Flagler County Emergency Management and other first responders are investigating a tornado touching down in Palm Coast’s B Section around 4:45 this morning, leaving a trail of downed trees, downed power lines, damaged roofs, fencing and power losses. There are no reports of injuries.
All Else
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Thursday, October 12, 2023
The Flagler Beach City Commission meets, Luíseach Nic Eoin, Senior Editor at Nature Ecology and Evolution, is the featured speaker at Whitney’s lecture series, innocent lives lost.
Claudia Goldin’s Nobel Prize
The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics has been awarded to 90 men since 1969 and just three women. The third woman to win the prize, distinguished Harvard labor economist Claudia Goldin, was honored on Oct. 9, 2023, for her decades of work studying the gender pay gap. It wasn’t a victory just for her but for women in the field.
Ex-Matanzas Student Brendan Depa Will Plead Out in Teacher-Assault Case, Leaving His Fate to a Judge
Brendan Depa, the former Matanzas High School student who drew global attention and a first-degree felony charge as an adult after a video of his assault on a paraprofessional circulated, will plead out, avoiding a trial. But he will also be taking the risk of a steep sentence.
Monserrate Teron Is Sentenced to Life in Prison for Raping His Niece as Child’s Mother Describes a Family Wrecked
Monserrate Teron, the former Army nurse a jury last July found guilty of raping his 7-year-old niece, was sentenced this morning to two life terms, plus 30 years on an additional charge. Teron turns 60 in two weeks. The victim’s mother described to the court the day-to-day of her daughters’ harrowing lives since, accusing a large part of Teron’s family as “enablers.” That side of the family again today insisted that Teron is innocent.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Wednesday, October 11, 2023
Palm Coast’s Imagine 2050 Community Engagement Session at the Community Center, Monserrate Teron, found guilty of abusing his niece, is sentenced, Brendan Depa is in court for a pre-trial, Salman Rushdie on Prozac Nation.
Eyeless in Gaza: A Key to Understanding This War
How did Gaza become one of the most densely populated parts of the planet? And why is it the home to militant Palestinian action now? Understanding the answers to those questions provides crucial historical context to the current violence.
What Does Palm Coast Hope to Be ‘When We Grow Up’? City Launches 14-Month Plan to Listen and Respond
What should Palm Coast look like in 2050? City Hall today kicked off a 14-month process to answer that question, to do so by engaging as many residents as possible as inclusively as possible along the way, ending with a document that will re-imagines the city’s blueprint as its residents want it to be at mid-century. The result of that exercise will be a complete re-write of the city’s “Comprehensive Plan,” the first since 2004.
In Lawsuit Settlement DeSantis Administration Will Stop Censoring Covid Death Counts and Vaccinations
The DeSantis administration has agreed to release years of previously suppressed data about Covid’s spread in Florida to settle a lawsuit filed by a former state House member, a government openness group, and news organizations. The Florida Department of Health will resume posting on its website details of vaccination counts, case counts, and deaths weekly by county, age group, gender, and race in the future.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Tuesday, October 10, 2023
The Palm Coast City Council meets in workshop, then again in a special workshop with its planning board to talk about Imagine 2050, the next comprehensive plan, Donna Tartt’s Goldfinch, swimming in the Seine.
Israel-Hamas War: No Matter Who Loses, Iran Wins
Analysts are suggesting that Tehran’s fingerprints can be seen on the surprise attack on Israel. At the very least, Iran’s leaders have reacted to the assault with encouragement and support.
16-Year-Old Student Arrested for Biting Her Teacher at Matanzas High School
The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office Friday arrested a 16-year-old student at Matanzas High School after the teen got into a physical altercation with another student and bit a school staff member who was attempting to break up the fight.
Don O’Brien Said to Consider Dropping Out of House Race, Pam Richardson Runs for County Commission
Darryl Boyer, one of three Republican candidates in the primary for the state House seat that Paul Renner is relinquishing in 2024, said today that Donald O’Brien, one of the other two competitors for that seat, told him he was likely dropping out of the race. At the same time, Pam Richardson, the Realtor-broker, has joined the Republican primary race for O’Brien’s Commission seat, also contested by Ed Danko and Victor Barbosa.
