Dave Dunwoody

In the run up to the 2020 general election, the University of West Florida Center for Cybersecurity recently provided virtual training for the Escambia County Supervisor of Elections staff.

Officials say Florida’s 2018 midterm election was held without any reported intrusions by hackers – a 180-degree turn from the 2016 general election, when voting systems in all 50 states were targeted by Russia. Virginia’s Mark Warner, a member of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, appeared on PBS’s “Frontline” last fall.

The first astronauts to ride the SpaceX Crew Dragon into space returned to Earth on Sunday, after a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico near Pensacola.

This was the first splashdown in 45 years for NASA astronauts, since the end of the Apollo program in 1975, and the first in the gulf. Test pilots Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken spoke to the media in Houston on Sunday.

A committee of the UWF Board of Trustees on Wednesday received a report on the audit of the Complete Florida program.

Complete Florida is a statewide virtual learning program aimed at helping with distance learning and older students returning to school. Gov. Ron DeSantis last month vetoed its $29.4 million budget, as part of a more than $1 billion cut to education. He blames a loss of revenues to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Following guidance from federal, state and local health experts, Gulf Islands National Seashore is increasing recreational access at the Fort Pickens Campground next week.

The park is working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Florida Department of Health and others to monitor the COVID-19 pandemic, along with using a phased approach to increase access on a park-by-park basis. 

With continued spikes in COVID-19 around the country and the challenges other sports are encountering as they return to play, the Southern Professional Hockey League is delaying the start of its 2020-2021 season. 

Normally dropping the puck in late October, the SPHL is pushing the start of its 56-game schedule to mid-to-late December.

“It was a tough decision that we had to make as the Board of Governors with the league,” said Ice Flyers owner Greg Harris. “There (are) so many unknowns, so it was a tough decision, but the right decision to make at this time.”

The city of Pensacola is getting a grant from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, for the city's Resilient Coastlines Program.

The $75,000 grant is expected to fund what the city calls “an aggressive and overarching climate planning objective” to address underlying climate change threats. It will pay for a vulnerability assessment of the program approved by a task force studying climate change.

With the Aug. 18 local and state primary three weeks away, mail-in votes already are streaming into Florida’s 67 supervisor of elections offices.

As the debate rages from the White House and elsewhere about voting by mail, the state of Florida can rest on its laurels — and history.

“We’ve been an almost entirely paper state for many years, said Escambia Elections Supervisor David Stafford. “There was a small segment of votes that were cast on touch screens, to comply with the federal disability requirement.”

Pensacola Mayor Grover Robinson covered a number of subjects during Monday’s virtual news conference – including the pandemic, a grant award, and some good news on city layoffs.

First up, the numbers on COVID-19 as of Monday morning, according to the Florida Department of Health. There were 7,000 positive cases in Escambia County, just over 6,200 of whom are residents.

As professional sports are gearing back up and college sports are weighing their options in the coronavirus pandemic, the West Florida football program is fighting its own battle against the virus in an uncertain future.

After spring football was canceled in March, Head Coach Pete Shinnick and the Argonaut program moved into summer with many of the activities normally aimed at the upcoming season – with one exception.

Speaking in Melbourne Thursday, Gov. Ron DeSantis downplayed a report by the Department of Health, showing a daily record of 173 new COVID-19 deaths in the state.

The governor spoke on a day when Florida reached a new milestone with more than 5,777 coronavirus deaths, and the total number of cases in the state rose past 389,000.  

As the number of coronavirus cases continues to surge across Florida, there appears to be a glimmer of good news for Escambia and Santa Rosa counties. But the numbers – for the most part – are a mixed bag of data.

“We’ve seen a decline in hospitalizations; in the last two days we saw a 14-person decline, which is good. [Wednesday] we stand at 230,” said Pensacola Mayor Grover Robinson, speaking from his office on Facebook.

The numbers, however, continue to fluctuate.

Plans are underway for a couple of bicentennial celebrations next year, honoring both Florida and Escambia County.

Last Friday marked the county’s 199th birthday, when what’s now Florida was ceded by Spain and became a U.S. Territory. Escambia and St. John’s were Florida's two original counties, covering the entire area within modern state boundaries.

About 40,000 students in Escambia County, and nearly 30,000 in Santa Rosa, are getting another couple of weeks off before returning to classes next month.

Tuesday’s announcement from Santa Rosa Superintendent Tim Wyrosdick was two-fold: learning options for students, and a delay in opening to August 24.

After extensive research by a local historian, it appears that the namesake of the T.T. Wentworth Museum is now known for something other than his massive collection of memoribilia.

“I’ve been researching racially-motivated violence in Pensacola for close to 20 years now; lynchings, the incidents that happened Jay, Florida/northern Santa Rosa County, McDavid, Beulah and so forth,” said historian Tom Garner.

He did the legwork in researching T.T. Wentworth (1898-1989), and found out he was a business owner, Escambia County Commissioner and the county’s tax collector.