Tomatoes have a long and unusual relationship with our culinary world. Once thought poisonous, they came to be staples in everything from salsa to pasta to pizza. A lot of work goes into the ripe red tomatoes found at today's grocery store: the fruits have been bred to resists disease, look bright red, and have a long shelf life. But breeding for those qualities has come at a cost: flavor.

Violins, banjos, and washtubs are rarely the go-to instruments of pop music, but at WGCU's Twisted Strings event Saturday, groups from South Florida and beyond are using combinations of classic sounds and unusual instruments and stylings to create new and genre-bending music.

Amnon Weinstein grew up in Tel Aviv surrounded by ghosts. His parents, Jews from Eastern Europe who moved to what in 1938 was known as Palestine, rarely spoke of the 400 family members killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust. In the 2014 book "Violins of Hope" by James A. Grymes , Weinstein recalls growing up in a household whose grief kept them from speaking about those lost family members; a home haunted by the tears of refugees crying themselves to sleep in the Weinstein's guestroom.

The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, touted as "the Greatest Show on Earth," will hold its final performance in May , after 146 years of entertaining across America. Even as the iconic American circus prepares for the final curtain, parts of the circus' history remain in Southwest Florida, where the circus had its winter quarters for decades.

Scams targeting Southwest Florida's senior residents are common, but few seniors believe they could ever be taken. That’s why the Punta Gorda police department has initiated a community-wide project encouraging young and old to be alert for signs that elderly persons are possibly being exploited.

Billed as an alternative to suspension and expulsion, restorative justice efforts are transforming discipline, and classroom culture, across Southwest Florida. Restorative practices avoid punishments that result in a student leaving school (like suspension) in favor of repairing harm caused by a violation, addressing its root causes, and returning a student back to the school community.

Author and environmental advocate Terry Tempest Williams , speaking at two engagements in Southwest Florida this week , revisits her idea of essential common ground for dialogue from her 2004 book, "The Open Space of Democracy."

Bird watchers across the country call it the "big year," an informal competition amongst birders to see who can spot the largest number of different birds species in a give year. One Naples bird watcher hopes 2017 will be her "big year," with a goal of seeing more than 700 species of birds by the end of the year.

One in five young people suffers from a mental illness, struggling daily from anxiety, depression, bi-polar disorder, or any number of other disorders. According to Golisano Children's Hospital , among the 230,000 children under the age of 18 living in Southwest Florida, roughly 46,000 have a mental disorder.

The Trump Administration on Friday unveiled a series of immigration restrictions and temporary travel bans that quickly become flash points nationwide for immigration, terrorism, and national security. The new restrictions, abruptly introduced Friday in the name of "protecting the nation from foreign terrorist entry," blocked travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries: Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen.