At Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary in Naples, the landscape is quintessential Florida. There's the marsh area with towering cypress trees and there's the wet prairie. 

It's what Florida looked like hundreds of years ago. And it's one of the places where people were tallying butterflies for the North American Butterfly Association's (NABA) summer count. 

NABA holds counts three times a year. From those numbers, scientists are able to gauge the impacts of climate change.

Butterflies: Barometer For Climate Change

Toxic algal blooms have been happening more often in the rivers off Lake Okeechobee. One of the main causes is phosphorous runoff from wastewater and farmland. But a new filter may make algal blooms caused by wastewater a thing of the past. 

The U.S. Geological Survey has designed a new filter system that removes phosphorus from wastewater. It uses a discarded coal mining byproduct called mine drainage ochre to do it.

New Phosphorus Filter Could Help Prevent Harmful Algal Blooms

On the night Stef'An Strawder was killed last year, the Lehigh Senior High Schooler was with his basketball teammates at Club Blu.

This week marks a year since the mass shooting at Club Blu in Fort Myers. Eighteen people were shot and injured. Two people, including Strawder, were killed. 

This Wednesday night--one year and two days after Strawder's murder--his memory was honored with an inaugural showcase named after him. The purpose was to give high school basketball players around the state the chance to play for college coaches.

Slain Club Blu Teen Honored With Basketball Showcase

The opioid crisis has claimed victims—and lives—across Florida, from Miami to Manatee County. But reporter Stephanie Colombini with WUSF in Tampa tracked another way the deadly addictive painkillers are changing the lives of Floridians: she found a "skyrocketing" number of children being removed from their homes and placed in foster care in Sarasota and Manatee Counties is linked with the opioid epidemic.

Colombini joins Gulf Coast Live to share her stories (part 1|part 2) that link the explosion of opiate abuse with a "120 percent increase over the last three years" of foster kids brought into the child welfare system, according to the Sarasota YMCA's Safe Children's Coalition. 

Opiate abuse often tops the list for reasons why the children are being removed from their home: in an area that previously saw "one or two" overdose-related deaths, the Coalition's vice president, Brena Slater, notes they've seen 23 overdose deaths in 2017.

As foster care agencies struggle to find homes and care for the influx of children, Colombini also shares stories of foster families who have taken on the challenge by opening their homes to ever more kids.

Reporter Chronicles Strain of Opioid Crisis on Sarasota, Manatee Foster Care

He led the Florida Seminole Tribe when it challenged the U.S. Supreme Court over gaming on tribal lands. The legal victory helped kick start a gambling industry now estimated at more than $33 billion. Now former Seminole Chief James Billie wants to do for marijuana what the tribes achieved for gaming, aiming to make tribal producers the source for marijuana in a growing number of states that have legalized recreational and medical use of the drug.

Billie is partnering with Nevada-based Electrum Partners in the effort to bring investment and expertise to marijuana grow operations on Native American lands. Despite the shifting legal sands of cannabis use in multiple states, the drug remains illegal at the federal level, with a Schedule I classification that declares the drug to have "no currently accepted medical use" and "a high potential for abuse." Other Schedule I drugs include heroin and LSD.

Billie joins Gulf Coast Live to talk about the 29 states with some form of medical or recreational marijuana legalization, and the advantages he says tribal lands have as potential producers of a marijuana crop.

Also joining the show is Leslie Bocskor, president of Electrum Partners, about how tribes in Florida and others states like California could become growers in the $6.7 billion legal marijuana industry.

Former Seminole Chief Leads Partnership to Boost Legal Marijuana Industry on Tribal Lands

Summers in Florida can often find boxes of surplus mangos or avocados shared among friends and colleagues, when fruiting trees leave growers with more fruit than they could possibly consume. What can you do with the extra tropical goodness? Chef Jack Raben with Fogg Café at the Naples Botanical Garden shares ideas on how to incorporate those fruits into dishes you might not otherwise consider. 

Also joining Gulf Coast Live, Naples Botanical Garden Horticulturist Brian Galligan will talk about some of the other tropical fruits you’ll find in Southwest Florida, and he’ll offer tips on establishing tropical fruit trees in your yard, and how to better care for the fruit trees you may already have.

Growing Fruit Trees in Florida and How to Use Your Summer Surplus

A South Floridian will lead the state’s Bar Association, serving both lawyers and citizens of the Sunshine State in legal information and leadership. Michael Higer from Miami stepped into the job as bar president earlier this summer. He joins Gulf Coast Live to talk about the issues the Florida Bar, and the state's lawyers, will face in the coming year.

One big issue certain to be on the table this year is the Constitutional Revision Commission’s recommendations, which will be on the table in November.

Another issue Higer plans to tackle is gender bias, which is shown in studies to still exist in the law profession.

He'll also touch on areas ranging from mental health issues lawyers face to how technology is changing how law works.

South Floridian Takes Helm of Florida Bar Association

In three tweets this week President Donald Trump declared an all-out ban on "transgender individuals" serving in the military. Military leaders responded to what's been described as a surprise announcement by saying they won't change any policies for the estimated 10,000 transgendered military members without further direction from the White House. On Gulf Coast Live, two military veterans who are trans, and other trans activists in Florida, respond to the president's tweets and the status of Americans who are trans.

Donna Lusk, a Fort Myers Navy veteran who's trans, as well as Susan McGinnes, a Naples-area Air Force vet who is trans, join the show to discuss their military service and reaction to the president's tweeted policy.

Fort Myers transgender activist Emma Bansley also joins the show to share her perspective of how the president's tweets were received in the trans community of Southwest Florida.
Also joining the show is Gina Duncan, the director of transgender equality at Equality Florida.

Trump’s Trans Ban: South Florida’s Trans Veterans, Community Respond

As the University of Florida’s Citrus Research and Education Center prepares to celebrate its centennial anniversary, researchers there say that they’re on the cusp of developing a cure to the most serious threat facing the citrus industry worldwide:  citrus greening.

UF Researchers on the cusp of Citrus Greening Cure

The city of Sarasota recently decided to fund a “living seawall” project along the coast of Sarasota Bay. The city is using some of the settlement money it received from the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The goal is to improve the Bay’s water quality.

City Of Sarasota Funds 'Living Seawall' To Improve Water Quality

National Public Radio for Southwest Florida

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