One teen was killed and a second teen was injured after being hit by a car in Lehigh Acres Friday night.

According to the Florida Highway Patrol, two 15-year-old boys were walking west along 42nd Street West near Elaine Avenue in Lehigh Acres at 10:18 p.m.

The 19-year-old driver, also heading west, hit both boys with the front of his car.

One boy was taken to Lee Memorial Hospital where he died, the second victim suffered minor injuries.

The driver left without stopping and was later found and arrested on charges of Leaving the Scene with Death and Leaving the Scene involving Injury. He was transported to the Lee County Jail.

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We have nice Saturday afternoon on tap for Southwest Florida. Highs will peak in the lower 80s, with a mix of sun & clouds, and a few spotty showers.

The best chance of rain will be inland in the afternoon.

Aside from some patchy fog on Sunday morning, the rest of Sunday looks nice with sun & clouds, and highs back in the 80s!

 

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One of the first things we learned in school was don’t cheat, but that’s something federal investigators say they caught a Southwest Florida couple doing for new teachers.

Investigators say Jeremy and Kathleen Jasper of Estero ran a company that gave away questions and answers on the teacher certification test.

The School District of Lee County says it started working with company NavaED back in 2017 to help teachers prepare for the certification exams.

The District says those workshops were in person before the pandemic and then transitioned online, but that was all before the District found out the test prep information NavaED used might have been illegal.

The company’s website looks like a typical tutoring site, set with online videos, courses and books that helped many Florida educators prepare for certification exams.

However, federal prosecutors say the test prep is made up of stolen material, the coursework of a large cheating scheme.

“The stolen trade secrets and information directly impact the integrity of the education system in the state of Florida,” said Lawrence Keefe, the U.S. Attorney of the northern district of Florida.

Federal prosecutors say the Jaspers took the tests repeatedly, memorizing the questions and answers and selling the information to clients preparing for the exam.

“We need to have the full faith and confidence that the test is secure and the questions are secure, so that’s why this kind of academic impropriety is so, so egregious when it comes to education,” said Kevin Daly, the president of the Lee County teachers association.

Daly says he believes those who used the exam did so in good faith. The question remains about what this means for all of the educators who used the NavaED test prep.

“The Florida Department of Education has a challenge going forward in terms of addressing and dealing with a significant number of people who may now be certified as teachers and principals and administrators to determine what the appropriate things that need to be done as the state’s curators and custodians of the Florida education system,” Keefe said.

NavaED released a statement saying the company is innocent.

The department of education says it has worked hard over the past year to replace the stolen exam questions with new content to ensure the integrity of the teacher certification exams.

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The Food and Drug Administration on Friday authorized Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine for emergency use, kicking off a massive effort to initially deliver nearly 3 million doses of the vaccine to more than 600 sites nationwide. The approval comes just a day after the FDA’s advisory panel voted 17-4 in favor of approving the vaccine.

Frontline medical workers and residents of long-term care facilities will be the first to get the vaccine, and could receive it as early as Monday. The vaccine is authorized for people age 16 and older, the FDA said in a statement announcing the decision.

“The FDA’s authorization for emergency use of the first COVID-19 vaccine is a significant milestone in battling this devastating pandemic that has affected so many families in the United States and around the world,” FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said in the statement.

President Trump posted a video on Twitter celebrating the authorization and calling the vaccine a “medical miracle.” He also touted the safety of the vaccine, saying it had “passed the gold standard of safety.”

Mr. Trump said the first doses of the vaccine will be administered in less than 24 hours.

Speaking to the FDA’s advisory panel on Thursday, Dr. Nancy Messonnier, a senior CDC official, said “active surveillance systems” will be in place to monitor the safety of the first vaccine recipients to track any potential adverse side effects. Messonnier said the systems will provide useful information about how the vaccine is affecting different communities.

“Understand that vaccine safety and effective monitoring is a top priority for the U.S government and we’re committed to ensuring that all these systems are in place and ready to go as soon as the vaccine program is implemented,” Messonnier said.

