Florida Gulf Coast University is hosting a three-day conference this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday dedicated to the mental health and well-being of children and young adults. The Caring for Kids conference features two presentations by parenting expert and empathy advocate Dr. Michele Borba . Dr. Borba is an educational psychologist, public speaker, and best selling author. Her latest book is “Unselfie: Why empathetic kids succeed in our all-about-me world.”

We're marking Halloween by exploring some of Florida’s strangest tales of murder, monsters and mystery detailed in the latest book from horror and science fiction author and Florida history and folklore researcher Mark Muncy and illustrator Kari Schultz titled “ Freaky Florida: The Wonderhouse, the Devil’s Tree, the Shaman of Philippe Park and More .” The book follows the 2017 publication of Muncy and Schultz’s book, “ Eerie Florida: Chilling Tales from the Panhandle to the Keys .” Muncy joins

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission recently charged two suspects for poaching thousands of Florida’s native turtles from the wild and selling them illegally in Florida, with international black markets as the final destination. It's the state’s largest seizure of poached turtles recent history. The FWC undercover investigation began this February after they received a tip. Investigators documented more than 4,000 turtles illegally taken and sold over a 6-month period.

According to the latest numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , Florida leads the nation when it comes to new cases of HIV. The Miami-Ft. Lauderdale-West Palm area leads the nation in terms of per capita cases of HIV, with Orlando at number 2, Jacksonville at number 7, and the Cape Coral-Fort Myers area at 49th.

This Saturday, November 2 there’s an event in Fort Myers launching the new Dunbar Cultural Landmarks Tour , which will allow people to download a free app and follow the route to learn more about historic places in the Dunbar Community.

The music duo Violet Bell brings their psychedelic-folk Ameri-cosmic sound back to Florida with a series of performances this month upon the release of their brand new full-length album, “ Honey in My Heart .” Recordings on the new album consists largely of live single takes. The Durham, North Carolina-based duo consists of musicians Lizzy Ross and Omar Ruiz-Lopez, who first appeared on the show following the release of their 2017 EP, “ Dream the Wheel .”

The newly renamed Punta Gorda Symphony (formerly the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra) is kicking off a new season of performances including an impressive roster of world-class guest soloists and performances of both well-loved and less-known classical works. Music Director Raffaele Ponti announced the symphony’s new name earlier this month as he begins his seventh season as maestro. We’ll learn about what’s behind the name change as we get a preview of what’s in store for the Punta Gorda Symphony’s

Ranked-choice voting is an election system in which voters don’t pick one candidate for each race, but rather rank all candidates in order of their preference. It’s also referred to as an instant runoff system, and is mostly designed to prevent candidates from winning with less than a majority of votes. While it’s been around for more than a century, and is used in some local and party elections here in the U.S., it’s mostly used in other countries. But, for the past two elections, Maine has

This is Media Literacy Week in the United States, now in its fifth year. Inspired by Canada’s Media Literacy Week which is now in its 14th year, the goal is to bring attention to the importance of media literacy education, and its essential role in education at all levels in today’s world. To do our part here at WGCU, Julie Glenn sat down with Florida Gulf Coast University journalism professor Lyn Millner ; one of her teaching assistants, Lauren Miceli, who is studying journalism at FGCU; and

Cyberattacks using what’s called ransomware block access to computer systems unless a ransom is paid. They often target large computer networks within corporations or governments, but can also target individual users. According to Wikipedia there were more than 180-million ransomware attacks in the first six months of 2018. This is a 229% increase over the same time frame in 2017.