Florida

Everglades restoration would protect Florida Keys while scientists watch drought conditions

Published

8 months ago

April 20, 2025

Everglades restoration would protect Florida Keys while scientists watch drought conditions

ISLAMORADA, Fla. — The Everglades is more than just swamps, fan boats and alligators and restoration efforts impact more than the land between Florida’s east and west coasts.

Florida Bay, a body of water located between the southern end of mainland Florida and the Florida Keys, makes up about a third of Everglades National Park.

High salt levels during dry periods can have fatal consequences for the plants and animals living in the region, though experts are hopeful an early rain season this year will prevent a massive sea grass die-off like those experienced in the past.

Estuary of the Everglades

Steve Davis, chief science officer with The Everglades Foundation, called Florida Bay the estuary of the Everglades, which is actually a giant, slow-moving river starting around Orlando and running toward the southern end of the Florida peninsula.

“What that meant for Florida Bay was that during wet years, there’s enough water getting into the bay to keep the salinities within that optimal salinity range,” Davis said. “But when we run into an average-to-dry year or a drought year, it meant that salinity levels in the bay would get so high that it could be detrimental to the health of the seagrasses and the other species that depend on that habitat.”

Florida Bay doesn’t have particularly strong tides, meaning water can sit in the bay for up to a year. When evaporating seawater isn’t replaced by water from the Everglades, bay salinity levels can double normal ocean salinity, Davis explained.

“And that’s when we really run into some problems with the health of the habitats down here in the bay,” he said.

Everglades Foundation chief economist Paul Hindsley, hands outstretched, speaks with journalists during a media visit to Florida Bay organized by The Everglades Foundation, near Islamorada, Fla., Monday, April 7, 2025. Credit: AP/Rebecca Blackwell

The last major sea grass die-off occurred in 2015. Xavier Figueredo, a recreational boat captain with Bay and Reef Company, said he was working in the area when the massive die-off hit about 40,000 acres (16,000 hectares).

“You can’t see the water. All you see is dead grass floating on top,” Figueredo said. “And it smells like sulfur, like rotting eggs. As the die-off continued, more of the ecosystem was affected, the fish were affected.”

Avoiding Another Sea-Grass Die-Off

Even with more than 40% of Florida under drought conditions, Davis said he is not especially worried yet about another sea-grass die-off. Salt levels in the bay are already comparatively lower this year than they were in 2015.

Davis said that is at least partially thanks to a massive project that elevated more than 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometers) of the Tamiami Trail, a roadway built in 1928 that runs through the Everglades from Miami to Naples before heading north to Tampa.

A brown pelican hunts for mullet in Florida Bay, part... — A brown pelican hunts for mullet in Florida Bay, part of the Everglades ecosystem, near Islamorada, Fla., during a media visit organized by The Everglades Foundation, Monday, April 7, 2025. Credit: AP/Rebecca Blackwell

The route was essentially a giant dam preventing water from flowing south, but replacing the roadway with two long bridges, completed in 2013 and 2019, unblocked the so-called river of grass.

“Months of inflow across Tamiami Trail have helped to moderate salinities,” Davis said.

The other significant advantage Florida Bay has this year compared to 2015 is the forecast of an early wet season rather than a delayed wet season, Davis said.

Future of Restoration

While elevating Tamiami Trail already has created significant benefit for the Everglades and Florida Bay, scientists are counting on a massive restoration project, the Everglades Agricultural Area Reservoir, to address decades-old water problems throughout Florida.

The $3.9 billion project will create a reservoir and wetland to store and clean polluted water from Lake Okeechobee in central Florida before it’s discharged into the southern Everglades. This also should decrease the amount of polluted water being sent to Florida’s east and west coasts.

Davis called the Everglades Agricultural Area Reservoir “the game changer for freshwater flow restoration.”

“What we’re seeing right now are just the benefits of the plumbing, the infrastructure that helps to get all that water into the park,” he said. “But once we’re able to flow those larger volumes of water south, we’re going to see system-wide improvement all the way down into Florida Bay.”

Protecting the Economy

Everglades restoration is not only tied to Florida’s ecological future but its economic future, said Paul Hindsley, the Everglades Foundation chief economist.

“For every dollar of investment in restoration, we’re receiving $4 in economic benefits,” Hindsley said.

Economic benefits include adding to the residential and industrial water supply, reducing extreme events from drought such as fires and reducing the risk of flooding from heavy precipitation, Hindsley said.

The Everglades also provide over $5 billion a year in reduced risk for costs associated with National Flood Insurance Program claims. Meanwhile, South Florida’s mangroves and reefs play an important role in reducing the impacts of storm surge.

“Protecting the environment is protecting the wealth of Floridians,” Hindsley said.

