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Weather: A 40 percent chance of showers. Partly sunny, with a high near 68.
Monday Night: A 20 percent chance of showers before 1am. Partly cloudy, with a low around 52.
- 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:
In Court: The trial of Michael Wayne Jennelle on a capital felony charge of raping a minor and three additional related life felonies begins with jury selection at 8:30 a.m. before Circuit Judge Dawn Nichols at the Flagler County courthouse, Courtroom 401. The prosecution is not seeking the death penalty. The alleged crimes predate the enactment of a new but unconstitutional law enacted in Florida 14 months ago that reinstates the death penalty for individuals convicted of the rape of children younger than 12. If convicted, Jennelle would be immediately sentenced to life in prison. The judge would have no discretion. See: “As Trial Is Set for Man on Charges of Raping His Granddaughter, Judge Asks: “You Want To Put Her Through That?’”
The Flagler County Library Board of Trustees meets at 4:30 p.m. at the Flagler County Public Library, 2500 Palm Coast Pkwy NW, Palm Coast. The meeting of the seven-member board is open to the public.
The Bunnell City Commission meets at 7 p.m. at the Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell, where the City Commission is holding its meetings until it is able to occupy its own City Hall on Commerce Parkway in 2025. The commission will be asked to approve a change order increasing the price of Bunnell’s new wastewater treatment plant from $23 million to $30 million. To access meeting agendas, materials and minutes, go here.
Nar-Anon Family Groups offers hope and help for families and friends of addicts through a 12-step program, 6 p.m. at St. Mark by the Sea Lutheran Church, 303 Palm Coast Pkwy NE, Palm Coast, Fellowship Hall Entrance. See the website, www.nar-anon.org, or call (800) 477-6291. Find virtual meetings here.
Out of RFK Jr.’s hearing: From Statista: Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows just how effective vaccines have been in all but eradicating major diseases in the United States. Some diseases have in fact been eradicated with no new cases of polio or smallpox in decades in the United States compared to a 20th cenrury average of more than 10,000 cases per year. And even though progress in eradicating measles has stalled in recent years (due in part to growing vaccine skepticism), its morbidity is nowhere near the annual case load seen in the 20th century, when half a million people were infected in an average year. Its prevalence has fallen by more than 99 percent due to vaccinations, along with a whole host of other diseases such as pertussis (whooping cough), mumps and rubella.
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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
Flagler Beach Farmers Market
Coffee With Flagler Beach Commission Chair Scott Spradley
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Flagler Wellness Expo
Warbirds Over Flagler Fly-In
Gamble Jam at Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area
‘Violet’ at City Repertory Theatre
ESL Bible Studies for Intermediate and Advanced Students
Warbirds Over Flagler Fly-In
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village
Al-Anon Family Groups
‘Violet’ at City Repertory Theatre
For the full calendar, go here.
“Pollution increases prevalence of stroke, heart disease, cancer of all kinds, acute and chronic respiratory diseases like asthma, and adverse pregnancy outcomes, including premature birth. New research into the behavioral and developmental effects is perhaps even scarier: air pollution has been linked to worse memory, attention, and vocabulary, and to ADHD and autism spectrum disorders. Pollution has been shown to damage the development of neurons in the brain, and proximity to a coal plant can deform your DNA. In the developing world, 98 percent of cities are enveloped by air above the threshold of safety established by the WHO. Get out of urban areas and the problem doesn’t much improve: 95 percent of the world’s population is breathing dangerously polluted air. Since 2013, China has undertaken an unprecedented cleanup of its air, but as of 2015 pollution was still killing more than a million Chinese each year. Globally, one out of six deaths is caused by air pollution.
–From David Wallace-Wells’s The Uninhabitable Earth (2019).
Sherry says
Meanwhile in CANADA. . . A Push Back Against trump:
OTTAWA — Mark Carney, a political rookie but experienced banker with a history of helming state financial institutions during crises, won the race to replace Justin Trudeau on Sunday. The new Liberal Party leader arrives with a colossal task at the top of his to-do list: Defend Canada from Donald Trump.
“America is not Canada. And Canada never, ever, will be part of America in any way, shape or form,” Carney said in his victory speech. “We didn’t ask for this fight, but Canadians are always ready when someone else drops the gloves.”
Members of Canada’s governing Liberal Party elected Carney in a landslide on the first ballot Sunday at an Ottawa convention center, steps away from Parliament Hill. He will officially take over as Canada’s 24th prime minister during a swearing-in ceremony in the days ahead.
The political landscape in Canada has been upended by the return of Trump, and for the first time in years, the governing Liberals are ascendant. One of Carney’s first decisions will be whether or not to call a snap election in the middle of a trade war. He has identified Trump’s rolling tariff threats as an “economic and sovereign crisis.”
