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Cape Coral 5 seats in Cape Coral City Council to be decided on Election Day The Cape Coral City Council election will be decided on Tuesday. Five seats are up for grabs.
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PUNTA GORDA The race for Punta Gorda City Council November 5 is election day, as politicians across the country compete for office, with Southwest Florida being no different.
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Election Day crowds expected despite record early voting Election Day is nearly upon us. At 7 p.m. on Tuesday, the polls will be closed, and our team will bring you the results.
DOWNTOWN FORT MYERS Voters in Downtown Fort Myers ready for 2024 Election A lot can change in four years. During the 2020 election, many voters masked up as they cast their ballots, and the pandemic was at the top of many voters’ minds.
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Miracle Moment: A rosy outlook following surprise diagnosis It’s time for Miracle Moment. Today, we meet a toddler diagnosed with a disease without known prevention or cure.
Where to drop off your mail-in ballots on Election Day Those who still have their mail-in ballots in Southwest Florida have two options on Election Day: vote in person or drop them off at a specified location.
WINK NEWS Lee County race for Sheriff It is now Election Day, and two candidates for the Lee County Sheriff are vying for the position.
WINK NEWS Floridians to vote on legalizing recreational marijuana With Election Day in full swing, WINK News is monitoring the results of the most controversial amendments on the ballot, including Florida’s Amendment 3.
Know where your voting precinct is in Southwest Florida Election Day is only one day away, so it is important to know where to go and if you qualify to vote in Southwest Florida.
WINK NEWS How Floridians are voting on Consitutional right to abortions As Election Day ramps up, WINK News is monitoring the results of the most controversial amendments on the ballot, including Florida’s Amendment 4.
Collier County commission race As the 2024 general election gets underway, WINK News is monitoring the election results in several local races, including the Collier County Commission race.
Cape Coral 5 seats in Cape Coral City Council to be decided on Election Day The Cape Coral City Council election will be decided on Tuesday. Five seats are up for grabs.
FORT MYERS Fort Myers City Council race for 2 wards The 2024 elections are looking to be a tense battle that will have every American on the edge of their seats. In Southwest Florida, the feeling is no different.
Lee County Superintendent election; School Board District 7 Voters in Lee County are going to the polls to fill some crucial seats in the school district.
PUNTA GORDA The race for Punta Gorda City Council November 5 is election day, as politicians across the country compete for office, with Southwest Florida being no different.
Lee County commission race for districts 3 and 5 The 2024 elections include several local Southwest Florida races, among them are races for two districts on the Lee County Board of County Commissioners.
Election Day crowds expected despite record early voting Election Day is nearly upon us. At 7 p.m. on Tuesday, the polls will be closed, and our team will bring you the results.
DOWNTOWN FORT MYERS Voters in Downtown Fort Myers ready for 2024 Election A lot can change in four years. During the 2020 election, many voters masked up as they cast their ballots, and the pandemic was at the top of many voters’ minds.
PUNTA GORDA Punta Gorda residents frustrated by hurricane debris delays Many people in parts of southwest Florida feel like they’ve dealt with more than their fair share of storm damage lately.
Miracle Moment: A rosy outlook following surprise diagnosis It’s time for Miracle Moment. Today, we meet a toddler diagnosed with a disease without known prevention or cure.
