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Weather: A 30 percent chance of showers after 1pm. Partly sunny, with a high near 76. Saturday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 63.
- 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:
The Saturday Flagler Beach Farmers Market is scheduled for 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. today at Wickline Park, 315 South 7th Street, featuring prepared food, fruit, vegetables , handmade products and local arts from more than 30 local merchants. The market is hosted by Flagler Strong, a non-profit.
Coffee With Commissioner Scott Spradley: Flagler Beach Commission Chairman Scott Spradley hosts his weekly informal town hall with coffee and doughnuts at 9 a.m. at his law office at 301 South Central Avenue, Flagler Beach. All subjects, all interested residents or non-residents welcome. The gatherings usually feature a special guest.
2025 History Academy Talk Presented by the Palm Coast Historical Society, 10 a.m. at the Palm Coast Community Center, 305 Palm Coast Parkway. To register for this free lecture, please call 386-986-2323 or register online. www.parksandrec.fun or https://secure.rec1.com/FL/palm-coast-fl/catalog. The Academy is organized by Dr. Elaine Studnicki. Today’s talk: “The Seminoles of African Descent in Florida,” by Dr. Vincent Adejumo. This presentation provides a general overview of the origins of the Black Seminoles of Florida, their impact in the Seminole Wars, and their legacy after being exiled from Florida.
Grace Community Food Pantry, 245 Education Way, Bunnell, drive-thru open today from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. The food pantry is organized by Pastor Charles Silano and Grace Community Food Pantry, a Disaster Relief Agency in Flagler County. Feeding Northeast Florida helps local children and families, seniors and active and retired military members who struggle to put food on the table. Working with local grocery stores, manufacturers, and farms we rescue high-quality food that would normally be wasted and transform it into meals for those in need. The Flagler County School District provides space for much of the food pantry storage and operations. Call 386-586-2653 to help, volunteer or donate.
Storytime: Breece Pancake’s “Hollow” was first published when he was 24 in a journal or magazine called The Declaration about which I could find nothing. It was re-published in the October 1982 Atlantic, three and a half years after Pancake’s suicide by gun in Charlottesville, Va., a few years after he’d left his West Virginia hollows, a word that in this story describes and eulogizes the life of Buddy, a struggling coal-miner in a strip-mine who in the space of a few pages loses his girlfriend (“He remembered a time when the price of her makeup and fancy habits would have fed his mother and sisters something besides the mauve bags of commodities the state handed out”), passes out drunk at Tiny’s, shoots and eviscerates a pregnant doe in patchy snow, and calls a strike against his company, and against his co-workers’ will: they have families to feed. Pancake in a few words places you in the damp gray grime of West Virginia hillsides where light even in daytime can feel in permanent eclipse. Buddy’s life is equally dusky in a landscape of grave-markers that call out to him like sirens: “Through the half-light, he could make out the rotting tipple where his father was crushed only 10 days before they shut it down, leaving the miners to scab work and DPA.” (The Defense Production Act was apparently used to subsidize mining.) Miners’ lives were cheap in the coal fields. Buddy has designs on starting a coal operation of his own in a land scheme he cooks up with co-workers. Sally, coked up in their trailer when he gets home, is tired of the promises: “I’m tired of livin’ on talk.” She stayed with him that long she says not out of love but “Whore’s talk.” She drives off with another man, taking his TV but not his dog, who retches on a can of sardines. Buddy isn’t so lucky in his hangover. He dry-heaves, grabs his rifle and goes out for a hunt at dawn, leaving his blood-spit for a bobcat to sniff. The sun sputters between clouds. He spots the deer. One shot does it. The violence of the last scene turns a simple hunt into depravity, unintentional on Buddy’s part, a bit manipulative on Pancake’s part. When Buddy first grabbed the rifle I thought Pancake was writing his own epitaph. Maybe he was. Maybe he saw himself in that doe’s entrails. “Hollow” is an accomplished gem, as good a story as any Chekhov, a flash, like the way the sunlight glistens on branches around Buddy, of what Pancake already was, and what literary lion he would have been had he let himself live.
