The Kissimmee: A River Re-Curved

By Amy Green
NPR
It sounds almost superhuman to try straighten a river and then recarve the curves.

That's what federal and state officials did to the Kissimmee River in Central Florida. They straightened the river in the 1960s into a canal to drain swampland and make way for the state's explosive growth. It worked — and it created an ecological disaster. So officials decided to restore the river's slow-flowing, meandering path.

That billion-dollar restoration — the world's largest — is a few years from completion. And so far, it's bringing signs of new life, especially on a man-made canal that was dug through the heart of the river. Listen here.

In Sugar Price Supports, Sour Tastes For Consumers

By Amy Green
Florida Center for Investigative Reporting
BELLE GLADE, Fla. — Behind every candy bar and can of soda is a complex government program of import tariffs and farmer loans establishing the price of sugar. The program, which has been in place in one form or another since shortly after the founding of the United States, is responsible for the success of Florida’s $1.3 billion sugar industry, the nation’s largest producer of sugar cane. Read more here.

The Stories Under The Sea

By Amy Green
American Archeology
By finding and excavating shipwrecks and other maritime sites, researchers with the Lighthouse Archeological Maritime Program are learning about the history of St. Augustine, America's oldest port city. Read here.

Cassadaga: America's Oldest Spiritualist Community

By Amy Green
Smithsonian.com
Seated across from the medium, eyes closed, my hands in hers, I listen as she prays for a healing white light to fill me, for the spirits and guardian angels always surrounding me to share their guidance.

I am anxious and skeptical about this encounter. Will my reading consist of sweeping generalities applicable to anyone? Is this for real? The medium releases my hands and sits back in her chair. When she begins to describe the swirl taking place in my brain, I am amazed.

“You go over every word in your mind before you put it down,” says the medium, the Rev. Arlene Sikora, 70. “You just want it just so, and you want your people to feel what you’re feeling, and you want them to see what you’re seeing.” Read more here.

Caylee's Family Secrets

By Amy Green, contributor
PEOPLE
What the police know. Read here.

Mary Barley crusades behind the scenes for the Everglades

By Amy Green
Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
Everglades National Park, Fla. — Mary Barley pauses and points into the brush. There, perched near the water, is a green heron. She reaches for her camera. On the boardwalk nearby, tourists swat mosquitoes. A small alligator floats in the distance. Somewhere pumps deliver the water that makes this entire scene possible.

It is a warm, bright morning here in the Royal Palm area of Everglades National Park, the first area of the Everglades to be preserved as a state park in 1916. Here North America meets the tropics, breeding a biodiversity unlike that of any place else on Earth. And the most valued resource is water. Water fuels the region.

Ms. Barley and I are here with Tom Van Lent, senior scientist for the Everglades Foundation, a conservation group. Barley, the foundation’s vice chairwoman, is on one of her many fact-finding trips into the Everglades. She peppers Mr. Van Lent with questions as if she’s cross-examining a witness – about water flows, about man-made water “gates,” about the minute mechanics of one of the world’s most unusual pieces of outdoor plumbing. She wants to do more than preserve the Everglades with a photograph. Read more here.

A Mom's Web Of Lies

By Amy Green, contributor
PEOPLE
Inside the investigation. Read here.