Airplane crashes at Buckingham AirportPremier Mobile Health Services adds 6th Lee County location in Fort Myers
BUCKINGHAM Airplane crashes at Buckingham Airport A Lee County Mosquito Control airplane crashed on the runway at Buckingham airport on Monday. No injuries were reported.
FORT MYERS Premier Mobile Health Services adds 6th Lee County location in Fort Myers The Premier Mobile Health Services has added its sixth Lee County mobile clinic location in Fort Myers.
FORT MYERS FDOT discusses plan regarding Caloosahatchee Bridge project The Florida Department of Transportation is set to hold a news conference regarding the closure of the Caloosahatchee Bridge project.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Auburn running back Brian Battie on ventilator after weekend shooting in Florida, coach says Auburn running back Brian Battie has been hospitalized following a weekend shooting in Sarasota, Florida, where his brother was killed and three others injured.
nokomis Port Charlotte man killed in park shooting in Sarasota The Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office is investigating a fatal shooting that involved a man from Port Charlotte on Sunday.
THE WEATHER AUTHORITY Cooler and less humid morning ahead of a hot afternoon The Weather Authority is tracking dry conditions with high Tuesday afternoon temperatures and isolated showers developing inland.
WINK NEWS Miracle Monday: A home away from home An expecting couple received an unexpected surprise as a family welcomed twins into the worldâtwo months early.
FORT MYERS The future of the Fort Myers yacht basin The Fort Myers yacht basin is lacking in the “yacht” part right now, or any boat for that matter. It’s been that way since Hurricane Ian hit.
VENICE BEACH Diving duo makes prehistoric discovery Half a mile off Venice Beach, deep below the surface of the water, two divers, Blair Morrow and Alex Lundberg, found a sign of prehistoric times buried in the sand.
Commissioner reacts to state attorney ruling in death of Christopher Jordan On Monday, the detective who fired the fatal shot that killed Christopher Jordan in his Fort Myers home went back to work.
PORT CHARLOTTE Is Sunseeker Resort losing money? It’s a place designed to bring in people and a lot of money to Charlotte County. The Sunseeker Resort opened on December 15 and features 785 rooms, 20 different food and beverage places, and 60,000 square feet of convention space.
NORTH PORT North and SB lanes shut down near Mile Marker 195 due to brush fire North Port Fire Rescue said to expect significant delays. They recommended drivers take an alternate route.
FORT MYERS Roundabout incoming for Winkler and Challenger intersection A new roundabout is coming to the City of Fort Myers at the intersection of Challenger Boulevard and Winkler Avenue.
FORT MYERS BEACH Fort Myers Beach church selling two acres of land Pastor Sean Critser’s congregation voted unanimously on Sunday to sell the front two acres of the church’s property for $4 million.
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA Boaters at a loss with boat ramp closed There have been no boats coming out of the Punta Rassa boat ramp since 2022, after Hurricane Ian hit southwest Florida.
BUCKINGHAM Airplane crashes at Buckingham Airport A Lee County Mosquito Control airplane crashed on the runway at Buckingham airport on Monday. No injuries were reported.
FORT MYERS Premier Mobile Health Services adds 6th Lee County location in Fort Myers The Premier Mobile Health Services has added its sixth Lee County mobile clinic location in Fort Myers.
FORT MYERS FDOT discusses plan regarding Caloosahatchee Bridge project The Florida Department of Transportation is set to hold a news conference regarding the closure of the Caloosahatchee Bridge project.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Auburn running back Brian Battie on ventilator after weekend shooting in Florida, coach says Auburn running back Brian Battie has been hospitalized following a weekend shooting in Sarasota, Florida, where his brother was killed and three others injured.
nokomis Port Charlotte man killed in park shooting in Sarasota The Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office is investigating a fatal shooting that involved a man from Port Charlotte on Sunday.
THE WEATHER AUTHORITY Cooler and less humid morning ahead of a hot afternoon The Weather Authority is tracking dry conditions with high Tuesday afternoon temperatures and isolated showers developing inland.
WINK NEWS Miracle Monday: A home away from home An expecting couple received an unexpected surprise as a family welcomed twins into the worldâtwo months early.
FORT MYERS The future of the Fort Myers yacht basin The Fort Myers yacht basin is lacking in the “yacht” part right now, or any boat for that matter. It’s been that way since Hurricane Ian hit.
VENICE BEACH Diving duo makes prehistoric discovery Half a mile off Venice Beach, deep below the surface of the water, two divers, Blair Morrow and Alex Lundberg, found a sign of prehistoric times buried in the sand.
Commissioner reacts to state attorney ruling in death of Christopher Jordan On Monday, the detective who fired the fatal shot that killed Christopher Jordan in his Fort Myers home went back to work.
PORT CHARLOTTE Is Sunseeker Resort losing money? It’s a place designed to bring in people and a lot of money to Charlotte County. The Sunseeker Resort opened on December 15 and features 785 rooms, 20 different food and beverage places, and 60,000 square feet of convention space.
NORTH PORT North and SB lanes shut down near Mile Marker 195 due to brush fire North Port Fire Rescue said to expect significant delays. They recommended drivers take an alternate route.
FORT MYERS Roundabout incoming for Winkler and Challenger intersection A new roundabout is coming to the City of Fort Myers at the intersection of Challenger Boulevard and Winkler Avenue.
FORT MYERS BEACH Fort Myers Beach church selling two acres of land Pastor Sean Critser’s congregation voted unanimously on Sunday to sell the front two acres of the church’s property for $4 million.
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA Boaters at a loss with boat ramp closed There have been no boats coming out of the Punta Rassa boat ramp since 2022, after Hurricane Ian hit southwest Florida.
A man prepares to smoke fentanyl on a park bench in downtown Portland, Ore., on Thursday, May 18, 2023. Smoking has surpassed injecting as the most common way of taking drugs in U.S. overdose deaths, according to a study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024. (Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian via AP, File) Smoking has surpassed injecting as the most common way of taking drugs in U.S. overdose deaths, a new government study suggests. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called its study published Thursday the largest to look at how Americans took the drugs that killed them. CDC officials decided to study the topic after seeing reports from California suggesting that smoking fentanyl was becoming more common than injecting it. Potent, illicit versions of the painkiller are involved in more U.S. overdose deaths than any other drug. Some early research has suggested that smoking fentanyl is somewhat less deadly than injecting it, and any reduction in injection-related overdose deaths is a positive, said the studyâs lead author, Lauren Tanz. But âboth injection and smoking carry a substantial overdose risk,â and itâs not yet clear if a shift toward smoking fentanyl reduces U.S. overdose deaths, said Tanz, a CDC scientist who studies overdoses. Illicit fentanyl is an infamously powerful drug that, in powder form, increasingly has been cut into heroin or other drugs. In recent years, itâs been a primary driver of the U.S. overdose epidemic. Drug overdose deaths in the U.S. went up slightly in 2022 after two big leaps during the pandemic, and provisional data for the first nine months of 2023 suggests it inched up last year. For years, fentanyl has mainly been injected, but drug users have increasingly smoked it. People put the powder on tin foil or in a glass pipe, heated from below, and inhale the vapor, explained Alex Kral, a RTI International researcher who studies drug users in San Francisco. Smoked fentanyl is not as concentrated as fentanyl in a syringe, but some drug-takers see upsides to smoking, Kral said. Among them: People who inject often deal with pus-filled abscesses on their skin and risk infections with hepatitis and other diseases. âOne person showed me his arms and said, âHey, look at my arm! It looks beautiful! I can now wear T-shirts and I can get a job because I donât have these track marks,ââ Kral said. CDC investigators studied the trend by using a national database built from death certificates, toxicology reports and reports from coroners and medical examiners. They were able to get suitable data from the District of Columbia and 27 states for the years 2020 to 2022. From those places, they got information on how drugs were taken in about 71,000 of the more than 311,000 total U.S. overdose deaths over those three years â or about 23%. The researchers found that between early 2020 and late 2022, the percentage of overdose deaths with evidence of smoking rose 74% while the percentage of deaths with evidence of injection fell 29%. The number and percentage of deaths with evidence of snorting also increased, though not as dramatically as smoking-related deaths, the study found. Itâs complicated to map out exact percentages of deaths that occurred after smoking, injecting, snorting or swallowing drugs, experts say. In some cases a person may have used multiple drugs, taken different ways. In other cases, no drug-taking method was identified. The study found that in late 2022, of the deaths for which a method was identified, 23% of the deaths occurred after smoking, 16% after injections, 16% after snorting, and 14.5% after swallowing. Tanz said she feels the data is nationally representative. Data came from states from every region of the country, and all showed increases in smoking and decreases in injecting. Smoking was the most common route in the West and Midwest, and roughly tied with injecting in the Northeast and South, the report said. Kral described the study as âmostly goodâ but said it has limitations. It can be difficult to ascertain the how and why of an overdose death, especially if no witness was present. Injections might be more commonly reported because of injection marks on the body; to detect smoking âthey likely would need to find a pipe or foil on the scene and decide whether to write that down,â he said. Kral also noted that many people who smoke fentanyl use a straw to inhale vapors from the burning powder, and itâs possible investigators saw a straw and assumed it was snorted.