Judge Orders One Final Mediation in Hopes of Averting Trial in Captain’s BBQ Suit Against County
The Flagler County Commission met behind closed doors for the first time in over three years this morning to discuss a possible settlement of the four-year-old lawsuit by Captain’s BBQ at Bings Landing. The judge in the case ordered the two sides again to go to mediation to avoid a January trial. Mediation and an attempted settlement that made significant concessions to Captain’s in 2020 failed as commissioners rejected the proposal.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Monday, October 9, 2023
The Flagler County Commission meets behind closed doors to talk litigation, the Bunnell City Commission meets, debating Columbus.
Branson, Missouri’s Lesson to Live Theater ‘In Crisis’
American live theater, especially regional, non-profit theater, is on the verge of collapse. One place to look for ideas is the tourist town of Branson, Missouri. Scholars and theater critics have ignored this mecca of live entertainment that attracts millions of people a year, largely because of its reputation for cheesy performances and political conservatism.
Thomas Patrick Walsh, 1931-2023
Thomas Patrick Walsh passed away on Wednesday, October 4, 2023 at his home in Flagler Beach, surrounded by those who loved him dearly. He was 91. For the last 27 years, he has lived next door to his daughter Colleen Colleen, the Flagler County School Board member, and spent the last several years living with her.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Sunday, October 8, 2023
Palm Coast’s and AdventHealth’s Pink on Parade 5k Run/Walk in Town Center, Creekside Music and Arts Festival, the determinism of 2+2=4, Daniel Boorstin on Charlie Rose and pseudo-events.
Serenity Now: Meet Jon Fosse, Winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature
Despite having been in the running for the award for a number of years, Fosse, as with several other 21st century European laureates like Elfriede Jelinek and the controversial Peter Handke, is still largely unknown in the English-speaking world. Fosse’s massive literary oeuvre includes roughly 40 plays as well as novels, poetry collections, essays, children’s books and translations.
In Florida, Surgeon General Normalizes Medical Quackery
In 2021, when Ron DeSantis brought the Quack Ladapo to Florida, it was like returning to a simpler, much stupider time, when docs prescribed drinking a little ground unicorn horn mixed with water as a cure for the plague. Or if you were fresh out of unicorns (or the virgins you need to catch them), you could always try chicken butt.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Saturday, October 7, 2023
Creekside Music and Arts Festival today and tomorrow, Monthly Volunteer Clean-Up Day at the Florida Agriculture Museum, Maze Dayz Fall Festival, Stetson Choral Festival, housing prices, Víkingur Ólafsson’s new Goldberg Variations.
Narges Mohammadi Wins the Nobel Peace Prize on Behalf of Millions of Iranian Women
Prominent Iranian women’s rights advocate Narges Mohammadi has won the 2023 Nobel peace prize for her long fight against the oppression of women in Iran. Mohammadi is serving multiple prison sentences in Evin prison in Tehran on charges which include spreading propaganda against the state.
State Attorney’s Jason Lewis, Near-Invincible Prosecutor, Wins 7th Judicial Circuit’s Lifetime Achievement Award
Assistant State Attorney Jason Lewis, a ferocious, annihilating prosecutor who’s as genial outside the courtroom as he is fearsome inside it, since 2014 has managed the Flagler outpost of the State Attorney’s Office and oversees its homicide attorneys in the four-county Seventh Judicial Circuit.
Before Her Leap Off the Flagler Beach Bridge, Untouched Drinks and a Purse Left Behind
The Flagler Beach Police Department identified the woman who jumped from the Flagler Beach bridge Wednesday afternoon and survived as Mandy Michelle Mincey, a 47-year-old woman with no reported home. She was also known as Mandy Monroe. Earlier that day she had been at a bar and had ordered drinks, but left them untouched as she ran to the bridge.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Friday, October 6, 2023
First Friday in Flagler Beach, the Nobel Peace Prize is announced, Stetson Choral Festival, the John Marchi-John Lindsey mayoral race and that Lloyd Bentsen-Dan Quayle moment.
