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Updates: Hurricane Ian moves toward Florida. Here's where to find news for SWFL
Follow our blog with important news and information about Hurricane Ian as it heads on a path toward Florida. It covers Lee and Collier counties.
Click here to read the live blog.
🔒 In rural America, maternal health care is vanishing. These moms are most at risk.
As more rural hospitals and obstetric units close, the federal government is just beginning to define the scope and impact of maternity care 'deserts.'
Click here to read the full story.
Where to eat in Bonita Springs, Estero: A taste of two new Mexican restaurants — JLB review
Two new and very different Mexican-inspired restaurants, Malinche in Bonita Springs and El Nido in Estero, have opened in south Lee, offering interestingly fresh takes on the cuisine of this vast country.
Here's a taste.
Click here for the full story.
🔒 New restaurants, 4 fun foodie events, two deals spanning Collier, Lee
This week’s adventures take us across Southwest Florida’s flourishing food scene.
New restaurants? We have two.
Terrific deals? Of course.
Mark your culinary calendar for foodie events: one is free, one’s a fundraiser, one is vegan, another for Francophiles.
We also have an update on Taste of Immokalee’s innovative program preparing budding local food entrepreneurs.
Click here for the full story.
New Fort Myers amphitheater announces free concert series: Lorrie Morgan, The FIXX, more
Fort Myers’ new Caloosa Sound Amphitheater just announced some big shows for its first-ever concert series.
And they’re all free.
Click here to read the full story.
🔒 Back to school: Q&A with Lee County School District Superintendent Christopher Bernier
In advance of the start of school on Aug. 10, The News-Press sat down with the Lee County School District Superintendent Christopher Bernier.
Bernier took over as superintendent on May 16 after a 6-1 vote by the district in February.
Before making his way to Lee County Schools, Bernier was the chief of staff for the Clark County, Nevada, school district. Prior to that he was associate superintendent of schools in Orange County.
Click here to read the full story.
🔒 Restaurants: Cape diner deal Guy Fieri made famous, bacon binge, 4 new Naples foodie finds
Consider kissing keto goodbye this week when Philadelphia’s most-awarded pizza parlor debuts its second location in Naples.
We also stop by a charming new waterfront cafe featuring Italian delicacies for pairing with wine, a comfy lounge with craft pours and a vegan-gluten-free bakery.
This week's deal: a legacy diner dish Guy Fieri put on the national map.
But if keeping keto is your jam, Cape Coral’s bacon celebration is a must-visit destination.
Click here for the full story.
🔒 Naples restaurants: Two Fillets, the new fish-cow mashup in North Naples — JLB review
This new North Naples spot, which opened in March along Tamiami Trail, is a cow-fish mashup from Jimmy P’s and the Phelan family, the latter of which replaced their Deep Lagoon Seafood restaurant with this new-to-Naples concept. Before Deep Lagoon, the location was home to Randy’s Fish Market, which closed in 2016.
Click here to read the full story.
🔒 ‘She won't die alone’: Saying a peaceful goodbye to my bright, loving dog Pearl
"But she was so very bright and loving. With every right to be timid or at least bitter, Pearl was friendly – jocular even – and unfailingly faithful. We’d take her with us on horseback rides, hikes and creek swims. Unlike the others, who’d sometimes wander, Pearl always stuck close," writes reporter Amy Bennett Williams.
She found her deaf dog Pearl one fall Sunday in 2011. Now, it's time to say goodbye to the light they welcomed home more than 10 years ago.
🔒 Bonita Springs restaurants: Lapa's Costa Rican Bistro is rare, it's also wonderful — JLB
Generous heaps of arroz con pollo, with tostadas, hand-folded empanadas and sandwiches pressed thick with eggs, beans, shredded meats.
Lapa's is simple, fresh, purely Costa Rican and wonderfully good.
Click here for the full story.
