Local News Now

NEW SMYRNA BEACH, Fla. -- Jeremy Patrick Wharton: Do the right thing and turn yourself in!

That's the message family and friends of 21-year-old Kaelee Morrell are conveying to the 32-year-old Wharton, who is now wanted on felony charges of leaving the scene of a Crash involving a fatality and leaving the scene of a crash with serious bodily injury. 

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Are you ready for some football?

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla -- Volusia County has sided with fired deputy John Szabo over Sheriff Mike Chitwood and as a result, he has received full back pay and benefits dating back to the day nearly a year ago.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- He was once suspected by a neighboring DeLand family of four of leaving a dripping used condom with blood on it on the welcoming mat of their front porch door as a perverse act of intimidation.   

NEW SMYRNA BEACH, Fla. -- It comes as no surprise that ex-Sheriff Ben Johnson was endorsed by the Board of Realtors in his run for at the at-large seat on the Volusia County Council. Same thing with endorsing Deb Denys for re-election to her District 3 County Council seat representing New Smyrna Beach, Edgewater, and Oak Hill. 

And right there in the same company is Chase Herbig, one of six first-time candidates for mayor of New Smyrna Beach with no incumbent. And so it was Herbig tabbed Friday by the New Smyrna Beach Board of Realtors as the organization's 2018 endorsement recommended to the voters as the successor to retiring Mayor Jim Hathaway, a second-generation native son whose late father also was mayor of the city by the sea in the 1970s.

Photo for Headline Surfer / 

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Nancy Keefer, CCE, president and CEO of the Daytona Regional Chamber of Commerce, will be named chair of the Association of Chamber of Commerce’s Board of Directors during the organization’s annual meeting on July 18.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- A year ago, it was Ricky Stenhouse who won the war of attrition and NASCAR's signature July race under the lights at Daytona International Speedway.

It was Stenhouse who be the cause of attrition Saturday night with the "Big One" that claimed half the field. But it was a little-known driver, Erik Jones, who passed the reigning series champion, Martin Truex Jr by .125 of a second at the finish line to win the Coke Zero Sugar 400.

DELAND, Fla. -- Volusia County government provided the Daytona Beach News-Journal with compensation figures late this afternoon on the total cost of County Manager Jim Dinneen's exit but excluded Headline Surfer from the public information despite requesting it in writing.

Ormond Beach, Fla. – Members from the Rotary Clubs of Downtown Ormond Beach, Ormond Beach and Daytona Beach West recently came to the assistance of a 92-year-old widow, to fix approximately 90 feet of 6-foot tall vinyl fence that was falling over from improper installation and recent storms.