—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.
March 2025
Contractor Review Board Meeting
Palm Coast Maintenance Facility Groundbreaking
Flagler County’s Technical Review Committee Meeting
Separation Chat: Open Discussion
The Circle of Light A Course in Miracles Study Group
Weekly Chess Club for Teens, Ages 9-18, at the Flagler County Public Library
Palm Coast Planning and Land Development Board
Flagler County Drug Court Convenes
Story Time for Preschoolers at Flagler Beach Public Library
Model Yacht Club Races at the Pond in Palm Coast’s Town Center
Town of Marineland Commission Meeting
The Bronx Wanderers at the Fitzgerald Performing Arts Center
Free For All Fridays With Host David Ayres on WNZF
Friday Blue Forum
‘Violet’ at City Repertory Theatre
For the full calendar, go here.
Hunched on his knees in front of the three-foot coal seam, Buddy was lost in the back-and-forth rhythm of the truck mine’s relay: the glitter of coal and sandstone in his cap light, the setting and lifting and pouring into the cart that carried the stuff to the mouth of the mine. This was nothing like shaft mining, no deep tunnels or up-and-down man-trips, only the setting, lifting, pouring, only the rumbling of the relay cart and the light-flash from caps in the relay. In the pace of work, he daydreamed his father lowering him into the cistern: many summers ago he touched the cool tile walls, felt the moist air from the water below, heard the pulley squeak in the circle of blue above. The tin of the well-pail buckled under his tiny feet, and he began to cry. His father hauled him up. “That’s the way we do it,” he said, laughing, and carried Buddy to the house. But that came before everything; before they moved from the ridge, before the big mine closed, before welfare. Now, at the far end of the relay, the men were quiet, and Buddy wondered if they thought of stupid things. From where he squatted he could see the gray grin of light at the mouth of the truck mine, the March wind spraying dust into little clouds. The half-ton relay cart was full now, and the last man in the relay shoved it toward the chute at the mine-mouth on two-by-four tracks.
–From Breece D’J Pancake’s “Hollow” (1979).
Dennis C Rathsam says
Why is the democratic party so affraid of an audit? We already seen the waste thats come up in 2 short weeks!
Laurel says
Dennis C Rathsam: I’m not a Democrat, but l am extremely offended that my private information is in the hands of uncertified, unknown people, illegally, brought in by an unelected private citizen, who supports the extremist right factions. And show me the facts of this “fraud.” I’ve seen nothing but mass firings. You know, those “jobs, jobs, jobs” that were so important.
I’m not against rooting out fraud, but I do not trust a felon and rapist to do so. I much prefer people who have been vetted, and have experience and proper clearance. Anything else is an overthrow of our government.
Your China and Russia couldn’t be happier right now.
Philip says
Turn off the propaganda. We get you support starving people to death for a dollar. However it is evil and wrong at every level. You can praise the domestic terrorism but generations will be paying the billionaires for their tax breaks. I don’t support fascism and can’t wait to see how this orange moron gets his end.
Jahovah-ville reject says
@The Wrath of sam
What does authoritarian fascism have to do with fiscal responsibility?
Just say’n.
Endless dark money says
america is dead . The constitution is unconstitutional according to the stain. It’s nazi fighting time!
Ed P says
DOGE
Think of a tsunami, impossible to stop, improbable to survive unscathed. Better head to higher ground. (Metaphorically)
The sledge hammer approach has instilled fear among federal employees. The fall out will be that some qualified bureaucrats will be casualties, however, why didn’t these “good “ bureaucrats fire the bad ones? Why did they hire lousy employees?
If systemic obstacles like federal unions allow for the retention of crappy employee, too many employees or antiquated systems to be pervasive throughout the federal work force, then admittedly the system is incapable of policing itself.
Congressional hearings, line by line reviews could have been done over the past 5 decades. It was not. Waste and fraud has been on the radar for a long time. Inspector generals didn’t solve. Why not? Status quo became the culture of the federal work force.
