FGCU softball falls to No. 4 Florida in NCAA Tournament‘The Whale’ restaurant to break ground on new building
GAINESVILLE FGCU softball falls to No. 4 Florida in NCAA Tournament The FGCU softball team couldn’t keep up with the No. 4 Florida Gators as the Eagles drop their first Regional game 6-0 to the Gators.
FORT MYERS BEACH ‘The Whale’ restaurant to break ground on new building The Whale is a place that has shown great strength and determination.
COLLIER COUNTY Endangered Florida panther deaths surpass 2023 total in 5 months It’s taken wildlife officials just over four and a half months to report finding more dead endangered Florida panthers than in all of 2023.
FORT MYERS FMPD honors 7 officers and 2 K-9s who died in the line of duty dating back to 1930 Nine lives were given, and all nine will remain remembered. A lifetime of gratitude for the fallen officers.
Firefighter recovering from heat exhaustion after battling flames in Collier County It happened at Progress Rail, a transit corporation on Mercantile Avenue just before 5am on Friday.
FORT MYERS How do SWFL graduation rates compare to the state average? How do graduation rates for Charlotte, Lee and Collier Counties stack up against the state? WINK News crunched the numbers.
FORT MYERS Community divisive over ‘justified’ officer-involved shooting of Christopher Jordan A detective who killed an unarmed black man in a controversial shooting will be back at work on Monday.
CAPE CORAL Family submits civil complaint against Cape Coral Police Department The family of a 13-year-old boy who was struck and killed while riding his scooter has officially filed a civil complaint.
FORT MYERS Community reacts to ‘justified’ officer-involved shooting of Christopher Jordan Leaders with the NAACP are saying there is a divide between the black community and Fort Myers police.
NAPLES Inside look at $21 million Naples Players Theater, set to open at the end of May On Friday, as the theater’s 70th season approached, leaders and organizers invited WINK News for a ‘hard-hat-tour’ to showcase the new additions and construction updates.
FORT MYERS Detective who fired fatal shot at Christopher Jordan returns to work Monday Fort Myers police have confirmed to WINK News the detective who shot and killed a man inside his home will return to work Monday morning.
FORT MYERS Bishop Verot onto first state semifinals in nearly a decade A trip to the FHSAA State Semifinals has been a long time coming for the Bishop Verot Vikings who have not been since 2016.
Paul Fleming expanding Lake Park Diner, PJK restaurant concepts Lake Park Diner co-owners Smith Organics and Paul Fleming Restaurant Group anticipate 50 locations of what will be a Naples-based chain.
New construction, business growth continues near Punta Gorda Airport Development surrounding the Punta Gorda Airport continues to grow with 2.5 million square feet already developed and 1.5 million square feet planned, according to Charlotte County Economic Development Director Dave Gammon.
AREA SHELTERS AND REFUGES OF LAST RESORT CHARLOTTE COUNTY Emergency Operations Center (941) 833-4000 charlottecountyfl.gov/departments/public-safety/emergency-management/ PLEASE NOTE: Do not depend on a particular shelter or refuge. Sites may, or may not, be opened depending on the size of the storm and the predicted landfall area. *All Charlotte County shelters are pet-friendly. PORT CHARLOTTE Harold Avenue Regional Park Recreation Center, 23400 Harold Ave. […]
GAINESVILLE FGCU softball falls to No. 4 Florida in NCAA Tournament The FGCU softball team couldn’t keep up with the No. 4 Florida Gators as the Eagles drop their first Regional game 6-0 to the Gators.
FORT MYERS BEACH ‘The Whale’ restaurant to break ground on new building The Whale is a place that has shown great strength and determination.
COLLIER COUNTY Endangered Florida panther deaths surpass 2023 total in 5 months It’s taken wildlife officials just over four and a half months to report finding more dead endangered Florida panthers than in all of 2023.
FORT MYERS FMPD honors 7 officers and 2 K-9s who died in the line of duty dating back to 1930 Nine lives were given, and all nine will remain remembered. A lifetime of gratitude for the fallen officers.
