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Tuesday, July 14, 2026

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Live Updates: All you need to know about Hurricane Idalia

UPDATE: Hurricane Idalia, which made landfall in Florida Wednesday morning, spared much of Gainesville and Alachua County. With the departure of the hurricane, a gradual return to normalcy is underway. Many institutions, including UF and local schools, have reopened their doors after temporary closures due to the storm's threat. 


Metro

Alachua County seeks to expand drug rehabilitation efforts

In Alachua County, emergency services responded to 1,451 overdose calls in 2022. The previous year there were 1,405 overdose calls with 62 fatal overdoses. In an effort to combat overdoses, Alachua County and the city of Gainesville have implemented multiple services to assist people with addictions seeking help and recovering addicts like the now 51-year-old farmer who requested anonymity.


Akshat Pant (left) and Nishant Nagururu (right) promote Candor, an app that connects UF students to Student Government, at the Curtis M. Phillips Center on Saturday, Aug. 26, 2023.
News

UF students create app to connect Student Government with student body

Akshat Pant, a 20-year-old UF computer science junior, and Nishant Nagururu, a 19-year-old UF computer science sophomore, had a vision to design an application streamlining students’ connection with SG. The app is called Candor — meaning open, honest and sincere. Pant and Nagururu picked the name after realizing they wanted to make an app providing those qualities to the student body. 


The Alan and Cathy Hitchcock Field & Fork Pantry is seen at the Reitz Union North Lawn on Saturday, Aug. 26, 2023.
Metro

Students across Gainesville struggle with food insecurity

The food insecurity rate in Alachua County has remained higher than the overall rate in Florida since 2014. A 2021 report from the city based on USDA data identified 11 food deserts — low-income areas where a substantial number of residents have low access to a supermarket or large grocery store — in Gainesville. 



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