For more than 20 years, hormone therapy for menopause has carried a warning label from the Food and Drug Administration describing the medication’s risk of serious harms – namely, cancer, cardiovascular disease and possibly dementia. No longer. On Nov. 10, 2025, the FDA announced that drugmakers should remove these “black box” safety warnings. Here’s how the decision will affect health care for people going through menopause or postmenopause.
Florida & Beyond, and All Opinions
FPL Customers Face $6.9 Billion Rate Increase in 4 Years as Regulators Approve Controversial ‘Settlement’
The Florida Public Service Commission approved a four-year settlement with Florida Power & Light Thursday for about $6.9 billion, which opponents claim is the largest rate hike in U.S. history. FPL says that in 2026, its “typical” 1,000-kWh residential customer bill in most of Florida will increase by $2.50 a month, or about 2%, from the existing $134.14 to $136.64. There would be additional increases in 2027, 2028 and 2029.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Thursday, November 20, 2025
Town of Marineland Commission Meeting, Model Yacht Club Races at the Pond, Scott DuPont at the Flagler County courthouse, Al Pacino at the Criminal Courts Building in Baltimore Bertrand Russell on human impulses.
About That Bill Gates Climate Memo
Shortly before COP30 talks begin in Brazil, tech billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates has launched a “narrative grenade” into the discourse of climate politics by publishing a lengthy memo calling for a rethink of how the climate crisis is framed and addressed. Gates calls for a “strategic pivot” in climate strategy. That appears to have hit a nerve. Both social and traditional media were ablaze with erroneous assertions about Gates’ supposed reversal of opinion on climate change.
DeSantis Signs 19th Death Warrant of the Year, for 1987 Double-Murderer Frank Walls, 58
In what could be Florida’s record 19th execution this year, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday signed a death warrant for an inmate convicted in the 1987 murders of two people in a home in Okaloosa County. Frank Walls, 58, is scheduled to be executed Dec. 18 in the murders of Edward Alger and Ann Peterson. The warrant came as the state prepares to execute Richard Barry Randolph on Thursday and is slated to execute Mark Allen Geralds on Dec. 9.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Wednesday, November 19, 2025
Leigha Mumby in court, Jean Stafford’s “The Echo and the Nemesis,” Flagler Tiger Bay’s monthly lunch, The Palm Coast Planning and Land Development Board meets, a 1969 Dick Cavett monologue.
Frank Rizzo, Philadelphia’s Toughest Cop Maga Harbinger
In August 2025, the city of Philadelphia agreed to return a statue of Frank Rizzo to the supporters that commissioned the memorial in 1992. The 2,000-pound bronze tribute to the former police commissioner-turned-mayor had stood in front of the city’s Municipal Services Building from 1998 until 2020, when then-mayor Jim Kenney ordered it removed days after protesters attempted to topple it during the protests that followed the murder of George Floyd.
Judge Rejects City’s Challenge to Controversial Home-Rule-Smothering Law Known as SB180
An administrative law judge Tuesday rejected Ocoee’s challenge to a decision by the Florida Department of Commerce that changes to a city comprehensive plan were “null and void” because of a controversial new state law. The law, passed during this spring’s legislative session, has drawn criticism from cities and counties throughout Florida and two constitutional challenges in Leon County circuit court.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Tuesday, November 18, 2025
The Palm Coast City Council meets at 9 a.m. at City Hall. It is voting on a new city manager, groundbreaking for SMA Healthcare’s new facility on Justice Lane in Bunnell, Flagler Beach United Methodist Church Food Pantry, Elsa Morante on Mussolini, and ICE.
Climate Models Got These 5 Ominous Forecasts Right
Critiques of climate science, such as the report written for the Department of Energy by a panel in 2025, often point to this complexity to argue that these models are too uncertain to help us understand present-day warming or tell us anything useful about the future. But the history of climate science tells a different story.
Justice Charles Canady Resigning Florida Supreme Court Seat for UF Civics Post
The longest-serving current member of the Florida Supreme Court, Justice Charles Canady, is leaving the bench to join the University of Florida as director of the Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education. Canady — whose wife, state Rep. Jennifer Canady, is in line to become state House speaker in 2028 — announced his departure Monday, calling it a “great privilege to serve the people of Florida as a justice” for the past 17 years.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Monday, November 17, 2025
Palm Coast Charter Review Committee meets, the Mosquito Control Board meets, the Flagler County Commission meets, Voltaire and Casanova meet and talk Trump, Christopher Weyant on a distant return to normal.
