WHILE THE MANAGER OF LEE COUNTY’S Lucky Café, hunkered in a Cape Coral strip mall beside a Chinese restaurant, welcomed visitors through her neon-lit door into the darkened interior of a gambling den with about 70 game- sporting computer terminals last week, Florida’s Supreme Court judges continued to wrestle behind c
After celebrating 19 Thanksgivings in their Habitat for Humanity home, the Valdez family gave extra thanks this year for paying off their mortgage.
For those who love amusement park challenges this has been the most thrilling autumn in memory.
The 2016 presidential campaign unleashed powerful forces. They will reshape American democracy just as surely as the geologic forces driven by plate tectonics remade the physical world.
The first thing to know about Donald Trump’s alleged proposal for a Muslim registry is that it isn’t a Muslim registry. This has been lost in a freak-out that has some brave souls already promising acts of civil disobedience to disrupt and overwhelm the prospective registry.
How safe are we from Zika? Are safeguards in place to protect our communities if the epidemic reaches Southwest Florida?
Working at Florida Weekly has its advantages, one of which is getting a heads up on all the cool stuff to do in town. Without easy access to organizations and businesses of all sizes, I wouldn’t know about many of the great ways there are to get involved in the community, either.
Future of travel
Clubs, nonprofits, business offices and groups of all kinds conduct holiday toy and food drives all around town. Here are two that will appreciate your donations:
¦ MarineMax Naples has partnered with The Salvation Army of Collier County to “Fill the Boat” with toys and food for the less fortunate this holiday season.
The oldest house in Naples unveils a more refined holiday house décor to complement the sophisticated holiday style of its neighbors in downtown Naples when the annual Christmas at Palm Cottage begins on Thursday, Dec. 1.
Florida Gulf Coast University’s Everglades Wetland Research Park at Naples Botanical Garden presents five preeminent national and international speakers for its fifth annual Moonlight on the Marsh Distinguished Lecture Series in 2017.
The free lectures are sponsored by a generous donation by Bernard and Susan Master of Marco Island and Columbus, Ohio.
The Naples Christmas Parade sets out from Broad Avenue and Third Street South at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 6, proceeding north to Fifth Avenue South, then east on Fifth Avenue South and south on Eighth Street South, past City Hall and ending at Eighth Street South and Broad Avenue South.
This year’s theme — “A Naples Family
The 13th annual Southwest Florida Nature Festival presented by Friends of Rookery Bay is set for Jan. 13-15. Registration opens Thursday, Dec. 1, for numerous field trips that are part of the festival offerings.
Spring training 2017 for the Boston Red Sox opens Tuesday, Feb. 14, when pitchers and catchers hold their first workout at JetBlue Park at Fenway South in Fort Myers. The first full squad workout takes place Friday, Feb. 17. Workouts are free and open to the public.
Here are some good things to have on your radar in the next couple of weeks:
Here’s where CCSO deputies will be on traffic detail the week of Dec. 5-9:
Monday, Dec. 5
Thomasson Drive and Avalon Elementary School: Speeding
18th Avenue SW and Sunset Road: Aggressive driving
Livingston and Radio roads: Speeding
Tuesday, Dec. 6
AARP offers classes to help older drivers learn about new traffic laws, refresh their driving skills and reduce their risk for tickets and accidents. Drivers over age 55 might be eligible for a discount on auto insurance. Cost is $15 for AARP members, $20 for others. Reservations are required and can be made by calling the number listed with the session you wish to attend.
Toyota has killed its Scion brand, and not everyone made it out alive. This entry-level marque shed everything from its microcar iQ to the tC economy coupe.
¦ Gulfcoast Runners host the Collier County Public Schools 5K Walk-Run at 8 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 3. The route will include connections between Osceola Elementary School, Barron Collier High School and the school district’s Dr. Martin Luther Kind, Jr. Administrative Center. Registration is $10-$45 through Dec. 2, and $10-$50 the day of the race.
¦ Tickets for the Naples Garden Club’s 2017 House & Garden Tour go on sale Thursday, Dec. 1. Sales start online at 9 a.m. that day; tickets typically sell out within hours.
Some tough souls in Naples aren’t content to loll on the couch and digest their Thanksgiving feast. Instead, a 62-mile bike ride is what the doctor ordered to work off those extra calories. The Iron Joe Turkey Ride, an annual tradition for local cyclists, was founded with just with that end in mind by record-breaking triathlete and local business owner Joe Bonness.