Firefighter recovering from heat exhaustion after battling flames in Collier County It happened at Progress Rail, a transit corporation on Mercantile Avenue just before 5am on Friday.
FORT MYERS How do SWFL graduation rates compare to the state average? How do graduation rates for Charlotte, Lee and Collier Counties stack up against the state? WINK News crunched the numbers.
FORT MYERS Community divisive over ‘justified’ officer-involved shooting of Christopher Jordan A detective who killed an unarmed black man in a controversial shooting will be back at work on Monday.
CAPE CORAL Family submits civil complaint against Cape Coral Police Department The family of a 13-year-old boy who was struck and killed while riding his scooter has officially filed a civil complaint.
FORT MYERS Community reacts to ‘justified’ officer-involved shooting of Christopher Jordan Leaders with the NAACP are saying there is a divide between the black community and Fort Myers police.
NAPLES Inside look at $21 million Naples Players Theater, set to open at the end of May On Friday, as the theater’s 70th season approached, leaders and organizers invited WINK News for a ‘hard-hat-tour’ to showcase the new additions and construction updates.
FORT MYERS Detective who fired fatal shot at Christopher Jordan returns to work Monday Fort Myers police have confirmed to WINK News the detective who shot and killed a man inside his home will return to work Monday morning.
FORT MYERS Bishop Verot onto first state semifinals in nearly a decade A trip to the FHSAA State Semifinals has been a long time coming for the Bishop Verot Vikings who have not been since 2016.
Paul Fleming expanding Lake Park Diner, PJK restaurant concepts Lake Park Diner co-owners Smith Organics and Paul Fleming Restaurant Group anticipate 50 locations of what will be a Naples-based chain.
New construction, business growth continues near Punta Gorda Airport Development surrounding the Punta Gorda Airport continues to grow with 2.5 million square feet already developed and 1.5 million square feet planned, according to Charlotte County Economic Development Director Dave Gammon.
AREA SHELTERS AND REFUGES OF LAST RESORT CHARLOTTE COUNTY Emergency Operations Center (941) 833-4000 charlottecountyfl.gov/departments/public-safety/emergency-management/ PLEASE NOTE: Do not depend on a particular shelter or refuge. Sites may, or may not, be opened depending on the size of the storm and the predicted landfall area. *All Charlotte County shelters are pet-friendly. PORT CHARLOTTE Harold Avenue Regional Park Recreation Center, 23400 Harold Ave. […]
Credit: (AP News) Israeli forces struck the southern Gaza town of Rafah twice overnight, residents said Thursday, sowing fear in one of the last places where civilians could seek refuge after Israel widened its offensive against Hamas to areas already packed with displaced people. United Nations officials say there are no safe places in Gaza. Heavy fighting in and around the southern city of Khan Younis has displaced tens of thousands of people in a territory where over 80% of the population has already fled their homes, and cut most of Gaza off from deliveries of food, water and other vital aid. Two months into the war, the grinding offensive has set off renewed alarms internationally, with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres using a rarely exercised power to warn the Security Council of an impending “humanitarian catastrophe” and urging members to demand a cease-fire. The United States has called on Israel to limit civilian deaths and displacement, saying too many Palestinians were killed when it obliterated much of Gaza City and the north. But it has also pledged unwavering support for Israel and appears likely to block any such U.N. effort to halt the fighting. Israel says it must crush Hamas’ military capabilities and remove it from power following the Oct. 7 attack that ignited the war. Troops have pushed into Khan Younis, Gaza’s second-largest city, which Israeli officials have portrayed as Hamas’ center of gravity — something they previously said was in Gaza City and its Shifa Hospital. Israel has ordered the evacuation of some two dozen southern neighborhoods, rather than the entire region as it did in the north, which the military says shows increased concern for civilians. But the areas where Palestinians can seek safety are rapidly receding. With northern and central Gaza largely isolated and cut off from aid, Palestinians are heading south to Rafah and other areas along the border with Egypt, where family homes are packed tight and makeshift shelters are overflowing. Palestinians flee the Israeli ground offensive in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Mohammed Dahman) Even there, safety has proven elusive, as Israel continues to strike what it says are Hamas targets across the coastal enclave. A strike late Wednesday leveled a home in Rafah, sending a wave of wounded streaming into a nearby hospital. Eyad al-Hobi, who witnessed the attack, said around 20 people were killed, including women and children. Another