Can We All Quit Coal?
Coal is the dirtiest source of fossil fuel energy and a major contributor of greenhouse gas emissions, making it bad not just for the climate but also for human health. That makes it a good target for cutting global emissions. A swift drop in coal use is the main reason U.S. greenhouse gas emissions fell in recent years as natural gas and renewable energy became cheaper.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Sunday, November 16, 2025
‘Around the World in 80 Days’ at City Rep Theatre, 3 p.m., Thornton Wilder’s ‘Our Town,’ at Limelight Theatre in St. Augustine, Grace Community Food Pantry from noon to 3 p.m., John Cheever’s first story in The New Yorker.
Social Media’s Value: A Lifeline for Many Abused and Neglected Young People
social media has become a crucial outlet for young people to disclose abuse, connect with peers who’ve had similar experiences, and learn about safety strategies. In the midst of growing concerns about social media harming young people, its platforms offer important benefits for some vulnerable youth.
Federal Judge Denies Reinstatement of FWC Biologist Fired Over Charlie Kirk Post
U.S. District Judge Mark Walker’s ruling Thursday came in a lawsuit filed by biologist Brittney Brown, who worked for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, alleging that her Sept. 15 firing — five days after Kirk was shot during an appearance at a Utah university — violated her First Amendment rights. Brown sought a preliminary injunction to require the commission to reinstate her. While Walker’s order sided with state officials in denying a preliminary injunction, he also indicated that a decision about reinstating the fired employee could change if more information is provided to bolster Brown’s arguments.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Saturday, November 15, 2021
‘Around the World in 80 Days’ at City Rep Theatre, the Saturday Flagler Beach Farmers Market, Democratic Women’s Club meeting, a confederacy of crocodile tears, Casanova on what to keep private.
Florida’s 1,100 Natural Springs Are Under Threat
North and central Florida comprise one of the largest concentrations of freshwater springs in the world. Many of these springs provide a home to a variety of wild animals and plants. But they are also canaries in the coal mine for Florida’s groundwater system, because they draw upon the same groundwater that many Floridians depend on for drinking water, farm irrigation and industrial use. Right now, many Florida springs suffer from reduced flow and habitat loss, as well as excessive algae and heavy pressure from human use.
State Kills Bryan Jennings, 66, For Kidnapping, Rape and Murder of Rebecca Kunash, 6, in 1979
More than 46 years after he kidnapped, raped and murdered a 6-year-old girl in Brevard County, Bryan Frederick Jennings was put to death by lethal injection Thursday evening at Florida State Prison. Jennings was convicted of murdering Rebecca Kunash on May 11, 1979, in Merritt Island. A 1986 sentencing order said Jennings in the early morning hours went to the window of the child’s bedroom and saw her asleep.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Friday, November 14, 2021
‘Around the World in 80 Days’ at City Rep Theatre, Flagler Schools College and Career Fair, Flagler Outreach Brings Social Service Providers to Cattleman’s Hall, Long Island City then and now.
Age-Verification Laws Are Threatening Free Speech
In Florida and around the world, large swathes of the open web are being replaced by walled gardens. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of Texas’s age restriction law. Twenty-one other states have similar laws in place, and more have been proposed. Australia restricts young people’s access not just to specific websites, but to all social media, and it will soon extend this to search engines.
Florida Board Approves Hard-Right Heritage Foundation’s Sweepingly Ideological Education Manifesto
Florida education leaders on Thursday approved a set of principles that would teach a conservative-backed vision of the United States. The State Board of Education, which also approved social-studies changes intended to highlight ideological evils of communism, signed off on Florida becoming the first state to adopt the Heritage Foundation’s “Phoenix Declaration: An American Vision for Education.”
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Thursday, November 13, 2025
The Flagler Beach City Commission considers the annexation of Veranda Bay and Summertown, Evenings at Whitney Lecture Series, rich and miserable, a snapshot of SNAP.
Millions Are Losing Food Aid Even with Shutdown Ending
The roughly 42 million Americans who rely on food stamps did not receive their November 1 SNAP benefits as the government shutdown dragged on. Lawmakers have now negotiated an end to the shutdown. But the threat to the nation’s primary nutrition assistance program is far from over. As the government reopens, millions will still lose access to food assistance starting almost immediately.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Wednesday, November 12, 2025
A hearing in the bankruptcy sale of Marineland Dolphin Adventure is scheduled for 10 a.m. in Delaware federal bankruptcy court, TPO committee meeting, on matters of Augustine and the soul, a Schubert Impromptu.