The Supreme Court Is Privileging Christians Ahead of Others’ Dignity
On issues where the Christian right’s First Amendment claims directly threaten the equal citizenship of sexual minorities, the court leaves no question about which side it’s on, privileging Christians over all others.
Palm Coast Issued Development Orders for 4,138 Homes This Year Alone, and Has 13,361 ‘in Pipeline’
While City Council member Theresa Ponstieri significantly overstated the actual number of homes the council approved this year, there is no question that Palm Coast is growing rapidly, and that Council policy is doing all it can to accelerate that growth, with increasing rumbles from existing residents who think, like Pontieri, that the pace is too rapid.
Palm Coast’s 2023 Photo Contest Draws 900 Submissions and 6 Winners
With over 900 photo submissions in the City’s 2023 Annual Photo Contest, the photos capture the essence of Palm Coast across six distinctive categories: Residents, Pets, Landscape, Wildlife, Recreation, and Events. Participants were able to submit up to 20 photos per person with six chances to win a grand prize ‘Category Winner.’
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Thursday, October 5, 2023
The Nobel Prize for Literature is announced this morning, making this the most important day of the year. No drug court today. Bach’s Toccata in C Minor, and a few words from the late Alan Siegal on good writing.
If You Think the House Is Fractured, Look at America
The House of Representatives did something that had never been done before in the nation’s history: It ousted the speaker of the House. Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, lost his job in a vote of 216 to 210. Charles R. Hunt of Boise State University’s School of Public Servic offers a sense of what this historic development might mean for the government at the moment, as well as for American democracy over the longer term.
With $719,000 Almost Certainly Lost to Fraud, School District Turns to Insurance in Hopes for Recovery
Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly this afternoon confirmed that the amount of money the Flagler County school district lost in a wire-transfer phishing scheme is $719,583, but that “it’s close to 100 percent long gone.” The district made the payment on Sept. 22. Its fraudulent nature was not detected until Tuesday morning–11 days later, an eternity of comfort for phishing scams to evade controls and make it out of the country.
Sheriff Chitwood’s Dangerous, Irresponsible Attacks on News-Journal’s Frank Fernandez
Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood’s repeated, vilifying and unjustified attacks on News-Journal reporter Frank Fernandez irresponsibly and dangerously inflame his social media base at a time when reporters’ safety is nothing to take lightly–the more so when a law enforcement chief who should know better is stoking the flames. Volusia County media should respond in concert.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Wednesday, October 4, 2023
Bridge and Games at Flagler Woman’s Club, James Taylor is back in court, battling his life term, the Flagler County Republican Club meets, Weekly Chess Club for teens, more Gatsby and the 7 Train in snow.
Where the Supreme Court Stands on Banning Books
Until the U.S. Supreme Court takes up a newer case, the lower courts will look to existing precedent, set in a legal ruling that dates back to 1982. In that ruling, the court declared that school personnel have a lot of discretion related to the content of their libraries, but this “discretion may not be exercised in a narrowly partisan or political manner.”
Bob Snyder, ‘Giant During Covid,’ Steps Down from Flagler County Health Department He Led for 11 Years
Bob Snyder, who’s led the Flagler County Health Department since 2013, was the co-architect of the county’s response to the Covid pandemic and more recently ensured that the department’s funding more directly reflect the county’s population, after decades of imbalance, stepped down and opted for retirement Sunday, six months before he was planning to do so.
For $3 Million Rebuild of Splash Pad at Holland Park, Palm Coast Turns to Trusted Contractor
Palm Coast government is turning to a trusted contractor, Daytona Beach-based Saboungi Construction–fresh from its ramped up transformation of Waterfront Park–to repair the desolate splash pad at Holland Park, a two-year-old blight on the city’s prized park system and an eyesore at the flagship park almost since it opened in May 2021.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Tuesday, September 3, 2023
The school board meets in secret and meets again in the open, the Palm Coast City Council holds an evening meeting, the Nobel Prize in Physics is announced, Adam Nagourney on the New York Times.
The Covid Vaccine Wins the Nobel in Medicine
The Covid vaccines would not have been possible it if weren’t for the pioneering work of this year’s winners of the Nobel prize in physiology or medicine decades earlier: Dr Katalin Karikó and Dr Drew Weissman, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, for their discoveries into mRNA biology. The pair were the first to discover a way of modifying mRNA that allowed it to successfully be delivered to cells and replicated by them.
