In addition to being one of Southwest Florida’s pre-eminent art centers, the Alliance for the Arts plays an advocacy role within Lee County, and beyond. With more than 20 years as a community advocate and organizer, Neil Volz is uniquely suited to empower the Alliance to discharge this aspect of its overarching mission as its new Executive Director. Volz’s views on the art of advocacy are people-centric.

This week, Luciano Pavarotti Foundation President Nicoletta Pavarotti will share details of her life with the famed tenor in the Wang Opera Center in Naples, Puccini’s “La boheme” and Gilbert & Sullivan’s “The Mikado” will each be performed twice in Cambier Park as part of the 5th Annual Opera Naples Festival Under the Stars, and The Sarasota Opera House will perform four different operas, while Sarasota Ballet will present the final performance by the acclaimed Mark Morris Dance Group.

Coast Guard crews located and rescued three overdue boaters, Sunday, near Captiva, after their vessel capsized.  A Coast Guard Air Station Clearwater MH-60 helicopter aircrew found the three boaters sitting on top of their capsized vessel in reportedly good health.

A Florida man convicted of killing a husband and wife at a remote farm as the couple’s toddler looked on was put to death Thursday in the state’s first execution of the year.James Dennis Ford, 64, was pronounced dead at 6:19 p.m. following a lethal injection at Florida State Prison, state officials said.

Cape Coral is a growing city with a population of 224,000 residents. It has only one hospital. Founded in 1977 and absorbed into the Lee Health system in 1996, Cape Coral Hospital has been doing what it can to serve the needs of a rapidly growing community.

President Donald Trump’s executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico has left residents along the Gulf Coast sharply divided. Some say it awakens their pride in the U.S. while others suggest it’s a silly distraction.The order, which Trump signed Monday night, his first day in office, directs the secretary of the Interior Department to take all the needed steps to change the name to “Gulf of America” within 30 days.The order says in part that the Gulf plays “a pivotal role in shaping America’s future and the global economy, and in recognition of this flourishing economic resource and its critical importance to our Nation’s economy and its people, I am directing that it officially be renamed the Gulf of America.”

For years the city was eking by, but now has made substantial gain in appeasing the feds

President-elect Donald Trump was formally sentenced Friday in his hush money case, but the judge declined to impose any punishment. The outcome cements Trump’s conviction while freeing him to return to the White House unencumbered by the threat of a jail term or a fine.

After a brutal hurricane season, Christmas tree farmers could be feeling the pinch this holiday season.

The death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson triggered a deluge of painful stories about health care denials on social media.