How Ron DeSantis Made Florida #1 in State-Sponsored Killing
Florida has executed 15 prisoners in 2025 – the most ever in a single year since 1976, when a brief national moratorium on the death penalty was lifted. Two of the five remaining executions scheduled for 2025 are set to happen in Florida. Texas and Alabama are tied for a distant second, with five executions each.
What Is Peer Review?
Versions of peer review have been around for centuries. But the modern form – anonymous, structured and managed by journal editors – took hold after World War II. Today, it is central to how scientific publishing works, and nowhere more so than health, nursing and medicine. Research that survives review is more likely to be trusted and acted upon by health care practitioners and their patients.
Federal Judge Skeptical of Florida Agency’s Case for Firing Biologist Over Charlie Kirk Sarcasm
Attorneys for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said the agency fired biologist Brittney Brown to “prevent foreseeable disruption” after Brown reposted a sarcastic social media post about Charlie Kirk’s endorsement of occasional mass shootings if it’s the price of protecting the Second Amendment. U.S. District Judge Mark Walker was skeptical of the state’s defense: “Just because something’s inappropriate or controversial, how is it not covered by the First Amendment?” Walker asked.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Tuesday, November 11, 2025
Joint Veterans Day Ceremony and Parade, 10 a.m. in Bunnell, Flagler Beach United Methodist Church Food Pantry, Democrats cave, Nina Simone’s Mississippi Goddamn, Balzac on cowardice.
Arctic Wildlife Is At Risk Again
The largest tract of public land in the United States is a wild expanse of tundra and wetlands stretching across nearly 23 million acres of northern Alaska. It’s called the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, but despite its industrial-sounding name, the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, or NPR-A, is much more than a fuel depot. Tens of thousands of caribou feed and breed in this area, which is the size of Maine. Migratory birds flock to its lakes in summer, and fish rely on the many rivers that crisscross the region. It is about to get opened up to industrial exploitation.
In Surrender, 7 Democratic Senators Join Most Republicans to End Shutdown
Seven U.S. Senate Democrats and one independent joined Republicans on Sunday night in advancing legislation to reopen the government and temporarily keep it afloat until the end of January, after a record-breaking shutdown that began Oct. 1.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Monday, November 10, 2025
The Cold-Weather Shelter known as the Sheltering Tree, opens tonight, the Flagler County Library Board of Trustees meets, the Bunnell City Commission meets, when the Lutetia Hotel in Paris was a reception center for concentration and death camp survivors.
Ending Taxes on Home Sales Is Mostly a Giveaway to the Rich
Supporters of eliminating taxes on home sales, a bill introduced by U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, say it would benefit working families by eliminating all taxes on the sales of family homes. But most Americans who sell their homes already do so tax-free. And the households that would gain most under Trump’s proposals are those with the most valuable real estate.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Sunday, November 9, 2025
Grace Community Food Pantry, noon to 3 p.m., Thornton Wilder’s ‘Our Town,’ at Limelight Theatre in St. Augustine how the Swiss see Zohran Mamdani, and how he interviewed with the New Yorker, an excerpt from Aeschylus’s Persians.
Mindfulness Is Gaining in Schools. Is It Helping?
Writing, reading, math and mindfulness? That last subject is increasingly joining the three classic courses, as more young students in the United States are practicing mindfulness, meaning focusing on paying attention to the present moment without judgment. Mindfulness programs vary in what particular mindfulness skills are taught and what lesson objectives are. This makes it difficult to compare across studies and draw conclusions about how mindfulness helps students in schools.
Chaining Record, DeSantis Signs Another Death Warrant: Mark Geralds, Who Murdered Tressa Pettibone in 1989
Expanding a modern-era record for executions in a year, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday signed a death warrant for a man convicted of murdering a Bay County woman in 1989. Mark Allen Geralds is scheduled to be executed Dec. 9 for the murder of Tressa Lynn Pettibone, a 33-year-old Panama City Beach mother who was beaten and stabbed to death in her home. Pettibone’s body was discovered on the kitchen floor by her 8-year-old son, Bart, when he returned from school on Feb. 1, 1989, according to court records. Tressa Lynn Pettibone was stabbed three times in her neck.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Saturday, November 8, 2025
Grace Community Food Pantry, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., Second Saturday Plant Sale at Washington Oaks Gardens State Park, Peps Art Walk in Flagler Beach, how François Le Lionnais survived Dora-Mittelbau, the Nazi subcamp of the Buchenwald.
