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Weather: Mostly clear. Highs in the mid 80s. Lows in the upper 60s.
- Daily weather briefing from the National Weather Service in Jacksonville here.
- Drought conditions here. (What is the Keetch-Byram drought index?).
- Check today’s tides in Daytona Beach (a few minutes off from Flagler Beach) here.
- Tropical cyclone activity here, and even more details here.
Today at a Glance:
General Election Early Voting is available today in Bunnell, Palm Coast and Flagler Beach from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at five locations. Any registered and qualified voter who is eligible to vote in a county-wide election may vote in person at any of the early voting site, regardless of assigned precinct. According to Florida law, every voter must present a Florida driver’s license, a Florida identification card or another form of acceptable picture and signature identification in order to vote. If you do not present the required identification or if your eligibility cannot be determined, you will only be permitted to vote a provisional ballot. Don’t forget your ID. A couple of secure drop boxes that Ron DeSantis and the GOP legislature haven’t yet banned (also known as Secure Ballot Intake Stations) are available at the entrance of the Elections Office and at any early voting site during voting hours. The locations are as follows:
- Flagler County Elections Supervisor’s Office, Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell.
- Flagler County Public Library, 2500 Palm Coast Pkwy NW, Palm Coast.
- Palm Coast Community Center, 305 Palm Coast Parkway NE.
- Palm Coast’s Southern Recreation Center, 1290 Belle Terre Parkway.
- Flagler Beach United Methodist Church, 1520 South Daytona Avenue, Flagler Beach.
See a sample ballot here. See the Live Interviews with all local candidates below.
Palm Coast Mayor Cornelia Manfre Mike Norris Palm Coast City Council Ty Miller, Dist. 1 Jeffrey Seib, Dist. 1 Ray Stevens, Dist. 3 Andrew Werner, Dist. 3 Backgrounders Manfre’s and Norris’s Final Clash Temper and Temperament at Tiger Bay Forum Stevens and Werner Sharpen Differences |
In Court: Lawsuit over Palm Coast’s debt referendum: Circuit Judge Chris France hears lawyers’ arguments in a motion for a temporary injunction that would require the removal from the ballot, or the prevention of ballots results from being counted, in Palm Coast government’s referendum asking voters about changing the city charter to remove limits on the city’s borrowing and leasing authority. The hearing is at 11:30 a.m. in Courtroom 403 at the Flagler County Courthouse. See:
- Texts Show Ed Danko Seeking to Recruit Resident to File Lawsuit Against His Own Council’s Debt Referendum
- Palm Coast Belies Its Own Council Members’ Statements As It Claims Debt Referendum Is ‘Clear and Unambiguous’
- After Closed-Door Meeting, No Sign Palm Coast Is Settling Ballot Referendum Litigation, Which May Go Past Election
- Settlement Offer Gives Palm Coast Council Chance to Pull Embattled Debt Referendum from the Ballot
- A Majority of the Palm Coast City Council Now Opposes Its Own Debt Referendum, Yet It Remains on the Ballot
- Attorney Behind Lawsuit Challenging Palm Coast’s Debt Referendum Had Warned Council of Red Flags in August
- Lawsuit Seeks to Stop Referendum That Would End Limits on Palm Coast’s Borrowing Power, Calling Language Deceptive
- With Nod to ‘Slippery Slope,’ Palm Coast Will Ask Voters for More Borrowing Power Through Vague Ballot Measure
- Palm Coast Council Flirting with Easing Charter Restrictions on City’s Borrowing Capacities
Daisy Henry Street Renaming: Bunnell government renames a portion of East Drain Street in the south part of the city after Daisy Henry, the long-time city commissioner and a local icon who was all but synonymous with life around and beyond Drain Street. The street will be called Daisy Henry Street. The ceremony is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. at the intersection of East Drain Street and South Pine St. in Bunnell, with ample parking near Carver Gym.
Free For All Fridays with Host David Ayres, an hour-long public affairs radio show featuring local newsmakers, personalities, public health updates and the occasional surprise guest, starts a little after 9 a.m. after FlaglerLive Editor Pierre Tristam’s Reality Check. Today’s guest: Palm Coast City Council member Theresa Pontieri. See previous podcasts here. On WNZF at 94.9 FM and 1550 AM.
