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Vol. 1 · No. 126 · Thursday, October 22, 2026
Sports
Florida Gators forward Thomas Haugh has earned AP Preseason All-America recognition ahead of the upcoming college basketball season. Haugh is the third Florida player to receive the honor, according to reporting from the Alligator.
Sources: The Independent Florida Alligator · The Gainesville Sun
Environment
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is moving forward with the next phase of cleanup at the Cabot/Koppers Superfund site in Northwest Gainesville, anchored by a 65-foot-deep underground wall stretching roughly 5,000 feet to prevent contaminated groundwater from spreading. The roughly 140-acre former wood-treatment facility accumulated decades of hazardous materials including arsenic and creosote, and cleanup work is set to run from this month through mid-2027. The plan also includes removing contaminated soil and sediment, replacing a stormwater ditch with a new piping system, and continuing groundwater treatment, with current property owner Beazer East helping to fund the effort.
Sources: WCJB TV20
Public Safety
Circuit Judge Denise Ferrero found a former University of Florida student guilty of sexually assaulting a classmate and sentenced him to 367 days in jail, a term he had already exceeded after spending 372 days in the Alachua County Jail. As a result of the sentence, the judge ordered him released. The UF Police Department also issued a trespass warning prohibiting him from all university properties for three years.
Sources: WUFT News
Sports
The Alachua County Sports & Events Center will welcome more than 400 judo competitors from over 40 countries for a five-day series of tournaments running October 28 through November 1. The senior-level Pan-American Open Florida 2026 serves as an official qualifier for the 2028 Olympic Games, with cadet and junior divisions also on the schedule. After competition wraps, some athletes will stay for a two-day training camp led by a two-time Olympic bronze medalist and USA Judo national team head coach.
Sources: WCJB TV20
Alachua County Public Schools has contracted a Nebraska-based firm, McPherson and Jacobson, for $47,000 to lead the search for a new superintendent to replace Kamela Patton, whose contract expires in June. The school board voted unanimously in August to hire the firm. Residents can participate through an online survey and community discussions held this week.
Sources: WCJB TV20
Kaylee Cunningham, a 26-year-old UF doctoral candidate in materials science and engineering, has earned 2.8 million TikTok likes by making nuclear energy topics accessible to a broad online audience. She will be the first in her family to earn a doctorate and the first student to complete an online Ph.D. from UF’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering, finishing this December. Cunningham earned her undergraduate degree in nuclear engineering from UF in 2022, went on to earn a master’s from MIT, and conducted her doctoral research on nuclear fuel materials while working remotely at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
Sources: UF News
Santa Fe College has received a $3 million federal grant to grow its artificial intelligence education offerings. The funding is intended to build out AI-focused programs at the Gainesville community college.
Sources: The Gainesville Sun
Middle school teacher Hunter Miller and governor-appointed board member Janine Plavac are competing in a runoff election for Seat 1 on the Alachua County School Board after neither candidate surpassed 50% in the August primary. The race opened when Tina Certain left the contest to run for Alachua County Commission, and Plavac’s seat was originally filled by appointment from Governor Ron DeSantis following Kay Abbitt’s December 2024 resignation. Both candidates have discussed school rezoning, teacher pay, stadium funding, and the ongoing superintendent search as central issues in the race.
Sources: WCJB TV20
A University of Florida associate professor of geology helped uncover evidence of a massive floating ice shelf that once spanned Baffin Bay roughly 20,000 years ago, holding back three major ice sheets across Greenland and northern Canada. When the shelf vanished over a span of roughly 500 to 1,000 years, the glaciers it had restrained accelerated into the sea, contributing to hundreds of feet of sea level rise. The findings, published in Nature Geoscience, offer scientists new data to model how today’s Antarctic ice shelves might behave and how quickly their loss could raise modern sea levels.
Sources: UF News
The Alachua County Sheriff’s Office has activated four additional school zone speed enforcement cameras near Meadowbrook Elementary, Ft. Clarke Middle School, and Hidden Oak Elementary, expanding a program that began earlier this year with installations at two other schools. A 30-day warning period runs through November 24, after which drivers caught going 11 mph or more over the posted school zone limit face a $100 fine that does not affect driving records if paid within 45 days.
Sources: WCJB TV20
In Brief
In Brief
The elevator at Gainesville’s city-owned Hippodrome Theatre is currently out of service, with the nonprofit that leases the building estimating repairs at roughly $34,000. Hippodrome officials said the city is contributing funding for the fix, and the elevator is expected to be back in service early next month. The 1924-era lift, described by city leaders as the oldest elevator in Florida, underwent a much costlier $136,000 repair last year, also paid for through the Wild Spaces Public Places half-cent sales tax.
Sources: WCJB TV20
In Brief
A University of Florida occupational therapy researcher named Hongwu Wang is leading an eight-week program called Pedaling Past Barriers, offering structured weekly group rides for residents at Oak Hammock and The Village at Gainesville. Funded by an Outride Research Partnership Grant, the initiative uses occupational therapy screenings to match participants with adaptive cycles such as e-bikes and adult tricycles suited to their physical and cognitive needs. UF researchers will track changes in participants’ bicycling confidence, mood, executive function, and social connection, with the goal of creating a cycling toolkit that senior living communities across the country could adopt.
Sources: UF News
In Brief
This date in Gator history
2001
On October 27, 2001, the sixth-ranked Florida Gators handled the 15th-ranked Georgia Bulldogs 24–10 at Alltel Stadium in Jacksonville, with Rex Grossman throwing two touchdowns to Jabar Gaffney and Reche Caldwell. The win kept Florida perfect in SEC play at 4–0 and extended the Gators’ dominance in the rivalry, which they had owned for over a decade. Florida went on to finish the season ranked 5th nationally and crushed Maryland 56–23 in the Orange Bowl.
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