While Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador — better know as simply AMLO — was not on the ballot during the country’s recent midterm elections on June 6, they were seen as a referendum on his performance during the first half of his six year term, and his party did lose some power.

In lieu of Gulf Coast Life Arts Edition today we’re featuring an episode of the WGCU podcast Three Song Stories. The show uses the way songs connect us to our memories and our lives as a means to get to know our guests in a more intimate way. We're listening back to episode 83 featuring Fabiana Solano. She’s a native of Venezuela, an FGCU graduate and a photographer. This episode originally dropped in October of 2019, but since that time, Solano has earned a Master of Public Administration degree from Florida Gulf Coast University with a concentration in Environmental Policy and Planning, and she’s now working as a planner for the city of Punta Gorda.

As another rainy season begins with red tide present along the Southwest Florida coast we’re looking back to research being conducted by FGCU Professor, Dr. Bill Mitsch, about the role land-based nutrients play in red tide blooms.

How did America become a nation obsessed with race? That’s the fundamental question asked in the new book “A Time for Change: How White Supremacy Ideology Harms All Americans” by Punta Gorda-based author and lecturer Dr. Martha Bireda. She says the purpose of her new book is to explore how the ideology of white supremacy has done immeasurable damage to all Americans, whites as well as blacks and other persons of color. And, she argues, racial healing in the U.S. can only occur through a true examination of America’s history, as well as individual and collective responsibility and efforts to undo over 300 years of racist cultural conditioning.

On June 13, 1966, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down Miranda v. Arizona — a decision that fundamentally changed the way police and law enforcement officials interact with suspects who are in custody. We get some insight into how the case wound up at the Supreme Court, and how the judicial process works at our nation’s highest court, with retired attorney Jim Hale who served as a law clerk for Chief Justice Earl Warren when Miranda was decided.

Marie Myung-Ok Lee tells us about Finding My Voice, the very first Young Adult novel with an Asian American lead character and written by an Asian American author, reissued this year. Amy Green describes the thorough research she undertook to write Moving Water: The Everglades and Big Sugar.

A feature story in the April issue of National Geographic magazine highlights the importance of a network of public and private lands that runs throughout the state called the Florida Wildlife Corridor — and the crucial role it plays to help ensure Florida wildlife’s long-term survival. It features stunning photographs of the endangered Florida panther. Our guest today spent more than five years working to collect those images.

The Southwest Florida-based alternative rock/pop punk band Perfect Sequence is set to release their new EP “Defiance” on June 4. Just last week, the band released a music video for the title track of the EP that pays homage to the Black Lives Matter movement. We’ll hear band members Caleb Vilca (lead vocals/rhythm guitar), Brenden Dubois (bass/vocals), Colin Oakes (lead guitar/vocals) and Skyler Lapham (drums/vocals) perform their original music in the WGCU performance studio.

A new column in the Naples Daily News and the News-Press called "The Racial Reality" hopes to stir the hearts and minds of readers and move them to act boldly in the service of racial justice in Southwest Florida and beyond. The columnist is Florida Gulf Coast University associate professor of sociology, and Director of FGCU’s Center for Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, Dr. Ted Thornhill. He's been a professor at FGCU since 2015, where he’s taught classes on Sociology, Social Stratification, The African American Experience, White Racism, and Racism and Law Enforcement.

A new study led by scientists with University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences maps out the status of crocodile populations in south Florida over the past 40 years to learn how they’ve responded to changes in the Everglades ecosystem. "American Crocodiles as restoration bioindicators in the Florida Everglades" was published in PLOS ONE on May 19.