First Friday Garden Walks at Washington Oaks Gardens State Park, 6400 North Oceanshore Blvd., Palm Coast, 10 a.m. Join a Ranger the First Friday of every month for a garden walk. Learn about the history of Washington Oaks while exploring the formal gardens. The walk is approximately one hour. No registration required. Walk included with park entry fee. Participants meet in the Garden parking lot. The event is free with paid admission fee to the state park: $5 per vehicle. (Limit 2-8 people per vehicle) $4 per single-occupant vehicle. Call (386) 446-6783 for more information or by email: [email protected].
Jake’s Women, By Neil Simon, at City Rep Theatre, 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, 3 p.m. on Sunday, at City Repertory Theatre, 160 Cypress Point Parkway (City Marketplace, Suite B207), Palm Coast. $25 for adults, $15 for students. Dive into the intricate world of Neil Simon’s Jake’s Women, where writer Jake’s troubled marriage to Maggie intertwines with his vivid conversations with his deceased wife Julie, his daughter Molly, his sister Karen, and his psychiatrist Edith. This captivating performance is packed with laughs and emotional depth.
The Flagler County Sheriff’s National Night Out is scheduled for 5 to 8 p.m. at Flagler Palm Coast High School, 5500 State Road 100, Palm Coast. It’s free. Join the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office, Flagler Sheriff’s Police Athletic League, and community partners for a night of fun, food, and safety information. National Night Out enhances the relationship between neighbors and law enforcement while bringing back a true sense of community. Furthermore, it provides a great opportunity to bring police and neighbors together under positive circumstances.
The Blue 24 Forum, a discussion group organized by local Democrats, meets at 12:15 p.m. at the Palm Coast Community Center, 305 Palm Coast Parkway NE. Come and add your voice to local, state and national political issues.
Maze Days at Cowart Ranch, Fridays from 5 to 10 p.m., Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., Sundays from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., Cowart Ranch and Farms, 8185 West Highway 100, Bunnell. $15 per person, children 2 and under free. Get lost on a 5 acre walk through maze (approximately 30-60 minute adventure). Pick the perfect carver or edible pumpkin at our Pumpkin Patch with lots of sunflowers and of picture opportunities! Some pumpkins grown right here on the farm. Try to spot the cattle herd on the Tractor driven Hayrides (approximately 15 minutes). Get up close and friendly with farm animals. (Chickens, goats, calves, pigs and more!) Pony Rides! (Not included with entry- $8 or 2 for $15 & legal guardian must sign waiver). Challenge your friends and family at our hand pumped water driven Ducky Dash game. Roll and Race down our NEW Rat Race game that’s a Ratatoullie blast. And plenty more.
First Friday in Flagler Beach, the monthly festival of music, food and leisure, is scheduled for this evening at Downtown’s Veterans Park, 105 South 2nd Street, from 5 to 9 p.m. The event is overseen by the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency and run by Laverne M. Shank Jr. and Surf 97.3.
Free Family Art Night: “Textured Turtles”, Ormond Memorial Art Museum and Gardens, 78 East Granada Boulevard, Ormond Beach. All art supplies are provided. No art experience is needed, and all ages are welcome. Free Family Art Night is a popular, monthly program typically scheduled on the first Friday of each month to coordinate with the free, family-friendly movie shown outdoors at Rockefeller Gardens. The two programs offer a stimulating evening for families, at no charge, in the heart of downtown Ormond Beach. Our art program takes place in the OMAM Classroom, rain or shine, but the City’s outdoor movies are weather dependent. Movie information can be found here or call The Casements at 386-676-3216.
 Keep Their Lights On Over the Holidays: Flagler Cares, the social service non-profit celebrating its 10th anniversary, is marking the occasion with a fund-raiser to "Keep the Holiday Lights On" by encouraging people to sponsor one or more struggling household's electric bill for a month over the Christmas season. Each sponsorship amounts to $100 donation, with every cent going toward payment of a local power bill. See the donation page here. Every time another household is sponsored, a light goes on on top of a house at Flagler Cares' fundraising page. The goal of the fun-raiser, which Flagler Cares would happily exceed, is to support at least 100 families (10 households for each of the 10 years that Flagler Cares has been in existence). Flagler Cares will start taking applications for the utility fund later this month. Because of its existing programs, the organization already has procedures in place to vet people for this type of assistance, ensuring that only the needy qualify. |
Notably: This was different. It was an email from YouTube. Subject line: “Need help? You’re not alone.” The email begins: “We’re reaching out because members of the YouTube Community, including fellow creators, viewers, or staff, have expressed concern for your safety or wellbeing after coming across content you posted with topics related to suicide or self-harm.” It then provides a link to a video FlaglerLive posted, from footage by the Sheriff’s Office of an attempted suicide by cop at the county courthouse–in March 2017. The email goes on: “If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thinking or self-harming, know there is help and you’re not alone. It’s not uncommon to turn to suicidal thinking and self-harm as ways to cope with painful emotions. Talking to someone can help you process these emotions, as well as get support through a difficult time.” I appreciate the sentiment, though it’s part of that push by social media companies to fend off litigation as lives are lost to doomscrolling and such. (The New Yorker just ran a long piece on that: “Has Social Media Fuelled a Teen-Suicide Crisis?”) But YouTube’s concern seems a bit late: seven years is a long time to wait before sending a note of concern, even if it’s by a toddler AI utility YouTube just installed. I imagine it’s the first of many. And for all its cynically-minded good intentions, I find it creepily intrusive and no different than if a government agency, the local sheriff or some well-meaning non-profit were to invade my inbox uninvited, because of something I’ve posted somewhere (in this case, it’s FlaglerLive’s work, though it’s unfortunately tied to my account on YouTube). “We care about you,” the email claims. I have my doubts.
—P.T.
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The Live Calendar is a compendium of local and regional political, civic and cultural events. You can input your own calendar events directly onto the site as you wish them to appear (pending approval of course). To include your event in the Live Calendar, please fill out this form.
Flagler County Canvassing Board Meeting
Flagler County Drug Court Convenes
Story Time for Preschoolers at Flagler Beach Public Library
Flagler Tiger Bay Club Guest Speaker: Carlos M. Cruz
Model Yacht Club Races at the Pond in Palm Coast’s Town Center
Scenic A1A Pride Meeting
Free For All Fridays With Host David Ayres on WNZF
Blue 24 Forum
Acoustic Jam Circle At The Community Center In The Hammock
For the full calendar, go here.
I have conducted dozens of interviews with young survivors of suicide attempts, and few mentioned social media as a factor. They pointed to a sense of impotence and purposelessness; climate change; the brutal language of modern politics; intolerance for their gender, race, or sexuality; bleak financial prospects and diminished social mobility; an inability ever to feel that they had caught up, as though their brains were slower than their lives; and acute loneliness, even among those who appeared not to be lonely. […] A McKinsey Health Institute survey of forty-two thousand people in twenty-six countries found that social-media engagement may facilitate mental-health support and connection. Young people can play games on Discord and catch up with friends on Instagram and Snapchat. Those who are isolated find like-minded people. Immigrants build community with others who share their language and culture. Gina Neff, the Cambridge technology researcher, grew up in the hill country of eastern Kentucky. “Kids who are gay in Appalachia find the Internet and it is a lifesaver,” she said. Smartphones can save lives in other ways. Randy P. Auerbach, a clinical psychologist at Columbia University, has been using phone tracking to monitor suicide risk. He measures changes in sleep patterns (many teens look at their phones right before and after sleep), changes in movement (depressed people move less), and changes in vocabulary and punctuation (people in despair start using personal pronouns more often). Matthew Nock, a clinical psychologist at Harvard and a MacArthur Fellow, has been examining the relationship between text-message frequency and mental vulnerability. Most suicides today, he said, come at the end of a “trail of digital bread crumbs.” Young people who are not responding to their peers—or whose messages no longer receive responses—may be in trouble. Nock’s research team uses cell-phone tracking to determine when people are at highest risk and calls or messages them. “We haven’t equipped the field with the tools to find, predict, and prevent suicide, in the way we’ve done for other medical problems,” he said. “We just haven’t developed the tools, other than to ask people, ‘How are you doing? Are you hopeless? Are you depressed? Do you think you’re going to kill yourself?,’ which is not a very accurate predictor. We should be taking advantage of advances in computing and statistics to do what human brains can’t.”
–From From Andrew Solomon’s “Has Social Media Fuelled a Teen-Suicide Crisis?,” The New Yorker, Sept. 30, 2024.
Ray W, says
The WSJ reports that Exxon and Chevron “feel brunt of cheaper oil.”
Here are some of the many article bullet points.
– Exxon posted $8.6 billion in third quarter profits, down 5% from last year, at $1.92 per share, exceeding analyst’s expectations.
– Chevron posted $4.5 billion in third quarter profits, down 31% from last year, at $2.48 per share, also exceeding analyst’s expectations.