Today, the US pays about $3,000,000,000 (3 billion per day- over 1 trillion per year) just for interest without paying down the debt. We can’t hang that debt on future generations. To distill that number down to an understandable concept, interest costs every single American almost $3000 per year, working adults, non working adults, children, and infants. Forever, if we don’t increase future spending another penny.
That is just federal debt interest , what about states and cities, feels like a house of cards.
The credit cards are maxed out and paying just the minimum will never end the payments.
This is not a left or right issue. It’s not racist, fascist or anything other than a problem that needs to be solved. Slowing the process down with voluminous law suits simply prolongs the “pain”. You may not like the process or the people administering the programs. This is not a constitutional crisis or an assault on democracy. Pure hyperbole. Some people will be negatively impacted. Too big for it not to.
The transformation is just a necessity.
Ray W, says
The Street writes of Fed Chair Powell telling the Senate Banking Committee that “with a strong job market and elevated inflation, he and his colleagues ‘do not need to be in a hurry’ to cut interest rates.”
President Trump immediately decried the sworn testimony, commenting on Truth Social that, “If the Fed had spent less time on [diversity, equity, inclusion], gender ideology, green energy, and fake climate change, Inflation would never have been a problem.” He added that interest rates should be lowered to go “hand in hand” with his incoming tariffs.
The cause for the Trump kerfuffle was the January CPI increase of 0.5% inflation over the December CPI report. Core CPI also came in up 0.4% over that metric’s December figure.
Bank of America Securities analysts immediately urged caution over Trump claiming the Fed needs to cut rates. “In our view, the bottom line is clear; the Fed has no reason to cut further.”
According to BOA, “[c]ore goods inflation accelerated to 0.28%, with large increases in used car prices and medical care commodities prices.”
“Apparel surprised to the downside. The pickup in core goods inflation wasn’t a big surprise to us, as we had found evidence of residual seasonality in Jan in core goods.”
BOA explained that every January sees a boost in inflation, which is why they described it as evidence of “residual seasonality.”
According to BOA, “residual seasonality” suppresses inflation in other months. This means, per BOA, “it makes sense to stay focused on year-over-year inflation rates, instead of seeking comfort in three- or six-month rates late in the year, as the Fed has done for the past two years.”
Using the 12-month metric, wrote the reporter, the PCE rose 2.6% year over year.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
I have repeatedly commented on the FlaglerLive site that anyone who focuses solely on volatile short-term economic figures is likely engaging in a misleading task. I have commonly described monthly jobs reports as “estimates”, knowing that they will be revised in upcoming monthly reports as more and better data comes in. Jobs reports are issued each month. The previous month’s reports are revised, as are the reports from two months earlier, as more and more and better and better data comes in. They are again revised each year, and once again revised every five years.
The gullible among us, and we all know who they are, shouted to the rooftops when the more complete 2024 annual jobs added report revised the monthly jobs added figure down by 818,000 jobs, saying that the Biden administration was inflating jobs figures. Being memory impaired as the gullible among us so often are, they had forgotten that the same type of yearly report had revised downwards the Trump administration’s jobs figures just a few years earlier by just over 500,000 jobs. To the gullible among us who are easily fooled by the lying professional class at the head of one of our two political parties, Biden was inflating the monthly jobs figures, but somehow, magically, Trump was not when his jobs added figures dropped suddenly by 500k jobs.
Here we have Trump hyping a short-term inflation report that bumps up every year in January anyway, as BOA economists say. BOA economists using their phrase of “residual seasonality” to describe an annual January bump in inflation makes sense to me. Again, according to BOA economists, inflation bumps up every January and bumps down in certain other months, year after year. BOA economists are on record as telling investors who use its services to avoid placing emphasis on such short-term, highly volatile figures.
