Fort Myers teen finds dead body in bed of his truckFGCU softball falls to No. 4 Florida in NCAA Tournament
FORT MYERS Fort Myers teen finds dead body in bed of his truck A 16-year-old in Fort Myers drove to school, drove home, drove to the barbershop and back home again. Then, he noticed a swarm of flies in the back of his truck.
Scottie Scheffler facing felony charges; local attorney reacts The attorney we spoke with told us that, at a minimum, we’d spend the night in jail before having our first appearance and getting bail.
GAINESVILLE FGCU softball falls to No. 4 Florida in NCAA Tournament The FGCU softball team couldn’t keep up with the No. 4 Florida Gators as the Eagles drop their first Regional game 6-0 to the Gators.
Summer Safety: Swim safety tips to know before the summer The pool is warming up to be the hot spot for kids and families this summer. It’s now also the number one leading cause of drowning deaths for children ages 1-4 in the state.
FORT MYERS BEACH ‘The Whale’ restaurant to break ground on new building The Whale is a place that has shown great strength and determination.
COLLIER COUNTY Endangered Florida panther deaths surpass 2023 total in 5 months It’s taken wildlife officials just over four and a half months to report finding more dead endangered Florida panthers than in all of 2023.
FORT MYERS FMPD honors 7 officers and 2 K-9s who died in the line of duty dating back to 1930 Nine lives were given, and all nine will remain remembered. A lifetime of gratitude for the fallen officers.
Firefighter recovering from heat exhaustion after battling flames in Collier County It happened at Progress Rail, a transit corporation on Mercantile Avenue just before 5am on Friday.
FORT MYERS How do SWFL graduation rates compare to the state average? How do graduation rates for Charlotte, Lee and Collier Counties stack up against the state? WINK News crunched the numbers.
FORT MYERS Community divisive over ‘justified’ officer-involved shooting of Christopher Jordan A detective who killed an unarmed black man in a controversial shooting will be back at work on Monday.
CAPE CORAL Family submits civil complaint against Cape Coral Police Department The family of a 13-year-old boy who was struck and killed while riding his scooter has officially filed a civil complaint.
FORT MYERS Community reacts to ‘justified’ officer-involved shooting of Christopher Jordan Leaders with the NAACP are saying there is a divide between the black community and Fort Myers police.
NAPLES Inside look at $21 million Naples Players Theater, set to open at the end of May On Friday, as the theater’s 70th season approached, leaders and organizers invited WINK News for a ‘hard-hat-tour’ to showcase the new additions and construction updates.
FORT MYERS Detective who fired fatal shot at Christopher Jordan returns to work Monday Fort Myers police have confirmed to WINK News the detective who shot and killed a man inside his home will return to work Monday morning.
FORT MYERS Bishop Verot onto first state semifinals in nearly a decade A trip to the FHSAA State Semifinals has been a long time coming for the Bishop Verot Vikings who have not been since 2016.
FORT MYERS Fort Myers teen finds dead body in bed of his truck A 16-year-old in Fort Myers drove to school, drove home, drove to the barbershop and back home again. Then, he noticed a swarm of flies in the back of his truck.
Scottie Scheffler facing felony charges; local attorney reacts The attorney we spoke with told us that, at a minimum, we’d spend the night in jail before having our first appearance and getting bail.
GAINESVILLE FGCU softball falls to No. 4 Florida in NCAA Tournament The FGCU softball team couldn’t keep up with the No. 4 Florida Gators as the Eagles drop their first Regional game 6-0 to the Gators.
Summer Safety: Swim safety tips to know before the summer The pool is warming up to be the hot spot for kids and families this summer. It’s now also the number one leading cause of drowning deaths for children ages 1-4 in the state.
FORT MYERS BEACH ‘The Whale’ restaurant to break ground on new building The Whale is a place that has shown great strength and determination.
COLLIER COUNTY Endangered Florida panther deaths surpass 2023 total in 5 months It’s taken wildlife officials just over four and a half months to report finding more dead endangered Florida panthers than in all of 2023.
FORT MYERS FMPD honors 7 officers and 2 K-9s who died in the line of duty dating back to 1930 Nine lives were given, and all nine will remain remembered. A lifetime of gratitude for the fallen officers.
Firefighter recovering from heat exhaustion after battling flames in Collier County It happened at Progress Rail, a transit corporation on Mercantile Avenue just before 5am on Friday.
FORT MYERS How do SWFL graduation rates compare to the state average? How do graduation rates for Charlotte, Lee and Collier Counties stack up against the state? WINK News crunched the numbers.
FORT MYERS Community divisive over ‘justified’ officer-involved shooting of Christopher Jordan A detective who killed an unarmed black man in a controversial shooting will be back at work on Monday.
CAPE CORAL Family submits civil complaint against Cape Coral Police Department The family of a 13-year-old boy who was struck and killed while riding his scooter has officially filed a civil complaint.
FORT MYERS Community reacts to ‘justified’ officer-involved shooting of Christopher Jordan Leaders with the NAACP are saying there is a divide between the black community and Fort Myers police.
NAPLES Inside look at $21 million Naples Players Theater, set to open at the end of May On Friday, as the theater’s 70th season approached, leaders and organizers invited WINK News for a ‘hard-hat-tour’ to showcase the new additions and construction updates.
FORT MYERS Detective who fired fatal shot at Christopher Jordan returns to work Monday Fort Myers police have confirmed to WINK News the detective who shot and killed a man inside his home will return to work Monday morning.
FORT MYERS Bishop Verot onto first state semifinals in nearly a decade A trip to the FHSAA State Semifinals has been a long time coming for the Bishop Verot Vikings who have not been since 2016.