– Over the past six months, oil futures prices dropped about 15% as supply swelled and OPEC talked about “returning” 2.2 million barrels of voluntarily restricted production capacity over the next year.
– Oil prices are “a few dollars” above a three-year low.
– American energy companies extracted a record average of 13.4 million barrels of crude oil per day in August.
– Canadian, Guyanese and Brazilian crude oil production increased.
– Certain OPEC nations have been producing oil at above-quota levels set by the organization when it voluntarily cut production. Saudi Arabia’s oil minister warns that international crude oil prices could drop to as low as $50 per barrel.
– China’s factory activity has shrunk each month over the past five months, reducing its demand for crude.
– After the pandemic-induced drop in oil demand in 2020, when prices for American oil dropped below the cost of extracting it (gasoline prices dropped to as low as $2 per gallon in Flagler County without Trump doing anything, just as gasoline prices dropped to as low as $1.50 per gallon in Volusia County during an OPEC price war in 2015 without Obama doing anything), investors urged energy companies to cut spending, pay down debt, and return excess cash to them. Most energy companies did those things.
– Exxon cut $11.3 billion in costs since 2019, and the oil it produces is twice as profitable as it was in 2019.
– “[O]il giants banked historically high annual profits in 2022.” In 2023, the giants spent record sums on buybacks and dividends.
– Exxon asserts its $27 billion in cash is enough to meet its promise to spend $20 billion per year in buybacks.
– Chevron, with $4.7 billion in cash, also plans to protect shareholder payouts.
– Smaller energy companies can be expected to reduce buybacks and dividend distributions.
Make of this what you will.
Me? Since mid-2021, I have been commenting about the February 2021 decision by the 23 OPEC+ nations to voluntary phase in production cuts by an initial total of 7 million barrels of crude oil per day. Prices on the international crude oil marketplace inexorably began to rise.
Adding to the impact on prices by the OPEC cuts, the Russian invasion of the Ukraine and resulting sanctions imposed on Russian oil and natural gas further disrupted crude oil prices, what with Russian crude oil being refused by many Western nations. International crude oil prices continued their rise.
American energy companies, allegedly in collusion with OPEC, refused to ramp up crude oil production above preset levels, despite prices eventually rising above $120 per barrel. American energy companies banked record profits in 2022 due in part to their own alleged manipulations of the crude oil marketplace.
If American energy companies had the consumer’s well-being in mind, they could easily be producing more than the record 13.4 million barrels of oil they produce now.
Marketplace prices for crude oil remain about double what they were before OPEC deliberately reduced production and before American energy companies allegedly deliberately declined to ramp up production as much as they could have.
As an aside, nine Wyoming counties were declared disaster areas from wildfires that swept east as far as North Dakota’s key oil producing counties. North Dakota regulators, fearing pollution from fire-damaged wells and extra fuel from the wells driving the wildfires, asked oil producers in the path of the wildfires to shut down their wells.
Reporting by a North Dakota newspaper has it that the crisis has passed. Statewide oil production is returning to normal levels.
North Dakota still produces on average 1.2 million barrels of crude oil per day, up from 100,000 barrels per day in 2006; it surpassed a million barrels of oil per day in 2014, during what the industry calls the Shale Revolution.
Janet Sullivan says
Yes. But many who will suffer most are either not informed or don’t believe it. It’s the saddest thing ever.
Ray W, says
Dalhousie University researchers “have developed a low-cost, solar-powered water desalination device,” according to Interesting Engineering. The devices can be used in remote or undeveloped areas where individuals or families lack access to adequate supplies of fresh water.
Sea water is wicked onto a foam surface and evaporated by “solar-heated plasmonic materials.” Plasmonic materials are described as nanomaterials that convert light into heat. The purified water vapor rises and condenses on a transparent dome; it then flows down to a “sealed collection bag.”
The device yields up to a gallon of purified water per day.
The researchers tried “various carbon waste materials, such as coffee grounds, lobster shells and birch wood residue” as nanomaterials for use in the device. The nanomaterial deemed most efficient in converting sunlight into heat was tire rubber. Tire rubber nanomaterials last a long time, are easy to produce, and cheap.
Make of this what you will.
Me? Millions, perhaps hundreds of millions, of people live in remote or undeveloped areas near sea water all over the world. A simple and inexpensive device based on sunlight that evaporates salt water and produces a gallon of purified water per day could make a difference in many of their lives. The bonus comes from using old tires to produce the nanomaterials. Win, Win.
