Jacksonville, Florida | featured news

A coalition of more than 50 local clergy members called Wednesday for the end of the death penalty in light of a new Harvard University study that shows Duval County is among a handful of U.S. counties that most frequently send convicted criminals to their deaths.
Darlene Farah, who has called for her daughter’s killer to serve a life sentence instead of being executed, stood among the clergy in front of the Duval County Courthouse.
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El Faro captain Michael Davidson sounding the alarm and ordering his fellow crew members to abandon ship is among the last of the audio contained in the 26 hours of information recovered from the ship’s voyage data recorder.
The recovered audio also includes discussion about flooding, lost propulsion and the condition of the ship in the final hours before it sank Oct. 1 during Hurricane Joaquin, according to a Wednesday release by the National Transportation Safety Board.

So far the district has 500 laptops available for $50 each, but more may become available later in the school year as the district subs them out for more uptodate technology.
Parents can register and purchase them online at dcps.schoolcashonline.com using a credit or debit card. Or they can purchase them in person at school district headquarters, 1701 Prudential Drive, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday. The district will take cash, but no checks.
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So far the district has 500 laptops available for $50 each, but more may become available later in the school year as the district subs them out for more uptodate technology.
Parents can register and purchase them online at dcps.schoolcashonline.com using a credit or debit card. Or they can purchase them in person at school district headquarters, 1701 Prudential Drive, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday. The district will take cash, but no checks.
read more

A coalition of more than 50 local clergy members called Wednesday for the end of the death penalty in light of a new Harvard University study that shows Duval County is among a handful of U.S. counties that most frequently send convicted criminals to their deaths.
Darlene Farah, who has called for her daughter's killer to serve a life sentence instead of being executed, stood among the clergy in front of the Duval County Courthouse.
read more

Federal investigators recovered data from the recorder for the El Faro cargo ship, including audio from the navigation bridge during the ship’s final hours, after the equipment sat in a capsule three miles below the surface for 10 months.
The National Transportation Safety Board announced Wednesday that its investigators have been able to recover 26 hours of information. The federal agency is convening a team to “develop a detailed transcript of the sounds and discernible words captured on the El Faro’s bridge audio.”

Opponents of a proposed half-cent sales tax for paying down Jacksonville’s huge pension debt plan to announce Wednesday they will take their case to the airwaves with a television spot urging rejection of the measure.
So far, the Yes for Jacksonville campaign rallying support for the sales tax has dominated the cycle of paid campaign ads leading up to the Tuesday election on the referendum.
The news conference announcing that opponents will enter that advertising battle is slated for 1 p.m. Wednesday.

Four times in as many years, courts have called Refik Eler, Jacksonville’s chief assistant public defender and the office’s death-penalty director, ineffective.
He ignored evidence, failed to properly investigate, and didn’t prepare adequately for trial, the courts ruled. Three of those cases involved death penalties. Two of the death sentences and the one life sentence were overturned because of Eler’s ineffectiveness. Now, taxpayers must pay to re-do those three trials.

AMATRICE, Italy — A devastating earthquake rocked central Italy early Wednesday, collapsing homes on top of residents as they slept.
At least 38 people were killed in hard-hit towns where rescue crews raced to dig survivors out of the rubble, but the toll was likely 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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