Clinical trials showed the Pfizer vaccine was nearly 95% effective for adults 18 to 64 and was just as effective for people of all ethnicities. However, some groups — people with weak immune systems, individuals with severe allergic reactions, and pregnant women — could be restricted from getting the shot.

British health officials on Wednesday warned that people with a history of “significant” allergic reactions to vaccines, medicine, or food should not be given Pfizer’s vaccine.

Pfizer’s vaccine must be kept at nearly negative 100 degrees Fahrenheit to remain effective. That’s about 20 degrees colder than extreme winter temperatures at the South Pole. Early on, experts warned that the U.S. lacked the necessary ultra-cold storage trucks and cargo planes needed to ship hundreds of millions of doses at sub-zero temperatures.

To get around that, Pfizer has developed specially built deep-freeze “suitcases” that can be tightly sealed and shipped even in non-refrigerated trucks. But while Pfizer may have solved the problem of how to ship the frozen vaccine, these highly engineered shipping containers create other problems, particularly for the hospitals, pharmacies and outpatient clinics that will have to administer the vaccinations to hundreds of millions of Americans.

“The reality is there has never been a drug that required storage at this temperature,” said Soumi Saha, a pharmacist and director of advocacy at Premier, which acts as a purchasing agent for hospitals across the country. “The administration and distribution effort will require an all hands on deck.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said the vaccines will ship via UPS and FedEx. UPS says the process has already begun, and it has already shipped vaccine kits with supplies including syringes, masks and a diluting agent for the Pfizer vaccine, which will be used to administer the drug. UPS will also send dry ice to sites that don’t have the ability to store the vials at the required temperature.

As hospitals await shipments of the vaccine, they are facing a record surge in coronavirus patients. California is reporting its highest-ever number of new daily cases, and Mississippi has no more ICU beds.

Nearly 16,000 Americans have died this week, and cities and states are imposing drastic new restrictions to curb the virus’ spread. Experts say that despite the vaccine approval, it’s still critical that all Americans wear masks and social distance.

The announcement comes after the FDA has faced increasing pressure from the Trump administration to approve the vaccine. White House chief of staff Mark Meadows called FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn on Friday and told him to approve the Pfizer vaccine or consider resigning, according to a senior administration official. Hahn denied the phone call occurred.

President Trump urged Hahn on Friday to approve the vaccine, tweeting: “Stop playing games and start saving lives!!!” and “Get the dam vaccines out NOW.”

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Long-term care facilities in Florida are ready for the coronavirus vaccine rollout, but those facilities will only get enough to vaccinate about 40,000 people in the first round.

Nursing homes we spoke to Friday were unsure if they would be included in the first phase of the vaccine in the state, and nothing will likely become official until after the vaccine is on its way to Florida.

Steffanie Servellon is the wellness director at Atrium Liberty Park in Cape Coral. She believes the COVID-19 vaccine will be a game changer for the people who live in the long-term care facility.

“The risk of the vaccine is nothing compared to the risk of actually not getting the vaccine,” Servellon said. “Our residents, they have gone through so much.”

How many doses of the vaccine will atrium receive? How will administrators determine who gets the vaccine?

Those are two question among many without concrete answers.

“We sent out a letter to the families, educating them about the importance of getting the vaccine and letting them know that they do have the option to take it or not to take it,” Servellon said.

“Providers have been battling this for 10 months,” said Nick van der Linden, the director of communications at Leading Age Florida. “They’ve been fighting this war, and this vaccine is really a ray of light and is really another weapon in their arsenal to combat the virus.”

The state is relying on CVS and Walgreens to vaccinate people in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.

Gov. Ron DeSantis also has a strike team ready to help with the state’s most vulnerable citizens.

CVS and Walgreens are expected to begin reaching out to nursing homes and other long-term care facilities next week to begin answering those questions like who gets the vaccine and when.

“It’s been clear. It’s been shown that the elderly population is the most susceptible to this virus, and subsequently, it’s important to get the vaccination to the staff,” van der Linden said. “They are providing intimate care to these residents.”

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The Supreme Court on Friday rebuffed a last-ditch attempt by Texas to block electors from four battleground states — all of which backed President-elect Joe Biden — from voting in the Electoral College, delivering a fatal blow to President Trump and his allies in their quest to overturn the results of the presidential election.