POLICE AND OTHER LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS IN FLORIDA RUN more face recognition searches than nearly anywhere else in the country with almost no regulation or oversight, using technology that disproportionately affects African Americans, researchers at Georgetown Law Center on Privacy & Technology found during a year-long investigation.
Several weeks ago, the Smithsonian’s newest museum opened in Washington, D.C. It sits on a five-acre plot on the National Mall just a short stroll from the National Monument. It took a century to incubate the National Museum of African American History and Culture before it became a reality.
From behind the lovely expanse of dark polished wood where the president now sits to gaze across the Oval Office, a few details jump immediately to the eye. I’ve been in the Oval Office, part of the West Wing in the White House, so I know what I’m talking about.
Pity the anti-Trump protesters thronging the streets of American cities.
Apparently, no one ever told them that they live in a geographically, economically and ideologically varied nation, and that about half of its inhabitants might support a Republican candidate for president. They mistook the country for the campus of Oberlin College.
Drug Free Collier is teaming up with retired NFL player Ikaika “Ike” Alama- Francis to help tackle substance abuse. At 31 years old, Ike is Drug Free Collier’s newest community ambassador. As such, he works closely with youth, at local agencies and at events sharing his message about making good choices.
Shy Wolf Sanctuary has a new resident, Jena, who appears to be a timber wolf and shepherd mix wolf dog. She was running loose for at least six weeks in Sumter County (Bushnell and The Villages).
Fifty thousand dollars for a truck?!
Florida has the most cyclist fatalities per million population in the nation.
Here’s where CCSO deputies will be on traffic detail the week of Nov. 28-Dec. 2:
Monday, Nov. 28
Collier and Davis boulevards: Redlight running
Lely High School Boulevard at Lely High School: Aggressive driving
Airport-Pulling and Immokalee roads: Red-light running
AARP offers classes to help older drivers learn about new traffic laws, refresh their driving skills and reduce their risk for tickets and accidents. Drivers over age 55 might be eligible for a discount on auto insurance. Cost is $15 for AARP members, $20 for others. Reservations are required and can be made by calling the number listed with the session you wish to attend.
[img_assist|nid=262501|title=|desc= Neapolitan Linda LaRue Brown, past president of the Naples Garden Club, was one of 30 finalists in the National Garden Club’s photography contest held in honor of the 100th anniversary of the National Park System.
Here are some good things to have on your radar in the next couple of weeks:
Democracy in action
If you’re reading this on a shiny new iPhone 7, new research suggests you might not have given your old phone its due before trading up.
The Naples-based Pan-Florida Challenge has raised $1.1 million over the past year to provide 2.5 million meals for hungry children. The money is feeding 2,500 children in 36 schools and sites across eight Florida counties through the proprietary PFC Power Pack program that sends children home from school every Friday with enough food for the weekend.
¦ St. Matthew’s House Gobble Gobble Four Miler takes place at 7:30 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 24, at Venetian Village with a one-mile fun walk/run, a chipped timed race and a four-mile walk/run along Gulfshore Boulevard and its surrounding neighborhoods. A children’s race steps off at 8:50 a.m.
As we enter the season of thanks and giving, shopping can be a way to do both. At Waterside Shops, “Sip & Shop Sundays” happen from noon to 3 p.m. That’s when shoppers and browsers can purchase $5 bloody Marys or mimosas at the center’s pavilion and know that 100 percent of the proceeds will benefit a different charity each week.
An independent panel convened by the National Institutes of Health has developed a 10-year roadmap for advancing research to prevent youth suicide.
Resident dentists and clinicians from the University of Florida’s College of Dentistry recently screened more than 200 children in Guadalupe Center’s Early Childhood Education Program in Immokalee. For the second year, each child was checked for oral health issues of the gums and teeth. Screenings include fluoride and sealant treatments.
THE PREVAILING IMAGE OF AN American small business owner is someone forging her own professional path by the sweat of her brow — and often the skin of her teeth.
It’s that time again. Collier County’s favorite festive networking event, Farm City BBQ, returns from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 23, to its “farm” location in Immokalee.
There’s a new term for journalists and others who misjudged, underestimated or laughed off Donald Trump voters: elitist.
I’m guilty of the second of those charges — underestimation — even if Mrs. Clinton did win the popular vote in the United States, as I expected (I did not expect her to lose the electoral college).
It is Thanksgiving time again. It took a long time to get here. The 2016 election cycle left little room to anticipate anything but its conclusion. The nation is exhausted. We smart from self-inflicted wounds. We brutalized our electoral system and the democratic systems supporting it.
In the course of about six hours, what was supposed to be a Republican existential crisis turned into a Republican wave.
