WLRN Public Media

In shallow water not far from the Florida Keys’ famed Seven Mile Bridge, a herd of the state’s flamboyantly pink queen conchs is struggling to survive. Warming seas and wild swings in temperature have shut down their reproductive impulses in the waist-deep water, leaving them to creep along the ocean floor, searching for food but not love. Meanwhile, just a few miles away in deeper, cooler waters, the iconic mollusks mate freely. So scientists have a rescue plan: load the inshore conchs into milk crates, ferry them to colonies in deep water, and let nature run its course. As climate change fast tracks ocean warming, the researchers hope their plan hatches enough baby conchs to help boost the flagging population. “Once you put them in a more appropriate temperature regime, snails have a remarkable capability to heal themselves,” says Dr. Gabriel Delgado, a conch scientist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission who is leading the pilot project. “Now you have a contributing member to future populations.” Last month, Delgado and a team of scientists set out to collect some potential members from a grassy patch of ocean floor just off Molasses Key, near Marathon. Except for a brisk wind and choppy waters, the day was perfect: The Keys’ stunning turquoise waters glowed. “If we get 50, I’ll be happy,” Delgado yelled over the boat engine as the Seven Mile Bridge loomed. Scientists have been working for decades to understand what’s ailing the conchs and revive their populations, which were once so plentiful that the Keys declared itself the Conch Republic. At the turn of the century, queen conchs littered the ocean floor, ambling across flats and hard bottom, tidying up by grazing on algae. “If you let them put their mouth on your finger, you can feel them licking you,” Delgado says. “It's like a cat's tongue.” They were part of a population that once stretched across the Caribbean and seeded a powerful “larval train”—tiny conch hatchlings carried to Florida and the Bahamas by the fast-moving Gulf Stream and other currents. Tap the link below to continue reading. Story by Jenny Staletovich in collaboration with Science Friday. 📸 Patrick Farrell (@epatrickfarrell)

Florida's Venice Beach is known as the “Shark Tooth Capital of the World,” but residents in Broward and Palm Beach counties are scouring the shore line and finding a fair share of shark teeth. Deerfield Beach resident Kristin Mellon has found over a dozen shark teeth in the last four months. She walks along Deerfield Beach a few times a week, where she’s found coral, sea glass andeven a baby turtle. “You come in the morning and the water is real flat. And you see the beach dotted with all the shells,” Mellon said. “It's like Christmas morning all the time because you have new little treasures.” South Florida isn’t ideal for shark teeth hunting for two reasons: there’s not a lot of teeth, and many of the shark teeth aren’t fossils. Shark teeth fossils are typically thousands to millions of years old. They’re darker in color because the organic material has been replaced with minerals. However, modern shark teeth are white or light brown. Mellon says the ultimate goal for shark teeth collectors is to find a Megalodon shark tooth fossil. The shark existed over 3 million years ago and could grow to up to 58 feet long. The animals were so big their teeth fossils can be up to 7 inches long. However, Mellon said that searching for shark teeth in South Florida has been anything but discouraging. “It makes it more special when you do find [shark teeth] because they're not just all over the place. It's like a treasure hunt,” she said. “You can't get more real than if it was in a shark's mouth this morning.” Shark teeth are fairly prevalent in South Florida because up to a few million years ago, the entire area was submerged in shallow water, which is the ideal habitat for sharks. This means that shark teeth can also be found far away from beaches as well, buried under the soil. “We replace our teeth once. If we need to replace our teeth a second time, we have to pay really expensive dental bills. A shark can go through, depending on the species, 25,000 to 45,000 teeth in their lifetime,” said Ken Marks, a volunteer at the Florida Museum of Natural History and an amateur fossil hunter. Tap the link below to continue reading. Story by Anita Li.

Nearly half the households in Florida are struggling to make financial ends meet, according to a closely watched report by the United Way. The nonprofit charity fundraiser organization produces the annual ALICE report — which stands for “Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed” — to track the number of households that fall above the federal poverty level but make less than what it takes to live comfortably in a local community’s economy. The 2024 report shows that 46% of Florida households — more than 4 million households — are straining to pay for necessities like food, rent and transportation. That number includes the 1.1 million households in poverty and 2.9 million households that meet the ALICE criteria. Miami-Dade County households fared worse, with 53% facing financial hardship, followed by Broward County (48%) and Palm Beach County (47%). The Florida Keys fared slightly better at 43%. The report pulls data from more than 20 state and federal bodies of research including the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the American Community Survey from the Census Bureau, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. “The ALICE report is a way to talk about things that are hidden in plain sight in the community,” said Leah Stockton, the Keys area president for United Way of Collier and the Keys. The findings from this year’s update are consistent with a more than decade-long trend. From 2010 to 2022, households in poverty in Florida grew by 8% and ALICE households grew by 27%. While wages for low-paying jobs have grown in Florida, so too have costs. “The largest increases were food and transportation,” Stockton said. “The price of cars has gone up, interest rates have gone up, insurance costs have gone up, etc.” The other big change, Stockton said, was that families have fewer tax credits. “If you remember, during COVID, anyone that had young children, there were tax credits that you were getting due to having dependents,” she said. “Those have largely gone away now.” Tap the link below to continue reading. Story by Julia Cooper. 📸 Lynne Sladky / AP

