WUFT News News and Public Media for North Central Florida from the University of Florida in Gainesville

We're midway through a pivotal school year at Hawthorne Middle/High School, where anything less than a "C" grade on this year's school accountability report would mean the school's closure. Reporter Bailey Lefever joins us to talk about how people there are feeling and what has been done to turn it around in time.

Many members of this community retain citizenship of the Russian Federation, allowing them to vote in elections like the one Vladimir Putin was reelected in for a fourth term March 18, 2018. Some of them leave family behind, and while some rest assured that keeping someone like Putin in office will ensure stability for their loved ones, others worry about the consequences of him being in power.

With $100 million a year Florida has budgeted for land acquisition and conservation, Alachua County could have the funding to buy 13,351 acres of land for future parks.

Gainesville Police Department received a call from a resident of 3717 SW 28th Terrace shortly before 11:30 a.m. Sunday, GPD said in a release.

The Santa Fe College Center for Innovation and Economic Development will expand with new development plans.

A plan to expand roads on Interstate 75 are expected to lead to improvements for the overpass along Southwest 20th Avenue.

A Girl and A Gun, Gainesville's women’s shooting league, is about the sisterhood -- not politics, but rather empowerment and support for one other.

Of the thousands of tons of recycling processed each year by the Alachua County Materials Recovery Facility, some of those items cannot be recycled.

Alachua County commissioners on Tuesday night voted in favor of continuing the Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) method to manage stray cats in the area in order to decrease euthanizations.

FEMA is urging Florida residents to prepare now for the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season, which begins June 1.

University of Florida freshman Alyson Moriarty is also ready to make her voice heard in the #NeverAgain movement. She says instead of grieving, she decided to take action.

The “Sunshine Protection Act," if approved by Congress, will put the state of Florida on year-round daylight saving time, but Florida farmers say for it to work, it has to be adopted by everyone, countrywide.

FPL's new Melrose solar plant contains 330,000 solar panels, generating a total of 74.5 megawatts for homes across the state. Despite a drop in utility rates for customers, not everyone is happy about the solar field.

Xanadu homes, popular touristic attractions in the 1980s, were once called the houses of the future and now became the trinkets of the past. Gainesville's Xanadu house Foam Dome, however, became inhabited after years of abandonment after it's renovation.

Larson does what many deem unthinkable — he's a pastor who runs a bar. One day when he was praying about the struggle to turn a profit, he heard God say, “Take care of the fringe and marginalized in the nations, and I’ll have them take care of you.” Now, Larson thinks it would have been a sin not to buy the bar.