Florida wildlife officials have confirmed that Burmese pythons are now breeding in a new area outside the species’ long-recognized stronghold in the Everglades, a discovery that has renewed concerns among conservationists about the invasive predator’s potential for further spread across the state.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission confirmed that Burmese pythons are now established in part of western Charlotte County, an area located north of Naples and Fort Myers that lies well outside the species’ traditional core range. For decades, established python populations had been largely confined to areas associated with Everglades National Park before spreading across much of South Florida, stretching between Lake Okeechobee, Key Largo and western portions of Broward and Collier counties.

A distinct population beyond the known range

Unlike a simple isolated sighting, the Charlotte County colony represents a separate breeding population situated beyond the snake’s familiar distribution area, according to wildlife officials. Reports from local communities began steadily increasing several years ago, with sightings clustering around Rotonda West, Placida, Englewood East and South Gulf Cove. Those reports prompted closer monitoring efforts, ultimately leading biologists to conclude that breeding animals were indeed present in the area.

Ian Bartoszek, a wildlife biologist and science coordinator at the Conservancy of Southwest Florida in Naples, explained why officials view removing the snakes as such a priority. “This is a generalist apex predator, and this is the why we’re so interested in removing them from the ecosystem,” Bartoszek said, according to ABC News.

How the snakes likely got there

Wildlife specialists do not believe the Charlotte County population developed through a gradual northward expansion from existing Everglades populations. Instead, available evidence points toward escaped or deliberately released captive snakes as the more likely explanation. Burmese pythons were widely imported into the United States for decades through the exotic pet trade, and both accidental escapes and intentional releases have previously been linked to the species’ broader establishment across Florida. Biologists studying the new Charlotte County colony say its characteristics more closely match what would be expected from a satellite population created through human introduction, rather than one resulting from natural expansion across the landscape over time.

A diet that helps the species thrive almost anywhere

Part of what makes Burmese pythons especially difficult to control is their unusually broad diet. Large individuals are capable of feeding on a wide range of animals, including raccoons, opossums, birds, bobcats and alligators, and have even been documented consuming prey considerably larger than many people might expect a snake to handle.

That dietary flexibility gives the species a significant survival advantage, allowing individual snakes to shift between different available prey sources depending on local conditions, rather than depending on a single food source that could limit their ability to establish themselves in new habitats. Conservation workers involved in python removal efforts describe the snakes as true apex predators, capable of substantially reshaping local ecosystems once a population becomes firmly established in a given area.

The broader ecological toll

The impact of established python populations extends well beyond the loss of individual prey animals. Ecologists studying areas of South Florida where pythons have been present for years have documented steep declines across many native mammal populations in those regions. As larger native mammals disappear from an ecosystem, scientists say the overall diversity of that environment can gradually decline as well, with researchers describing the resulting altered landscapes as simplified systems in which rodents and other invasive species tend to become comparatively more common, even as many native animal populations grow increasingly scarce.

Researchers say this pattern has already repeated itself across multiple areas of South Florida affected by established python populations, and preventing similar ecological changes from taking hold in newly identified areas like Charlotte County remains an ongoing and significant challenge for wildlife managers.

Why most pythons remain undetected

Estimating the true number of Burmese pythons currently living in Florida remains an extraordinarily difficult task for wildlife researchers. The snakes spend much of their time concealed within dense vegetation, wetlands and waterways, making them exceptionally hard to locate even during organized, systematic surveys. Research suggests survey teams may detect only around one to three snakes for every hundred believed to actually be present within a given search area.

Even within Everglades National Park, where specialized removal teams regularly search for pythons as part of ongoing management efforts, locating even a single snake often requires many hours of dedicated fieldwork. That persistently low detection rate suggests that confirmed sightings likely represent only a small fraction of the total number of pythons actually living across the broader Florida landscape.

Decades in the making

The broader Burmese python invasion in Florida has developed gradually over several decades. Federal wildlife records indicate that roughly 180,000 Burmese pythons were imported into the United States between 1975 and 2018, largely through the exotic pet trade. By approximately the year 2000, breeding populations had already become firmly established across South Florida. Since that time, wildlife agencies have relied on a combination of public reports, organized removal programs and ongoing scientific surveys in an effort to slow the species’ continued spread across the state.

Those broader containment efforts now extend to the newly confirmed population in Charlotte County, with officials continuing to monitor both that area and neighboring Lee County for additional python activity. Wildlife biologists say detecting breeding groups early offers the best available chance of limiting further expansion before a new population becomes as deeply entrenched as those already established in South Florida. Even so, officials acknowledge that managing an invasive predator of this size and adaptability remains one of the most demanding ongoing wildlife challenges facing the state of Florida, with the Charlotte County discovery underscoring just how difficult full containment of the species may ultimately prove to be.

No one matched all six numbers in Monday night’s Powerball drawing, sending the jackpot rolling over to an estimated $567 million ahead of the next drawing scheduled for Wednesday, July 22.

The winning numbers drawn for the July 20 jackpot were 2, 9, 44, 53 and 59, with a red Powerball of 8 and a Power Play multiplier of 2X. While no ticket matched all five white balls plus the Powerball to claim the top prize, which had carried a cash option of $242 million, two tickets came close, matching all five white balls without the Powerball to win $1 million Match 5 prizes, one sold in Colorado and the other in Michigan. No tickets matched five white balls plus the Power Play option, which would have paid out a $2 million prize.

The jackpot keeps climbing

With Monday’s drawing producing no jackpot winner, the prize has grown further heading into Wednesday’s drawing, now estimated at $567 million with a cash value of $251.8 million for any winner who opts to take the lump-sum payout instead of the annuitized jackpot amount.

Powerball drawings are held three times each week, on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday nights, at 11 p.m. Eastern time. The overall odds of matching all five white balls and the red Powerball to win the jackpot remain extraordinarily long, at approximately 1 in 292.2 million.

A companion drawing with its own results

Alongside the main Powerball drawing, Monday’s session also included a separate Double Play drawing, giving players who added that option an additional chance to win. The Double Play winning numbers for July 20 were 15, 21, 39, 54 and 67, with a red Powerball of 7.

Where and how to play

Powerball is available in 45 U.S. states, along with Washington, D.C. and the U.S. Virgin Islands, including in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. Notably, players do not need to be U.S. citizens or residents in order to legally purchase tickets and participate in the game.

In Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana specifically, tickets can be purchased in person at gas stations, convenience stores and supermarkets, though sales cutoff times vary depending on the specific selling jurisdiction, typically closing between one and two hours before that night’s scheduled drawing.

For players who prefer purchasing tickets online, options vary by state. In Kentucky, tickets can be bought directly through the official Kentucky Lottery website. In Ohio and Indiana, players can order tickets online through Jackpocket, which serves as the official digital lottery courier for the USA TODAY Network in those states. Additional states offering official online ticket sales through their respective state lottery websites include Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington, D.C.

Cost and add-on options

A single Powerball ticket costs $2 per play. Players can pay an additional $1 to add the Power Play option, which multiplies non-jackpot winnings by a randomly selected factor. In select states, including Kentucky and Indiana, players also have the option to add Double Play for an additional $1, giving them a separate, second chance to win up to $10 million through the companion drawing held immediately after the standard Powerball numbers are drawn.

How to play and how prizes are structured

To play Powerball, participants select five different numbers ranging from 1 to 69 for the white balls, then choose one additional number ranging from 1 to 26 for the red Powerball. Numbers can be manually selected on a play slip or generated randomly by the lottery terminal for players who prefer a “quick pick” option.

Powerball’s prize structure includes multiple winning tiers beyond the jackpot itself. Matching all five white balls without the Powerball earns a guaranteed $1 million prize, with odds of roughly 1 in 11.7 million. Smaller prizes are available for matching fewer numbers, ranging from $100 prizes down to a minimum $4 payout for matching either just the Powerball alone or a single white ball plus the Powerball, with the easiest winning combination carrying odds of roughly 1 in 38.

A reminder to check old tickets

The latest jackpot rollover comes as lottery officials in Kentucky have separately been urging residents to check any unclaimed tickets they may still be holding onto, following news that the Kentucky Lottery is actively searching for the owner of an unclaimed, million-dollar Powerball ticket that is set to expire soon. Officials have expressed hope that publicizing the search will prompt whoever holds the winning ticket to come forward before the claim deadline passes.

With Wednesday’s drawing now set to offer an estimated $567 million jackpot, ticket sales are expected to pick up in the days leading up to the drawing as the prize continues climbing following Monday night’s rollover. Players across the 45 participating states, along with Washington, D.C. and the U.S. Virgin Islands, will have their next opportunity to try their luck at the growing jackpot when Wednesday night’s numbers are drawn at 11 p.m. Eastern time.

Jamie Dimon has handed Andy Burnham’s day-old government both a vote of confidence and a warning shot. The JP Morgan chief executive says he wants London to remain the US bank’s home “for a long period of time”, but whether Britain stays attractive as a place to do business rests on the new prime minister and his chancellor reviving growth.

“The new chancellor [is] going to need good policies that actually cause growth. So I’m praying that they get policy right [as] government after government get it wrong,” Dimon, who has run the bank since 2006, said in an interview with The Master Investor Podcast with Wilfred Frost, released on Tuesday.

For the owners of Britain’s small and medium-sized firms, that is the question of the moment put with unusual bluntness. When the boss of America’s largest bank says he is reduced to prayer, smaller businesses waiting on the same policy decisions might be forgiven a similar approach.

Burnham formally succeeded Sir Keir Starmer on Monday, promising a “new political and economic model” for Britain and arguing that MPs had fallen short for decades in creating the conditions for lasting and more equal growth. He enters Downing Street with eight in ten SME owners already braced for impact, so Dimon’s cautious optimism will be read closely on both sides of that divide.

The man charged with answering Dimon’s prayer is John Healey, the surprise pick for No 11 after early favourites Ed Miliband and Shabana Mahmood lost out. Burnham has also promised to set out measures to ease the cost of living as soon as Tuesday, and has hinted at lifting the earnings threshold at which workers first pay income tax, frozen at £12,570 since 2021.

The arithmetic is unforgiving. Burnham has repeatedly committed to the existing fiscal rules, funding day-to-day spending from tax revenues within three years, but economists warn the war in the Middle East may have whittled his fiscal headroom from £23.7 billion to just £10 billion. Every giveaway must be paid for, and the City knows where chancellors tend to look.

Which is why Dimon reserved his sharpest words for the bank levy, the balance sheet tax introduced in the wake of the global financial crisis. “I have always thought it was wrong,” he said. “JP Morgan did not damage the UK … we’re a great citizen there. We hire people there. We want to be bigger there. We train people there. We hire veterans there.”

“It’s still there 17 years later. Is that fair to a shareholder? I mean, it may sound great, ‘tax the banks’, but it’s $5 billion that my shareholders paid on that extra tax. And I just think things like that have adverse consequences.”

Asked whether an increase in the levy would sink the bank’s planned £3 billion UK headquarters, having already threatened to reconsider the Canary Wharf project if Britain turned hostile to banks, Dimon was more measured: “I don’t know what I’d do. I wouldn’t make a binary decision like that.”

That matters well beyond the Square Mile. A £3 billion construction project feeds contractors, fit-out firms, caterers and suppliers across the SME economy, and the tax treatment of Britain’s biggest inward investors sets the tone for everyone weighing whether to commit capital here.

There was warmth, too, for the departed. Rachel Reeves, sacked by Burnham this week after two years at the Treasury, “did a great job”, Dimon said. Investors credited her fiscal prudence with keeping a lid on government borrowing costs.

Her successor inherits the goodwill, the £10 billion of headroom, and one of Wall Street’s most powerful men praying he does not waste either.

Amy Ingham

Amy Ingham is a reporter at Business Matters, covering UK business news with a focus on breaking news, business policy, late payments and insolvency. She joined the magazine in 2026 after completing the NCTJ Diploma in Journalism at Harlow College’s journalism school. Her recent reporting includes British Steel’s nationalisation and its impact on SME suppliers, the decline in late payments by large firms, and Insolvency Service director disqualifications. Reach her at aingham@cbmeg.co.uk.

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