On Oct. 26, Palm Coast resident Kendall Clark and her husband were driving in a residential Seminole Woods neighborhood to visit family when they were almost in a severe crash with a Florida Highway Patrol trooper chasing an alleged suspect who had committed no violent crime nor was wanted on a warrant.
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ACLU Calls Out Florida’s Suppression of Palestinian Students’ Voices
Top leaders at the American Civil Liberties Union criticized Florida in a letter Wednesday for demanding the deactivation of chapters of a pro-Palestine student organization. More than 600 college and university leaders received the letter, urging them to reject political calls to investigate and punish student groups for exercising free speech.
Staunch Opposition Kills Paul Renner’s Calculated Proposal to Consolidate Judicial Circuits
Amid overwhelming opposition to consolidation, a committee appointed by the Florida Supreme Court on Friday unanimously recommended against shrinking the number of judicial circuits in the state as Rep. Paul Renner had proposed. Critics labeled consolidation a gerrymandering effort aimed at weakening Democrats’ power in the court system.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Saturday, November 4, 2023
The Gammon Ruck Relay across fire stations, Clean-Up Day at the Florida Agriculture Museum, Flagler Woman’s Club’s Craft Extravaganza, “Educating Rita,” a staged reading at City Repertory Theatre, Laika the poor Russian dog sacrificed to Sputnik.
In Gaza, Children Are the Ultimate Pawns and Victims
Hamas militants killed approximately 30 Israeli children when they attacked civilians on Oct. 7, 2023, killing more than 1,400 people altogether. At least 20 Israeli children remain hostage in Gaza. Since Oct. 7, Israeli airstrikes have killed more than 2,000 Palestinian children and more than 8,000 people overall, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza.
Americans Need to Hear More Palestinian Voices
The absence of Palestinians and their advocates from news coverage isn’t just unfair. Sarah Gertler, a Jewish American, argues it is harmful, silencing criticism of Israel and making news media complicit in war atrocities.
Construction Begins at AdventHealth Palm Coast’s Freytag Health Plaza
Named in honor of Palm Coast residents Peter and Sue Freytag, the Health Plaza will become a vital hub for cancer treatment, primary care and rehabilitation services.
As School Board Risks Wrongful Termination Suit, Value of Attorney’s Contract Is Close to $500,000
The three-member majority of the Flagler County School Board that wants to fire Attorney Kristy Gavin thinks it can do so at the cost of 14 weeks’ pay. The remaining board members say that risks incurring a wrongful termination lawsuit, with the value of Gavin’s remaining 20 months on her contract nearing half a million dollars, according to an analysis not disclosed until now.
Renoir-Inspired Turtle, Dedicated at Intracoastal Bank, Is 21st In Flagler’s Biggest Public Art Trail
Artists Lisa Fisher’s and Nancy Zedar’s “Renny,” the 21st edition in the Turtle Trail, which has quietly grown into the single-largest public art project in Flagler County in the last five years, was dedicated in front of Intracoastal Bank on Palm Coast Parkway to commemorate the community bank’s 15th anniversary. Scores of supporters turned up.
Before Troopers Shot Her in Hammock, DeLand Woman Had A Short, Violent History of Confrontations
Jacqueline Faye Blank, the 37-year-old DeLand woman Florida Highway Patrol troopers shot several times in the parking lot of the Hammock Beach Resort on Oct. 25, is an army veteran who until August had a clean record. That quickly vanished with a violent confrontation with her girlfriend and cops in early August, and a violent confrontation with FHP elsewhere, not reported until now, just before the shooting.
Miami-Dade Poised to Approve Nation’s 1st Protections from Excessive Heat for Outdoor Workers
South Florida’s Miami-Dade County could be the only local government in the nation to provide heat-related protections for outdoor workers in the construction and agriculture industries, though advocates claim the proposal has been watered down due to lobbying by business interests.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Friday, November 3, 2023
Central Park Bike Rodeo & Ride, Flagler Woman’s Club’s Craft Extravaganza, “Educating Rita” at City Rep Theatre, First Friday in Flagler Beach, euphemizing Israeli terrorism as “settler extremism.”
Kristallnacht, 85 Years Ago: Hitler’s Anti-Semitic Turning Point
Kristallnacht–the Night of Broken Glass–was the logical culmination of Hitler’s malevolent intentions going back many years before 1938. Seeing it that way allows us to view the two different kinds of antisemitism in Hitler’s thinking, one involving emotions and the other involving the law and reason. The latter foreshadowed the mass shooting squads and death camps of the early 1940s.
