Issue — April 23, 2026
Ani DiFranco brings her Spirit of Love tour to Vinyl Music Hall, the Escambia Children’s Trust overhauls its accountability framework, and a Pensacola teen takes Mothman to the stage. Here’s what you need to read this week.
Cover Story
By Savannah Evanoff
The Spirit and Sounds of Ani DiFranco
Across 23 studio albums, a memoir and a new book on spirituality, Ani DiFranco is still chasing something better—and she’s bringing that spirit to Pensacola.
Ani DiFranco is in what she describes as a “low-grade panic,” relearning how to play guitar and dusting off songs she hasn’t played lately for her “Spirit of Love” tour. Across 23 studio albums, there are quite a few tracks to choose from—including her iconic 1995 album “Not a Pretty Girl,” reissued in 2025, and her 2024 release “Unprecedented Shit,” all recorded on her own Righteous Babe Records.
The 55-year-old says her relationship with her own work is “a little bit tortured.” By the time an album reaches listeners, all she can hear is what she would do differently. But that restlessness is also fuel: every release drives her toward the next one.
Studio albums across nearly three decades—plus a memoir, children’s books and a new conversation-style book on spirituality. DiFranco keeps finding new modes of being creative.
DiFranco recently co-authored “The Spirit of Ani” with Lauren Coyle Rosen—born from Zoom conversations about spirituality with someone she still hasn’t met in person. She’s also developing a musical, a “muse deck” creative tool with artist Jocelyn Mackenzie, and just learned that her 19-year-old daughter named her the most-played artist on her phone for two years running.
“I felt like I just got applause from the biggest audience there is.”
—Ani DiFranco, on learning her daughter named her most-played artist two years running
DiFranco performs Saturday, April 25, at 8 p.m. at Vinyl Music Hall, 2 S. Palafox St. Tickets are $52.20. Righteous Babe Records duo Sweet Petunia opens. Details at anidifranco.com and vinylmusichall.com.
Opinion
Outtakes — Rick Outzen
Don’t Kill the Mirror
Florida’s State Board of Education voted April 17 to remove sociology from the general education requirements of every college in the Florida College System—completing a sweep that had already eliminated the subject from public universities. The rationale: sociology promotes ideology. The reality: it teaches students how to read data without being manipulated by it, understand institutions as systems and trace patterns in wages, health and education to identifiable causes. Rick Outzen argues a genuine commitment to rigorous education would demand more sociology, not less—and wonders why the Florida Chamber of Commerce hasn’t said a word.
| Winners
Willie Carter, Jr.Escambia County Area Transit honored the retiring bus operator for nearly 52 years of service—including 2,817,360 miles driven over 45 consecutive years without a single accident or incident. WUWF Public MediaIts journalists took home five Florida News Awards—the most in a single year—including first-place finishes from Sandra Averhart and Christina Andrews. Caldwell ArchitectsFounded in 1986 with three employees and a rotary phone, the firm celebrates 40 years under its founding philosophy, now entering its second generation under Miller Caldwell III. |
Losers
Ron DeSantisCalled for a redistricting special session in January. Four months later, still no map—forcing a one-week delay and an expanded agenda to mask the failure. Paul RennerThe Republican gubernatorial candidate unveiled a homestead property tax elimination plan on Tax Day in Jacksonville. Nobody seemed to care. Live NationA New York federal jury found Live Nation and Ticketmaster guilty of illegally monopolizing the live entertainment market after five weeks of trial. Damages and a potential divestiture will be decided separately. |
News
By Rick Outzen
Children’s Trust Approves Sweeping Reforms
In the wake of the New World Believers scandal, the Escambia Children’s Trust has overhauled how it vets, monitors and funds providers of children’s services.
The ECT board voted unanimously to adopt three policy resolutions establishing new quality standards, capping administrative costs at 15% of program budgets and strengthening the board’s discretionary authority over grant awards. The changes come less than three months after the board canceled its contract with New World Believers following the arrests of its executive director and two adult children on serious criminal charges—arrests that also exposed multiple pre-existing contract breaches the board had not been notified of before awarding the organization an additional $585,685 in December.
| Renovation Plan Moves Ahead
City and county officials emerged from their April 16 joint meeting aligned on a nearly $185 million package: a $71 million Bay Center renovation and an $84–86 million flex event center for conventions and sports. A formal vote is targeted for June. |
Behind the Numbers
Pensacola’s 311 service logged a record 1,395 calls in March—up from 800 in January. Sanitation led all categories. Mayor Reeves calls it his “number one tool to resolve citizen issues.” |
| Kids Gambling
Two Florida attorneys filed what they believe is the first underage gambling complaint in New York state history against stake.com, a crypto casino generating an estimated $5 billion annually. A free community town hall is set for May 15 at Brownsville Community Center. |
Health Milestones
Lakeview Center has completed more than 7,500 screenings since opening its Crisis Stabilization Unit in April 2024. Escambia County EMS’s CORE opioid recovery program has now assisted its 600th patient. |
| New ECAT Routes
ECAT is soliciting public input on a proposed overhaul of its fixed-route bus network to keep pace with county growth and gas prices approaching $4 per gallon. The survey is at goecat.com. |
Children’s Trust Update
Legal Services of North Florida withdrew its $2.23 million ECT funding application, citing anticipated budget constraints—despite a three-year program that served more than 300 children in truancy, delinquency and dependency court. |
Arts & Entertainment
By Savannah Evanoff
A Whole New Level: Sweet Petunia Opens for Ani DiFranco
Boston-based alternative folk-rock duo Sweet Petunia—Maddy Simpson and Mairead Guy—met at Berklee College of Music in 2018 when classmates assumed they were related because their voices matched so perfectly. Now signed to Righteous Babe Records, they’re opening for DiFranco on the Spirit of Love tour: the biggest stages they’ve ever played.
Their debut album, “Foggy Mountain Mental Breakdown,” is rooted in real experience—from Guy’s gender dysphoria to Simpson’s feelings of being let down by someone she loved. Sweet Petunia performs Saturday, April 25, at 8 p.m. at Vinyl Music Hall. Details at sweetpetuniaband.com.
By Dakota Parks
Cryptids and Comedy: Mothman the Musical
Seventeen-year-old Pensacola Little Theatre student Desmond Anzaldo-Satterwhite wrote a musical about Mothman falling in love. Set in 1983 Point Pleasant, W.Va., the original production—co-written with Gavin Bramblett and Rowan McCollum—is part comedy, part redemption arc, part humanizing portrait of something the world decided was a monster because of how it looked.
“It’s kind of absurd, you know, Mothman falling in love,” Anzaldo-Satterwhite said. “But that’s the point.” The free production runs Saturday, April 25, at noon at Pensacola Little Theatre, 400 S. Jefferson St. Details at pensacolalittletheatre.com.
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