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Florida

Florida’s complete 2026 football schedule unveiled

Published

8 hours ago

December 12, 2025

Press Room

Florida’s complete 2026 football schedule unveiled

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The 2026 football schedule for the Florida Gators has been set. Next year’s slate was unveiled Thursday night on SEC Network.

The most notable dates are Florida’s SEC opener on Sept. 19 — a Week 3 trip to Auburn, where the Gators haven’t played since 2011 — along with a road game at Texas on Oct. 17 and home games against Ole Miss (Sept. 26) and Oklahoma (Nov. 7).

Next season will mark the Sooners’ first-ever visit to Gainesville. The teams have previously played twice in the postseason, with the Gators defeating Oklahoma 24-14 in their first-ever meeting to win the 2008 national championship.

The Gators open the season in The Swamp on Sept. 5 against Florida Atlantic. UF’s other non-conference opponents will be Campbell (Sept. 12) and at Florida State (Nov. 28).

Florida is also hosting South Carolina (Oct. 10) and Vanderbilt (Nov. 21). The Gators haven’t played the Gamecocks or the Commodores since 2023.

UF takes on Georgia in Atlanta on Oct. 31 after the bye week. Florida’s other road games are Missouri (Oct. 3), Texas (Oct. 17) and Kentucky (Nov. 14).

The Gators will be led by first-year coach Jon Sumrall. He won the American Conference title with Tulane last week and has the Green Wave in the College Football Playoffs. They will have a rematch against Ole Miss on Dec. 20 in the first round after losing in Oxford, 45-10, on Sept. 20.

Sumrall was back in Gainesville this week to assemble his staff. So far, he has hired offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner, defensive coordinator Brade White and defensive line coach Gerald Chatman.

Date	Opponent	Location
Sept. 5	Florida Atlantic	Gainesville, Florida
Sept. 12	Campbell	Gainesville, Florida
Sept. 19	at Auburn	Auburn, Alabama
Sept. 26	Ole Miss	Gainesville, Florida
Oct. 3	at Missouri	Columbia, Missouri
Oct. 10	South Carolina	Gainesville, Florida
Oct. 17	at Texas	Austin, Texas
Oct. 24	Bye
Oct. 31	Georgia	Atlanta, Georgia
Nov. 7	Oklahoma	Gainesville, Florida
Nov. 14	at Kentucky	Lexington, Kentucky
Nov. 21	Vanderbilt	Gainesville, Florida
Nov. 28	at Florida State	Tallahassee, Florida

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Florida

Florida basketball has failed to meet expectations early on

Published

20 hours ago

December 11, 2025

Press Room

Florida basketball has failed to meet expectations early on

A 5-4 start to Florida basketball’s national title defense is not what anyone had in mind — much less, the Gator Nation — but here we are nine games deep into the 2025-26 schedule.

To be fair, three of those losses have come against programs currently ranked among the top five in both major polls and have been off to stellar starts. The Arizona Wildcats, Duke Blue Devils and UConn Huskies are nothing to sneeze at, and while the TCU Horned Frogs are not quite on their tier, all of these losses came either on the road (Duke) or on a neutral court (the other three).

Maybe Todd Golden should reconsider playing in all of these early-season special events in the future. But alas, that is a story for another season.

ESPN thinks Florida has failed to meet expectations

Obviously, with a dominating frontcourt roster returning in full, there was plenty to be optimistic about heading into the campaign. However, the departure of three guards to the NBA and a fourth to the transfer portal has proven to be a void too large to fill with their offseason acquisitions.

And that is the crux of ESPN’s Myron Medcalf’s observation that the Gators have simply not met the bar so far.

“Months after winning a national title with an elite set of guards, Florida’s Todd Golden rebooted his backcourt with former Arkansas star Boogie Fland and Princeton transfer Xaivian Lee,” he begins.

“It hasn’t worked out as planned. In Florida’s two-player lineups — an on-court metric at EvanMiya.com that captures how teams perform when specific players are paired together — the Fland-Lee combination ranked 26th within its own team,” Metcalf continues.

“And though Lee scored 19 points against UConn in Tuesday’s game at Madison Square Garden, that loss was another example of the Gators’ limitations when Lee and Fland (1-for-9 combined from 3 against the Huskies) aren’t equally elite on the same night.”

He has not liked what he has seen, and his conclusion is not necessarily unfair.

“Ultimately, Florida hasn’t looked like a defending champion thus far, despite Thomas Haugh (18.6 PPG, 7.6 RPG, 2.8 APG) playing like an All-American.”

How does the NET, BPI and KenPom view Florida basketball?

