Disease affecting avocado growth impacts Florida farmersFire creates plumes of smoke seen in North Fort Myers
WINK NEWS Disease affecting avocado growth impacts Florida farmers The citrus industry has suffered due to Greening Disease, and now the avocado industry is experiencing issues of its own.
NORTH FORT MYERS Fire creates plumes of smoke seen in North Fort Myers The Lee County Sheriff’s Office is responding to a fire that occurred on Bogart Drive in North Fort Myers.
The Weather Authority Wet morning with scattered rain through the afternoon The Weather Authority is tracking a wet Thursday morning with scattered rain throughout the afternoon before drying out for the evening.
CAPE CORAL City of Cape Coral approves grant funding for Utilities Extension Project The City of Cape Coral voted unanimously to provide $25 million in funding for the Utilities Extension Project.
downtown fort myers The downtown Fort Myers post office is set to reopen Monday The long-awaited return of the downtown Fort Myers post office is soon to be over, as the location is expected to reopen on Monday.
NAPLES Naples-based fashion designer supports teen who was denied entrance to prom Sophie Savidge is getting some swanky bow ties from Naples-based fashion designer Peter Jean-Marie.
FORT MYERS BEACH Staying safe against rip currents Mother Nature is throwing us for a loop. Right now, most of our beaches are at high risk for rip currents.
FORT MYERS Football officials work to keep the ‘Friday’ in Friday night lights Whether you think they are making good calls or bad ones, without officials there would be no Friday night lights.
LAKE OKEECHOBEE Army Corps prepares Lake Okeechobee ahead of ‘extremely active’ hurricane season This year, we had an abnormally wet dry season. The lake rose when it should have been receding.
CAPE CORAL Cape Coral man charged with felony after allegedly backing into Publix employee A man on a grocery store run turned into a hit-and-run victim after he allegedly backed onto a Publix employee, according to the arrest report.
FORT MYERS Avoiding the “Summer Slide”: How to keep students engaged during the summer Every kid looks forward to summer, but they also face the “Summer Slide”, a term for students who aren’t mentally engaged over the summer.
NAPLES Details: Judge Judy files defamation suit against National Enquirer parent company Television personality Judge Judy Sheindlin, a resident of Collier County, filed a defamation lawsuit Monday against Accelerate360 and A360 Media LLC, the parent companies of the National Enquirer and InTouch Weekly.
CAPE CORAL Exclusive video shows why family of 13-year-old hit and killed in Cape Coral is filing civil rights complaint In a newly released exclusive video sent to WINK news, you can see the moments before a 13-year-old was fatally struck while riding his electric scooter in Cape Coral.
Tackling the teacher shortage in Lee County Are your kids losing out on the value of going to school because of inconsistency in who their teachers are?
6 bus crash victims identified; Immokalee community mourns loss Eight Mexican migrant farmworkers’ lives were cut short in an instant during a bus crash in Central Florida, and now we know who at least six of them were.
WINK NEWS Disease affecting avocado growth impacts Florida farmers The citrus industry has suffered due to Greening Disease, and now the avocado industry is experiencing issues of its own.
NORTH FORT MYERS Fire creates plumes of smoke seen in North Fort Myers The Lee County Sheriff’s Office is responding to a fire that occurred on Bogart Drive in North Fort Myers.
The Weather Authority Wet morning with scattered rain through the afternoon The Weather Authority is tracking a wet Thursday morning with scattered rain throughout the afternoon before drying out for the evening.
CAPE CORAL City of Cape Coral approves grant funding for Utilities Extension Project The City of Cape Coral voted unanimously to provide $25 million in funding for the Utilities Extension Project.
downtown fort myers The downtown Fort Myers post office is set to reopen Monday The long-awaited return of the downtown Fort Myers post office is soon to be over, as the location is expected to reopen on Monday.
NAPLES Naples-based fashion designer supports teen who was denied entrance to prom Sophie Savidge is getting some swanky bow ties from Naples-based fashion designer Peter Jean-Marie.
