Gulf Coast Life

The UF/IFAS Industrial Hemp Pilot Project is approaching its two-year mark with plants in the ground. University researchers have been experimenting with different varieties to determine whether industrial hemp — which is an extremely low THC variety of cannabis sativa — might have a future as a cash crop in Florida. We spoke with the pilot project’s Lead Oversight Manager to get an update.

Concerns that a summer slide could become a Covid freefall has parents and educators worried for how students spend the next couple of months. According to a study of more than five million students by the Collaborative for Student Growth, that same summer slide already occurred during this past school year thanks to school closures due to outbreaks of Covid, distance learning and less time in a traditional learning environment.

In this documentary special, we learn about a remarkable agency: the Freedmen’s Bureau, established by Congress to help this population as the war drew to a close. We find out about the journey of millions of newly freed people toward citizenship. And we hear about the spiritual faith that enabled them to hang on — against past horrors and the new hostility they would endure: the terrorist backlash against emancipation including the Ku Klux Klan, which arose in this period.

Last month Governor Ron DeSantis signed HB 337 into law. It limits the ability of local governments to raise impact fees, the primary tool local governments use to finance required infrastructure for new developments. Critics argue that the bill will place the burden of paying for a developers’ needed infrastructure, like roads, water treatment facilities, emergency and fire services onto taxpayers.

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.