FILE – President Joe Biden in the East Room of the White House, Aug. 10, 2022, in Washington. Biden is set to announce $10,000 federal student loan cancellation on Aug. 24, for many, extend repayment pause for others. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File) President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced his long-awaited plan to deliver on his campaign promise to provide $10,000 in debt cancellation for millions of Americans — and up to $10,000 more for those with the greatest financial need. Borrowers who earn less than $125,000 a year, or families earning less than $250,000, would be eligible for the $10,000 loan forgiveness, Biden announced in a tweet. For recipients of Pell Grants, which are reserved for undergraduates with the most significant financial need, the federal government would cancel up to an additional $10,000 in federal loan debt. Biden is also extending a pause on federal student loan payments for what he called the “final time” through the end of 2022. He was set to deliver remarks Wednesday afternoon at the White House to unveil his proposal to the public. If his plan survives legal challenges that are almost certain to come, it could offer a windfall to a swath of the nation in the run-up to this fall’s midterm elections. More than 43 million people have federal student debt, with an average balance of $37,667, according to federal data. Nearly a third of borrowers owe less than $10,000, and about half owe less than $20,000. The White House estimates that Biden’s announcement would erase the federal student debt of about 20 million people. Proponents say cancellation will narrow the racial wealth gap — Black students are more likely to borrow federal student loans and at higher amounts than others. Four years after earning bachelor’s degrees, Black borrowers owe an average of nearly $25,000 more than their white peers, according to a Brookings Institution study. Still, the action is unlikely to thrill any of the factions that have been jostling for influence as Biden weighs how much to cancel and for whom. Biden has faced pressure from liberals to provide broader relief to hard-hit borrowers, and from moderates and Republicans questioning the fairness of any widespread forgiveness. The delay in Biden’s decision has only heightened the anticipation for what his own aides acknowledge represents a political no-win situation. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss Biden’s intended announcement ahead of time. The continuation of the coronavirus pandemic-era payment freeze comes just days before millions of Americans were set to find out when their next student loan bills will be due. This is the closest the administration has come to hitting the end of the payment freeze extension, with the current pause set to end on Aug. 31. Details of the plan have been kept closely guarded as Biden weighed his options. The administration said Wednesday the Education Department will release information in the coming weeks for eligible borrowers to sign up for debt relief. Cancellation for some would be automatic if the department has access to their income information, but others would need to fill out a form. Current students would only be eligible for relief if their loans originated before July 1, 2022. Biden is also set to propose capping the amount that borrowers pay monthly on undergraduate loans at 5% of their earnings. During the 2020 presidential campaign, Biden was initially skeptical of student loan debt cancellation as he faced off against more progressive candidates for the Democratic nomination. Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., had proposed cancellations of $50,000 or more. As he tried to shore up support among younger voters and prepare for a general election battle against President Donald Trump, Biden unveiled his initial proposal for debt cancellation of $10,000 per borrower, with no mention of an income cap. Biden narrowed his campaign promise in recent months by embracing the income limit as soaring inflation took a political toll and as he aimed to head off political attacks that the cancellation would benefit those with higher take-home pay. But Democrats, from members of the congressional leadership to those facing tough reelection bids this November, have pushed the administration to go as broad as possible on debt relief, seeing it in part as a galvanizing issue, particularly for Black and young voters this fall. Democrats are betting that Biden, who has seen his public approval tumble over the past year, can help motivate younger voters to the polls with the announcement. Although Biden’s plan is changed from what he initially proposed during the campaign, “he’ll get a lot of credit for following through on something that he was committed to,” said Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster who worked with Biden during the 2020 election. A survey of 18- to 29-year-olds conducted by the Harvard Institute of Politics in March found that 59% of those polled favored debt cancellation of some sort — whether for all borrowers or those most in need — although student loans did not rank high among issues that most concerned people in that age group. Some advocates say Biden’s plan still falls short. “If the rumors are true, we’ve got a problem,” Derrick Johnson, the president of the NAACP, which has aggressively lobbied Biden to take bolder action, said Tuesday. “President Biden’s decision on student debt cannot become the latest example of a policy that has left Black people — especially Black women — behind,” he said. “This is not how you treat Black voters who turned out in record numbers and provided 90% of their vote to once again save democracy in 2020.” John Della Volpe, who worked as a consultant on Biden’s campaign and is the director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics, said the particulars of Biden’s announcement were less important than the decision itself. “It’s about trust in politics, in government, in our system. It’s also about trust in the individual, which in this case is President Biden,” Della Volpe said. Republicans, meanwhile, see a political upside if Biden pursues a large-scale cancellation of student debt ahead of the November midterms, anticipating backlash for Democrats — particularly in states where there are large numbers of working-class voters without college degrees. Critics of broad student debt forgiveness also believe it will open the White House to lawsuits because Congress has never given the president the explicit authority to cancel debt on his own. The Republican National Committee on Tuesday blasted Biden’s expected announcement as a “handout to the rich,” claiming it would unfairly burden lower-income taxpayers and those who have already paid off their student loans by covering the costs of higher education for the wealthy. Biden’s long deliberations have led to grumbling among federal loan servicers, who had been instructed to hold back billing statements while Biden weighed a decision. Industry groups had complained that the delayed decision left them with just days to notify borrowers, retrain customer service workers and update websites and digital payment systems, said Scott Buchanan, executive director of the Student Loan Servicing Alliance. It increases the risk that some borrowers will inadvertently be told they need to make payments, he said. “At this late stage I think that’s the risk we’re running,” he said. “You can’t just turn on a dime with 35 million borrowers who all have different loan types and statuses.” ___ AP writer Michael Balsamo contributed to this report.