The Tallahassee Reports Daily Briefs: Thursday, April 4, 2024

Sponsored by 

FOODIES TAKEOUT & DELIVERY

DOWNLOAD FOODIES APP

Select a Restaurant and Place an Order

LOCAL NEWS

Local Political Briefs: McNeil to Run, Corey Simon Challenged, Pons Back on Ballot. Get the details.

The Tallahassee City Commission will discuss six recommendations by its charter review committee on April 10th. Two of them hadn’t been assigned by the commissioners. Now, Mayor John Dailey is pushing back on at least one of them — the one that would extend whistle-blower protection to those who bring complaints against city commissioners.

Tallahassee Fire Department responded to three residential fires in less than five hours overnight from Tuesday into Wednesday. TFD said the first fire happened just after 10:30 p.m. Tuesday at a three-story apartment building on W. Park Ave. near Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. The second call came in less than two hours later, at 12:24 a.m. Wednesday to a home on Birmingham St. The third fire happened just after 3 a.m. Wednesday at a house on the 2900 block of Longview Drive. Investigations are underway.

Tallahassee Fire also responded to Cigars of Tally on North Monroe Street on Sunday night. The business went up in flames and sustained significant damage. The fire occurred one day before the business’ five year anniversary. 

LOCAL SPORTS NEWS

No. 13 Florida State baseball (24-4) defeated Bethune Cookman (15-13) with a 5-3 win Tuesday evening in Dick Howser Stadium. Two home runs in the fifth inning carried the Seminoles, leaving them undefeated in midweek games this season.

FLORIDA NEWS

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation on Wednesday accelerating various state infrastructure projects, including reconstruction efforts of Interstate 4. The governor explained that the Moving Florida Forward initiative is a program providing billions of dollars in budget surplus to, in part, improve traffic congestion throughout Florida.

Florida Democrats are warning the Biden administration to not politicize the abortion ballot measure that was recently allowed on the general election ballot. Some are afraid that if the Biden administration wades into the Florida waters, GOP voters will be alienated and motivated to oppose whatever the Biden administration is lending support to. Florida Senate Minority Leader Lauren Book said a good number of the people who signed the petition for the abortion ballot amendment were Republican women. 

NATIONAL NEWS

Nearly 2 million chickens were slaughtered earlier this week after a number of the animals tested positive for bird flu at a Texas egg production plant. The culling is the latest effort by agricultural companies to ward off the spread of the virus, which has affected more than 82 million birds across the US since 2022 (stats here).  

Amazon confirmed yesterday it was laying off hundreds of employees from its cloud computing division, Amazon Web Services. The layoffs—impacting sales and marketing roles as well as employees focused on technology at its physical stores—come amid a broader company pivot on grocery store strategy.

US stock markets close mixed (S&P 500 +0.1%, Dow -0.1%, Nasdaq +0.2%); US private payrolls rise more than expected in March, while the Federal Reserve signals timing of interest rate cuts is uncertain (More). 

TALLAHASSEE WEATHER