You're watching Southwest Florida InFocus.

Coming up, the Sunshine State enters the national spotlight as president elect Donald Trump returns to the white House with Floridians poised to take critical cabinet roles.

We speak to PBS NewsHour, Capitol Hill correspondent Lisa Desjardins on how Florida politicians could shape Trump's policies and priorities.

They're looking for kids and teens that are vulnerable, that, you know, are receptive to their attention and will respond to them.

Keeping kids safe online.

A new Florida law limits social media use for anyone under 14.

What the measure means to families.

And is the orange getting squeezed out of Florida?

Decades of obstacles are creating major issues for citrus growers.

As one Southwest Florida company says, they're moving on from the fruit.

Hello, I'm Sandra Victor.

Over.

Thank you for joining us.

Washington DC is making the final preparations for President Donald Trump's inauguration and his return to the white House.

The president elect will be sworn into his second term in office on Monday, and confirmation hearings for his cabinet are moving at a historic pace.

Floridians have been tapped to take a leading role in the second Trump administration.

What will that mean for our state and the nation?

Joining us from Washington to discuss what we might expect from a second Trump term is Lisa Desjardins, the Capitol Hill correspondent for PBS NewsHour.

Thank you so much, Lisa, for joining us.

We appreciate it.

My pleasure.

You're welcome.

So compared to the president's first term, what are the biggest changes you're seeing in the formation of this new administration?

You can see that Trump and those around him have learned a lot from their first time around.

And they're moving more quickly, more decisively, even, and they really have lined up, it's clear the nominees that they wanted to get out of the gate.

We haven't seen this quick of confirmation hearings scheduled.

The Senate Historian's office says they can't find a time in recent history that this many confirmation hearings have been scheduled.

In the first week and especially there's a single day, where we saw so many confirmation hearings together.

So what you see is just the Trump administration as it's coming in, understanding a little bit more about how the process works.

And I think so far, being a bit more professional and a bit more predictable in terms of going along with the process and understanding, but they're moving more quickly than we saw the first time.

How do you suspect that the state of Florida could potentially benefit from so many Floridians in this administration?

Of course, we're talking about Marco Rubio, potentially, Pam Bondi or former Florida attorney general, potentially chief of staff, many more other positions I could certainly name.

Will there be a benefit to the issues facing Floridians?

That remains to be seen, but certainly there could be.

Now, president elect Trump, is still considered a man from New York, but he is Floridian now.

And when you think about his concerns and when he's thinking about, who is impacted by his decisions, he is spending more time in Florida than anywhere else.

And we've seen reporters move down there to cover him.

There's a reason for that.

So when you look at environmental policy, when you look at, especially kind of coastal policy, energy policy, he is thinking about the Gulf in a way that I'm not sure any other recent presidents have.

Now, when it comes to more difficult issues for Florida, property, hurricanes and flood insurance, all of that, those are difficult.

But I, I don't know, I can't say right now that Florida will clearly benefit from having a Floridian in the white House, but it will help them make an argument for any policy that, they think perhaps someone who is not from the peninsula, wouldn't understand the difficulties there.

It certainly is a benefit.

I think any state would want to have the president elect and the number of key figures from their state in office as Florida is happy now.

Were you surprised by the president's decision to pick, Senator Marco Rubio for Secretary of State?

Obviously, you know, during the the campaign for president, you know, the relationship got contentious.

And then I was also thinking about, you know, there could be issues where they're not going to agree on policy, specifically thinking of Russia.

You know, Rubio has been a staunch supporter of punitive measures against Russia over, you know, Ukraine and other matters.

And then the president has, on more than one occasion talked about improving relations with Russia.

It's just such a great question.

I actually was not surprised when he was nominated.

I was surprised that he was not the pick for vice president.

He was right there in contention up until the end.

And there was a lot of back and forth within the Trump campaign over Rubio.

And there was a point where it became clear that it wasn't going to be him.

But somehow Marco Rubio was able to take one of the most contentious political, relationships out there in 2016, him versus Donald Trump, and make himself a staunch ally of Trump and not just an ally, because there are many people who sing the Trump song in the Republican Party now, but someone who Trump also believes is loyal.

That's the biggest difference.

The question now, as we watch him as Secretary of State is, is he still Marco Rubio?

Is he sticky?

Is he going to stick to the Rubio beliefs, especially as far as it goes with Ukraine especially?

Is it far it goes with U.S. involvement overseas, or is he going to be sort of a different, kind of person?

When we talk about foreign affairs, it's going to it's going to be a lot to watch very closely.

Trump says he likes people who disagree with him.

So Rubio behind the scenes, will have that opportunity.

But in the end, it is Trump who will make this policy.

And not that is a huge factor.

