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The Florida Department of Law Enforcement will break ground Thursday on a new Fort Myers Regional Operations Center to be built on a site in South Lee County.A noon media briefing will announce construction of the new FMROC nearly three years after Hurricane Ian caused structural damage to the current FMROC building at Page Field.

Moments after a ribbon was cut in a Hendry County field Tuesday, pumps were opened and the first of 55 billion gallons started filling the new C-43 reservoir and filtering of that water began."This is a big deal," Ben Albritton, Florida State Senate president said during a ribbon-cutting ceremony moments before the pumps started up.

Websites of the Florida Center for Government Accountability and the Florida Trident were hit by what was described as a “massive and sophisticated” cyber attack Sunday.Barbara A. Petersen, CEO and publisher of the center and the Trident, said the denial-of-service attack on the flcga.org and floridatrident.org websites were discovered early on and caused only minor disruptions.

Big Cypress National Preserve is issuing a temporary closure in certain areas of the preserve during prescribed fire activity beginning Wednesday, January 8.Closure includes all areas and trails within the treatment perimeter, trails on the perimeter of the unit will remain open for use. During the closure all recreational use including off-road vehicles, hiking, camping, hunting and commercial activities are prohibited in the designated areas.

Naples Botanical Garden will conduct a prescribed fire on 8.5 acres in the property’s Preserve, south of the Evenstad Horticulture Campus, for several hours today.Carefully controlled fires like this one are an important public safety precaution because they reduce organic matter, such as pine needles and fallen leaves, that can fuel wildfires.

Southwest Florida International Airport turned in a record-setting year for passenger traffic in 2024 with nearly three-quarters of a million more people filing through the Lee County air travel site.That increased passenger traffic was also reflected during December when 1,121,793 passengers traveled through RSW. This was an increase of 2.5 percent compared to December 2023. Year-to-date, passenger traffic was up 9.5 percent.

Information from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ monthly jobs report released Wednesday shows that for all of 2024, total nonfarm jobs in the Cape Coral-Fort Myers metro area increased by 1.9 percent or 5,900 jobs.The Cape Coral-Fort Myers metro area led other metro areas in the southwest Florida area in annual job growth over that time. The Cape Coral-Fort Myers numbers compare to an increase of 1.4 percent in the nation as a whole and 1.5 percent in the state of Florida.

After 12 years with the Southwest Florida Symphony, current CEO Amy Ginsburg has decided to leave the position effective June 30 to spend more time with her family as well as pursue other opportunities.The symphony, Lee County’s only fully professional orchestra and the fourth oldest in the state, announced the departure Monday.

Wood storks continue to be the primary focus in the Western Everglades due to their role as an indicator species and the region’s historic importance for this species.

April saw nearly 1.2 million passengers go through Southwest Florida International Airport, an increase from the April 2024 passenger count, but a decrease for year-over-year statistics.The Lee County Port Authority says that the April number – 1.178 million passengers -- was the second-best April in the history of the airport.