When asked his all-time favorite conspiracy theory, Psychologist Rob Brotherton said, “The inter-dimensional lizards, I think that’s a good one!” Photo via CBS News. Spy novelist Gayle Lynds has made an entire career out of dreaming up conspiracies, hundreds of them. Her office, at home near Portland, Maine, is a breeding ground for conspiracies, filled to bursting with evil secrets and nefarious plots involving military technology, special ops, and war tactics. “The C.I.A. is overflowing, as you can see,” Lynds said of her bookshelves. Her espionage novels have sold millions of copies, and they all start with one unbreakable rule: the conspiracy has to be believable. That’s not hard, given that genuine conspiracies have existed, from Watergate to Iran/Contra. “They’re wonderful to write about,” Lynds said. And to read and talk about. We look for conspiracies everywhere. According to a recent CBS News poll, more than half of Americans still believe there was an official cover-up connected to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Roughly one in three say the government is hiding the truth about 9/11. And one in 10 thinks the moon landings were faked. “If you want to know how important conspiracy theories are to people, just bring up a few next time you have Thanksgiving dinner with your family,” Joseph Uscinski said, a professor of political science at the University of Miami. “Do it after a few bottles of wine! And after the arguing is over, you probably won’t be invited back the next year.” Uscinski said conspiracy theories are ultimately about power. “There’s never a conspiracy theory about the homeless guy with no arms and no legs conspiring against us.” Spencer asked, “How does a conspiracy theory start?” “A lot of times what happens is, people will just come up with some of these ideas on their own. For example, one of my favorites is that the CIA created lesbianism.” Joseph Uscinski gathered roughly 100,000 New York Times letters to the editor – 120 years’ worth – dealing with various conspiracy theories. Photo via CBS News. Uscinski gathered roughly 100,000 New York Times letters to the editor – 120 years’ worth – dealing with various conspiracy theories. “What we find is that beliefs aren’t really going up. But what we can say is that they’re playing a much bigger role in our political discourse,” he said. Sometimes with potentially tragic results. After he became the subject of conspiracy theories, billionaire George Soros was targeted by a pipe bomber. And critics of the president worry that his views often include the conspiratorial, such as spreading stories about “funding” of the caravan of migrants traveling through Central America and Mexico towards the United States. Birtherism and Donald Trump’s penchant for conspiracies (“Face the Nation, 09/20.16) So, what does your basic conspiracy theorist look like? Uscinski said, “If I ask people to close their eyes and imagine who that person is, most of them are going to think of a white male, middle aged, look a lot like me, living in the mother’s basement with a ham radio.” Tin foil hat? “Perhaps! But conspiracy thinking cuts across race, gender, political party.” “Almost everybody believes some kind of conspiracy theory at some point,” said psychologist Rob Brotherton, who asserts human beings are skeptical of coincidence, and think in terms of cause-and-effect. “One of the main jobs that our brain has is to spot patterns in the world, to spot things where A seems to be connected to B,” he said. And when something BIG happens – like a terrorist attack or a mass shooting – we assume there MUST be an equally BIG explanation for it. “Like the JFK assassination, a lone gunman assassinating the president, changing the course of history, that’s a very small explanation for such a big event,” Brotherton said. “We want a much more complicated explanation than there is?” asked Spencer. “Yeah. A vast conspiracy involving HUNDREDS or THOUSANDS of people, ongoing throughout time.” Especially since some experts believe a JFK conspiracy is NOT out of the question. “There was kind of good reason to be suspicious of the Warren Commission Report. It was kind of rushed, and it didn’t cover everything. It did leave some things out,” Brotherton said. Spencer said to Lynds, “More than half of all Americans think there was a cover-up of the Kennedy assassination.” “I’m inclined to think that there might’ve been,” she replied. Was it the Mafia? “I’m not sure it was the Mafia. Maybe it was the Cubans. Maybe it was the Soviet Union,” Lynds said. Such theories persist no matter how improbable. For example, a lot of conspiracy theories depend on huge numbers of people keeping a secret – which people cannot do. “Workplace romances fall apart fairly quickly, and that’s two people with low stakes,” said Uscinski. “We’re talking hundreds or even thousands of people with very high-stakes information, and it’s been decades and decades and decades, but no one’s come forward to say, ‘I was the other shooter.'” And if you don’t buy the JFK theories, what about the theory that Elvis Presley is still alive? Poor Paul McCartney has been rumored to be dead since people played Beatles records backwards in the late ’60s! When asked his all-time favorite conspiracy theory, Brotherton said, “The inter-dimensional lizards, I think that’s a good one!” [In case you hadn’t heard, the rich elites, the monarchy, and the presidents are all related to trans-dimensional shape-shifting lizards.] So, how’s the average person supposed to distinguish what is true? Joe Uscinski said, “The best thing to do is to listen to independent experts.” “Nobody’s gonna do that,” laughed Spencer. In fact, Spencer suggested starting her own rumor that bestselling author Gayle Lynds was actually a spy. “I was never a spy,” Lynds declared. “Well, you would say that.” Brotherton stated that conspiracy thinking is a spectrum: “Some of it is ludicrous, and some is quite reasonable. Governments do keep things from us.” And perhaps for that very reason, Professor Uscinski thinks a little dose of conspiracy thinking actually may be good for democracy. “Conspiracy theorists have for decades pushed for the release of more documents related to the JFK assassination; that’s a good thing,” he said. “Conspiracy theorists pushed for the 9/11 Commission. That was a good thing. A world without conspiracy theories might be a very dangerous one, because at that point no one’s able to question power structures.”