Collier County

A pickleball pro who competed in the US Open championships in Naples picked up the game when he was healing from cancer. He loved it so much, he shared it all the way to Papua New Guinea.

A 1,733-acre wildfire was being fought in the Picayune Strand State Forest in Collier County Monday afternoon. The fire was south of Alligator Alley and prompted a warning from the Florida Highway Patrol.

The fire burning for a week in a corner of the Big Cypress National Preserve has retracted by almost 100 acres, reducing from 511 to 420 acres and contained by firefighting efforts at 65 percent.

For the first time in ten weeks, Collier County had no new cases of measles in the week ending April 4.

Conservation groups sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Wednesday to protect endangered Florida panthers from a new development within the panthers’ occupied breeding habitat in Collier County. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Fort Myers, said the federal agencies violated the Endangered Species Act when they authorized a 10,264-acre residential and commercial development project known as Rural Lands West in important habitat for panthers in Collier County.

Measles cases continue to pop up in Southwest Florida.

Luis Emilio Hernandez, 45, of Naples, plead guilty Monday to two counts of wire fraud and six counts of money laundering in connection with a $1.2 million scheme to defraud an elderly victim following Hurricane Ian.

It was a show of protest, frustration, disaffection and concern and it was shared by thousands Saturday in various Southwest Florida sites, other parts of the state and across the United States and the world. The No Kings III event was billed as a protest rally and drew people of many different political affiliations who said they had concerns with how the current administration in Washington run by President Donald Trump was handling things.

The museum was closed Friday after the break. Museum officials said safety reasons were the cause of the extended shutdown.

Measles cases are on the rise again in Southwest Florida.