🔒Florida furniture flippers rescue abandoned furniture, fueled by COVID-19 pandemic
Woven into the sun-washed bamboo wicker of an unwanted furniture piece is a hidden history. Florida-based furniture flippers have found a way to uncover the unseen potential in these abandoned furniture pieces.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of people found themselves with extra time on their hands. The pandemic also created delays in consumers receiving furniture they ordered in stores, because of factors including fewer workers and raw materials, along with crowded ports.
For furniture flippers, the pandemic was an opportunity to dive into the world of refurbishing unwanted furniture.
Click here to read the full story.
Florida Department of Health warns of fecal bacteria at SWFL beaches, but many swim anyway
The bad news: Sometimes there are unsafe levels of poop at the region's beaches.
The good news: It's no secret. That means would-be recreators can arm themselves with knowledge before they grab their towels and head out — though not everyone does.
Click here to read the full story.
🔒 Stylish dining at any budget: Best SWFL restaurants for eating outdoors, new ramen, gelato, deals
This week’s theme: high style at every budget.
We visit Southwest Florida’s best al fresco restaurants according to America’s most popular reservations app. Both are gorgeous, yet the vibes and design couldn’t be more different. The pricing, comparable.
Click here to read the full story.
🔒 Naples restaurants: Bamz, The Bevy and the battle for Naples' best lobster — JLB
This week, we review two Naples staples with much in common.
New owners and chef changes since Jean Le Boeuf’s last visits: check.
The volume can get LOUD: check.
But what really counts: the food. Both kitchens turn out very good, and sometimes excellent, offerings.
Click here to read the full story.
🔒 Great Wolf Lodge groundbreaking in Naples: 'Nothing like it in the state of Florida'
Collier County's growth management and community development head described the enormity of Great Wolf Lodge beginning construction Thursday in Naples.
"There's only 19 in the country. There's none in Florida," said Jamie French, the administrator who recently updated the County Commission. "It's 535,000 square feet under air with six swimming pools. There's nothing been built like that in the state of Florida."
Click here to read the full story.
Florida bill that would ban hair discrimination set to be introduced again next year
Florida bill that would ban hair discrimination set to be introduced again next year
The CROWN Act bill, which would prohibit hair discrimination, will be re-introduced during the Florida Legislature next year.
CROWN is an acronym for Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair. The bill failed for the third time during the 2022 session. The bill died in the community affairs committee. It was sponsored this year in the House by Rep. Kamia L. Brown-D, Orlando. Sen. Randolph Bracy, also a Democrat representing Orlando, was the Senate sponsor for the bill, SB 1608.
Brown said she would re-introduce it in 2023.
Click here to read the full story.
🔒 ‘I’m going to do it every single time’: A Florida sheriff took a 10-year-old’s perp walk global
In the week after the massacre at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, police agencies across the country arrested students for allegedly making threats to commit mass killings at their schools.
Among them: a 16-year-old in Long Island, accused of threatening a school shooting in an Instagram post. A middle schooler in Wisconsin, whose alleged threat prompted three schools to lock down. Ten arrests across seven school systems in the Rio Grande Valley.
Their names and faces were not released. But Daniel Marquez, a Cape Coral 10-year-old accused of making a hoax threat over Memorial Day weekend, was publicly exposed.
The difference? Florida’s looser privacy laws for juvenile defendants. And a whirlwind media tour by Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno.
Click here to read the full story.
Trail camera victory shows a close up view of a wild Florida panther
"The miles on foot and by car were racking up. While always fruitful, the outcome often was not the one I desired," writes photojournalist Andrew West.
"On recent hikes to my remote sensor camera set up at Corkscrew Regional Ecosystem Watershed. I would mutter: Is it set up correctly? Are the batteries dead? Did a bear knock it over? Did rain destroy the cables? Did the flashes go off correctly? Did a Florida panther or a bear stroll by?"
Click here to see the critters he saw.
Caught! Record-breaking 18-foot Burmese python pulled from Collier County wilderness
Conservancy biologists caught the biggest Burmese python ever found in Florida’s Everglades: an almost 18-foot-long, 215-pound female loaded with 122 eggs.
Click here to read the full story.