Here Are the 3 Lawsuits Against the District the School Board Will Discuss Behind Closed Doors Tuesday
When the Flagler County School Board meets behind closed doors early Tuesday afternoon, a meeting that may at least in part be in violation of state law, it will discuss three pending lawsuits against the district, and potential settlements in two of them, including an employment discrimination lawsuit scheduled for trial in federal court in December.
Flagler School Board Wants ‘Standing’ Closed-Door Meetings Every 3 Months. That Would Be Illegal.
The Flagler County School Board directed its attorney to schedule “standing” closed-door meetings every three months to get updates on litigation facing the district. Such meetings would be illegal, as was the board assuming the authority to set such meetings, according to Florida law and a veteran local government attorney.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Monday, October 2, 2023
Nysean Giddens is sentenced, the Beverly Beach Town Commission and the Astronomy Club meet (separately), the U.S. Supreme Court begins its 2023-24 term, and what are we to make of the Sphere in Vegas?
Food Poisoning: What and Where to Never Eat
An estimated 1 in 6 Americans (or 48 million people) get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die from foodborne diseases every year. A microbiologist outlines what to look for and what to avoid to not end up poisoned.
DeSantis Solution to Climate Change: Burn More Fossil Fuels
Gov. Ron DeSantis traveled to Texas last week to stand in front of a couple of noisy oil wells and a friendly crowd of oil field workers to issue a clarion call for coping with climate change by burning more fossil fuels. He pledged to make it easier for oil industry to drill and said he would replace references to “climate change” with “energy dominance.”
Stetson Biology Professor Jean Smith Lands $500,000 National Science Foundation Grant
Assistant Biology Professor Jean Smith, PhD, has been awarded a $502,998 grant from the National Science Foundation. This is a new funding source for the NSF, and with only 62 grants awarded, Smith is the only grant recipient funded in the state of Florida. This is the largest single-investigator grant from NSF awarded to a pre-tenured faculty member at Stetson.
When Sisco Deen Reconnected Descendants to the Local Legacies of General Hernández, Bings and MalaCompra
The late Sisco Deen and his wife Gloria played a central role in exhuming history and reconnecting descendants and state historians with the local legacy of General Joseph Hernández, who owned a plantation residence in what became Bings Landing Park and was the first Hispanic in Congress.
U.S. Supreme Court Will Hear Challenge to Florida Law Forcing Social Media to Carry Objectionable Content
The Texas and Florida legislatures passed the laws at the center of the disputes in 2021. The Florida law, known as S.B. 7072 or the Stop Social Media Censorship Act, prohibits social-media companies from banning political candidates and “journalistic enterprises.” The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to weigh in on the constitutionality of the controversial laws.
Remembering Lucy Morgan, Florida’s Most Feared Journalist
When Lucy Morgan started out, female reporters were usually confined to the food and style pages. She was the machete clearing the trail for many women in Florida, not the first pioneering newspaperwoman but surely the most significant. Causing trouble — for the powerful, at least — was her job, and she mentored generations of journalists.
The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Sunday, October 1, 2023
St. Augustine Songwriters Festival, “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change” at City Repertory Theatre, a celebration of Amin Maalouf.
America’s Way Too-Senior Moments
The world’s oldest democracy currently has its oldest-ever Congress. President Joe Biden (80 years old) is also the oldest US president in history. His leading rival in the 2024 presidential race, former President Donald Trump, is not far behind at 77. They’re both older than 96% of the US population. Ron DeSantis thinks the founders would have had a maximum age limits on elected officials if they “could look at this again.” But why didn’t they?
Bipartisan House Vote Keeps Government Open for 45 Days; Flagler’s Mike Waltz Votes Against
The U.S. House approved a bill Saturday that would stave off a government shutdown until at least mid-November, though the measure doesn’t include Ukraine aid backed by both Republicans and Democrats. The bipartisan 335-91 vote to send the bill to the Senate took place with less than 10 hours until funding expired. U.S. Rep. Mike Waltz, who represents Flagler County, voted against the measure.