Local News Now

Five more staffers canned by Halifax Media 

At far left is a snapshot of the lead story offfered online early Saturday by the Daytona Beach News-Journal. It's got to be tough these days for the editor, Pat Rice, shown in the inset, having to come up with strong centerpiece stories with scores of reporters on the business desk to bang out the pro-chamber and ad authority PR fluff and no full-timers for Port Orange or Edgewater. That's what happens when you have to cut positions like the five this month and having a sixth employee quit. You end up with a headline like the gem next to Rice: 'Cincinnati may get Daytona tourism dollar.'

DAYTONA BEACH -- As if the Daytona Beach tourism glad-handing story on attracting visitors from Ohio in the News-Journal isn't enough, the newspaper has reached even greater heights this morning with a week-old story on an alleged canoe theft as its lead story

Search in vicinity of HE Thomas Jr. Parkway near Sanford border comes up empty

LAKE MARY -- The unmistakeable sound of a commercial airliner making its descent over Lake Mary to land at the nearby Sanford Airport is one thing, but the thunderous twirling of the blades of the Seminole County Sheriff's helicopter at 2 in the morning at a low altitude reaches new heights on the noise meter.

Debra Annette Smith was planning to walk to Sanford

Headline Surfer® graphic / Debra Annette Smith's badly decomposing body was found in an open field off of South Leisure World Drive near Barwick Road, as shown in this locator map. The ME's Office won't have details on the 48-year-old DeBary woman's cause of death until toxicology reports come back in a few weeks.

DEBARY -- A decomposed body found Wednesday in an open field in DeBary Wednesday morning has been identified as that of 48-year-old Debra Annette Smith, last seen alive Nov. 8, when she left her home after getting into a minor verbal dispute with her partner, a Volusia County Sheriff's official said.

Under umbrella of appeals in Daytona Beach

Photo for Headline Surfer® / Judge Donald E. Scaglione, shown here at left, was elevated Friday from Hernando County judge to a judgeship in the 5th judicial circuit that covers Citrus, Hernando, Lake, Marion, and Sumter counties, with main administrative offices in Tavares. The 5th circuit is part of the 5th District Court of Appeal, which sits in Daytona Beach. 

TALLAHASSEE, FL – Gov. Rick Scott today announced his appointment of Hernando County Judge Donald E. Scaglione to the 5th Judicial Circuit Court.

Scaglione, 54 of Brooksville, has been a Hernando County Judge since 2005. He fills a vacancy created by the retirement Circuit Judge Sandra Edwards-Stephens.

State Attorney's Office not willing to prosecute for domestic violence as a result

Photos for Headline Surfer® / Another chapter in George Zimmerman's life concludes with no charges filed in domestic violence case alleged by his estranged wife, Shellie, shown here in court with him during his murder trial. Later, he's shown cuffed after his wife claimed he displayed a gun (which she later recanted), punched her dad in the nose and shattered her iPad, like the one shown here. 

LAKE MARY -- George Zimmerman won't be arrested on domestic violence charges in connection with a Sept. 9 argument with his estranged wife, Shellie, and her father, David Dean at a home on Sprucewood Court they were living in, during which he she claimed he shattered her iPad, Lake Mary cops announced today.

WESH Orlando's Claire Metz had loaded semi-automatic pointed at her head

Photos for Headline Surfer® / 

NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- An off-duty public safety tele-communicator with the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office was arrested Tuesday after she pointed a gun at WESH-TV Orlando reporter Clare Metz who had gone to her house to try to interview her for a story involving a medical call where a patient died in September after an ambulance crew was directed to the wrong location.

Headline Surfer photos® / This image from a KKK recritment flyer among more than a dozen left in front of homes in New Smyrna Beach's Westside, shows the traditional hood and dress attire.

NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- The Rev. Lorenzo Laws, pastor of the Allen Chapel AME Church is livid. And with good reason: More than a dozen recruiting flyers for the Ku Klux Klan were left in front yards of homes across the street from his church in the predominantly African-American Westside community.

"I am absolutely and totally offended that someone at a time like this would come into this community and distribute this type of literature," Laws said Tuesday.

DELTONA, Fla. -- A fourth candidate has entered the field to run in the 2014 elections for the District 5 seat on the Volusia County Council representing the Deltona area with incumbent Pat Northey term-limited and instead challenging at-large Council member Joyce Cusack of DeLand. 

PONCE INLET -- The Volusia County Public works Department will hold a public meeting 5:30 tonight at Ponce Inlet Town Hall, 4300 S. Atlantic Ave., to present proposed construction plans for the missing link of the sidewalk along the west side of South Atlantic Avenue between Major Street and Marcell Avenue here in Ponce Inlet.