Sunday, June 28, 2026
A record python haul — 177 in one season
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A warm, easy Sunday — 92 and sunny through the morning, with the usual summer storm building off the Gulf by mid-afternoon. The number that stops you cold in today's issue: our python hunters pulled a record 177 Burmese pythons — more than four tons of them — out of the backcountry this season.
Today
Clean water now, storms by lunch
FWC's latest samples show red tide at background or none from Barefoot Beach down to South Marco, so the Gulf's clear for a swim. Get out early, though — the radar fills in by mid-afternoon.
Last call for the fruit festival
Naples Botanical Garden's 'Tasting the Tropics' wraps up today with tropical-fruit tastings, plant sales and tours built around what's ripe in summer. It's the last of the two-day run, so make it a morning stop before the rain.
Local News
A record python season: 177 pulled from the backcountry
The Conservancy of Southwest Florida's team removed 177 Burmese pythons — 8,080 pounds — by radio-tagging male snakes and following them straight to the breeding females. It's the most efficient way anyone's found to keep this invader off our native wildlife.
A new waterfront condo at the Gordon River bridge
Council approved the Viceroy: 12 condos over ground-floor shops, with boat slips and underground parking on a 1.8-acre lot where Fifth Avenue South crosses the Gordon River. Small by our standards, but it's one of the last open waterfront parcels this close to downtown.
$1.2M in stained glass, lit up nightly across from City Hall
Council greenlit a nine-panel, $1.2 million stained-glass project for Naples Community Church — and waived the $27,800 public-art fee to help it along. The biblical-scene windows will glow every night, a new landmark on the block facing City Hall.
Fireworks from any beach — just leave the sparklers home
Naples and Marco both light up at 9 p.m. on the Fourth, and the show's visible from every Gulf beach. Audubon's one ask: skip the personal fireworks near the dunes, where least terns and black skimmers are nesting and a single bottle rocket can scatter a whole colony.
Seven miles of car-free trail open Wednesday
Naples Pathways Coalition cuts the ribbon July 1 at 10 a.m. on the first stretch of the Paradise Coast Trail, running alongside the new Vanderbilt Beach Road extension. A genuinely car-free spine out in the Estates, with a lot more miles still on the drawing board.
Food & Drink
Three new Italian kitchens land in Naples
Adoré Bar & Cucina just opened in the old Pelican Larry's space on Davis Boulevard — a full gut-job by the Hoxha family behind GG Brunch Haus, cooking authentic Italian with imported ingredients. It's one of three new Italian spots arriving around town.
The Dock turns 50 on Naples Bay
Fifty years of chalkboard menus, canoe races and hurricane comebacks, and the Naples Bay mainstay is still here — changing owners and dishes without losing the plot. A taste of the waterfront from before the high-rises.