Nearly half the households in Florida are struggling to make financial ends meet, according to a closely watched report by the United Way. The nonprofit charity fundraiser organization produces the annual ALICE report — which stands for “Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed” — to track the number of households that fall above the federal poverty level but make less than what it takes to live comfortably in a local community’s economy. The 2024 report shows that 46% of Florida households — more than 4 million households — are straining to pay for necessities like food, rent and transportation. That number includes the 1.1 million households in poverty and 2.9 million households that meet the ALICE criteria. Miami-Dade County households fared worse, with 53% facing financial hardship, followed by Broward County (48%) and Palm Beach County (47%). The Florida Keys fared slightly better at 43%. The report pulls data from more than 20 state and federal bodies of research including the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the American Community Survey from the Census Bureau, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. “The ALICE report is a way to talk about things that are hidden in plain sight in the community,” said Leah Stockton, the Keys area president for United Way of Collier and the Keys. The findings from this year’s update are consistent with a more than decade-long trend. From 2010 to 2022, households in poverty in Florida grew by 8% and ALICE households grew by 27%. While wages for low-paying jobs have grown in Florida, so too have costs. “The largest increases were food and transportation,” Stockton said. “The price of cars has gone up, interest rates have gone up, insurance costs have gone up, etc.” The other big change, Stockton said, was that families have fewer tax credits. “If you remember, during COVID, anyone that had young children, there were tax credits that you were getting due to having dependents,” she said. “Those have largely gone away now.” Tap the link below to continue reading. Story by Julia Cooper. 📸 Lynne Sladky / AP

The Florida Roundup will be live from Key West on August 9. We may be leaving the mainland, but we will still be talking about politics. We will talk with the leading Democrat running for the U-S Senate - Debbie Mucarsel-Powell - about her race against Senator Rick Scott, the economy and the race for the White House. If you’re around, we would love to see you live in Key West on August 9. You can register here: https://buff.ly/4cENuPw

"Now that 81-year-old Joe Biden has petulantly stormed out of his party’s intervention and refused to give up the presidential candidate car keys, I see a greater likelihood of two things. First, Donald Trump will be the next president, unless he does something like stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody. (Oh, wait, I forgot, he could do that and still win.) Second, Florida Senator Marco Rubio will be Trump’s vice-presidential pick at next week’s Republican convention in Milwaukee. Why will “Little Marco,” as Trump gets a sneering kick out of calling him, be the MAGA Mate? Because, to ensure that he scores battleground states like Arizona and Nevada, former President Trump needs to keep poaching Latino voters from President Biden and the Democrats. Tapping the Cuban-American Rubio helps ensure more Latino voters morph into what more pundits like strategist Mike Madrid call them today: the new Reagan Democrats. What, the Millennials and Gen-Zers will ask, are Reagan Democrats? Those were traditional blue-collar Democrats who, in the 1980s, voted for Republican President Ronald Reagan — because his Democratic predecessor, Jimmy Carter, had presided over wage-ravaging double-digit inflation in the 1970s. They help explain why, in the 2020s, so many traditional Latino Democrats are abandoning Biden for Trump. Any economist will remind you that inflation hits people of color in this country, Blacks and Latinos, harder than it punches whites. That’s particularly true today because rental housing, or the lack of it, is such a haunting facet of this decade’s nagging inflation equation: more than half of Blacks and Latinos rent, compared to just a quarter of whites." Tap the link below to continue reading. Story by Tim Padgett. 📸 Rebecca Blackwell / AP

In the tiny city of West Miami, the sound of a red light camera shutter might as well sound like a cash register. Every month, the town of about 7,000 residents regularly snaps thousands of automated photos of people suspected of violating traffic laws. The money derived from six red light cameras amounts to more than 15% of the city’s total revenue, far higher than most other cities that run the programs. The cameras are expected to generate a total of $1.45 million in revenue for the city this year, making them the second largest source of funds, after property taxes. The total estimated revenue for the city this year is $9.2 million. As a new law requiring more transparency for red light camera programs comes into effect, WLRN has analyzed data for South Florida cities, which make up about half the cities in Florida that operate the programs. West Miami is the city most reliant on the red light camera revenue to fund its municipal government, WLRN found. “I average between 3,000 to 3,500 reviews per month. Out of that, probably 3,000 get cited,” Ricardo Roque, the police officer in charge of reviewing the red light camera footage, told WLRN. “A lot of them get dismissed.” West Miami and other cities that run the programs must offer a public hearing for people who want to contest their tickets. The West Miami meetings are run by private attorney Marcos Martinez, who was hired by the city. “This is like a major hub that connects the City of Miami and the city of Coral Gables and unincorporated Dade, all of which are much bigger jurisdictions. So everyone shortcuts through here,” Martinez told WLRN. “Traffic is actually probably the main problem in the city.” During a June meeting, most people who contested their citations were dismissed, due to pulling what Martinez called a “Miami right” — a slow rolling right hand turn on a red light. While technically illegal, it’s common. Roque admitted he tends to cite these turns, while Martinez tends to be more lenient. Tap the link below to continue reading. Story by Daniel Rivero.