Understanding who benefits from Food Stamps in 5 Charts
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program has helped low-income Americans buy groceries for decades with few disruptions. A political scientist who has researched the history of government nutrition programs explains who SNAP helps, how enrollment varies from state to state and what the program costs to run.
Paul Renner’s ‘Health’ Plan: Kill Obamacare, Kill Vaccine Mandates
Former House Speaker and Republican gubernatorial hopeful Paul Renner is calling for Congress to eliminate the Affordable Care Act and for the Florida Legislature to nix “medical vaccine mandates” and prohibit patients who refuse to be vaccinated from being excluded or segregated from others. While Florida leads the nation in enrollment in the federal health exchange with more than 4.6 million residents relying on the marketplace (healthcare.gov) for their insurance, Renner, called the law a failure and said its caused the costs of health care to skyrocket.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Friday, November 7, 2025
Free For All Fridays with Host David Ayres is all about today’s Food-A-Thon on Flagler Broadcasting radio stations, Sealing and Expungement Clinic for Flagler and Volusia Residents, a French magazine cuts to the chase on American tyranny.
Are High School Sports Living Up to Their Ideals?
Good coaching candidates are getting hired and doing their best to keep high school sports fixtures in their communities. But coaches often feel like they’re missing something, and they wonder whether they’re living up to those aspirations.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Thursday, November 6, 2025
Visiting old Moody Homestead Park again in unsung Bunnell, Thornton Wilder’s ‘Our Town,’ at Limelight Theatre in St. Augustine, Model Yacht Club Races at the Pond in Palm Coast’s Central Park, “Stand By Me” in the treehouse.
How Dick Cheney Enabled Donald Trump
Former Vice President Dick Cheney was arguably the most powerful vice president in American history. He also thought that the assertive Congress of the 1970s had gone too far and had emasculated the presidency, making it nearly impossible for the president to get things done. Under Bush, he the unitary executive theory, a conservative thesis that calls for total presidential control over the entire executive branch. Now, nearly two decades later, President Donald Trump is using this theory to push his agenda.
Thus Spoke Lazarustra
Reports of Democrats’ death, Samuel Clemens telegraphs in Innocents at Home (his Substack), have been greatly exaggerated. But let’s not turn Tuesday’s Democratic sweep into a greatly exaggerated victory just yet. This was Lexington, not Yorktown. And Zohran Mamdani has a distance to go yet for his Hattin: those Christian nationalists have a stranglehold on this unholied America.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Wednesday, November 5, 2025
Women United Flagler Grant Awards, the Flagler County Republican Club meets, the Palm Coast Code Enforcement Board meets, the way President Millard Fillmore improved the White House.
Zohran Mamdani and Sewer Socialism’s Revival
Zohran Mamdani’s approach to democratic socialism is less about an abstract political ideology than it is about practical solutions. As he has put it: “We want to showcase our ideals, not by lecturing people about how correct we are, but rather by delivering and letting that delivery be the argument itself.” Because of this, he has also been described as an heir to the historical tradition of “sewer socialism”, a brand of left-wing thinking that favoured incremental, practical reform over revolutionary rhetoric.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Tuesday, November 4, 2025
The Palm Coast City Council meets, a celebration marks Sheriff Rick Staly’s 50 years in law enforcement, The Bunnell zoning board meets, Thornton Wilder’s ‘Our Town,’ at Limelight Theatre in St. Augustine, how data centers are raising your electric bill, whether they’re in your town or not.
The Vile TV Stereotypes About Muslim Men
For over a century, Hollywood has tended to portray Muslim men through a remarkably narrow lens: as terrorists, villains or dangerous outsiders. From shows such as “24” and “Homeland” to procedural dramas such as “Law and Order,” this portrayal has seldom allowed for complexity or relatability. Such depictions reinforce Orientalist stereotypes – a colonial worldview that treats cultures in the East as exotic, irrational or even dangerous.
Only Reduced Food Stamps Benefits Will Be Issued, and May Take Months to Get To You
The U.S. Department of Agriculture will pay about half of November benefits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, though benefits could take months to flow to recipients, the department said Monday in a brief to a federal court in Rhode Island, despite a court order to tap the necessary money to distribute them.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Monday, November 3, 2025
The Palm Coast Charter Review Committee meets, the Flagler County Commission holds a morning meeting, the Beverly Beach Town Commission meets, Joan Didion’s later writings, the Library of America edition.





















