A Student Is Bitten By a Wild Rat at Buddy Taylor Middle School’s Farm; Teacher Reprimanded
Two Buddy Taylor Middle School students were bitten and one of them injured by wild rats, while two dozen students were exposed to the rats as a teacher was flushing them out of a hole with a water hose at the school’s farm. The activity was neither part of a lesson plan nor of the curriculum.
Secret Camera Records Violence and Leads to Palm Coast’s Man’s Arrest on Child Abuse Charge
Pierre Betine Joseph, a 49-year-old resident of Rolling Sands Drive in Palm Coast, was arrested on a felony child abuse charge after video footage from a secret camera installed by the victim’s siblings showed Joseph whipping his middle school son 11 times with two different belts as the child screams in pain and pleads for mercy, leaving welts on the child’s legs.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Thursday, November 2, 2023
The 21st turtle in the trail of sculpted turtles, Renny, is unveiled at Intracoastal Bank, “Educating Rita,” a staged reading at City Repertory Theatre, the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, Hawthorne’s American eagle.
The Fascist Tradition Behind Trump’s Increasingly Violent Rhetoric
Former President Donald Trump’s rhetoric has regularly bordered on the incitement of violence. Lately, however, it has become even more violent. Yet both the press and the public have largely just shrugged their shoulders. This rhetoric may seem like crazy bluster. But put in its historical context, what Trump is doing is echoing views that are part of a long tradition of outright fascist thought. For fascists have always seen the use of violence as a virtue, not a vice.
State Attorney Files Two Felony Charges Against Kerri Huckabee in Flagler Beach Dispute With Neighbors
The State Attorney’s Office on Monday filed four charges against Kerri Huckabee, the Flagler Beach resident and Montessori school owner arrested in September in the culmination of a long-running feud with her next-door neighbors. The charges include a second degree felony count of firing or throwing a deadly missile into a building, and a third degree felony count of resisting arrest with violence.
Teachers Union Blisters School Board Over ‘Fiscal Irresponsibility’ and ‘Unjust Actions’ in Attorney’s Pending Firing
In a letter to her membership, Elisabeth Dias, president of the Flagler County Education Foundation, the teachers union, calls attention to what she terms the potential “wrongful termination” without due process of School Board Attorney Kristy Gavin, which would set a precedent and pose “a serious threat to the rights and well-being of our members, as well as the financial stability of our school district.”
It’s Not a Good Idea to Spit at the Court Ahead of Your Sentencing. Dacotah Clarke Now Faces Up to 17.5 Years.
Dacotah Wren Clark, 27, left a plea hearing and a pending prison sentence of 2.5 years by slamming the courtroom door and spitting in the elevator. He was then re-arrested days later on a dozen new charges. After a dressing down by Circuit Judge Terence Perkins, Clarke now faces up to 17.5 years in prison, without penalties for the spitting and door-slamming.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Wednesday, November 1, 2023
Brandon Washington, the former gang leader, is back in court contesting his life terms, Separation Chat, Bridge and Games at Flagler Woman’s Club, Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, the Disney version, Updike on smoking a pipe, Clay Jones on Republicans’ hypocrisy when they make accusations of anti-Semitism.
How Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor Became Halloween’s Theme Song
Johann Sebastian Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565, is an organ work composed in the early 18th century. Most people today recognize it as a sonic icon of a certain type of fear: haunting and archaic, the kind of thing likely to be manufactured by someone – a ghost, perhaps – wearing a tuxedo and lurking in an abandoned mansion.
As Expected, Joy Andrews Will Move Up to St. Johns County Administrator After Interim Stint
The St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) today selected Joy Andrews as County Administrator. Andrews has served as Interim County Administrator for St. Johns County since July 2023. She has been with the County for the past 17 years, including the previous seven years specifically as the Deputy/Assistant County Administrator.
Captain’s BBQ and Flagler County Reach Tentative Settlement in Lawsuit Entering 5th Year
Captain’s BBQ and its landlord, Flagler County government, have reached a “tentative settlement” in Captain’s breach-of-contract lawsuit against the county, now entering its fifth year. The settlement was reached at an Oct. 27 mediation. But it’s not over. The County Commission must approve it, and will discuss it in a closed-door session next week. A previous proposed settlement, in 2020, failed.