It could be an existential factor for Ukraine.

Even if Rubio is arguing behind the scenes, we have to watch what he's saying and doing in public.

Finally, if I can end with this, Lisa, the president has certainly raised eyebrows with some of his recent comments changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, his desire to control Greenland, the Panama Canal to annex Canada.

How viable are these ideas?

Or are these just comments to please supporters?

Yeah.

Where do we start with this?

I think it's a great question.

And it's something everyone a lot of Americans are talking about.

I sound like Trump himself.

Everybody's talking about it.

One of his catchphrases, they like to say, I think the way to look at it and the way to understand Trump is he is a negotiator.

He's always looking for leverage.

When he doesn't have leverage, he creates leverage.

So to me, these are all ideas that he's trying to get something for the United States or something for his benefit.

Out of these relationships, it doesn't exist.

Now.

Does he sincerely want Greenland to be part of the United States?

I think that's a yes.

But does he really believe that that's possible.

I'm I'm not sure.

I think that I think he is hopeful he would love for that to happen.

But we've no indication for Greenland that they're interested or Denmark that they're interested.

In fact, they say the opposite.

But he's a negotiator.

He wants to he wants to get something.

And same thing with Panama Canal.

He wants them to bring down their shipping rates for the United States, which the reporting I've seen says that there's similar rates to other countries.

We just do more shipping, so we end up spending more.

However, Trump, he's negotiating.

He's looking for something.

He's looking for leverage.

And I think that's why he brings up these things.

He also loves headlines.

And these are all great headlines.

One more thing.

This tells me, as we think about Trump, as someone whose mindset was formed in part in the 1980s, being a New Yorker in 1980s and that kind of business culture.

But this is kind of like 1880s, 1840s imperialism.

This is a part of who he is.

And America's, you know, understand, understand that you know, because that has major implications for our identity and also conflicts or friendships around the world.

Lisa, thank you so much for your insight today, and we look forward to your coverage of this new administration.

Thank you.

What a pleasure.

Thank you.

Thank Come to Florida, you look forward to beaches and golf and drinking a glass of orange juice, or eating a piece of grapefruit.

A staggering drop off in crop production is plaguing citrus growers.

We look at the troubling trend that has some worried whether orange and grapefruit groves will disappear in the Sunshine State.

Over the past two decades, citrus production in our state has dropped 90%.

That.

According to a recent report by Florida Tax Watch.

Recently, Southwest Florida's biggest grower, Alico, announced it will no longer grow citrus because of financial challenges from citrus greening disease and hurricanes over recent years.

In a statement, the company said most of its land will likely be used for other agricultural purposes and that about 25% of its land has development potential.

Citrus growers are fighting for financial survival across our state.

We visited one farmer in Arcadia to understand why.

You'll find all kinds of citrus growing at Joshua Citrus in Arcadia, but these groves are a painful sight for owner Kevin Shelfer and his son Caleb.

Trees like this one don't have much time left.

It's dead, but they don't know it yet.

Like most of the trees on the company's 300 acres, it's plagued by citrus greening disease.

But it should have 30 or 40 years left.

It probably may not have a year left.

Their citrus production has dropped by about 90% in recent years.

It hasn't been working out for citrus in general for every grower, for the past probably ten years.

You know, they're out here struggling.

Citrus greening, a deadly bacterial infection, strangles the tree.

So fruit struggles to grow.

The citrus is often not a sweet or as big as it should be.

That's why in the store now, you don't see a lot of big grapefruit from Florida.

Hurricanes have also dealt another painful blow.

Ian really hit us hard.

Their trees sat in Ian's flood waters for days, making compromised trees more vulnerable.

The company estimates they've lost about 15,000 trees in three years.

It's a similar story across the industry.

It's heartbreaking to see all the citrus going away and probably will never come back.

It's especially heartbreaking for the shell first, because their family has been growing citrus on this land since the 1880s.

We've been scraping by, and the reason that we continue to do this is for the love of the land and for the love of Florida, what old Florida used to be.

This is what it is, and we don't want to see that go.

But they understand why some growers walk away and sell to developers.

They say they've lost money on citrus crops the past three seasons.

There's no other crops to really jump into that's going to make you that money back.

And the only crop is is houses.

You cannot say no to someone that offers you millions of dollars for a piece of land.

That's that to you is losing money.

If it weren't for our store and and what we do over there, we would have had to close the doors by now.

Joshua Citrus is embracing change, marketing public events at their store, selling more than just citrus to customers, and offering agriculture tours.

The Shelford struggle to understand why there hasn't been more federal support for citrus.

Their best hope now is that scientists working on an answer to citrus greening succeed soon, but they know a solution is years away at best, so they'll continue to look at how to diversify sales, perhaps dabbling into new crops like avocados.

