Florida’s Fourth Estate

It’s been a week and a half since Miki Sudo dominated the Nathan’s hot dog eating contest, downing 39.5 franks in 10 minutes. Now she is coaching two fellow Floridians, telling them what it takes to rise to the top of the competitive eating circuit. Sudo talked about her craft with Matt Austin and Ginger Gadsden during an episode of Florida’s Fourth Estate. “You want to minimize chewing,” she said. “Chewing is a waste of time and signals to your brain that you are getting full.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Twiggy the waterskiing squirrel got her start in Sanford in 1979. Since then she has appeared in several movies and a music video and performed at the X Games. She retired in 2018, but not she is back. Chuck Best Jr. told Matt Austin and Ginger Gadsden on Florida’s Fourth Estate it all started when someone gave his mom and dad, Chuck and Lou Ann Best a baby squirrel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wolves are beautiful animals, but if you want to have one as a pet, like the popular show “Game of Thrones,” you need to make sure you meet the minimum requirements. Deanna Deppen, executive director of Shy Wolf Sanctuary Education and Experience Center in Naples, recently talked to Matt Austin and Ginger Gadsden on Florida’s Fourth Estate about the challenges she faces when people are not able to care for the wolves they adopt. “Florida actually requires licensing, so you should not have a full wolf without having two and a half acres of land, 500 hours working with them, 10-foot fences and an 8-foot perimeter fence,” Deppen said. Wolves need more space than your house can provide. “In the wild, they can travel up to 120 miles per day, up to 40 miles per hour, and they have needs where they need to stay active.” Wolf dogs, or dogs that are bred with wolves, can also pose unforeseen problems when people need to put them up for adoption. “Shelters won’t adopt them out. They’ll put them down. Other rescues won’t take them—they consider them unadoptable, they just have nowhere else to go,” Deppen said. That’s where her sanctuary comes in. She said it has been around for a long time. Now, she is planning and preparing to move to a new 17-acre property. The move will be expensive and the sanctuary is asking people to step in and help sponsor the animals, or even come in and volunteer. To join the wolf pack, click here for more information. You can also learn more on Florida’s Fourth Estate. You can watch the podcast anytime on News 6+. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alex Schulze has collected plenty of cell phones from the ocean, but only one has turned on. “Most of the time, the [phones] are basically locked up or the salt water has kind of destroyed them,” Schulze said. Schultze is the co-founder and CEO of ocean cleanup company 4ocean and was recently looking for trash in the Boca Raton Inlet in South Florida when he came across an iPhone in a clear waterproof case on the sand. It appeared to be in great shape. I brought it back to our office where I was able to charge it and then looked at the emergency contacts on the lock screen,” Schultze told Matt Austin and Ginger Gadsden during a conversation on Florida’s Fourth Estate. That’s when Schultze said he called the emergency contact number labeled “Mom”. “The woman answered and said ‘oh my god I can’t believe you found my son’s phone,’” he said. Turns out, her son lost his iPhone a few days prior. Schultze said the woman traveled to the 4ocean office and happily retrieved her son’s iPhone. The discovery and happy ending make for a great story, but sadly the plight of Florida’s polluted water is not over. 4ocean employs captains and crews worldwide who have now removed over 30 million pounds of trash from the ocean. The company transforms the collected plastic into products like bracelets and sells those products to fund more cleanups. Florida’s Fourth Estate learned more about the most common and most shocking items found by the 4ocean team during cleanup dives. “The most common thing we find is single-use plastics,” Schultze said. Those include plastic bottles, chip bags and multi-layer packaging. When it comes to the craziest thing he’s found, Schultze says it’s not pirate treasure or a pallet of smuggled cocaine. “I’d have to say our crews have actually come across a few dead bodies. It’s been pretty heavy,” Schultze said. You can listen to Schultze’s full conversation about his ocean floor discoveries, his path to co-founding 4ocean and how others can make a positive impact in their environment on Florida’s Fourth Estate. Be sure to download the podcast from wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also watch anytime on News 6+. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The world cheered when Joseph Dituri beat the world record for living underwater without depressurization. Now that he’s back on dry land he said he lost something when he was down there. “I shrunk about half an inch,” Dituri said. He compared the height he lost to the height astronauts gain when they are in space. “Astronauts are in tension, so they are basically being flung apart and I’m being compressed together,” Dituri said. He told Matt Austin and Ginger Gadsden during a conversation on Florida’s Fourth Estate that he noticed something was different while he was still inside the Jules’ Undersea Lodge in Key Largo. “Here, I am the tall guy right and I’m constantly scrapping my head on the escape hatch on top, and I was like ‘Hey, I’m not hitting the escape hatch anymore’ and I’m like ‘I must have shrunk’ and then of course there’s no good place to measure yourself. When I get to the surface, I am 72 and a little bit inches. I’m like ‘Maaaan, I was 73!’” The question now is: Will he get that height back? “I don’t know. The astronauts do compress back down, so we will see,” he Florida’s Fourth Estate will be in touch and have an update if Dituri does in fact regain that height. You can listen to Dituri’s full conversation about what it was like to live underwater for 100 days, who he really wants to inspire and what he hopes to achieve next on Florida’s Fourth Estate. You can download the podcast from wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also watch anytime on News 6+. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Axiom-2 pilot John Shoffner recently returned to Earth after spending 10 days in orbit on the International Space Station. He said he learned a lot and is excited to share his passion for space exploration with young people. “I have dreamed of space since I was a young boy. The space race was starting in the 60s when I was growing up and it was easy to be captivated by it and I certainly was. So I spent literally my entire life thinking about what it would be like to be in space, to go to space,” he said. Shoffner said he trained for up to two years to prepare for the incredible adventure, but liftoff was a little different than he expected. “At the moment of liftoff, which was a bit surprising, it wasn’t this big explosive blast and lots of G-forces,” he said. “It was this very initially gentle lift, where we felt the entire vehicle begin to rise. It later accelerated and got a little more dramatic, but those beginning phases, I’ll never forget those.” Once he got to space and looked back at Earth, he was in for another surprise. “It’s just now revealing itself to me,” he said. “I’m just now able to talk about it. It’s funny because as a new astronaut onboard the station one of the first things I wanted to do was hurry into the cupola, drop myself in there, look out over the planet and prepare to be moved and amazed and it was truly beautiful to see the Earth sliding by underneath endlessly, but this breakthrough moment didn’t happen right then and I was a little disappointed. ‘So, maybe I’ll come back a little later on,’ and it wasn’t quite that thing. But I can tell you that after returning (to Earth) it’s slowly bringing itself to me. It’s unfolding itself in a way that I could not have imagined. It’s causing me this sense of longing to go back to it and be able to speak to it. This overview effect is real, but it just does not happen on a schedule. It happens to you as an individual in a way that is familiar and comfortable to you.” Shoffner has only had his feet back on Earth for a short time but would be excited to buy a second ride back to the space station, despite pushback from people who bash him for paying to take part in the unique experience. “I would ask them to look at what we do in orbit,” he said. “We conduct research. We provided access to experiment packages that would otherwise wait a long time. We act as a resource. We undertake the training, and we make ourselves available to scientists and researchers to do that. My big effort was to create a conversation so that teachers and educators and parents could look at this and say, ‘My children would like to do this also.’ We demonstrate that we are in the early days of spaceflight, and we have to create that bridge so that it becomes available to others. Whenever commercial aviation was started, it was hugely expensive to people at the time in the 20s. Only people of means could do that. But the continued effort to develop aviation just as now we want to develop space flight in the economy of low earth orbit there has to be a beginning. The participation by people who can is hugely needed. I did my part and I also wanted to contribute some value by creating awareness among teachers, educators and young people that space is real and that we have a space among the stars.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you have ever wanted to get a bird’s eye view of Florida, now is your chance. You can soar through the sky on a hang glider at Wallaby Ranch. Malcolm Jones said he bought the property in 1991 so he could bring his favorite sport back to Florida. He told Matt Austin and Ginger Gadsden on Florida’s Fourth Estate his love for the sky started when he was growing up in Tampa. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With the kids off of school for the summer, some families think now is a good time to get a dog. But Kiersten Benitez with Bark Orlando said it’s important to consider what kind of breed you adopt. Benitez started Bark Orlando in 2016 as a dog training company and eventually expanded it to a full-service pet care company. Every day she comes in contact with different breeds of dogs. She shared her experience and advice for first-time dog owners with Ginger Gadsden and Matt Austin on Florida’s Fourth Estate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A walk with family turns into an epic discovery. Paleontologist Jonathan Bloch with the Florida Museum of Natural History said his team would have never uncovered a prehistoric site filled with fossils if it weren’t for a 5-year-old little girl. “She was walking on this property up around Williston and she was there with her family, and they were looking for arrowheads, taking a walk,” he said. “And this 5-year-old found a handful of bones in the site. And that’s how it was discovered. And that’s when they contacted us about seven years ago. And we very quickly, once we went out there and started digging, we started finding fossils.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

He is almost 95 years old, but the original Mickey Mouse from “Steamboat Willie” is starting to pop back up on clothes, rides and other merchandise. Copyright Attorney Aaron Moss said that’s because Disney is trying to keep the original Mickey out of the public domain. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Leland Kent says he loves exploring abandoned properties. If you check out his social media pages you will see an abandoned casino boat, funeral homes, a juvenile detention center and so many other parts of Florida history, now falling into disrepair. That includes a house once owned by Osama Bin Laden’s brother, Khalil. It sits on a lake in Oakland, near Clermont. Kent said he originally visited the property back in 2016. He thought it was vacant, but when he walked up to the front of the property he was greeted by its new owner. Kent said the man invited him in and showed him around. Now, years later Kent said he returned to the property and found many of the valuable wood that adorned the house and even some of the chandeliers have been taken out. “Some of the features are starting to disappear over the years. I just want to capture it before everything is completely gone,” Kent said. So, he took videos and pictures and posted them to his social media pages. “It’s not really a creepy property like a lot of people try to make it out to be. It’s really a beautiful old house.” he said. The house has a lot of history. “It’s almost approaching 100 years old now. It was built in the 1920′s. Originally owned by a guy who was a chemist for Jello. From there it went through the hands of the owner of the Tupperware company and after that ended up then in the 1980′s in the hands of Osama Bin Laden’s Brother, Khalil. He owned it up until 9/11 when they were flown out,” Kent said. Though it has had several owners, Kent said the stigma of the Bin Laden family remains. “Every owner that’s owned this property has had nothing but bad luck with it,” he said. The Bin Laden Mansion is just one of the many Florida properties Kent has explored and shared with people across the country and around the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Zhen Tang said when he put his cars on Turo he thought he would just make enough to pay for the maintenance, then it turned into a full-blown side gig. He said he put three cars on the car rental app about a year ago and since then he has grown his fleet to seven vehicles and said that they stay rented out about 60-70% of the time. At that rate, he said each of his luxury vehicles brings in about $2,000 a month. Some go for more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nick Radner went from teaching at a Pinellas County high school to competing on the Netflix show “Outlast.” He was also the wrestling coach and said he was used to cutting weight but didn’t expect to lose a whopping 48 pounds during taping. Radner joined Matt Austin and Ginger Gadsden on Florida’s Fourth Estate to talk more about his experience on the reality show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The battle between Governor Ron Desantis and The Walt Disney Company continues to heat up. University of Central Florida History Professor and News 6 Political Analyst Dr. Jim Clark said it may not end until it gets to the Supreme Court. Clark recently joined Matt Austin and Ginger Gadsden on Florida’s Fourth Estate to talk about the governor’s ongoing battle to strip Disney of some of its self-governing abilities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As you plan your summer vacation Florida’s Fourth Estate is helping you go beyond the theme parks and beaches. Hosts Matt Austin and Ginger Gadsden are breaking down their top five roadside attractions in the sunshine state. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices