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College student Ava Williams united the community forces of Moorings Presbyterian Church and Gulf Coast High School to craft stuffed animals for Youth Haven, a children’s shelter in Naples. Williams taught both young and old to crochet and eventually donated over fifteen stuffed animals to the foster home.

Tim Love spent more than four decades in the world of global advertising. Since retiring in 2013, he has focused much of his attention on the way the online world operates today, and how it has been used to polarize us, and has greatly impacted mental health, particularly among young people. Love is author “Discovering Truth: How to Navigate Between Fact & Fiction in an Overwhelming Social Media World” and he’s host of a podcast called Tim Love's Discovering Truth where he interviews major players in the online and corporate world about the nature of truth and the trouble we find ourselves in.

Gov. Ron DeSantis has floated the idea of Florida following Texas and California in drawing new Congressional districts mid-decade, breaking with norms. But what do the 2010 Fair Districts Amendments to Florida’s constitution have to say about mid-decade redistricting being done for openly partisan reasons? We talk with the leader of the Fair Districts Coalition when it helped to create and advocated for the passage of the Fair Districts Amendments to find out.

Karyn Parsons spent six years playing the ditzy character, Hilary, on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The show was huge in the culture in the 1990s — it ran for six seasons beginning in 1990 and left an indelible mark on pop culture. Her character, Hilary, was — and still is — truly beloved by fans everywhere. What fans didn't know is that during her time playing Hilary, Parsons was devoting quite a bit of her own personal time to writing short fiction, and learning about history — particularly inspiring and empowering stories of African American achievement.

Dr. Raymond DePaulo began as a student at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1968 and went on to become an M.D. in 1972 and then did his residencies there. He founded the Affective Disorder Clinic in 1977 and these days he’s co-director of the Johns Hopkins Mood Disorders Center. He was on the Florida Gulf Coast University campus to give a talk for the university’s Provost’s Seminar Series so stopped by the studio for a conversation about his work and career and the changes he’s seen over the past 58 years. He also spoke with the Naples Discussion Group while he was in town.

Craig Pittman is a native Floridian who has written about Florida and Floridians and them any, shall we say, unique characteristics they both have. He covered environmental issues for the Tampa Bay Times for more than two decades and he now writes a weekly column for the nonprofit newsroom Florida Phoenix, and he co-hosts the “Welcome to Florida” podcast. Pittman is author of  “Oh, Florida! How America's Weirdest State Influences the Rest of the Country,” and 2020’s “Cat Tale: The Wild, Weird Battle to Save the Florida Panther.” He’ll be in town on Wednesday to give a talk about Florida panthers at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Greater Naples so we get a preview.

Model UNs are educational simulations — basically role playing — that teach participating students diplomacy, international relations, and how the United Nations works. At Model UN conferences student delegates deeply study a United Nations member country, research topics of global interest, and work to get resolutions passed on that country’s behalf. They happen around the world at the high school and college level, and this week the Southwest Florida Model UN is happening on the campus of Florida Gulf Coast University, bringing together high school teams from schools around southwest Florida. It’s sponsored by the Naples Council on World Affairs in partnership with FGCU. Today we talk with its Keynote Speaker.

April 10 is Gopher Tortoise Day, as designed by the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission and the nonprofit Gopher Tortoise Council. So, we have a conversation about the importance of these large, long-lived reptiles that can be found in all of Florida’s 67 counties. These large, slow moving reptiles are crucial to ecosystems because of the deep burrows they dig and live in. More than 350 other species — known as commensals — take advantage of those burrows for shelter. Their main threats are cars while trying to cross roads, and development that occurs on the land where they live.

2021 was the highest year on record for documented reports of violence, harassment, and vandalism directed toward Jews — and the 2022 numbers are likely to show the same or even an increase. That’s according to the Anti-Defamation League. Much, if not most, of these incidents begin in the virtual world, where hate speech often flows freely, even on large social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. It’s especially prevalent on smaller social media sites which generally provide no moderation or censorship whatsoever. Our guest today has spent much of his academic career focusing on antisemitism — both the why and the how, especially online.

Karyn Parsons spent six years playing the ditzy character, Hilary, on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The show was huge in the culture in the 1990s — it ran for six seasons beginning in 1990 and left an indelible mark on pop culture. Her character, Hilary, was — and still is — truly beloved by fans everywhere. What fans didn't know is that during her time playing Hilary, Parsons was devoting quite a bit of her own personal time to writing short fiction, and learning about history — particularly inspiring and empowering stories of African American achievement.