Jacksonville | featured news

Nearly all the key officials in Neptune Beach rattled off complaints during a recent public meeting that City Clerk Karla Strait is creating a toxic environment within City Hall — but fingers aren’t just pointed one way.
Strait is already fighting back.
She hired an attorney and plans to submit her concerns about the Neptune Beach city attorney to the Florida Bar, the Jacksonville Bar Association and the Office of the Inspector General.

AMATRICE, Italy — A devastating earthquake rocked central Italy early Wednesday, collapsing homes on top of residents as they slept.
At least 23 people were reported dead in three hard-hit towns where rescue crews raced to dig survivors out of the rubble, but the toll was expected to rise as crews reached homes in more remote hamlets.
"The town isn't here anymore," said Sergio Pirozzi, the mayor of Amatrice.
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TALLAHASSEE | In an issue that goes back decades, a federal appeals court said Tuesday that the city of Jacksonville should not be held in contempt for its handling of an agreement that required hiring more black firefighters.
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Nearly all the key officials in Neptune Beach rattled off complaints during a recent public meeting that City Clerk Karla Strait is creating a toxic environment within City Hall — but fingers aren’t just pointed one way.
Strait is already fighting back.
She hired an attorney and plans to submit her concerns about the Neptune Beach city attorney to the Florida Bar, the Jacksonville Bar Association and the Office of the Inspector General.

The design of the amphitheater and indoor practice field being built next to EverBank Field has morphed considerably from the renderings shown last year, when the city council agreed to put $45 million into a 50-50 deal with Jaguars owner Shad Khan.
Whether those changes have resulted in a building with more or less visual appeal is a matter of perspective, with strong opinions on both sides.
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In a show of force as the clock winds down to a high-stakes voter referendum Aug. 30, Mayor Lenny Curry and dozens of political and community leaders Monday gave a home-stretch pitch for voters to approve a plan they say will forever solve Jacksonville’s runaway pension debt.
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Evan Robbins, 11, was not the least bit impressed by the new high-tech imaging software that guided the hands of two Wolfson Children’s Hospital neurosurgeons who recently removed a mass from his brain.
The Yulee Primary School second-grader was still more enamored by his favorite character, Indiana Jones, than something called “functional magnetic resonance imaging.”
“I don’t care how they did it. I only care that I’m alive,” he said.

ST. AUGUSTINE | In the midst of its most successful year of operation, the St. Augustine Amphitheatre is about to enter a new era with serious competition just up the interstate.
But the opening of Daily’s Place in Jacksonville — currently planned for May — shouldn’t do much to slow down the momentum of the Amphitheatre, according to Ryan Murphy, manager of the Amphitheatre and Ponte Vedra Concert Hall.
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Crowley Maritime Corporation executive Eric Evans was promoted to vice president of strategy.
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The law firm of Rogers Towers added Joseph P. Kincart to the Jacksonville office.
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Elizabeth McCague was named the newest member of the Ameris Bancorp Corporate Board of Directors.
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U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown has more time to find a lawyer for her fraud trial after a judge agreed Tuesday to let two Orlando attorneys withdraw and moved the trial’s target date to November.
U.S. Magistrate James R. Klindt told Brown to be back in court Sept. 7 for a follow-up hearing, but didn’t set that as a firm deadline to have new counsel.
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