Every year in the wintertime, Delaware beaches undergo a transformation.

Stores and restaurants close, stores and restaurants open, rules change. By Memorial Day weekend, for the most part, everything is in its place, and ready to serve the masses.

This winter, the price of parking went up in Lewes, several storefronts and restaurants changed hands in Rehoboth Beach, and notable changes were made further south.

If you’re among the more than 7 million visitors headed to Delaware beaches in late spring or summer, or even if you’re just a local who hasn’t gotten out much lately, here’s what’s changed in Lewes, Rehoboth Beach, Dewey Beach, Bethany Beach and Fenwick Island as the season heats up.

Rehoboth Beach

The osprey are still nesting atop the fire siren in Rehoboth Beach, but “The Nation’s Summer Capital” has one change this year visitors are sure to notice.

Two drop-arm or swing gates and numerous bollards are being or have been installed in the area of the boardwalk and bandstand on Rehoboth Avenue. Bollards are sturdy, vertical posts designed to prevent vehicles from driving onto sidewalks or the boardwalk, while the drop-arm or swing gates will provide access to emergency vehicles.  

Over on the corner of Wilmington Avenue and Bayard Avenue, there’s an empty space where several restaurants once stood. Many remember it as home to the beloved Chez La Mer in the 1980s and 90s, but it was demolished over the winter. It’s slated to become a two-story building with retail on the first floor and an apartment on the second.

What’s happening with the two major hotel projects on the boardwalk? Nothing right now. Construction on the planned One Rehoboth hotel is paused until the fall, and demolition to make room for the planned Belhaven has not yet begun, either.

New and closed Rehoboth restaurants

The Market at 59 Baltimore is Chef David Kneller’s new gourmet grab-and-go kitchen, with the concept’s adjacent restaurant to open in the coming weeks.

BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – A Florida Highway Patrol trooper was punched in the face after pulling over a van on Interstate 95 in Brevard County near the Indian River County line, according to FHP.

Traffic cameras showed a large law enforcement presence along I-95 near the 166-mile marker on Monday morning.

According to an FHP report, a trooper was conducting traffic enforcement in the southbound lane when he spotted a white 2007 Ford Transit van weaving in the center lane and nearly clipping a semi-tractor-trailer. When the trooper pulled the van over, all seven occupants bailed out of the passenger side and fled west into the nearby woods on foot.

The trooper made contact with one of the men — later identified as Luis Angel Gomez Lopez, 18, of Orlando — who also tried to run toward the woods, the report states.

After Gomez Lopez ignored repeated verbal commands to stop, the trooper deployed his department-issued Taser, striking Gomez Lopez in the back. Gomez Lopez kept resisting, and the trooper deployed a second Taser cycle. During the struggle, both Gomez Lopez and the trooper tumbled down an embankment, the report states.

While the trooper was trying to handcuff Gomez Lopez, Gomez Lopez struck the trooper with a closed fist on the right side of his face, the report states. The trooper was then able to gain control and place Gomez Lopez in handcuffs. A Brevard County deputy helped secure Gomez Lopez in the patrol unit.

Multiple agencies responded to help search for the six men who got away, including the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission K-9 unit, the BCSO Aviation Unit “STAR,” and the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office drone unit. All six suspects were not located, according to the report.

Gomez Lopez was evaluated on scene by Brevard County Fire Rescue, then transported to the hospital for medical clearance before being booked into Brevard County Jail.

He faces a felony charge of battery on a law enforcement officer and a misdemeanor charge of resisting an officer without violence, the report shows.

Anyone with information on the six suspects on the run is urged to call the Florida Highway Patrol.

• Billionaire businessman Rick Jackson is running for governor of Georgia, drawing comparisons to former Mississippi Governor Kirk Fordice.
• Jackson, a self-funded candidate, has risen in the polls against established politicians in the Republican primary.
• His campaign ads feature strong rhetoric on immigration and align him with former President Donald Trump.
• The Republican primary field also includes Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger and Lt. Gov. Burt Jones.

Kirk Fordice-like Rick Jackson is sounding a whole lot like Daniel Kirkwood Fordice as he tries to be elected Georgia’s next governor.

Fordice came out of nowhere — actually, Vicksburg is somewhere but you know what I mean — in 1991 to become a two-term Mississippi governor.

He had money but nothing like Jackson, a billionaire businessman who’s also trying to emerge from nowhere politically to win Georgia’s top office.

“The establishment hated Trump, because they couldn’t control him. They are going to hate me,” Jackson says in an ad for Georgia’s Republican Primary on May 19, sounding like one of my favorite Mississippi governors — Fordice, because of his unpredictable personality (he could vilify or charm you, all in one sentence), not his politics. He died in 2004 of cancer.

I stood by a cafe entrance one morning, waiting to cover a Fordice speech. When he appeared, I stuck out my hand to shake his. “I’m not shaking your damn hand. You’re part of the problem down there (referring to the newspaper),” he told me, smiling and moving on.

Jackson rose to become one of economic giant-Georgia’s wealthiest people. He came from Atlanta’s rough midtown area, ending up in the foster care system. He left college due to poor financial circumstances.

The 71-year-old Jackson wormed his way into the dynamic city’s business scene in the late 1970s, mostly of the healthcare variety with mixed success before starting a workforce staffing and services company and later an antibiotics manufacturing plant. He turned those businesses into billion-dollar enterprises.

“It’s God’s money,” he said in rural Blakely, and he’s been charitable with it.

Jackson doesn’t try to hide his vast wealth. His family lives in a 48,000-square-foot mansion at Cumming, a place of nearly 100,000 people near Atlanta in Forsyth County, which once promoted its almost all-white population as a virtue. 

Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Bill Torpy recently wrote that Jackson will spend a ton of his own money in seeking another mansion, the one occupied by Georgia’s governor. Torpy noted that present Lt. Gov. Burt Jones was once heavily favored to win the primary race, but he’s fallen behind Jackson’s bold money bid.

“The one-time front-runner in the Republican primary (Jones) has been relegated to No. 2, the result of a $100 million Mack truck running him over.

Rick Jackson, a billionaire healthcare tycoon, a man with a sly smile and reptilian gaze, is the guy driving that truck,” Torpy wrote.

The GOP field includes Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, who spurned Trump’s demand to find 11,780 votes that would’ve allowed him to win Georgia in 2020.