The high court refused to take up the lawsuit filed Monday by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that took aim at the election results in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia and Wisconsin.

“Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections. All other pending motions are dismissed as moot,” the court said in an unsigned order.

But Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, said the court does “not have discretion to deny the filing of a bill of complaint in a case that falls within our original jurisdiction. I would therefore grant the motion to file the bill of complaint but would not grant other relief, and I express no view on any other issue.”

The decision by the Supreme Court not to wade into the dispute marks the second loss for Mr. Trump and his GOP backers this week. On Tuesday, the justices rejected a bid from Pennsylvania Republicans to overturn the results of the election there.

The long-shot lawsuit from Paxton, which was supported by 17 state attorneys general and more than 100 House Republicans, joined a flurry of legal challenges brought by Mr. Trump and his attorneys that have unsuccessfully sought to reverse the outcome of the presidential election in battleground states won by Mr. Biden. Federal and state judges have largely tossed out their lawsuits because they lacked evidence to support claims the election was rife with fraud.

Still, Mr. Trump has asserted the Supreme Court, with a 6-3 conservative majority, would come to his rescue and help deliver him a second term in the White House.

“Now that the Biden Administration will be a scandal plagued mess for years to come, it is much easier for the Supreme Court of the United States to follow the Constitution and do what everybody knows has to be done. They must show great Courage & Wisdom. Save the USA!!!” he tweeted Friday.

The high court, however, has declined to intervene in cases challenging the results of the election.

In his lawsuit filed directly with the Supreme Court against the states, Paxton claimed government officials used the coronavirus pandemic as justification to change their election rules, which led to a “weakening of ballot security.” The officials, he claimed, “flooded” their states with mail-in ballots and ballot applications, making “the 2020 election less secure.”

Officials in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Georgia “usurped their legislatures’ authority and unconstitutionally revised their state’s election statutes,” Paxton alleged. “They accomplished these statutory revisions through executive fiat or friendly lawsuits.”

In his complaint, Paxton asked the Supreme Court to extend the December 14 deadline for the Electoral College to meet and block the states from certifying their presidential electors or having them cast their votes for president in the Electoral College. If the states have already appointed their presidential electors using the 2020 election results, he called on the high court to direct state legislatures to appoint a new set of electors.

But the top law enforcement officials from each of the four states urged the Supreme Court not to take up the dispute, separately noting the claims raised in Texas’s complaint have already been rejected by federal and state courts.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro called the efforts to overturn the election results “legally indefensible” and “an afront to principles of constitutional democracy.”

“Texas’s effort to get this court to pick the next President has no basis in law or fact,” he wrote in a filing with the Supreme Court. “The court should not abide this seditious abuse of the judicial process, and should send a clear and unmistakable signal that such abuse must never be replicated.”

Shapiro told the court Texas waited to request an injunction to invalidate Pennsylvania’s election results “because all of the other political and litigation machinations of petitioner’s preferred presidential candidate have failed.”

“The Trump campaign began with a series of meritless litigations. When that failed, it turned to state legislatures to overturn the clear election results. Upon that failure, Texas now turns to this Court to overturn the election results of more than 10% of the country,” he continued. “Texas literally seeks to decimate the electorate of the United States.”

Mr. Trump filed a motion with the Supreme Court on Wednesday asking to join Texas’ case, echoing its claim that elections officials “made a systematic effort to weaken measures to ensure fair and impartial elections by creating new rules for the conduct of the elections” under the guise of the pandemic.

“These new rules were aimed at weakening, ignoring, or overriding provisions of state law that are aimed at ensuring the integrity of the voting process,” Chapman University law professor John Eastman, the president’s lawyer, wrote in a filing with the court.

Mr. Trump alleged it “should come as no surprise” that many Americans believe the election was stolen — as he has been claiming near-daily — because no presidential candidate has ever lost the election after winning both Florida and Ohio, as he did. The president, however, is incorrect: Richard Nixon won both states in 1960 but lost the presidential election.