Latest FHP Chase in Flagler Ends with Death of Alleged Carjacker in Rear-End Crash on I-95
A one-mile stretch of I-95 from the State road 100 bridge south turned into a crash zone during a 90-minute period around midday, resulting in overturned vehicles but no injuries in the first crash and the death of a man who was allegedly fleeing in a chase yet again triggered either in Duval or St. Johns County and involving the Florida Highway Patrol. The fleeing man is alleged to have committed a carjacking.
Drone Footage Shows Extent of Flagler Playhouse Fire’s Irreparable Devastation; Likely an Electrical Cause
Drone footage of the aftermath of the Flagler Playhouse fire shows annihilating damage you cannot see from street level, with the entirety of the theater–the main building–as if systematically bombed through its nave. The multilayered roof of metal, asphalt shingles and wood has collapsed, melted from within. The iconic spire somehow kept standing at the front of the building, held up by metal trusses, though it’s a matter of time before it is removed.
Lawmakers’ Special Session Seeks to Expand Public Funding for Private Schools’ Special Education Students
Florida lawmakers are gearing up to provide additional funding to a part of the state’s school-voucher program that serves students with special needs, as some proponents of the scholarships say demand has outpaced supply.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Tuesday, October 31, 2023
The Flagler Woman’s Club’s Pink Pearl Workshop, the Halloween Hall of Terror, John Oliver on the exploitation behind chocolate harvesting, Jarvis Jay Masters’s foster brothers.
Why Some People Equate Criticism of Israel with Anti-Semitism
Many Jews are still grieving, shocked and traumatized by what happened on Oct. 7. But other people, in the U.S. and around the world, have already moved on from Oct. 7, and they are much more concerned about the war that Israel is now waging against Hamas and the devastating impact it is having on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Brendan Depa Tenders Open Plea in Beating of Matanzas High Staffer, Leaving Sentence Up to Judge
Brendan Depa, the 18-year-old special education student facing up to 30 years in prison for the merciless beating of a Matanzas High School teacher aide last February, pleaded to the first-degree felony charge today before Circuit Judge Terence Perkins. He will be sentenced in January.
Two Crashes Kill Three People In Deadliest Day This Year on Flagler Roads
In the deadliest day on Flagler County roads this year, three people died in two unrelated vehicle crashes barely two hours apart on Sunday in Palm Coast.
Flagler Playhouse Burns, Demolishing Home of County’s Oldest Theater Troupe and a City Landmark
The Flagler Playhouse, for 46 years a mainstay of the performing arts in the county, lost the rustic theater it has occupied and packed with audiences since 2006 in Bunnell as a fire destroyed it Sunday night into early Monday. Flagler County Fire Chief Michael Tucker said the building was irreparable.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Monday, October 30, 2023
Brendan Depa pleads, Pumpkin Patch at Trinity Presbyterian, The Halloween Hall of Terror at Palm Coast Fire Station 21, mis-reporting Gaza, Neil Postman and amusing ourselves to death.
‘In God We Trust’ Tests Limits of Religion in Public Schools
Louisiana passed a law in August 2023 requiring public schools to post “In God We Trust” in every classroom – from elementary school to college. Even under recent Supreme Court precedents, the Louisiana law may violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment, which prohibits the government from promoting religion.
DeSantis’s Censorship University System Is Causing a Brain Drain
DeSantis is obsessed with remaking education according to his authoritarian tendencies, doing his damnedest to wreck K-12 with his army of book-banning harpies in “Moms for Liberty” and his Scared Karens legislation, and forbidding honest discussion of slavery and racism so as to never make white kids feel “discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress.”
How a School Superintendent in Maine Addressed the War in Gaza with Students and the Community
Jim Tager, a former superintendent of schools in Flagler, describes himself “privileged and inadequate to fully grasp the experiences of people in the Middle East,” but seeing his district through its prism of diversity and tolerance, he urges students and colleagues to form the kind of friendships across boundaries that enrich local and global communities.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Sunday, October 29, 2023
Nat Adderley Jr Performs for NEFJA, Tommy Tant Memorial Surf Classic winds down, Remembering Heroes Fall Festival, “Menopause, the Musical 2″ at the Auditorium, the ongoing atrocities in gaza and how “It Is Forbidden to Even Empathize With Innocent Gazans.”
Israel’s Gaza Campaign Risks Replicating U.S. in Iraq
The conflict will likely resemble heavy urban fighting similar to other battles over the past 20 years elsewhere in the Middle East against Iraqi militants and the Islamic State group – and very different from the more limited engagements Israel has attempted in Gaza up until now.