While Medcalf’s assessment comes fully equipped with dark clouds, the objective metrics paint a much more optimistic outlook for the team overall.

According to the NET rankings, Florida is just inside the top 25 at No. 24 — one spot ahead of the Miami Hurricanes, who they beat in Jacksonville back in November. The Gators are 1-3 in Quadrant 1 matchups, 1-1 in Quad 2, 1-0 in Quad 3 and 2-0 in Quad 4.

KenPom views the Orange and Blue even more bullishly, ranking Florida at No. 15 despite the weak record. Golden’s gang currently sits at No. 15 with a plus-26.55 adjusted net rating — up from plus-25.70 (17th) at the end of November, while the offense (120.4) moved up from 24th to 23rd in the nation, and the defense (93.8) has only dropped one place — from 10th to 11th — despite allowing 0.6 fewer points per 100 possessions.

The most optimistic metric for Florida comes from ESPN’s Basketball Power Index, which has the Gators at No. 9 despite a 1-3 stretch over the past two weeks. They have an 18.8 overall BPI, with the offense logging in at 8.5 (22nd) and defense earning a 10.3 (8th) rating recently.

ESPN projects Florida to go 21.0-10.0 overall and 12.2-5.8 in conference play.

Follow us @GatorsWire on X, formerly known as Twitter, as well as Bluesky, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Florida Gators news, notes and opinions.

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Florida

Florida accuses Starbucks of discriminating against White workers

Published

1 day ago

December 11, 2025

Press Room

Florida accuses Starbucks of discriminating against White workers

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced on Wednesday that his office is suing Starbucks over what he termed “race-based quotas.”

Uthmeier revealed the suit on social media, claiming that Starbucks used diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies to discriminate in hiring and advancement.

“Starbucks made DEI more than a slogan,” he said. “They turned it into a mandatory hiring and promotion system based on race.”

Starbucks used DEI to implement illegal race-based policies for hiring and advancement.
Using DEI as an excuse to hire, promote, or humiliate an employee based on race violates Florida’s civil rights law, and we just filed a lawsuit to hold Starbucks accountable. pic.twitter.com/e3pK0GguQ0
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— Attorney General James Uthmeier (@AGJamesUthmeier) December 10, 2025

In a complaint, state officials listed out their evidence of the alleged discrimination, including the following situations:

A 2020 public report pushes to hire “people of color” in 40% of retail and distribution center jobs, and 30% of corporate positions by 2025.
A 2024 report talks about executive bonuses conditioned on certain DEI goals, including mentorship programs and retention rate quotas for “BIPOC” employees. Officials said this was swapped for “belonging” goals in 2025.
In the same report, shareholders asked Starbucks to create an audit to determine whether the company’s practices were discriminating against “‘non-diverse’ employees” amid concerns over the company’s emphasis on networking opportunities for people with “shared identities.”
Shareholders similarly expressed that membership in these so-called “Partner Networks” was often based on traits like race, sex and sexual orientation, with no networks for “non-diverse” groups.
A 2025 report discusses an ongoing goal to increase the number of “people of color” working in management positions and above by at least 1.5% by FY2026.

Because of these incidents, state officials argued that Starbucks’ policies deliberately discriminated against those from certain “disfavored” races — meaning White people and, up until last year, multiracial and Asian people.

This isn’t the first time that Starbucks has faced these sorts of claims, either. In 2023, a White Starbucks employee was awarded over $25 million after she claimed that her race was used as a factor in her firing.

[BELOW: Starbucks around the US close in 2019 for anti-bias training]

Now, state officials are saying they’ve heard from residents in the Sunshine State who reported their own experiences of racial discrimination.

“Florida residents have contacted the Attorney General and reported that (Starbucks) paid them and their white coworkers lower wages because of their race, refused to hire them or promote them because of their race, created a hostile work environment in which Florida residents felt humiliation, and were excluded from certain mentorship or networking programs because of their race,” the complaint reads.

As such, the Attorney General’s office is accusing Starbucks of violating the state’s Civil Rights Act.

[BELOW: Video shows good Samaritans stop man trying to carjack customers at Starbucks in Florida]

By extension, the Attorney General is pushing for injunctive relief, compensation, and $10,000 penalties for each instance of racial discrimination that the company may have committed against a Florida resident, which Uthmeier’s office estimates to be at least in the “tens of millions.”

Starbucks provided a statement to News 6 following news of the lawsuit, which reads as follows:

“We disagree. We are deeply committed to creating opportunity for every single one of our partners (employees). Our programs and benefits are open to everyone and lawful. Our hiring practices are inclusive, fair and competitive, and designed to ensure the strongest candidate for every job, every time.”
Starbucks spokesperson

Meanwhile, you can read the full complaint below.

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