Duval County | featured news

Federal environmental officials will explain plans this week for a $69 million cleanup of Eastside Jacksonville land where huge amounts of dangerous chemicals were stored for most of a century.
The former Kerr-McGee Chemical Corp. property at 1611 Talleyrand Ave. was used to manufacture or ship pesticides, herbicides and agricultural chemicals starting in 1893. The complex, originally the Wilson & Toomer Fertilizer Co., closed in 1978.

KEYSTONE HEIGHTS | Austin Stephens can’t see out of his left eye and can barely see out of his right. Yet he’s watched the movie “Twister” dozens of times, flying cows and all, by pressing his right eye up against a tiny screen.
He’s 14, legally blind, obsessed with weather and weather forecasting, and “Twister” helped feed that passion until weather now takes up just about every waking hour. Including many hours, his parents note, when he should be sleeping.

Residents and boaters near Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base in Georgia will notice an added presence in the water during a training exercise involving the U.S. Coast Guard and the Navy in the area Wednesday.
The maritime exercise, named Resolute Guardian, is scheduled from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. and will run south to the entrance of the St. Marys River, according to the Coast Guard.
read more

Duval School Board members made progress Monday by deciding to hire a mediator to help the Board and Superintendent Nikolai Vitti improve their working relationship.
But it’s unlikely a mediator will help the Board on its other point of impasse: whether district leaders should set academic targets linked to other Florida districts’ performance or whether they should set “aspirational” goals with much higher performance objectives for students.

A construction company based in Tampa recently received a contract worth about $23 million to repair a 1,950-foot stretch of pier at Mayport Naval Station.
Naval Facilities Engineering Command Southeast awarded the contract Thursday to Orion Marine Construction Inc., and construction is expected to be complete by September 2017.
The section of the pier in need of repair is called Wharf Bravo and was built in 1970. It is at the western end of Mayport’s turning basin.

About 1,000 dogs and cats from area animal shelters and rescue groups will be available 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday through Sunday at the latest Mega Adoption Event at the Jacksonville Fairgrounds.
Parking and admission are free. Adoptions are $20 for the general public; free for active and retired military. Each animal will be spayed or neutered, microchipped and current on shots and have a city license.
The event is hosted by First Coast No More Homeless Pets, sponsored by Petco Foundation. For more information, go to fcnmhp.org.

Many of the students Grant Hill spoke to Monday at Edward Waters College were not alive when he led Duke to two basketball national championships in the early 1990s.
But he told them the outcome of this presidential election means more for them.
The retired basketball great spoke at the college about the differences between Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton, whose campaign brought Hill to Jacksonville.

John Olsen is sure his invention of a briquette that is dropped into a pond and turns into a fungus that kills mosquito larvae is a good bet on developing his newly formed Jacksonville business Cree Industries.
He’s just not certain how to get the funding to take his startup business to the next step.
Olsen was among some 60 local entrepreneurs to attend the first JAX Chamber and SCORE crowdfunding workshop Monday to help startups learn how to gain more capital in hopes of making their businesses grow.

Residents and boaters near Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base in Georgia will notice an added presence in the water during a training exercise involving the U.S. Coast Guard and the Navy in the area Wednesday.
The maritime exercise, named Resolute Guardian, is scheduled from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. and will run south to the entrance of the St. Marys River, according to the Coast Guard.
read more

Duval’s School Board made progress Monday by deciding to hire a mediator to help the Board and Superintendent Nikolai Vitti improve on their working relationship.
But it’s unlikely a mediator will help the Board on its other point of impasse: whether district leaders should set academic targets linked to other Florida districts’ performance or whether they should set “aspirational” goals with much higher performance projections for students.