In North America, this is the summer of cicadas — the insects that can spend years underground until emerging en masse to sing. The cacophony can be overpowering — and a reminder of another summer of the cicada, in South America, where a song about cicadas took its place as an iconic protest anthem that recently marked its 50th anniversary: "Como la Cigarra," or "Like the Cicada." In February 1982, in the Argentine summer, singer Mercedes Sosa brought her country to tears. She had been forced into exile three years earlier by Argentina’s brutal military dictatorship (whose junta horrors were recounted in the Oscar-nominated 2022 Argentine film "Argentina, 1985"). But after returning to Buenos Aires, Sosa was giving concerts at sites like the Teatro Opera. And they featured a ballad about perseverance and transcendence, "Como la Cigarra," that she had turned into a poignant but powerful statement of defiance that resonated throughout Latin America and beyond. "Cantando al sol, como la cigarra,” said its moving chorus: “I’m singing to the sun, like the cicada, after a year under the earth. Like a survivor returning from war.” After six years of dictatorship barbarity known as the Dirty War — in which some 30,000 Argentines were murdered or disappeared — Sosa’s performances of “Como la Cigarra” were a national catharsis. The song evoked a painful darkness — but also a terrorized people emerging again into the sunlight. The dictatorship, in fact, would be gone a year later after its Falklands war debacle. “It was like a voice of freedom,” says Argentine expat Sergio Gutierrez. Gutierrez was a Buenos Aires university student when Sosa gave those concerts in 1982. Today he's an international software executive living in Miami. But he still recalls how confident he felt hearing “Como la Cigarra” that Argentine summer — the way, say, any Cuban might have felt hearing the Latin Grammy-winning “Patria y Vida” in the summer of 2021. “The military dictatorship was a tough time for many people," Gutierrez told WLRN. "But this song, it seemed like a beginning of hope. Like a hymn for the people.” Tap the link below to continue reading. Story by Tim Padgett. 📸 Dolores Ochoa / AP

In a new attempt to ease congestion on its roads, Miami Beach has launched a $600,000 water taxi program to transport passengers to downtown Miami. Officials say the one-year pilot project aims to reduce traffic loads on the McArthur, Julia Tuttle and Venetian causeways that link the city to Miami — particularly during rush hour. “We are aiming to provide an alternative to the private vehicle. Every passenger on this water taxi is one vehicle less on our causeways,” Jose Gonzalez, Miami Beach’s transportation and mobility director, said. But with previous attempts at the service having failed due to low demand, some transportation advocates wonder if this pilot program will be any different. "It's too soon to tell, but it's probably going to be an uphill battle for this iteration as well," Matthew Gultanoff, founder of Better Streets Miami Beach said. The most recent effort to provide alternative transportation for commuters on water was 2016's Water Taxi Miami. The one-year program was discontinued due to low ridership. This time around, the city is partnering with the private company Poseidon Ferry, subsidizing approximately half of its operations at a cost of $600,000, according to city officials. The company started operations in 2020, with a service taking commuters from South Beach to the Knight Center on the Miami River. However, it suspended operations twice due to low ridership during the COVID-19 pandemic and financial struggles. “Finally now that we have help. With the city, we're able to get the funds needed to do the ferry service, and it's so exciting that it's finally started,” Wynter Fromhartz, the port captain of the Poseidon Ferry, said. The 25-year-old has been working with the company for almost 5 years. Tap the link below to continue reading. Story by Jimena Romero.

Steward Health Care, which runs 31 hospitals nationwide, including eight in Florida, filed for bankruptcy in May and announced that it was selling all of its hospitals. At the time, the Dallas-based company said it did not expect any interruptions in its hospitals’ day-to-day operations during the Chapter 11 process. But workers at Palmetto General Hospital — which is managed by Steward — say they are struggling with broken elevators, late overtime checks and staffing shortages. Mark Criswell, an administrative organizer for Palmetto General and healthcare worker union 1199SEIU, says the workplace issues have persisted for years. Typically, he noted, there are three to four certified nursing assistants per floor; now there’s only one. “[Steward] started closing mental health units at their facilities. There weren’t juices, there weren’t snacks for patients,” Criswell said. “There were paper shortages. There was just like little stuff where they were cutting corners.” Criswell said the problems started in 2021, the same year Steward Health Care bought the hospital. The first major alarm bells rang when Palmetto General’s Behavioral Mental Health unit closed. The Miami Herald reported that similar closures happened at North Shore Medical Center, which is also run by Steward Health Care. “Steward Health Care has done everything in its power to operate successfully in a highly challenging health care environment,” Dr. Ralph de la Torre, CEO of Steward said in a May 6 statement. The company did not respond to WLRN inquiries about the union's concerns. Steward Health Care runs two other hospitals in Miami-Dade: Coral Gables Hospital and Hialeah Hospital. It also manages Florida Medical Center in Broward, in addition to three others in the rest of the state. Tap the link below to continue reading. Story by Anita Li.