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• Florida Storms: Uncertainty Unchanged and Unusually High with Future Tropical Storm. "Rain and wind impacts from what is currently referred to as Potential Tropical Cyclone Nine (PTC Nine) are possible in Florida as early as Saturday. However, a credible forecast on the magnitude of those impacts can not be made until the system acquires a 'well-defined center of circulation' and model simulations can be run on its projected path."

• The Alligator: How #BlackLivesMatter is reshaping UF. "The Alligator reached out to 97 departments and 16 colleges to find out what each is doing to combat systemic racism. Five department chairs and two deans responded. Here’s what we learned."

• WMFE: Three women dead with COVID-19 at state prisons north of Ocala. "Two deaths were at Lowell Correctional Institution, Florida’s largest women’s prison. And one was at nearby Florida Women’s Reception Center."

• Gainesville Sun ($): LeClear to helm Lake Forest Elementary. "Beth LeClear, who has been Santa Fe High’s principal since 2012, was named new principal at Lake Forest Elementary School Tuesday."

• Tampa Bay Times: Three Florida universities among top 10 with coronavirus cases. "The group included the University of Central Florida with the second-most cases, the University of Florida with the fifth-most and the University of South Florida coming in at No. 7."

• Gainesville Sun ($): Reviving a revolution. "Aeriel Lane caught herself crying in her refrigerator. Wallace Mazon got tear gassed in Iowa. Then Lane pulled herself together, and Mazon came home to Alachua County. And they both went to work helping to organize two of the largest and most diverse demonstrations Gainesville has seen in years."

• Ocala Star-Banner: Elections office will not require face masks at polling places. "The first countywide election since the COVID-19 pandemic took hold is just weeks away, and while some are concerned about voting in person during the Aug. 18 primaries, the Marion County Supervisor of Elections Office assures voters that safety is paramount."

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Around the state today

• Associated Press: Florida Hits New Record With 216 Reported Coronavirus Deaths. "The new numbers raised the average number of deaths reported daily to 142 over the past week. That’s second only to Texas overall, and to Arizona in per-capita deaths."

• NPR: Florida Will Pause Coronavirus Testing Due To Impending Storm. "After the state's testing sites close Thursday evening, they won't reopen until at least Tuesday morning, Candy Sims of the Florida Department of Health in Broward County told NPR."

• Bay News 9: Gov. DeSantis Extends Eviction Moratorium Until September 1. "That moratorium had been scheduled to expire Saturday."

• News Service of Florida: Pediatricians Say School Reopening Risks, Benefits Must Be Weighed. "With Florida continuing to see thousands of new COVID-19 cases each day, the white paper used the World Health Organization standard in saying that the benefits of reopening schools will not outweigh the health risks in many areas for the next four to six weeks."
• News Service of Florida: Inmate deaths reported at eight prisons. "The Florida Department of Health on Wednesday said a dozen inmates died from complications of COVID-19 at eight prisons within the past week."

• Sun Sentinel ($): One year later, state fines Fort Lauderdale over water crisis. "The July 17 incident exposed the fact that Fort Lauderdale had failed to keep up-to-date maps of the pipes and valves that control the flow of water from the wellfields to the treatment plant, state officials said."

• Florida Politics: Andrew Cuomo partners with Rick Kriseman on St. Pete virus response. "Cuomo’s help comes after he offered to help the state, which Gov. Ron DeSantis largely denied."

• TCPalm($): Lake Okeechobee algae blooms net $5 million in state grants to help monitor, prevent them.  "The South Florida Water Management District will use $3 million to pay for a project to remove more than 15,000 pounds of phosphorus over three years from a canal entering the 730-square-mile lake. That's about the weight of the largest African bull elephant."

• WMFE: NASA’s Next Mars Rover GO For Launch Thursday From Cape Canaveral. "The goal of NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover is to search for ancient signs of life on the red planet, and prepare samples for a future return mission to bring rocks and dirt back to Earth."

• Miami Herald ($): ‘A win for the Everglades’: 5,000 pythons removed in state-sponsored capture program. "It’s hard to say if the removed snakes actually made a dent in the overall python population in the Everglades because scientists don’t know exactly how many are out there. Estimates range from 100,000 to as many as 300,000 snakes."

• WJXT: For high school athletics, coronavirus concerns go beyond the finances of football. "Those involved in high school sports have wondered silently that if this was just about safety alone, then it wouldn’t be a question on whether or not sports would be played in the fall. But football is so financially vital to the survival of athletic departments and the governing associations themselves that there is a significant pressure to push the boundaries and make it work somehow, at least until COVID-19 dictates otherwise."

• Miami Herald ($): He was caught cooking his lobster catch, Florida police say. Officers took him to jail. "Henning then confessed that there were more. He led Lt. Kevin Balfour to his stash: 35 additional out-of-season lobsters hidden in a laundry basket that was covered with towels. All that was left of the catch were wrung tails."

From NPR News

• Health: More Than 150,000 People Have Died From Coronavirus In The U.S.

• National: Pending Postal Service Changes Could Delay Mail And Deliveries, Advocates Warn

• Health: Data Analysis: COVID-19 Is Filling Up Hospitals In Small Cities

• Business: Heads Of Amazon, Apple, Facebook And Google Testify On Big Tech's Power

• Business: 3 Months Of Hell: U.S. Economy's Worst Quarter Ever

• National: Oregon Gov. Says Federal Officers Will Begin Phased Withdrawal From Portland

• Health: 'Silent Epidemic': Nearly 1 In 3 Kids Exposed To Damaging Levels Of Lead

• Books: In 'Intimations,' Zadie Smith Reflects Back To Us The Early Days Of Now

• Health: Empty Stands, No Spitting: The New Rules Of Baseball During The Pandemic

About today's curator

I’m Katie Hyson, a journalist at WUFT. Originally from Lutz, Fla., I’m obsessed with true stories, creatively told. I graduated from UF with a master's degree in mass communications and am part of a team searching for local and state news each week that’s important to you. Please send feedback about today’s edition of The Point or ideas for stories we may have missed to khyson@ufl.edu.