Thank goodness I have been steadily posting comments on the FlaglerLive site about jobs added figures for years. Same for stock market performance by president. Same for the JOLTS report, and the EIA STEO report and the EIA crude oil production reports, and the EIA natural gas reports, and the applications for unemployment insurance reports, and GDP reports. No one can criticize me for misleading anyone, as anyone can check the data for themselves. When the Wall Street Journal writes that the Trump administration inherited an economy that is the “envy” of the world, I had already commented to FlaglerLive readers on the long-term data needed to back that up. Trump really did inherit the world’s strongest economy from the Biden administration.
I have a question: If anyone claims that the Biden administration “destroyed” the economy over the past four years, is it legitimate to label such commenters as “gullible fools?”
My point has long been that the worldwide pandemic shutdowns upended the economies of just about every nation. The question immediately became whether the national economies all over the world could return to normal and, if so, how long would that return take. After four years, ours has very nearly returned to normal and we did it faster and more completely than did any other developed country. GPD growth over the past year was 2.8%, which is better than the average GDP growth for the whole of the first three years of the first Trump administration.
Mark Webb says
Waste, really. 20 million on superbowl, deportation by military aircraft. God knows how much for his Daytona visit.
Let’s see the city get an audit to disclose the last ten years of republican control.
Even our mayor said last week “they left us a mess”.
Sad!
Ray W, says
In 2021, Lucid released its first EV sedan, the Air, complete with a battery pack capable of storing enough energy for 520 miles of range. According to Peter Rawlinson, Lucid’s CEO and CTO, such packs cost between $20-$25k to manufacture.
During a recent interview, Mr. Rawlinson said he envisions the range of EV options available to consumers to steadily allow them to move towards shorter and shorter ranges, perhaps even as short as 180 miles (300 km), as people realize that they don’t really need long range cars. Mr. Rawlinson pointed toward Department of Transportation studies that show the average American driving fewer than 40 miles per day.
Mr. Rawlinson explained: “It may seem paradoxical that you hear me saying this, when I’m synonymous with ultra-long-range vehicles, … [b]ut I’m actually synonymous with big-picture thinking.”
The issue to Mr. Rawlinson is the build-out of a charging network. Should that occur by 2030, customers would accept the shorter ranges.
Lucid’s plan from the outset was to start with “high-end, long-range cars, then apply that same technology to mass-market, lower-range EVs that actually turn a profit. The startup’s whole game plan is to make EVs so efficient that they beat rivals on battery costs, while offering equivalent range. Right now, it’s still in stage one of that plan; the Air and just-released Gravity SUV are on the market, and a $50,000 crossover is on the way for 2026.”
Mr. Rawlinson told the reporter that a 180-mile-range future Lucid EV would need a 30-kilowatt-hour pack, which would be only a fraction of the size of Lucid’s current long-range battery packs. Given that the cost of manufacturing today’s lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) battery has already dropped to around $60 per kWh, such a future battery could be built for about $2000-$2500 each, vastly reducing overall costs.
Make of this what you will.
Me? Gas engines and the associated transmissions are not cheap to manufacture. If batteries can be built right now for two grand, that will go a long way towards making EVs cheaper than ICE vehicles.
I still see a transition to EVs using tiny ICE powerplants to provide an extended range. A 15-kWh LFP battery pack that costs $1k to build, with a range of 90 miles, coupled with a tiny gas engine extended range generator, could provide all the range anyone would want, yet cost even less to build compared to today’s longer-range battery packs.
The options seem endless for EVs. A future of lower and lower manufacturing costs seems inevitable.
Ray W, says
In February 2023, at the Shanghai Auto Show, the Chinese EV maker, JAC, announced the world’s first concept car, soon to be powered by a solid-state sodium ion battery. No lithium, no cobalt, no manganese, no nickel, so the battery costs much less to build. A year later, the battery was revealed. Energy density is about half that of the world’s best liquid-state lithium-ion batteries, but charging and discharging capacities are comparable, with a 10% to 80% charge in 20 minutes. With only a 25-kWh capacity, it is best suited to the city-car concept.
In January 2024, BYD, the world’s biggest EV maker, started the buildout of its first sodium-ion battery factory, at an estimated cost of $1.4 billion (10 billion yuan).