We are looking, but I don't mean where you want to go.

Do something else.

Possibly we will have to one day.

Joining us now is Paul Meador, Florida Citrus commissioner for district one, which includes Collier, Henry and Lee counties.

He's also the president of Everglades harvesting in La Belle.

Thank you, Paul, for joining us.

We appreciate it.

Thank you for having me.

So you are a fourth generation grower.

Help us understand how difficult it is for growers right now to survive economically.

Well, it goes back almost 20 years now.

So shortly after the year 2000, we had, citrus canker was discovered in Florida.

There was an effort to try to eradicate it.

So many acres were lost during that period of time.

And that was followed by Hurricane Charley, Frances, Gene and then Wilma, which, covered just about every producing area in Florida.

At the same time, we found it is a bacterial disease called one alone.

Being one of being, weakens the state of the tree.

So all of those things combined, was a perfect storm to to get us on our heels.

And then since then, we've we've struggled with the disease, one long being, which is citrus greening, the formal name for citrus greening, and suffered some additional hurricanes, Irma, Ian and the most recent hurricane in this past season.

So, it's it's been a difficult stretch of time.

Of course, we we mentioned earlier that Elko is ending its citrus production.

What does that mean for the future of the crop in southwest Florida?

Well, it creates a couple of challenges.

I guess the first one is the greatest concern that many of us that are still citrus growers have been struggling for many years now trying to find ways to stay in the citrus industry.

Many of us are very passionate about it, but there's also a lot of infrastructure around the industry.

We had a million acres, in 2000 today, probably less than 100,000.

If you take Aliko out of the the total acreage in Florida.

So all of the of the structure the tractor dealerships, the chemical retailers, the employees that help us with day to day operations, all of that has been contracting.

So that's a probably one of the most serious parts of, of it.

But in addition to that, the individuals that are left like myself, we haven't been able to generate any real revenue to, to put back on to, back into our farms.

So that we're prepared for the future.

You know, at some point, you have to be profitable to make, to make, to make any business work.

And we're no different.

And so the infrastructure continues to, collapse around us, which makes things even more complicated for us.

Will citrus production survive in Florida?

I remain optimistic that it will.

We have, an an injection or a therapy now that will, will assist us.

Going forward.

It doesn't necessarily help older trees that have already been impacted by it, by citrus greening in the hurricanes, but younger trees, healthier trees that have not been, grossly impaired by the disease.

As far as Florida's place in, in in the world of citrus, has California replaced US or other countries at this point?

You know, certainly the production has been picked up from other places, in the world.

Not, not necessarily California, California groves, a, piece of fruit that is, better suited for the produce section to be eaten whole.

They do create some juice for.

But that's not the lion's of what they do.

But Brazil, Mexico, along with a few other countries, produce some juice, fruit that have.

And they're having the same problem.

So they're filling they're backfilling what we're not doing to a certain point.

But at the end of the day, the world is going to be sort of, forced to some grapefruit juice because of the disease.

Paul, thank you for what you do.

And thank you for your time.

Thank you very much.

This year.

A new Florida law significantly restricts social media access for children.

The law, which is being challenged in court, bans kids under 14 from having a social media account.

The measure also says teens between the ages of 14 and 15 can only get a social media account with parental approval.

Florida's attorney General, Ashley Moody, said the state would wait to enforce the law on social media platforms until a court ruling.

That hearing is scheduled for February.

So how will this law impact young people in Florida?

Joining me now to discuss this is Alexandria Loren, the community awareness and outreach coordinator with the Children's Advocacy Center of Southwest Florida, nonprofit assisting child victims of abuse.

Alexandria, welcome.

Thanks for joining us.

Thank you so much for having me.

So let's start with, you know, the law itself.

How do you think it will impact young people in our community and nationally?

Yeah, I think that this law is going to be a great thing for our youth to help safeguard them against the issues that they're facing online today.

I know we were talking earlier, and, you know, for folks who perhaps maybe their grandparents, maybe they're just folks who don't use social media.

Help us understand exactly where you think the dangers lie with, with kids.

And I know specifically you're concerned about, you know, strangers misrepresenting themselves, reaching out to young people.

Absolutely.

When it comes to social media, there's, you know, so many people and so much opportunity to connect and communicate with others, which can be a really positive thing for youth.

Absolutely.

But at the same time, it does open the door for predators who are specifically on websites like social media, to find kids and teens to manipulate for their own purposes.

So it's one thing that's definitely going to help protect them by waiting a little bit longer, educating them about social media, about the different risks that they face while they're using these different apps.

So I think it's going to be really, really good for that aspect.

Definitely.

You were sharing with me earlier a stat about the number of reports coming in from young people who say that, you know, strangers are reaching out to them via social media and in an inappropriate way.

