Gainesville FL

Roberta 'Betty' Lopez, Archer's first Black female mayor and community advocate, died on Feb. 11 at age 87. Lopez raised over $900,000 to convert Archer's abandoned 1936 high school gym into the Archer Community Center in 2011. Lopez served on many boards and co-founded the Northwest Archer Community Association...

Melvin Arias received the sentence for second-degree murder in the death of 47-year-old Milagros Guzman Lopez.

HAWTHORNE, Fla. (WCJB) - Firefighters in Alachua County put out a house fire in Hawthorne Tuesday night. Alachua County Fire Rescue crews, along with crews from Windsor Fire Department, Melrose Fire Department, and Cross Creek Fire Department, responded to reports of a house on fire in Hawthorne just before 6:30 p.m.

Leaders of Gainesville’s Black community convened a town hall at Dayspring Missionary Baptist Church on Feb. 16 to discuss the potential closure of several schools in east Gainesville. The Visionaires and the Alachua County NAACP addressed a packed room of residents demanding to know why draft rezoning maps released...

The city of Gainesville converted several streets near UF’s main campus into one-way pairs in January. West 10th Street and West 12th Street, between Southwest Eighth Avenue and Northwest Eighth Avenue, now operate as one-ways to improve safety for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians along these busy corridors. The...

Sheriff Blasts Out Warning On Local Predator John Stapleton. Bradford County Sheriff Gordon Smith took to Facebook on Tuesday to name John Stapleton as this week’s “Sexual Predator of the Week,” putting neighbors on notice that a registered predator lives in the community. The brief post pointed residents to state...

OCALA, Fla. (WFLA) — The Marion County Sheriff’s office said it needs help identifying three people that broke into an Ocala smoke shop on Feb. 9 after they stole $2,000 worth of merchandise. These unidentified people broke into Smoke and Toke Tobacco and Vape Store on Highway 200 around 1:40 a.m., according to the...

Kendrick J. Hills Jr., 23, was sentenced to over five years in prison after pleading guilty to possession with intent to distribute marijuana and carrying a firearm during a drug-trafficking crime. The post Gainesville man sentenced to federal prison for carrying multiple firearms while selling drugs appeared first...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (WCJB) - The man accused of firing a gun in the Oaks Mall on Valentine’s Day was arrested for illegally possessing a gun. Authorities have released 911 calls and body camera video related to the incident. According to the arrest report for Elijah Williams, 19, he was...

Ashley Elizabeth Williams, 40, has been arrested for leaving the scene of an October accident involving property damage and injury, and she was also charged with possession of drug paraphernalia; at the time of the crash, she was on pre-trial release following an October 2 arrest for driving under the influence in...