Republican attorneys general from 17 states filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the Supreme Court in support of Texas’s lawsuit, and GOP Congressman Mike Johnson of Louisiana, joined by 105 House Republicans, are also backing Texas’s efforts before the high court.

A slew of other states have also jumped into the fray — 19 states and the District of Columbia joined the four battleground states in urging the Supreme Court to reject Texas’s attempt to toss out the election results, while Ohio said it does not support Paxton’s proposed relief.

Ordering state legislatures to appoint its own electors would violate the Constitution, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, a Republican, and Solicitor General Benjamin Flowers told the court.

“Federal courts, just like state courts, lack authority to change the legislatively chosen method for appointing presidential electors. And so federal courts, just like state courts, lack authority to order legislatures to appoint electors without regard to the results of an already-completed election,” they argued. “What is more, the relief that Texas seeks would undermine a foundational premise of our federalist system: the idea that the states are sovereigns, free to govern themselves.”

Paxton’s effort to overturn the election results was derided by top officials from the states named in his suit, who called it a waste of taxpayer dollars. Several Republican lawmakers were also skeptical Paxton would succeed.

Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas told reporters Wednesday the lawsuit was “unprecedented” and noted states oversee their own election laws and voting, while GOP Senator Mitt Romney of Utah called the effort “simply madness.”

“The idea of supplanting the vote of the people with partisan legislators is so completely out of our national character that it’s simply mad,” he told reporters. “Of course the president has the right to challenge results in court, to have recounts. But this effort to subvert the vote of the people is dangerous and destructive of the cause of democracy.”

The four states named in Paxton’s legal challenge have already certified their election results, formalizing Mr. Biden’s victory over Mr. Trump, and the clock for any relief for the president is quickly running out.

December 8 was the “safe harbor” deadline for states to resolve election disputes and certify its election results before the Electoral College meets Monday.

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Fort Myers Beach will be closed beginning Saturday from the fishing pier to the north end of Lynn Hall Memorial Park for dune renourishment. We looked at what the project will do for beaches Friday.

Forrest Kiser’s whole life revolves around the beach with his business Liquid Levitation.

“It’s part of my job because I own liquid limitations, so I teach people how to fly on an electric surfboard,” Kiser said. “I’m on the beach like five days a week.”

Kiser teaches people along the coast from Boca Grande to Naples.

After Hurricane Irma hit Southwest Florida in 2017, Kiser could see the beach at Lynn Hall Park didn’t look up to par.

“I see all along our edges here,” Kiser said. “It’s pretty eroded bad, so it’s getting prevalent now.”

Help is on the way, as Lee County is set to transport 6,000 tons of sand to renourish the stretch of beach along Lynn Hall.

“The beach from the pier to north of the park boundary will be closed, starting tomorrow morning, until potentially the 24,” said Jesse Lavender, the director of Lee County Parks and Recreation. “Hopefully the contractor finishes ahead of schedule.”

The park’s south parking lot will remain open during the project, as well as the public bathrooms and showers, but the north side will have heavy equipment and a conveyor belt moving sand to the shore.

“Anytime we can get this done before the season starts officially, that’s what we try and do,” Lavender said.

Lee County is paying for the beach repairs with $200,000 from the tourist development tax. That’s money the county collects from visitors who stay in short-term rentals.

While construction is underway, Kiser said he’ll go to other beaches, such as Bowditch Point Park or Crescent Beach Family Park, to continue his business and enjoy the sun.

“This is like my home away from home, so the seeing beach is being taken care of means the world to me,” Kiser said.

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You might not notice red tide on the beach, but it’s evident further out in the Gulf, and it’s hurting the charter boat industry.

Medium concentrations of red tide are high enough for fish kills, yet the shores look to be clean Friday.

Still, there are red tide advisories at beaches along the coast, and it kept some beachgoers from swimming in the water.

Marine researchers at FGCU say concentrations are high enough for fish kills.

“There could be a lot of reasons why we’re not seeing dead fishes washing up on the beach,” said Greg Tolley, an expert in marine ecology at FGCU. “That doesn’t necessarily mean there aren’t fish kills farther offshore.”

