WGCU Staff

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) reminds small businesses and private nonprofits in Florida that they have until Dec. 8 deadline to apply for low interest federal disaster loans to offset economic losses caused by the drought occurring Feb. 11, 2025.The disaster declaration covers Broward, Charlotte, Collier, DeSoto, Glades, Hendry, Highlands, Lee, Martin, Okeechobee, Palm Beach and St. Lucie counties.

Harry Chapin Food Bank collecting turkeys and hams for distribution.

Lee County drivers have a little more than a month to prepare to do what they should have been doing all along. Stop for school buses. The month-long grace period is part of a Lee County school district program making bus safety a priority. The district plan will capture video evidence of drivers illegally passing stopped school buses.

Road closures will be in place for the City of Cape Coral's Veterans Day Parade from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, November 8.

The School Board for the School District of Lee County has approved a new contract with the Teachers Association of Lee County.In a joint release made Tuesday night, the district and the teachers union said the agreement reflects "our shared commitment to valuing educators, supporting students, and maintaining one of the most competitive compensation packages in the state of Florida."

A recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal opens with the story of a man who believed his 83-year-old mother was plotting to assassinate him. His conversational partner and sounding board — in that case ChatGPT — told him he wasn’t crazy and his instincts were sharp, and that vigilance was fully justified. Not long after the man killed his mother before taking his own life. This is an example of what’s been dubbed ‘AI Psychosis’ — that’s when people are if not encouraged to cause harm to themselves or others, at least are not discouraged to do so by chatbots like ChatGPT or Gemini, or others. We talk with its author, who is co-founder of a nonprofit that's creating tools and demos to help people understand AI systems on a visceral level.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control is reporting seven more illnesses have been reported linked to prepared pasta meals that may be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes. CDC and states are working to get information on whether sick people ate recalled food or if additional foods may be contaminated. Twenty-seven people have been affected across 18 states, including Florida, with 25 hospitalized, and there have been six deaths.

A new paper published in the Journal Nature Communications Biology investigates the link between exposure to Harmful Algal Bloom neurotoxins and the development of Alzheimer's disease signatures in the brain transcriptome of stranded common bottlenose dolphins found in Florida's Indian River Lagoon. They essentially correlated changes in the dolphin brains’ DNA to chronic and acute exposure to blue green algae blooms. Dolphins serve as a "sentinel species" for Alzheimer’s Diseased because they live so long and can naturally develop Alzheimer’s-like neuropathological changes with age.

A Cape Coral man is facing charges after he was arrested for allegedly making social media threats against ICE agents.