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During the first Republican presidential candidate debate Governor Ron DeSantis said he would use U.S. military special forces inside of Mexico to help stem the flow of illegal drugs like fentanyl into the United States. While this kind of rhetoric — the idea of using the U.S. military in a sovereign foreign nation to combat illicit drug production and distribution — might seem shocking, it’s not entirely new for a political candidate or even a sitting president to say something along these lines, but rather goes back decades. To get some context we sit down with Dr. Rick Coughlin, he’s an Associate Professor of Political Science at Florida Gulf Coast University who focuses on Mexican politics and culture.

Back in the mid-1960s Bill Strickland was a directionless public school student in Pittsburgh who didn’t really see a path for success for him or his fellow lower class, minority student friends. Then, one day he walked past a classroom and saw a teacher sitting at a pottery wheel — and that moment, and how he responded to it, changed his life. And since then has changed the lives of countless young people not only in Pittsburgh, but around the country and beyond. Manchester Bidwell Corporation (MBC) takes seemingly disparate elements — adult career training, youth arts education, jazz presentation and botanical sales (they grow orchids) — and combines them into a program with a proven record of positively changing the lives of underserved populations. Bill has helped start an additional 13 centers, including five in Pennsylvania, 6 in other US states, 1 in Puerto Rico, and 1 in Israel.

In April of 2023 a small group of southwest Floridians got together to express their concerns about what they see as growing trends toward autocracy here in Florida, and more broadly across the United States. They formally launched their nonpartisan nonprofit called Floridians for Democracy in May and since then have been working to bring people together who share similar concerns. The primary focus of their concerns are the policies and positions being put forth by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and the Republican-dominated state legislature, which they say demonstrate autocratic or authoritarian tendencies. We get an update on the work they're doing from Floridians for Democracy co-founder, Jim Nathan; and from Dave Aronberg, the elected State Attorney for 15th Judicial Circuit which includes Palm Beach County.

For small-scale farmers in underdeveloped countries around the world, who often have no access to capital or most of the technologies and amenities we take for granted, the idea of being more sustainable isn’t something to strive for but a true necessity. Located in North Fort Myers on a 57-acre campus, the nonprofit ECHO has been working to disseminate information to help these farmers since 1981. They grow different varieties of plants, and test different growing techniques, in order to provide proven techniques and even seeds to small-scale farmers. They distribute more than 300 varieties of ECHO seeds. This information is sent out through their massive, global network of farmers and agriculturalists in more than 190 countries. We get an update on the work they do with their CEO, Dr. Abram Bicksler.

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.

As the internet has become the go-to place for most people to find news and information there has been a rise in organized efforts to create fake news and misinformation on a large scale — these are what are referred to as Troll Farms. They're like sweatshops for news articles — oftentimes meant to misinform — that have come to be known as 'pink slime' websites. They are essentially websites that are created to look like legitimate, often local, news sources but are really an effort to trick people who visit them into thinking the news they present is coming from actual journalists, when in reality they are overt attempts to misinform and often to sow division. Our guest went through the process of having one of these AI Content Farms built to see how the process works, and wrote about the experience for the Wall Street Journal.

The Florida legislature passed SB 1084 during the 2024 session. It makes it a second-degree misdemeanor to sell or manufacture cultivated, or so-called ‘lab grown’ meat in the state. Gov. DeSantis signed it into law in May, and now, the California-based company Upside Foods has filed a lawsuit challenging the new law, arguing it gives an unconstitutional advantage to Florida farmers over out-of-state competitors. Shortly after lawmakers approved SB 1084, we spoke with a meat science and safety expert to get a better understanding of the science behind cultivated meat and its implications for our current agriculture system and economy.

So far this year there have been almost a thousand travel-related cases of dengue fever reported in the continental United States, with 278 of them coming from Florida. This means someone contracted the disease outside of the country and then got sick once they were back home. There have also been 16 locally acquired cases of dengue so far this year — all of those were acquired here in Florida. Dengue is a mosquito-borne disease, so we sit down with two people from the Lee County Mosquito Control District to learn about their extensive operations.

When Dr. Nadine "Deanie" Singh founded Premier Mobil Health Services in 2018 as a mobile clinic operating out of an RV she bought with her own money on eBay. They serve uninsured and underinsured children, families and individuals at multiple locations across Lee County, as well as at a walk-in, bricks-and-mortar clinic in Fort Myers. Dr. Singh recently traveled to Boston to attend an executive education course for nonprofits at the Harvard Business School — which was supported by a scholarship from the Harvard Club of Naples — so we brought her into the studio to talk about her path that led to founding Premier Mobile Health Services, the work they do, and what she took away from her trip to Boston.

When Dr. Nadine "Deanie" Singh founded Premier Mobil Health Services in 2018 as a mobile clinic operating out of an RV she bought with her own money on eBay. They serve uninsured and underinsured children, families and individuals at multiple locations across Lee County, as well as at a walk-in, bricks-and-mortar clinic in Fort Myers. Dr. Singh recently traveled to Boston to attend an executive education course for nonprofits at the Harvard Business School — which was supported by a scholarship from the Harvard Club of Naples — so we brought her into the studio to talk about her path that led to founding Premier Mobile Health Services, the work they do, and what she took away from her trip to Boston.