What was supposed to be a victory of the coalition of the ascendant became a dispiriting rout of the coalition that didn’t show up.
Gobble, gobble! The holiday season is upon us, but we have to get through Thanksgiving to get to the good stuff. Is there anyone else out there who feels like our national celebration of gratitude is just a hurdle we have to jump to get to Christmas? Just me?
Black Friday is known as the start of the Christmas shopping season, but the unofficial kickoff party for the glories of holiday eating, drinking and socializing comes two days earlier on Thanksgiving Eve, sometimes called Black Wednesday, Blackout Wednesday, or even Drinksgiving.
As we enter the season of thanks and giving, shopping can be a way to do both. At Waterside Shops, “Sip & Shop Sundays” happen from noon to 3 p.m. That’s when shoppers and browsers can purchase $5 bloody Marys or mimosas at the center’s pavilion and know that 100 percent of the proceeds will benefit a different charity each week.
The Avow Foundation has received a $1 million gift from Mary Ullen to create a serenity garden on the Avow campus in Naples. The Mary and Robert Ullen Serenity Garden will be between the existing Ispiri Community Center and the Lyon Center, which is under construction on the Avow campus on Whippoorwill Lane off Pine Ridge Road, just west of the I-75 interchange.
Youth Haven is holding a Thanksgiving food drive to help feed children in its three programs that serve the abused, neglected and abandoned children of Southwest Florida. The programs are:
¦ Youth Haven’s residential emergency shelter for boys and girls ages 6-18.
¦ Its Children and Family Counseling Center.
¦ Its Homeless and Runaway Youth program.
The Department of Nursing at Florida SouthWestern State College invites anyone considering nursing as a career to learn more from 11 a.m. to noon Wednesday, Nov. 30, at the FSW Collier Campus, 7505 Grand Lely Drive.
Here are some good things to have on your radar in the next couple of weeks:
Test of skill
We all have the one friend who has an outfit for every occasion but is still hesitant before stepping out the door. That indecisive pal will love the new BMW 330e.
Here’s where CCSO deputies will be on traffic detail the week of Nov. 21-25:
Monday, Nov. 21
¦ Goodlette-Frank and Vanderbilt Beach road: Speeding
¦ Santa Barbara Boulevard and Radio Road: Speeding
¦ Pine Ridge and Livingston roads: Redlight running
Tuesday, Nov. 22
AARP offers classes to help older drivers learn about new traffic laws, refresh their driving skills and reduce their risk for tickets and accidents. Drivers over age 55 might be eligible for a discount on auto insurance. Cost is $15 for AARP members, $20 for others. Reservations are required and can be made by calling the number listed with the session you wish to attend.
[img_assist|nid=261836|title=|desc= The Pilot Club of Naples held its annual Pilot Family Fun Day at North Collier Regional Park, with all proceeds focusing on brain injury prevention and education. 1.
Disruptions in sleep may be raising your risks of an irregular heartbeat, known as atrial fibrillation, according to preliminary research presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2016.
To help families across the state enjoy a happy and healthy holiday season, the Florida Department of Health is partnering with North Carolina State University to offer the Maintain, Don’t Gain! Holiday Challenge for the third year in a row. The free challenge starts this week and runs through Dec.
¦ The Alzheimer’s Association hosts the Walk to End Alzheimer’s at 8 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 19, at North Collier Regional Park. The event features a 2-mile and 3-mile route. Registration is free, but donations are appreciated. (941) 365-8883 or www.act.alz.org.
AS WE OBSERVE VETERANS DAY NOVEMBER 11, let us celebrate the service of all U.S. military veterans. Let us remember with gratitude those who made the greatest sacrifice, their lives, for our freedom and democracy.
¦ Hodges University’s Dr. Peter Thomas Veterans Services Center hosts its annual Veterans Day ceremony from 1-1:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 10, in the Kleist Community Room on the university’s Fort Myers campus at 4501 Colonial Blvd. Christine Manson, director of the center, ill officiate the ceremony.
There are those people who won’t take no for an answer when it comes to helping others in need. One of them is Dawn Silverman. She grew up in Naples, attending Gulf View Middle School and then both Naples and Barron Collier high schools.
I hear your dogs in the dark licking themselves. The night cleaning.
This past Halloween, while shopping for costume ingredients for trick-or-treating, (for a Ms. Nasty Woman of America costume), I came across a newly digitized, limited edition of the classic film, “The Creature from the Black Lagoon.” It was a must buy and an immediate launch into the darkened movie house of my Florida childhood memories.
