Gainesville, Alachua County | featured news

You wouldn’t think the history of oranges would be so complex, but you’d be wrong.

The city commission spent Tuesday interviewing five candidates in the hopes of finding the most qualified individual to fill the role of city manager. The short list was slightly shorter than expected after Rosylen Oglesby, assistant city manager of Portsmouth, Virginia, withdrew her application due to an illness in the family.

A Chiefland man drowned Sunday while swimming in a Gilchrist County rock pit, authorities said.

Carter Joseph “Peanut” Gonzalez, barely 6 months old, may soon receive a life-giving liver. Although he might once have received the needed new liver in Gainesville, a change in policy at the UF Health Shands Transplant Center meant that his family needed to seek help elsewhere.

Incoming Florida Senate President Joe Negron made a whirlwind 90-minute stop at the University of Florida Tuesday on his tour of the state's public universities to talk funding priorities and the financial struggles some students face paying for college.

State Reps. Clovis Watson, D-Alachua, and Keith Perry, R-Gainesville, will review the bills that were debated and passed during this past legislative session during a session at 2 p.m. Wednesday in the Lawrence Tyree Library.

After six months and $750,000 in renovations, the Visitors Center at Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park re-opens Wednesday with a 10 a.m. ribbon cutting.

Eleven students from Gainesville High School’s Academy of Health Professions received top honors at the Florida Health Occupations Students of America conference in Orlando, held April 14-17.

Wild Iris Books and several other groups are teaming up for a block party to celebrate Independent Bookstore Day, a national initiative that now encompasses over 400 indie bookstores.