Popular Blind Pass Beach Park in Sanibel deemed dangerously eroded and closed indefinitely
Blind Pass Beach Park on Sanibel is closed, after sudden erosion over the past month made it unsafe, Sanibel officials decided.
If or when the shoreline park, which is popular with anglers and beachgoers, will reopen is unclear, said the city’s director of natural resources, Holly Milbrandt. Barrier islands are ever-changing, she says, and Blind Pass between Sanibel and Captiva is a case in point.
Click here to read the full story.
🔒 Shaggy-legged gallinipper, other mosquitoes feeding heavy on the wing across Florida
Add Off to the grocery list and get out the Thermacell: mosquitoes are on the prowl.
High tides in May brought saltwater varieties to some coastal areas, and the system that became Tropical Storm Alex left the landscape soggy and flooded.
So the freshwater mosquitoes that typically emerge in early July are already here.
"We had all that rain come in last week and we're having lots of calls come in," said Ed Foley with the Lee County Mosquito Control District. "Just in the last couple of days we've had over 300 calls. We can't keep up."
Click here to read the full story.
🔒 New Fort Myers restaurants: At Hot Pot & BBQ, a sea of joy will eat you up — JLB review
All throughout the new Hot Pot & BBQ in Fort Myers, laminated signs warn of the two-hour dining limit. They're posted in the entryway and by the host's station and along the buffet lines where you stock up on raw meats, seafood and spicy sauces — lest, at any point, you forget.
Walking in early on a recent Saturday night, two hours felt manageable. It was my first time at this new concept, which sits amid the dozens of other eateries in the restaurant-dense plazas along Dani Drive in Fort Myers.
Click here to read the full review.
Fort Myers, Naples celebrate Stars and Stripes with flags of stone, rags
Flag Day, June 14, honors the official flag of the United States of America. It celebrates the sacrifice made by its veterans, the freedom cherished by its citizens, the unity created in a nation of unique peoples.
Click here to read the full story.
🔒 Proud history up in smoke as Southwest Florida citrus growers cut their losses
Catastrophe didn’t take Alva citrus grower Frank Green by surprise.
The end of the story, which started in the 1890s, was foreshadowed years ago.
But a slow-motion disaster is still a disaster. Maybe it’s even worse, because it unfolds without the protective mechanism of shock. Instead born-to-the-land farmers like Green watch, year after year, as fruit fouls, prices drop and the end looms.
Click here to read the full story.
🔒'Everything is expensive': Workers getting priced out as rents soar in hot real estate market
An affordable housing crisis continues to clobber low- and middle-income residents and families across the region, as they face inflation at every turn — from the grocery aisle to the gas pump.
Rents have skyrocketed. In some cases, they've more than doubled in a year.
In April, the Sunshine State accounted for eight of the nation's Top 10 markets with the biggest rent increases over the year, based on a monthly index by Florida Atlantic University, Florida Gulf Coast University and the University of Alabama.
Click here to read the full story.
How early is too early to start preparing for hurricane season in Florida?
Hurricane season begins, officially, on June 1.
Unofficially, we know that storms don't always wait for the date. Ana, which formed May 22 last year, marked the seventh year in a row that the Atlantic hurricane season started before the official start of the season.
The 2021 hurricane season was the third most active on record and top hurricane forecasters said we can expect another above-normal season again in 2022. The National Hurricane Center begins issuing regular tropical weather outlooks on May 15.
So even if the calendar has time to spare, you might want to start your hurricane prep a little early. Or at least prepare to prepare.
Click here to read the full story.
Rainy season reminder: Florida motorists can use hazard lights in severe weather
The rain, the rain — it just won't go away.
After weeks and months without a significant amount of rainfall, many areas in Southwest Florida have been drenched from a series of severe afternoon rainstorms that returned late last week.
More than two inches of rain have been recorded at Page Field in Fort Myers and the Naples Airport since May 1.
It appears the 2022 rainy season is officially underway, and that could lead to an important question motorists might be asking: "Can I use my hazard lights while driving during a rainstorm?"
The answer is yes, but only in certain conditions.
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: See the latest stories from The News-Press Instagram page
