Florida

Snake hunters will wrangle invasive Burmese pythons in Everglades during Florida's 10-day challenge

Published

1 year ago

August 9, 2024

Snake hunters will wrangle invasive Burmese pythons in Everglades during Florida's 10-day challenge

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Friday marked the start of the annual Florida Python Challenge, where hunters head into the Everglades to track down invasive Burmese pythons in hopes of grabbing a share of $30,000 in prizes.

The annual 10-day hunt, which started more than a decade ago, promotes public awareness of issues with invasive species in Florida while engaging the public in Everglades conversation, said Sarah Funck, the wildlife impact management section leader with Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

“They are a well-established invasive species across much of South Florida, unfortunately, in our natural areas,” Funck said of Burmese pythons. “A huge part of this challenge is to make sure that people understand about this issue and understand that in general, when you have a non-native species present in the state for whatever purpose, don’t let it loose, that can be really detrimental to our environment.”

Over the past decade, the python challenge has grabbed headlines for it’s incentive-based, only-in-Florida style of hunting as well as celebrity participation. This year, more than 600 people registered for the event, with two coming from Canada and 108 from other states.

During the challenge, hunters will linger around designated areas spanning through western Broward County to the Tamiami Trail in the Big Cypress Wildlife Management Area, including other management areas like Southern Glades, Holey Land and Rotenberger.

The goal is to humanely kill as many pythons as possible, and prizes divide between three groups: professional hunters who work for the state, hunters who are active in the military or are veterans and novice hunters, which includes anyone who is not working as a state contracted python hunter.

Each category has its own prizes, with $2,500 going to the person or team that kills the most pythons, $1,500 going to the runner-up for most kills and $1,000 going to whoever kills the longest python. The grand prize for the most kills in all categories gets a $10,000 prize.

Each person can only win one prize, so if someone is tops in two categories, they will end up with the highest-valued prize and the next qualifying hunter gets the remaining prize.

In 2017, the South Florida Water Management District and the state began hiring contractors to handle its invasive python problem year round. According to the wildlife agency’s website, through 2023, more than 11,000 pythons have been removed by these contractors.

Last year’s challenge brought in 209 pythons and the grand prize winner was Paul Hobbs, who bagged 20 pythons. Also during 2023, Florida wildlife agency and district contractors removed about 2,200 pythons.

Amy Siewe, the self-named Python Huntress, won a prize last year for catching a Burmese python measuring 10 feet and 9 inches (327 centimeters). This year, she won’t be participating in the challenge due to a knee surgery but said she’s not a fan of the annual challenge.

Siewe, who used to work as a state contractor catching invasive pythons, said she believed the initial intent of the challenge was to bring awareness to the issue. Now, it’s drawing large crowds of hunters, potentially scaring off pythons and potentially killing native snakes they mistake as pythons, like corn snakes, brown water snakes or cottonmouths.

“Pythons don’t take on their normal behavioral pattern because there’s so much traffic and they’ll come up and then they’ll go back into the swamp,” Siewe said. “I feel for myself, it’s counterproductive.”

Participants are required to undergo an online training, including information on how to identify Burmese pythons versus other snakes, Funck said. She said there’s also an additional optional in-person training participants can attend to properly identify Burmese pythons.

“That’s a huge part of what we do, is try to get the word out on how to identify these pythons, how to safely and humanely capture it,” Funck said.

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Florida

Florida’s complete 2026 football schedule unveiled

Published

11 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

23 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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