Fort Myers teen finds dead body in bed of his truckFGCU softball falls to No. 4 Florida in NCAA Tournament
FORT MYERS Fort Myers teen finds dead body in bed of his truck A 16-year-old in Fort Myers drove to school, drove home, drove to the barbershop and back home again. Then, he noticed a swarm of flies in the back of his truck.
Scottie Scheffler facing felony charges; local attorney reacts The attorney we spoke with told us that, at a minimum, we’d spend the night in jail before having our first appearance and getting bail.
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.
Summer Safety: Swim safety tips to know before the summer The pool is warming up to be the hot spot for kids and families this summer. It’s now also the number one leading cause of drowning deaths for children ages 1-4 in the state.
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.
FORT MYERS Fort Myers teen finds dead body in bed of his truck A 16-year-old in Fort Myers drove to school, drove home, drove to the barbershop and back home again. Then, he noticed a swarm of flies in the back of his truck.
Scottie Scheffler facing felony charges; local attorney reacts The attorney we spoke with told us that, at a minimum, we’d spend the night in jail before having our first appearance and getting bail.
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.
Summer Safety: Swim safety tips to know before the summer The pool is warming up to be the hot spot for kids and families this summer. It’s now also the number one leading cause of drowning deaths for children ages 1-4 in the state.
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.
FILE – In this Oct. 8, 2013, file photo, a sign marks the entrance to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File) Bird flu continues to appear to pose a “low risk to the general public” for now, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. But the agency’s scientists ran into roadblocks investigating a human case of this “pandemic potential” virus this year, they said in a new report. Epidemiologists from the agency were ultimately unable to access a Texas dairy farm where a human was infected with the virus in March, they disclosed in attachments to the report published Friday by the New England Journal of Medicine. That prevented investigators from being able to investigate how workers might have been exposed to the virus on the farm. That is because the dairy worker who came to a Texas field office for testing “did not disclose the name of their workplace,” said Lara Anton, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of State Health Services. They also were unable to collect follow-up samples from the dairy farm worker or their contacts, which could have revealed missed cases as well as tracking the virus and antibodies against it in the body after an infection. The worker did not wear protective eye goggles or a face mask that could have protected them from the virus, the report said. The virus was likely transmitted through their contaminated hands or droplets of the virus from sick cows. H5N1 was likely spreading through dairy farms via the high concentrations of the virus found in the raw milk of infected cows, authorities said previously. The virus had been circulating in cows for an estimated four months before it was confirmed by labs on March 25, according to a draft report from U.S. Department of Agriculture scientists released Thursday. A mutation to the virus in wild birds, a specific “clade” of the virus that scientists call 2.3.4.4b, appears to have enabled bird flu to jump into cows. Multiple herds were likely infected during that initial spillover before the birds migrated north, officials have said. Since then, at least nine states have detected cow infections from the virus. Cows largely recover from H5N1, unlike the mass die-offs seen in other species. Some herds with infected cows have also remained asymptomatic and are continuing to produce milk. Experiments run by the Food and Drug Administration show that pasteurized milk remains safe to drink, despite traces of the virus found in samples from grocery stores. The outbreak has also prompted a renewed warning not to drink raw milk, which has been linked to deaths of other animals like cats. The ongoing outbreak is also in stark contrast to how the virus has spread in other mammals infected by the virus, which have generally resulted in what USDA scientists called “dead end hosts.” A handful of variants with potentially worrying mutations have also since been spotted in cows, the USDA analysis found. If those variants become dominant, it could change the disease caused by H5N1 or make spread to other animals or humans more likely. The virus from cows has also been spotted spreading out of dairy farms into nearby wild birds and poultry, likely ferried by contaminated milk droplets and surfaces. Questions also remain about the exact origins of the virus that infected the Texas dairy worker. While the H5N1 sequence from the human case is closely related to those found in dairy herds, the agency’s analysis found it also differs in some key ways. Those genetic differences suggest the human was infected by “an early, slightly different virus” that was circulating in cows before the current cases, or that multiple spillovers may have actually occurred. While sequences collected from sick cows on the worker’s dairy farm could have helped CDC scientists answer those questions, samples were “not available for analysis.” The human worker has since recovered after their bird flu infection. They only developed conjunctivitis, or pink eye, without fever or other common flu symptoms. The worker and their contacts were given oseltamivir, an antiviral treatment for bird flu that could also head off infections. “While acute conjunctivitis is a clinically mild illness, HPAI A(H5N1) viruses, including those belonging to clade 2.3.4.4b, pose pandemic potential and have caused severe respiratory disease in infected humans worldwide,” the report co-authored by CDC scientists said. Missed infections?Reports by a local veterinarian that other workers on Texas dairy farms had symptoms of flu or conjunctivitis are true, said Anton on April 30. But at least some of those workers with symptoms were tested and turned out to be negative for H5N1, health officials in Texas as well as neighboring New Mexico told CBS News. “It’s likely there were other people with symptoms who did not want to be tested so we cannot say with absolute certainty that no one else contracted H5N1. We can say for sure that there were people sick with other respiratory viruses working on dairy farms,” Anton said in a statement.. With health authorities and experts dependent on dairy workers and their contacts volunteering for monitoring their symptoms and getting tested, those tracking the virus have turned to other data sources to look for signs of undetected spread. One draft study of wastewater samples in a northwest Texas town found that signs of H5N1 have surged in sewers, but also that emergency room trends in the area were declining at the same time. They hypothesized dumping of waste from dairy farms with sick cows are to blame, not sick humans. The CDC has also pointed to emergency room data for reassuring worries about undetected H5N1 cases. “We continue to monitor flu surveillance data, especially in areas where H5N1 viruses have been detected in dairy cattle or other animals, for any unusual trends in flu-like illness, flu, or conjunctivitis. CDC flu surveillance systems at this time show no indicators of unusual flu activity in people,” Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters Wednesday.