Absolutely.

So the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children has a cyber tip line.

39 million reports are coming in yearly for sexual solicitation online.

So that's very concerning.

And a lot of that is coming from social media.

So your advice to parents, how do we protect our kids and help them use social media.

Right.

They all want access to it.

So how do we help them navigate this space?

The best way for parents to protect kids online is to know who, how, and what their kids are doing online.

Really take an active role in their online life.

Utilizing the monitoring apps that are out there like Bach or Life 360 or even iPhone has settings already in place that you can, you know, utilize to have parental controls.

Different things like that are so important, but the main thing that I would say is having open conversations and setting healthy boundaries with your kids.

I think the scariest part overall is that a lot of kids do not understand what's happening.

They think that it's harmless.

They think it's not a big deal.

And so they will.

You know, sextortion is on the rise.

They don't label it as that.

They won't call it that.

But these people will, you know, message them and ask for things like photos, inappropriate things and then give them, you know, money or, you know, objects in exchange.

And that's really, really scary because they're putting themselves at huge risk by participating in that.

And then the images are out there forever.

They are.

But there is something they can do about that as well.

Because if you report it to the cyber tip line, if they're under 18, they have software that's able to scrub the internet and get those images back.

It's not guaranteed, but it is something.

And so I definitely encourage, you know, people to understand that that's a resource out there.

Alexandria, thank you for your time.

We appreciate your your great advice.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Of course.

Thank you.

After the break.

Building a unique voice.

How one southwest Florida group is helping end stereotypes and lend a helping hand to those in the deaf and hard of hearing community.

A nonprofit that serves a vulnerable population in our community needs some help.

The Sally Pimentel Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Fort Myers operates on a small budget.

As Mike Walter reports, the center is low profile, and workers say they wish they could help more people.

Their expressions are lively and bright.

Their world is silent.

The deaf and hard of hearing fight isolation and stereotypes.

Many deaf people come to the Salli Pimentel Center in Fort Myers, the only full service, nonprofit center for deaf and hard of hearing people between Miami and Tampa.

I feel that we are invisible.

People don't really understand us.

And so it's it's the hard part.

Mentor Audrey Rodriguez leads a class on life skills for adults.

Glenn Lima says he struggles every day.

It's hard.

It's hard.

People expect me to here, and I don't know what words they're talking about.

It's different.

Pimentel said her would like to do more, but it lacks funding.

It owns a small suite of offices in Fort Myers, but can pay only five employees to serve deaf people from five counties.

I feel grief.

I'm grieving.

My grief is is I'm focused on the children.

A lot of the children's nowaday, they don't have the language and that communication at home.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says just under 1% of Americans are deaf.

At least another 2 or 3% are seriously hard of hearing in this area.

Some meet regularly at Edison Mall.

Some engage with hearing people using iPhone apps that transcribe and show spoken words.

Teenager Amelia Deas says the deaf face one major misunderstanding the interpreter is part of one.

You know, it's hearing people think they're stupid and are not, but they're not stupid.

I had a very brilliant, very smart, very outgoing look, very.

Just think they just have a carrot.

Thank you.

Joey, you're asking a yes or no question.

If your eyebrows are scrunched, what kind of question are you seeing?

These students are learning sign language at De La Salle Academy in South Fort Myers.

It's a private school for children who learn differently.

Every student must take two years of sign language to graduate.

I think it brings a lot of light to the deaf community, and that it can help us understand more about what they go through in their day to day lives.

I feel passionate about teaching it here, not only teaching the language, but teaching about the community as a whole.

And I feel disappointed about how the deaf community is treated.

Rachel English is the assistant principal at de LaSalle and taught American Sign Language for six years.

She's done a lot of research on cochlear implant.

When students get or children get it younger, it's been more successful for kiddos.

We've had a student who got it very young and she did a lot of speech therapy, and she's very successful and it works very well.

We've had some kiddos where it was later in life, and it was a little bit more challenging for them.

It didn't work as well.

At Pimentel Center, the work to help the deaf goes on.

It's heartbreaking to to understand the potential that a person could have reached, but because they did not have access to things like sign language when they were young, now they're older and they don't fit in the deaf community because they don't know sign.

They don't fit in the hearing community because they can't hear.

And I want to fight for them.

And that's exactly what we're doing here at this agency.

We are fighting every day for deaf individuals rights.

For WGCU news, I'm Mike Wilcher.

Coming up next week on Southwest Florida In focus changes are coming to flood maps in parts of Lee County that could change insurance rates for those at risk.

A look at FEMA's new hazard maps and what that means to our region.

Be sure to join us for that story and much more on WGCU.

Until then, have a super week.

Zu.