winners losers

JOSEPH KAISER The rising third-year LSU law student from Pensacola won the American Bar Association's Tort Trial & Insurance Practice-Admiralty and Maritime Law Writing Competition. Kaiser penned the first draft of what would become his award-winning paper, "Righting the Ship: Analyzing the Fifth Circuit's Wrong Turn in Grand Famous v. China Navigation," to submit for inclusion as a comment in Louisiana Law Review. He worked under Professors Tom Galligan and Caprice Roberts to research, write and edit the paper for the competition. Along with the upcoming trip to New York City, Kaiser will receive a $1,000 cash prize, and his article will be published in a forthcoming AMA newsletter.

CASEY THIELE The National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (NIAAA) recognized the Escambia County Public Schools' director of athletics for Escambia Public Schools as a certified master athletic administrator. To earn the distinction, Thiele demonstrated exemplary knowledge, contributions and ongoing professional development in interscholastic athletic administration. The voluntary certification process thoroughly evaluated the candidate's educational background, experience, NIAAA Leadership Courses and professional contributions.

ADAM HARRISON Escambia County Fire Rescue (ECFR) announced Battalion Chief Harrison has been named interim fire chief, effective Aug. 12. Chief Harrison began his tenure with ECFR in 1993 as a volunteer firefighter on Pensacola Beach. He became a certified firefighter in 1996, eventually advancing to a full-time role in 2001. After a series of promotions, including becoming a lieutenant in 2004 and a battalion chief of logistics in 2014, Chief Harrison was promoted to battalion chief on "B Watch" over the county's northern half in 2017.

FLORIDA TAX REVENUE According to the Office of Economic & Demographic Research, the state closed its 2022-23 fiscal year that ended June 30 with a general revenue of nearly $47.33 billion, up from $44 billion in the previous y ear. The year-end total was $1.08 billion more than what had been forecast in March. The June sales-tax collections were 11.1% higher than anticipated for the month.

DONALD TRUMP

The 45-page indictment, the United States of America v. Donald J. Trump, charges that conspiracies by the former president "built on the widespread mistrust the Defendant was creating through pervasive and destabilizing lies about election fraud." Trump is the first former president to be indicted on criminal charges. The charges stem from the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and include conspiracy to defraud the U.S., conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of, and attempt to obstruct, an official proceeding, and conspiracy against "the right to vote and to have one's vote counted." Meanwhile, Trump is 3-0 in predicting his indictments. Maybe he needs to launch his sporting betting website.

MATT GAETZ

The Republican congressman can't get funds to build a new hangar for the Blue Angels, but maybe he can get Congress to look for flying saucers. He wrote a letter to Speaker Kevin McCarthy demanding a Select Committee on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP). The letter was sent after NewsNation's special "We Are Not Alone," a two-hour roundtable discussion on the historic Congressional hearing on UFOs, drew 39,000 demo viewers. This surpassed CNN's 25-54 audience of 32,000 for same time slot. Coincidence? Not hardly. But before you get excited and invite Gaetz to Pensacon, remember Gaetz held up McCarty's bid to be House Speaker. They aren't buddies.

LANDLINES

According to the Florida Public Service Commission, Florida consumers continued to move from traditional landline telephone service to wireless and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services. Carriers reported approximately 900,000 total landlines in Florida for 2022, about 19.5% fewer than in 2021. For the 12th year, the number of business landlines exceeded residential landlines, although both experienced significant drops in 2022. As in past years, wireless and VoIP services drove the telecommunications markets in 2022. According to the most recent Federal Communications Commission (FCC) data, Florida has an estimated 23 million wireless subscriptions and more than 4.6 million VoIP connections in 2022.