Ray W, says
The monthly BLS jobs added report came out this morning.
12,000 new jobs added for the month, the lowest amount during the term of the Biden administration. As reported yesterday in various publications, the number of jobs added to the overall jobs data, which is a separate report, was expected to be artificially low because 36,000 jobs were deleted when Boeing workers went on strike and because the extreme damage from Hurricanes Helene and Milton was anticipated to impact the October numbers.
The report specifically notes:
“Employment declined in manufacturing due to strike activity.”
Regarding the impact of the two hurricanes, the report specifically notes:
“It is likely that payroll employment estimates in some industries were affected by the hurricanes; however, it is not possible to quantify the net effect on the over-the-month change in national employment, hours, or earnings estimates because the establishment survey is not designed to isolate effects from extreme weather events.”
Seasonally adjusted unemployment remained unchanged at 4.1%.
The number of unemployed was little changed at 7 million. As I have noted in other comments, with the number of unfilled posted job openings at 7.4 million, we have almost returned to the ideal of one unemployed person per unfilled posted job opening.
12 months ago, unemployment was 3.8% and the number of unemployed was 6.4 million.
“Both the labor force participation rate, at 62.6 percent, and the employment-population ration, at 60.0 percent, changed little in October. These measures have shown little change over the year.”
Make of this what you will.
Me? I expected a low jobs added number. Economists had warned that two significant hurricanes were likely to put a lot of people out of work.
The jobs added figure reflects the difference each month in the total jobs figure.
If 36,000 workers are on strike during the monthly assessment period (10 days this month, though it can be as long as 16 days), then the jobs added for October was actually 48,000 jobs added, minus 36,000 jobs artificially lost. If the strike is settled in November and the workers return to work, then next month’s jobs added number will be artificially inflated by the returning jobs.
For weather-related job losses in October, the BLS acknowledges that no one can know the actual number of jobs lost in the mountains of North Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee due to Helene, and in Florida due to Helene and Milton, because the assessment algorithm is not designed to adjust for weather events. If jobs were lost, and I argue that it is reasonable to infer that many were lost, then this month’s jobs added figure is artificially deflated, just as it will likely be artificially inflated in the coming months as the affected regions rebuild, if they can rebuild.
Ray W, says
Many FlaglerLive readers may know of ADP, the payroll company.
For years, I have read of ADP publishing its own non-government jobs added data, drawn from the employee data of the companies it assists with payroll. I don’t follow ADP data nearly as closely as I do BLS data.
ADP advertises that it provides payroll services to over one million companies, so it collects massive amounts of payroll data.
ADP reports 233,000 private sector jobs added in October, far different from the BLS data released this morning.
So, what are the differences between the methodology utilized by ADP and that relied on by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
ADP uses the number of people who are on company payrolls, whether they are paid or not. BLS does not count people who do not get paid, regardless of whether they are on a payroll.
For example, if a worker strikes and therefore does not get paid during the period that BLS assesses data, then her job would not count in its report. ADP would count the striking worker as being employed, because she was on the company payroll, whether she was paid or not, i.e., her job exists and has been filled, pay or not.
According to ADP data, as explained by ADP’s chief economist, there was a 7 percent dip in payroll checks issued to North Carolina and Florida payroll workers during the week of October 13th, which is the week that the BLS collected data in October for its jobs added report; it was also the week that Hurricane Milton hit Florida.
ADP data shows that the number of people who didn’t receive a paycheck the previous week returned to being paid the following week, which was after the BLS stopped collecting its jobs data. ADP counts all of these non-paid workers as employed, as they were listed on a payroll both weeks. BLS did not count any of them as employed.
Make of this what you will.
Me? I have long argued that two things can be right at the same time. The trick is to decide which approach is best. After all, a good argument must give way to a better argument in a world of reason based on intellectual rigor.
I am not arguing that BLS data is better than ADP data, or vice-versa. I am arguing that the ordinary FlaglerLive reader can consider the two valid statistical methods and decide for themselves.
Ray W, says
Here is this month’s update on stock market performance (Dow) by president.
Through the first 45 months in office by each of the last seven presidents:
Clinton: 82.2% gain.
Obama: 63.7% gain.
Biden: 39.3% gain.
GHW Bush: 37.7% gain.
Trump: 33.4% gain.
Reagan: 27.5% gain.
GW Bush: -7.9% loss.
Make of it what you will.
Me? Democrats do not destroy the economy while in office.