• Shelby’s Coffee Shoppe in the Main Library is now taking applications for employment. Interested job seekers can pick one up in the library book store.
• Jacksonville city government will officially dedicate the Taye Brown Memorial Park during a ceremony Friday morning. The park is on Cecil Commerce Center near the Equestrian Center. Brown was one of the original Better Jacksonville Plan project managers and was killed in a car wreck several years ago.
• U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter from California will be in town today. He’ll provide a defense update to the Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce in the afternoon, and he’ll attend a meet-and-greet at the local Republican Party headquarters in the evening.
• Northeast Florida boasts the fastest-growing county in the nation. Flagler County tops the most recent list with a growth rate of 10.7 percent, easily outdoing second-place Lynn County in Nevada, which has a growth rate of 9.6 percent.
• According to Florida Trend magazine, the Hyatt is the state’s 23rd biggest hotel with 966 rooms. Topping the list is Disney’s All-Star Resorts in Lake Buena Vista, which has 5,546 rooms and suites. In fact, the five biggest hotels in the state are in Lake Buena Vista with over 15,000 rooms.
• Good news for travelers: Two air carriers flying out of Jacksonville International Airport will upgrade their service effective Feb. 14. United Airlines will begin using Airbus 319s on three daily flights to Chicago O’Hare International Airport, replacing the current 50-seat regional jets, doubling the capacity of the Jacksonville-to-Chicago route. JetBlue is replacing its Airbus 320s with Embraer 190s on three daily non-stop flights to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport. The planes have 100 seats in a two-by-two layout, ensuring all customers have either an aisle or a window seat. The new JetBlue planes will also offer a free entertainment system at each seat with 36 channels of DirecTV and more than 100 channels of XM Satellite Radio.
• For the 17th time and the second year in a row, the Stetson University College of Law Trial Team won the Florida Bar Chester Bedell Memorial Mock Trial Competition in Miami. Stetson has won first place in more national-level trial competitions than any other law school in the nation and has consistently been ranked as a top law school for trial advocacy by “U.S. News & World Report” magazine.
• The Early Learning Coalition of Duval County (ELC) has been recognized with an excellence award in the area of “Strengthening Families” from Workforce Florida, Inc. ELC is the major funder of child care financial assistance through the Jacksonville Children’s Commission. ELC also places literacy coaches and family involvement specialists in community child care centers.