house was hit early Thursday, residents said. Palestinians displaced by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip set up a tent camp in Rafah on Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Hatem Ali) “We live in fear every moment, for our children, ourselves, our families,” said Dalia Abu Samhadaneh, now living in Rafah with her family after fleeing Khan Younis. “We live with the anxiety of expulsion.” The military meanwhile accused militants of firing rockets from open areas near Rafah in the humanitarian zone. It released footage of a strike Wednesday on what it said were launchers positioned outside the town and a few hundred meters (yards) from a U.N. warehouse. BATTLES IN NORTH AND SOUTH The U.N. says some 1.87 million people — over 80% of the population of 2.3 million — have already fled their homes, many of them displaced multiple times. Israel’s campaign has killed more than 16,200 people in Gaza — most of them women and children — and wounded more than 42,000, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which says many others are trapped under rubble. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths. Doctors Without Borders, the international aid group, said another 115 bodies arrived at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central town of Deir al-Balah in a 24-hour period. “The hospital is full, the morgue is full,” the group said on X, formerly known as Twitter. The military said Thursday that it struck dozens of militant targets in Khan Younis, including a tunnel shaft from which fighters had launched an attack. It said two of the attackers were killed. Palestinians displaced by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip set up a tent camp in Rafah on Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Hatem Ali) Hamas and other militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war, and took some 240 people hostage. An estimated 138 hostages remain in Gaza, mostly soldiers and civilian men, after 105 were freed during a cease-fire in late November. A built-up refugee camp inside Khan Younis was the childhood home of Hamas’ top leader in Gaza, Yehya Sinwar, and the group’s military chief, Mohammed Deif, as well as other Hamas leaders — though their current whereabouts are unknown. Heavy fighting is also still underway in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, even after two months of heavy bombardment and encirclement by ground troops. The military said troops raided a militant compound, killing “a number” of fighters and uncovering a network of tunnels. It was not immediately possible to confirm the latest reports from the battlefield. Mourners comfort Mazal Daniels, center, the mother of Israeli reservist Master Sgt. Gil Daniels during his funeral in Ashdod, Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023. Daniels was killed in Gaza during an Israeli military ground offensive against the enclave’s militant Hamas rulers. (AP Photo/Leo Correa) Israel blames the high civilian death toll on Hamas, accusing it of using civilians as human shields when the militants operate in residential areas. But Israel has not given detailed accounts of its individual strikes, some of which have leveled entire city blocks. The military says 87 of its soldiers have been killed in the Gaza ground offensive. It also says some 5,000 militants have been killed, without saying how it arrived at its count. HUMANITARIAN CRISIS WORSENS Tens of thousands of people have fled from Khan Younis and other areas to Rafah, on Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, the U.N. said. Rafah, normally home to around 280,000 people, is already hosting more than 470,000 who fled from other parts of Gaza. On the other side of the border, Egypt has deployed thousands of troops and erected earthen barriers to prevent any mass influx of refugees. It says an influx would undermine its decades-old peace treaty with Israel, and it doubts Israel will let them back into Gaza. For days now, aid groups have only been able to distribute supplies in and around Rafah, and mainly just flour and water, the U.N.’s humanitarian aid office said. Access farther north has been cut off by fighting and Israeli forces closing roads. The World Food Program said a “catastrophic hunger crisis” threatens to “overwhelm the civilian population.” Palestinians attend a funeral of their relatives killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip in Khan Younis, Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Mohammed Dahman) Gaza has been without electricity since the first week of the war, and hospitals and water treatment plants have been forced to shut down for lack of fuel to operate generators. Israel allows a trickle of aid from Egypt but has greatly restricted imports of fuel, saying Hamas diverts it for military purposes. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel would allow small deliveries of fuel into the southern Gaza Strip “from time to time” to prevent the spread of disease. The “minimal amount” of fuel will be set by the war cabinet, he said.