These days Mark Hertling lives in Palm Coast, teaches physicians and healthcare administrators how to lead, and talks geopolitics on CNN. When he has a moment, he appears before civic groups for a talk, as he did on a Saturday last month when he addressed the University Women of Flagler at the Hilton Garden Inn, as he will again on May 17 as the keynote speaker at Flagler Tiger Bay’s monthly lunch.
Health & Society
Gun Deaths Drive Biggest Spike in Child Mortality in 50 Years
After decades of steady improvement, the death rate of America’s children and teens shot up between 2019 and 2021 — and Covid-19 wasn’t the reason. Gun-related deaths represented the largest share of the increase — by far.
Florida House Approves Lowering Age to Buy Assault Rifles to 18, Reversing Ban Passed After Parkland Massacre
The Florida House passed a measure that would lower the minimum age from 21 to 18 to buy rifles and other “long” guns, voting to scrap a high-profile change passed after a 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. House bill sponsor Bobby Payne, R-Palatka, said the measure “corrects the wrong we did in 2018.”
Food Stamps Work Requirements Don’t Work
SNAP eligibility is often contingent on beneficiaries working. But the policy doesn’t make people more likely to find a job or make more money, but it does make Americans who could use help buying groceries less likely to get it.
County Plan to Move Whispering Meadows Equine Therapy Ranch to Fairgrounds Collapses as State Says No
The state has rejected Flagler County government’s plan to move the Whispering Meadows Ranch–the equine therapy non-profit–to the county fairgrounds, saying it would privatize public land. The rejection is the latest setback in the ranch’s two-year effort to leave its John Anderson Highway property, where it has operated for 16 years, until neighbors started objecting to its presence.
Josef Ghosn Named AdventHealth University’s New President
Josef Ghosn, Ed.D., MBA will become AdventHealth University’s third president and CEO on May 1, 2023. The university’s Board of Trustees selected Ghosn after a months-long, national search.
On Paul Renner’s Request, House Will Subpoena Trans Treatment Information
The decision to issue the subpoenas is among a series of moves by lawmakers and Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration targeting transgender people and the LGBTQ community. A lawmaker criticized the move as reminiscent of the Johns Committee, a Florida legislative investigative panel that sought to expose communists and gay people at state universities in the 1950s and 1960s.
In Florida, We Are All Child Abusers Now
The Florida Legislature is legalizing a Jim Crow-like system of punishing, demonizing and denying the existence of LGBTQ children. Few sessions of the Florida Legislature provided the legal framework for as much state-sponsored and citizen-empowered terrorism against children as this one.
It’s The Guns
They’re the constituents our elected officials value the most. To most of our lawmakers, guns need careful handling. Not because they’re instruments of death, but because they’re holy and blameless chalices of liberty.
Coming YMCA Could Give Belle Terre Club a Few Years’ Reprieve. 2 School Board Members Won’t Hear of It.
After yet another round of hardened, inconclusive debate over the fate of the Belle Terre Swim and Racquet Club during the school board’s workshop on Tuesday, the board agreed to vote on the matter one way or the other at its May 16 meeting. But this time a new element is in play, with the very strong possibility of a YMCA coming to town in a few years.