Specifications are slim right now. How many charge-discharge cycles before efficiency drops? How much does it cost to build per kilowatt-hour? But it seems likely that recycling salt will be far less damaging to the environment than recycling lithium and cobalt.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
Potentially cheap sodium-ion batteries would seem an excellent choice for niche vehicles. City cars. Scooters. Low-speed transport vehicles. Micro-buses. All of us have seen documentaries based in small Asian river communities from Viet Nam to Bangladesh. Boatmen steering fishing boats with 50cc Honda engines adapted for outboard engine work. The ubiquitous 50cc Honda engine has been around since the early 60s. Suitable for mini-bikes, scooters, small motorcycles, tiny transport trucks, boats and many other applications, it is cheap to build, almost indestructible, and lightweight. Should battery and electric motor development proceed apace, our grandchildren may see similar electric powertrains fifty years from now and think them ubiquitous, too. Think of it. Tiny powerful electric motors. Tiny reliable rechargeable batteries. Tiny solar panels on the boat’s roof.
As I have occasionally commented, my older son has an all-electric lawn service, mainly in one subdivision. Many of his clients sought him out when they learned from their neighbors that he was all-electric. His enclosed trailer now hosts two solar panels on its roof, with a battery storage unit inside. He can go all day without depleting the battery reserve, even with 90 lawns to service each week. Where once he was spending about $50 on gas per week just to run the tractors and hand-held equipment, plus the cost of synthetic oil for the hand-held equipment, he now spends zero. The latest generation Echo commercial edgers, trimmers and blowers have more powerful motors and better batteries. He says he can trim up to nine homes on one battery charge. The initial outlay for the commercial electric equipment costs just about as much as purchasing the ICE-powered equipment. Before he went with Echo, another company’s product commonly failed, but the batteries were covered under warranty. He has few problems, now.
A couple of months ago, I came across an article about EVs and their gasoline equivalency ratings. The most efficient EV at that time had a 307-mpg equivalency. And Ford’s CEO says electric motors and batteries are at the Model T stage of development. Several times I have mentioned the Donut Lab electric motor that weighs 88 pounds and produces upwards of 850 horsepower.
Sodium-ion batteries are a reality, as Chinese consumers can buy them. Solid-state lithium-ion batteries are coming. Rust batteries (iron-based) are available for stationary electricity storage. Aluminum-graphene batteries are in development. Flow batteries, too. Liquid-state lithium-ion batteries are near their peak of development. Ceramic batteries and other types of batteries. Every day brings evidence of battery breakthroughs. Twenty years ago, only the Chinese seemed able to see the future. Ford’s CEO says now that allowing cheap, reliable Chinese cars into the American marketplace without a tariff would be an “extinction level event”, meaning our entire automobile manufacturing industry would be at risk of creative destruction.
The many gullible FlaglerLive commenters who claim the EVs won’t work listened to the professional lying class of one of our two political parties for far too long. They came to believe the lies and they laundered, and continue to launder, the disinformation at every opportunity. What fools they are. This isn’t my opinion. This is the opinion repeatedly voiced by our automobile industry leaders. We are ten years behind the Chinese in battery technology, says Ford’s CEO. Former President Biden imposed a 100% tariff on Chinese EVs. Some sources say it was 102.5%. Why would we need to impose such a tariff if it wasn’t to protect our auto industry?
Sherry says
The Latest Outrage From DOGE. . . Now they want into IRS Systems, where your “banking records” are available!!!
WASHINGTON (AP) — Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is seeking access to troves of sensitive taxpayer data at the IRS, two people familiar with the inner workings of the plan who were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly told The Associated Press on Monday.
If successful, Musk and his group would have access to millions of tightly controlled files that include taxpayer information, bank records and other sensitive records. The people who spoke to the AP and requested anonymity said DOGE is specifically seeking to access the IRS’ Integrated Data Retrieval System, which enables employees “to have instantaneous visual access to certain taxpayer accounts,” according to the IRS website.
Advocates fear that the potential unlawful release of taxpayer records could be used to maliciously target Americans, violate their privacy and create other ramifications.