House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast, to put into law ESG prohibitions. ESG practices can involve considering a wide range of issues in investments, such as companies’ climate-change vulnerabilities; carbon emissions; product safety; supply-chain labor standards; privacy and data security; and executive compensation. The organization DeSantis Watch, a joint project from Florida Watch and Progress Florida that is critical of the governor, issued a statement Wednesday that said DeSantis’ proposal does “the bidding of his large corporate donors and billionaire supporters.” “Florida is ground zero for the climate crisis, but once again Ron DeSantis lacks the courage to take any real action to protect the livelihoods of the people of our state,” Natasha Sutherland of DeSantis Watch said. DeSantis, Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, and Attorney General Ashley Moody, who are trustees of the State Board of Administration, are scheduled to meet during an Aug. 23 Cabinet meeting. Managers oversee about $250 billion in assets, investing money from the Florida Retirement System and 25 other funds, while also overseeing the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund, a major reinsurance program. Patronis in June also targeted investing that involved ESG ratings. At the time, Emilie Oglesby, a spokeswoman for the State Board of Administration, said in an email that, “as fiduciaries, the SBA and its investment managers are required to take all relevant risks into account when making investment decisions.” Oglesby added that “Neither the SBA nor its managers use ESG factors as a way to screen or limit the available investment opportunity set.” Backing DeSantis on Wednesday, Tina Descovich, co-founder of the conservative group Moms for Liberty, said her organization and some members have had accounts frozen by PayPal. “In a day and age of canceled culture, where parental-rights groups are being designated as domestic terrorists by our own United States Department of Justice, the cancellation of our financing by major organizations just seems like the next step in these draconian policies,” Descovich said while at Harpoon Harry’s. On its website, PayPal says building “a more financially inclusive and interconnected world is the foundation of our values-led culture, which is grounded in Inclusion, Innovation, Collaboration, and Wellness across our communities, workforce, and strategies.” PayPal said its ESG strategy expands on a mission “to promote financial wellness and to empower those who are underserved by the financial community.” DeSantis said corporations are being overrun by activist employees, who “believe they’re entitled to have their employer basically emote the same political values as they do.” “The problem is that then the inmates are running the asylum,” DeSantis continued. Patronis in a June letter to the SBA called the practice “anti-American, anti-Israel, and anti-freedom ideology, that’s disguising itself as a sophisticated business practice.” During the event at Harpoon Harry’s, Renner supported DeSantis’ call, saying “global elites” are “weaponizing American capitalism against us.” Renner, who will become House speaker after the November elections, called the corporate practices a national-security issue and a pocketbook issue. “What we have is these large corporations and banks that are pursuing a woke agenda that is artificially driving up our costs in energy,” Renner said. “There’s a reason why we haven’t built new refineries. There’s a reason why we’re not drilling for oil even though we have more reserves in this country than any other place in the world, it’s because the banks and this woke agenda is choking off their ability to get financing to do that.” DeSantis said ESG is being used by “upper echelons of our society” to impose a “woke ideology on the economy.” “We don’t want to see the economy further politicized, and we want to push back against the politicization that’s already happened,” DeSantis said. “Our investment of funds should be for the best interest of our beneficiaries here in the state of Florida, it should not be a vehicle to impose an ideological agenda.” The state is embroiled in lawsuits over a new law that restricts race-related workplace training and classroom instruction, dubbed by DeSantis as the “Stop WOKE Act.” In one of the cases, businesses contend the law violates their ability to discuss issues such as racism and implicit bias with employees. State officials have described the law as preventing “indoctrination.”