WGCU Staff

Two decades ago two young men disappeared in Naples under mysterious circumstances. Terrance Williams and Felipe Santos were both last seen with the same Collier County Sheriff’s deputy, Steven Calkins. They were both men of color in their 20s. And they were both last seen in Deputy Calkins’ patrol car. Deputy Calkins was fired after his story changed when questioned. He denied wrongdoing. He’s the only person of interest in the cases, but law enforcement never found evidence against him.

The Apollo 11 lunar module, nicknamed "Eagle," landed on the Moon on July 20, 1969. Our guest today was part of the team that got it there. Ed Grace was a Principal Engineer at the MIT Instrumentation/Draper Laboratory. They designed the inertial navigation system and computer software used to control the Apollo command and lunar modules. Ed was in a backup mission control room when the Eagle landed.

Frontier AI Models are the ones that are highly capable and best represent advancements in language processing, reasoning, and multimodal capabilities. They are on the cutting edge of AI development. Many experts warn Frontier Models could potentially pose risks to public safety, and could have dangerous capabilities. The Frontier Model Forum is an industry-supported non-profit focused on addressing these significant risks to public safety and even national security. Its members currently include Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI. Its core mandates are to identify best practices and support standards development, and to advance science and independent research in the field of AI. We meet its Executive Director, Chris Meserole.

Bonita Springs residents can safely dispose of household chemical waste such as paints, cleaners, herbicides, pesticides, automotive fluids and pool chemicals from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. April 2, at Bonita Springs Recreation Center.

Bacardi Jackson took over the role of Executive Director of the ACLU of Florida in May of 2024. Prior to joining the 60-year-old organization, Jackson was deputy legal director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “Democracy: Education and Youth” advocacy and litigation team, where she led efforts to stop the school-to-prison pipeline and to ensure equitable access to mental health services and high-quality public education in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi. We talk about the work the ACLU of Florida is focusing on now, as the executives, both here in Florida and at the federal level, are exerting their executive power beyond the bounds of what we’re accustomed to.

Over the past year, the City of Sanibel placed more than 400,000 tons of sand to restore beaches devastated by recent hurricanes. With that phase complete, the focus shifted to replanting the beaches to reinforce the natural dune structure. Over 32,000 plants of a variety of species were planted, strengthening the beach with their root systems.

A rally to protest possible cuts in Social Security and Medicare will be held Friday at 10 a.m. at the Naples Hilton, 5111 Tamiami Trail North in Naples.

Southwest Florida is a great place to produce food and other ag products — but only if growers are able to remain profitable. In order to assess what local growers and producers think about the future of Southwest Florida’s agriculture industry, Florida Gulf Coast University’s Center for Agribusiness recently wrapped up a large study titled “Agribusiness in Southwest Florida: The Next 25 years.” A team of researchers conducted in-depth interviews with representatives from 30 local farm operations and compiled what they found in the new report. We talk with the study’s three co-authors to get an overview of what came out of those conversations.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission will hold a series of virtual public meetings to collect feedback directly from Florida residents on proposals for highly regulated black bear hunting in Florida.