In this installment from the StoryCorps Mobile Tour visit to Fort Myers in Feb. 2024, Doug MacGregor interviews his friend Joy Perez about her life including growing up in Ohio, the Kent State shooting, relocating to Southwest Florida, her 34 year-long teaching career with Lee County Schools, and continuing to give back now, while in retirement.

The night of June 1, Cape Coral native Michael White was brutally assaulted at University Village not far from FGCU in south Lee County. While waiting outside for an Uber, White said that a group of people in a vehicle began shouting homophobic slurs at him. He ignored it, but the driver exited the car, and began the assault. White's injuries were significant — a broken nose, a brain bleed, and multiple facial fractures. The assailant has not yet been identified.

Summer, for many people, brings sun and fun ... for others though, it brings hunger.Nearly 178,000 people in Southwest Florida faced food insecurity in 2022 and nearly 41,000 of those were children, according to the most recent data available from Feeding America. Those numbers are up from the previous year and are expected to keep rising as the Southwest Florida population grows.In an effort to mitigate those statistics, GL Homes, one of Florida’s largest homebuilders, recently kicked off its 2024 “Summer of Service” with a “Pack the Pantry” event in support of the Harry Chapin Food Bank.

OMAHA BEACH, France — Under their feet, the sands of Omaha Beach, and in their rheumy eyes, tears that inevitably flowed from being on the revered shoreline in Normandy, France, where so many American young men were cut down 80 years ago on D-Day.Veterans of World War II, many of them centenarians and likely returning to France for one last time, pilgrimaged Tuesday to what was the bloodiest of five Allied landing beaches on June 6, 1944. They remembered fallen friends. They relived horrors they experienced in combat. They blessed their good fortune for surviving. And they mourned those who paid the ultimate price.They also bore a message for generations behind them, who owe them so much: Don’t forget what we did.

The University Police Department is conducting an active assailant training exercise from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, May 25, in Biscayne Hall, part of FGCU’s South Village residential area. A simulator that portrays the sound of gunshots may be heard throughout the training.

Advocates call for statewide registry to stop animal abuse

In this installment from the StoryCorps Mobile Tour visit to Fort Myers in Feb. 2024, Courtney McNeil interviews her mother Leslie McGowan about their family background, choosing a career path and their shared experiences as working mothers.

The Point-in-Time Count is done annually and tied to federal funding.

In this installment from the StoryCorps Mobile Tour visit to Fort Myers in Feb. 2024, Catherine Cavin interviews her mother Theresa Calabro, about her childhood, getting an education, and motherhood.

A metal pole which once carried U.S. and Marine Corps flags over a military site in Lebanon will return to its proper vertical stance — but this time it will stand tall for veterans and the public to see in a special area at the William R. Gaines Jr. Veterans Memorial Park in Charlotte County.The pole was brought to the Gaines park on Wednesday but the route it took to get to the Charlotte County location was a long and tragic one.