While the university’s researchers took a dive 75 miles offshore recently and didn’t find red tide, some fishing captains near North Naples canceled trips because they couldn’t keep bait fish alive with the water conditions.

“The latest tracking data shows red tide is heading southeast, southeastern direction,” Tolley said. “It could just be a matter of more time for those conditions to develop.”

Scientists at Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium told us, with the bloom being patchy right now, fish can move in and out, finding relief. Other fishing captains told us they steered clear of red tide.

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‘Chris’ was doing well on his road to recovery. He’d gotten a job and an apartment and was living a much more healthy lifestyle.

But everything changed in March 2020. The isolation and social distancing prescribed to help curb the COVID-19 pandemic gave Chris a reason to turn back to drugs.

His is just one story that the counselors at St. Matthew’s House have seen in the past several months.

Because he is at a delicate stage of his recovery, they did not want WINK News to identify “Chris” by his real name.

The Naples-based charity provides shelters and programs for people struggling with substance abuse, in addition to its programs aimed at fighting homelessness and hunger.

Graduates of St. Matthew’s House addiction programs have an 85 percent success rate and staying clean and sober. But in the past year, they are seeing program graduates like Chris’ relapse.

Kevin Sisti, an intake manager for one of the charities’ residential programs, said the isolation and social distancing prescribed to curb the pandemic gave people struggling with addiction the ability to stay at home and drink or use drugs.

“You throw money at it, as far as unemployment and government funds, and that sort and [they’re] going to take advantage of that,” said Sisti, a recovering alcoholic who just celebrated two years of sobriety.

He said he saw people come in for help and then leave once they had their stimulus funds.

Last year in Florida nearly 6,000 people died from drugs or alcohol according to an annual report released by the Medical Examiner’s Commission.

Nationwide, there were 160,000 deaths related to substance abuse according to St. Matthew’s House CEO Vann Ellison. He said he worries that next year could be worse.

‘I did two funerals last week—young men that I knew; the oldest of them was 34, lives cut short way too early,” said Ellison.

Anyone struggling with addiction can contact St. Matthew’s House to be connected with a case manager at 239-774-0500 or heading to the “Get Help” tab at stmatthewshouse.org.

You can find treatment and help nationwide by calling 1-800-662-4357.

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Parents and students want to know how a man was able to get past security and inside their school.

Thursday, Fort Myers Police Department said a man undergoing mental evaluation at Lee Memorial Hospital escaped next-door to Fort Myers Senior High School, where the principal and The School District of Lee County confirmed he was able to get inside one of the school buildings. At one point, the man also got by a security guard on campus, eventually being detained by first responders off campus.

There are still few answers Friday about how the man was able to foil school security at FMSHS. The District has refused to answer our questions about how someone could get into the school.

The principal did send an email to parents admitting what happened.

We know the man got onto the school courtyard and inside a building, where images surfaced of a hospital gown in a school stairwell.

The principal said in his email to parents the man ran past a security guard, who triggered a lockdown, and he confirmed the man got inside the school during that time.

“Initially, you could tell that there was something wrong just because they didn’t say it was a drill,” Senior Brooke Turner said.

Turner was in class when it happened.

“We actually heard sirens, so that was kind of like a little bit more nerve-racking,” Turner said.

Despite the lockdown, the patient was able to leave the building and jump a fence. Police finally caught up to him in a nearby neighborhood.

“The longer that it went on, you just kind of got a little bit more worried, just texting people and trying to figure out what was happening,” Turner said.

Turner said she was texting her sister, Brycelyn, who is a freshman at the school.

“That was kind of my initial thought,” Turner said. “I went to text her. I saw that she was typing, so we kind of we’re just talking to each other.”

Fort Myers Police Department said the patient was being evaluated for mental health. After they apprehended him, they confirmed he was not facing any charges.

“I feel like they handled it pretty well, and everybody followed orders, and, my teacher, we actually wound up moving desks before we knew what happened,” Turner said. “So we were kind of being quiet about it and just getting prepared, so it was good that we had stuff under control.”

We reached out to the District, including members of the school board and the superintendent, but no one has responded to us.

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