FORT MYERS BEACH Staying safe against rip currents Mother Nature is throwing us for a loop. Right now, most of our beaches are at high risk for rip currents.
FORT MYERS Football officials work to keep the ‘Friday’ in Friday night lights Whether you think they are making good calls or bad ones, without officials there would be no Friday night lights.
LAKE OKEECHOBEE Army Corps prepares Lake Okeechobee ahead of ‘extremely active’ hurricane season This year, we had an abnormally wet dry season. The lake rose when it should have been receding.
CAPE CORAL Cape Coral man charged with felony after allegedly backing into Publix employee A man on a grocery store run turned into a hit-and-run victim after he allegedly backed onto a Publix employee, according to the arrest report.
FORT MYERS Avoiding the “Summer Slide”: How to keep students engaged during the summer Every kid looks forward to summer, but they also face the “Summer Slide”, a term for students who aren’t mentally engaged over the summer.
NAPLES Details: Judge Judy files defamation suit against National Enquirer parent company Television personality Judge Judy Sheindlin, a resident of Collier County, filed a defamation lawsuit Monday against Accelerate360 and A360 Media LLC, the parent companies of the National Enquirer and InTouch Weekly.
CAPE CORAL Exclusive video shows why family of 13-year-old hit and killed in Cape Coral is filing civil rights complaint In a newly released exclusive video sent to WINK news, you can see the moments before a 13-year-old was fatally struck while riding his electric scooter in Cape Coral.
Tackling the teacher shortage in Lee County Are your kids losing out on the value of going to school because of inconsistency in who their teachers are?
6 bus crash victims identified; Immokalee community mourns loss Eight Mexican migrant farmworkers’ lives were cut short in an instant during a bus crash in Central Florida, and now we know who at least six of them were.
The Wall Street Journal says nationwide homicide rates have dropped by 20% compared to the numbers from 2023. The latest numbers indicate levels are approaching pre-pandemic rates. However, after analyzing the data for Charlotte, Collier and Lee counties, those nationwide numbers don’t tell the whole story. In Charlotte County, the number of homicides is similar year to year. Meanwhile, homicide numbers spiked as we got further from the pandemic in Collier County. Despite the high numbers in Lee County, they are trending downward. The Wall Street Journal reports a 20% decrease in 133 cities in the United States. Those numbers are taken from the start of 2024 to the end of March and are in contrast to those in 2023. “This is the complexity of homicides,” said Kristen Ziman, a safety and security expert and retired police chief, “and when you look back at homicides, let’s say starting in the 1960s, going back that far, they started rising there. They peaked in the early 70s, then fell sharply.” WINK News spoke with Ziman about the falling homicide rates and their meaning. “This is just simply the cyclical homicide rate, and we see the rise and fall over the years. Now, you talk to other people who will try to highlight exactly what is causing these,” said Ziman, “what is the root cause of views, so we can explore a few of them.” Those factors can be sociological, economic or psychological in nature, and their impacts can vary depending on the environment. Lee County saw the sharpest decline in homicide rates. In 2020, there were 22 homicides in Lee County. Fast-forward to 2023, and those numbers fall to just ten. “It’s a train mentality,” said Carmine Marceno, Lee County’s sheriff. “Utilizing all the tools that we can to get that message out. Zero tolerance on homicides [and] violent crime. People live in a safe law and order community.” The numbers have stayed roughly the same in Collier and Charlotte counties. Collier County had four homicides in 2020. Three years later, those numbers increased to six. In Charlotte County, there were five homicides back in 2020. Those numbers dropped to four in 2023, a small decline in accordance with the national trend. But how do the community or county leaders and sheriffs play a role in the decline? “The trifecta saying we will not tolerate that here really does send a social message to individuals in the community: ‘Wow, I can’t commit any crime here because I’ll get caught and I’ll be held accountable,’ so there is absolutely social impact that we cannot ignore,” said Ziman. We will have to wait and see how the trend turns out by the end of the year, given we are only four months into 2024.