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Capital Report: 08-19-2016

Many of Florida’s rural school districts are in trouble and nowhere is the crisis more apparent than in North Florida’s Jefferson County.  The district only has about eight-hundred students left and has been consistently at the bottom of the heap when it comes to academics.  Now it’s in financial trouble.  But as Lynn Hatter tells us, this isn’t the first time and this isn’t the only rural school district in Florida that’s at risk.

Florida’s insurance regulators are considering two major rate increases.  Nick Evans reports the moves would raise rates for workers compensation insurance and property insurance with the state-backed company Citizens.

Climate change in Florida is already taking its toll, in the form of rising temperatures, extreme weather events and shifting tides. The changes are sending archaeologists scrambling to protect the state’s historical resources. Kate Payne traveled to the country’s oldest city to tell this story.

Final recommendations on a memorial for the unclaimed remains uncovered on the Dozier School for Boy grounds are now heading to the Florida Legislature. But, as Sascha Cordner reports, during the final meeting of the panel tasked with making those suggestions, tensions were pretty high.

Wildlife officials saw a slight reduction in 2015 of calls received about bears in neighborhoods, but the number still tops 6-thousand. And while a bear hunt has been taken off the table this year, Regan McCarthy reports officials are pursuing other efforts to reduce human-bear conflicts.