Politicians Love To Cite Crime Data. It’s Often Wrong.
When Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis announced his presidential campaign in May, he proudly told the nation that Florida’s crime rate in 2021 had reached a 50-year low. But really, DeSantis couldn’t say for sure. That’s because fewer than 1 in 10 law enforcement agencies in his state had reported their crime statistics to the FBI.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Saturday, October 27, 2023
Palm Coast Founders’ Day Food Truck Festival, Witches of Flagler Beach Bike Ride, John Eliot Gardiner’s Bach, Tides of Hope benefit for breast cancer research, Tommy Tant Memorial Surf Classic, Sheriff’s trunk-or-treat, Pianist Paolo André Gualdi at Stetson.
Solar Power Is Expected to Dominate Electricity Production By 2050
The authors’ projections suggest that the average cost of generating electricity through solar energy will decrease substantially, by 60% from 2020 to 2050, even when factoring in the growing demand for energy storage. Should these forecasts prove accurate, solar energy combined with storage is expected to become the cheapest option for generating electricity in nearly all regions worldwide by 2030.
The Big Reveal
Riding Brightline: The Great, the Brash and the Ugly
Earlier this month FlaglerLive Editor Pierre Tristam and his son took a 24-hour round-trip from Orlando to Miami aboard Brightline’s new high-speed line, discovering what may be–what ought to be–the future of rail travel in Florida with all its pleasures, possibilities and limitations. Here’s the story of the trip and a review of the travel experience.
Indian Trails Middle School Student, 14, Accused of Threatening Another With a Kitchen Knife
A 14-year-old Indian Trails Middle School (ITMS) student was arrested early Friday morning after pulling a knife on students and staff.
Amid Horrors in Israel, Temple Beth Shalom Prepares to Celebrate 50th Anniversary in Palm Coast
Fifty years ago, 18 Jewish families who found themselves living in Flagler County in the early 1970s, discovered each other and discovered they had no place of worship to call their own. They founded Temple Beth Shalom, which bills itself not as a Conservative or a Reform temple, but rather an egalitarian, independent house of worship. This weekend, it celebrates its 50th anniversary in Palm Coast.
School Board Attorney Gavin Fends Off Firing Squad as Superintendent Will Negotiate Possible Transition
The Flagler County School Board Tuesday evening again stopped short of firing Kristy Gavin, its attorney, after it was sharply cautioned by Superintendent LaShakia Moore against taking such a vote without counsel and risking serious financial consequences. The board voted 4-1 to allow Moore to negotiate moving Gavin to the position of staff attorney, answering to only to Moore.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Friday, October 27, 2023
Othal Wallace sentencing this morning, the 22nd Annual Tommy Tant Memorial Surf Classic kicks off, Stetson University Symphony Orchestra in concert, we welcome Clay Jones to our stable of cartoonists, and puzzle as always over the contradictions of Nietzsche.
The Disinformation Behind Islamophobia and Anti-Palestinian Racism
Since 9/11, two billion Muslims globally have faced collective punishment. Constructed as folk devils who imperil western societies, Muslims have been framed as inextricably linked with the support and promotion of violence. When these racist narratives are espoused by politicians, they falsely equate the support of Palestinian people with support for terrorism and instill fear and moral panic about the Muslim presence in this country and elsewhere.
DeSantis Appealing to U.S. Supreme Court a Ruling Blocking Ban on Drag Shows
Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration has gone to the U.S. Supreme Court in a fight about a ruling that blocked statewide a new law aimed at preventing children from attending drag shows. The state’s attorneys want the Supreme Court to approve a partial stay of a preliminary injunction that U.S. District Judge Gregory Presnell issued to block the law.
Those Thin Black Tubes All Over Palm Coast Streets? They’re For a Traffic County Study.
The City of Palm Coast is currently in the process of conducting its Citywide Traffic Count Study, a biennial initiative aimed at collecting essential data to enhance traffic management and plan for future development within the city. Residents may have noticed black tubing stretched across major roadways, extending across multiple lanes.
Hailey Lulgjuraj Ended Chemo a Week Ago. She Is Hosting a Benefit for Breast Cancer Patients and Survivors Saturday.
Hailey Lulgjuraj has just ended treatment after she was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a double mastectomy. She never stopped working. She decided to channel her gratitude toward the first annual “Tides of Hope” benefit for breast cancer patients and survivors at Oceanside Beach Bar & Grill, the Flagler Beach restaurant her husband co-owns with her brother in law. She tells the story behind the benefit.