The oil slick in the Gulf could potentially do more environmental damage than the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska in 1989 – especially if it gets into coastal estuaries.  WGCU’s Valerie Alker reports.

Organizations
like the Red Cross and the Salvation Army are asking Floridians for
financial donations to help the victims of the Haiti’s earthquake.  
WGCU’s Luis Hernandez reports on a Naples group that is looking for
some specific items.

Counselors with Hope Hospice in Fort Myers are holding grief sessions this week for people struggling to cope with last week’s devastating earthquake in Haiti.  WGCU’s John Davis reports.

Southwest Florida is home to thousands of Haitian Americans and local non-profits have long been involved in efforts to help the struggling Caribbean nation.  In the wake of the earthquake, those efforts have been ramped up.  WGCU’s John Davis prepared this report.

South
Florida Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz says Congress needs to
move quickly to let undocumented Haitians stay in the U.S. legally.
Alex Keefe reports from Washington.

The
Red Cross of Lee County is collecting monetary contributions from
people who want to help victims of the earthquake in Haiti.  WGCU’s
Luis Hernandez reports. 

2008 marks the 80th anniversary of one of the country’s greatest natural disasters, the 1928 Florida hurricane. Although the death toll is now estimated at between two and three thousand, many believe this storm hasn’t received the attention it deserves because most of the victims were African American migrant farmworkers. Bill Dudley talks to the authors of two books on the hurricane and its aftermath.

Staff at the Archbold Biological Station in Highlands County are mourning the deaths of two of their major contributors. Dave Maehr, a visiting scientist, and his pilot, Mason Smoak, a local citrus grower – were killed in a plane crash last Friday while tracking radio collared black bears. Director Hillary Swain told WGCU’s Valerie Alker it’s a great loss.

The first in a wave of United Nations relief ‘planes arrived in Myanmar yesterday following last Saturday’s cyclone. Meanwhile in Fort Myers, a Christian based missionary group is doing what it can on the ground and from Southwest Florida to help the victims. WGCU’s Matthew Kay reports

One man died when his small plane crashed Wednesday morning near Southwest Florida International Airport. National transportation safety officials are investigating what caused his single engine plane to crash. WGCU’s Luis Hernandez reports.


Click below to see video from the crash site.