New legislation passed during the 2024 session modifies the rules by which the state commission, and local ethics boards, can operate. Critics say these changes will gut the effectiveness of the state commission and local boards. Supporters say the changes will prevent the state and local ethics boards from having to spend their time investigating politically motivated accusations. We dig into the details on Senate Bill 7014, which has yet to be signed by the governor, with two people who have spent their lives focusing on politics in Florida and its ethics system.

According to data released more than two years ago, the American Medical Association is warning that about 1 in 5 U.S. physicians are leaving, or scaling back patient care. Our guest is one of those 1 in 5 doctors the AMA warned would quit practicing. Dr. Maryann Wilbur is now a non-practicing surgeon. She’s a GYN Oncologist — that means she’s a surgeon who focuses on cancers of the female reproductive tract. She is now Director & CEO of a new startup called Health Equity Consulting; and co-author of a book called “The Doctor is No Longer In: Conversations with U.S. physicians” which will compile data collected from interviews with physicians who have recently left practice.

When we do something — when we think we’ve made a decision about how to act or behave — are we always consciously aware of why we made that particular decision? That is just one part of the field of research our guest today has spent the past three decades investigating. Dr. Sandra Schneider is a Professor in Cognition, Neuroscience, and Social Psychology in the Department of Psychology at the University of South Florida in Tampa. And she founded the USF Judgment and Decision Making Lab in the early 90s.

Florida lawmakers ended the 2024 state legislative session, March 8, with a $117.5 billion dollar budget. We explore what passed, what didn’t and what it all means for Florida going forward in a conversation with UCF Political Scientist Aubrey Jewett, Ph.D., and Sun Sentinel Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet.

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." The idea that individuals — or the press — have the right to express opinions and ideas without government censorship or interference, while not entirely unprecedented is far from the norm throughout human history. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution remains the gold standard globally when it comes to protecting speech. But, our guest says history shows that protecting freedom of expression cannot be guaranteed without strong support from those who it protects — and that includes strongly supporting the right to expression for those who we strongly disagree with.

The United States was founded with three branches of government which were designed to act as checks on each others’ authority, and the role of the head of the Executive Branch — the President — was intended to be that of a head of state who would be a unifying force that stayed above the partisan fray. But the role of the president has changed greatly since George Washington left office, and has evolved to become more of a party head who makes bold promises in order to gain and maintain support for their policy agenda. Our guest says this evolution has not strengthened the United States and in many ways has led to the deeply partisan divide we’re living through right now.

Model UNs are academically rigorous simulations that teach students diplomacy, international relations, and how the United Nations works. At Model UN conferences student delegates study a United Nations member country, research topics of global interest, and work to get resolutions passed on that country’s behalf. Our guest today is a past-participant who is now in her first year of medical school at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Daniela Barata Herrera was born in Cuba, and lived in Chile as a young child before her family came to the United States. She first discovered Model UN at Cape Coral High School where she graduated in 2017. She’s in town to give the Keynote address at this year’s competition so we brought her into the studio to talk.

We get a peek into a local family-owned business that’s now in its third generation. Sunshine Ace Hardware was founded in Naples by Don Wynn in the late 1950s. His grandson, Michael Wynn has been the company's President since 2005. He's also co-founder of the Resnick-Wynn Family Business Conference, which takes place on Thursday, Feb. 29 at Florida Gulf Coast University from 9am to 2pm. It will focus on how family businesses can successfully navigate the challenges they face in our modern economy, and transition from generation to generation if that’s their goal.

Hurricane Ian left an indelible mark on southwest Florida, especially our barrier islands, when it made landfall on Sept. 28, 2022 as a powerful category 4 storm with 150+-mile an hour winds and storm surge levels we hadn’t seen in this part of Florida for decades. Our guest has lived on Sanibel Island for nearly 40 years, and he writes about this area’s flora and fauna so has a keen sense of the natural world around us, particularly on the barrier islands. Charles Sobczak has published ten books, including “The Living Gulf Coast: A Nature Guide to Southwest Florida” and “Living Sanibel: A Nature Guide to Sanibel & Captiva Islands” — and he gives lectures on topics like “The Changing Face of Nature” and “The Great Florida Invasion – From Pepper to Pythons” and his newest one, which reflects on Hurricane Ian, is called “Surviving the Storms: Hurricanes, Humans & Wildlife.”

When OpenAI launched ChatGPT on Nov. 30, 2022 and made it accessible to the public for free, a new season of AI began around the world. But, what it all means for individuals, our communities, our countries, and the world remains to be seen. There will undoubtedly be benefits in many fields, but there is also great concern that such power could bring problems that we may not even be able to imagine yet, including job and industry disruptions. We get some context from Dr. Chrissann Ruehle, She is an Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning Researcher, and Strategist, and she is a Management Instructor in Florida Gulf Coast University’s Lutgert College of Business, and she is Provost Faculty Fellow for AI at FGCU.