“The Americans want our resources, our water, our land, our country,” Carney said. “Think about it. If they succeed, they will destroy our way of life.”
Sherry says
Billionaires don’t care that your IRA $$$ is in trouble! Maga, your vote just may cost you your retirement nest egg:
Stocks dropped on Monday as the selling pressures that dragged Wall Street last week persisted, with investors worried about an economic slowdown after President Donald Trump didn’t rule out a recession with U.S. tariffs being implemented.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average
dropped 317 points, or 0.7%. The S&P 500
shed 1.7%, and the Nasdaq Composite
lost 2.9%. Both the 500-stock S&P and tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped to their lowest levels since September 2024.
The Nasdaq was weighed down by declines in the “Magnificent Seven” cohort. Tesla
shed 8%, Alphabet
fell 4%, and Meta
and AI darling Nvidia
lost 5%.
Stocks have been under pressure as investors fret over a possible recession due to tariffs implemented by the Trump administration.
Ray W, says
According to Fox Business, the newly imposed Chinese retaliatory tariffs are as follows:
– 15% on chicken.
– 15% on wheat corn and cotton.
– 10% on pork, beef, aquatic, and dairy products.
– 10% on soybeans and sorghum.
– 10% on fruits and vegetables.
– American goods leaving ports before March 10th that arrive prior to April 12th will not subject to the tariffs.
Make of this what you will.
Ray W, says
A little background for this comment is in order.
In 1994, after long and difficult negotiations, and after Senate approval, then-President Clinton signed into law the three-nation NAFTA pact. In it were clauses mandating periodic renegotiation intervals. In 2014, then-President Obama assembled a renegotiating team to address the mandated renewal terms.
In 2017 and before NAFTA negotiations had been completed, President Trump announced that he wanted a whole new trade agreement, and he assembled a new negotiating team.
In the summer of 2018, President Trump imposed tariffs on Canadian, Mexican and EU steel and aluminum. Canada and Mexico imposed retaliatory tariffs.
Five months later, while attending a G-20 Summit in Argentina, President Trump signed a new three-nation trade deal, called the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. While sitting alongside Canada’s Prime Minister Trudeau and Mexico’s President Nieto, President Trump signed the new deal.
During the ceremony, Trump proclaimed the agreement “the largest most significant modern and balanced trade agreement in history. … All of our countries will benefit greatly. It is probably the largest trade deal ever made also.”
On February 24, 2025, during a press conference called during his meeting with French President Macron, President Trump said his new tariffs on Canada and Mexico were necessary because the original dealmaker had made poor deals.
“Who can blame them [Canada and Mexico] if they made these great deals, … [they] took advantage of the United States. … Every aspect that you could imagine they took advantage of … I looked at some of the agreements, I’d read them at night and I’d say, ‘Who would ever sign such a thing like this?’ So, yes, the tariffs will go forward. We’ll make up a lot of territory. Our country will be liquid and rich again. … We were led by, in some cases, fools. … Anybody that would agree to allow this to happen to our country should be ashamed of themselves.”
Make of this what you will.
Ray W, says
I suppose that most FlaglerLive readers know by now that federal contractually mandated payments by many of the federal funding programs have been frozen for a number of weeks. Specifics may be sparce and what information that has been allowed to trickle out has been largely misleading or outright false.
Earlier in March, President Trump tweeted: “To the Great Farmers of the United States: Get ready to start making a lot of agricultural product to be sold INSIDE of the United States. Tariffs will go on external product on April 2nd. Have fun.”
In late February, The Assembly began working on a story on how the federal funding freeze is affecting North Carolina farmers.
According to the story’s author, many North Carolina farmers recovering from last year’s drought and, later, from last year’s hurricane flooding, “haven’t received expected payments linked to conservation loan programs, projects aimed at combating climate change, and emergency loans for farmers in disaster areas.”
Ethan Jordan, a North Carolina farmer who lost 900 acres of corn, 350 acres of peanuts, and 350 acres of soybeans to last year’s drought, awaits $77,000 in payments from the USDA.
“Coming out of a year like we just had, cash is already short,” Jordan said. “I really would’ve like to have had that money a month or so ago. … The western part of the state lost their homes to a flood. In the eastern side, if we don’t get some help, we’re going to lose our house to the bank. … We knew that administrative changes would shake things up. But we didn’t expect it to be this severe.”
A reporter wrote: “Under many of the contracts farmers have with the government, ‘farmers pay out of pocket for equipment and supplies and get reimbursed by the USCA. Without cash flow out of Washington, those farmers could be strapped with debt,’ or worse.”
When interviewed late in February about frozen funds for farmers, new Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said that $20 million in funds had been released, “but hundreds of millions in other payments remain frozen.”
Make of this what you will.
Ray W, says
As foundation for this comment, in 2015 American dairy farmers exported $625.5 million in product to Canada. By 2024, the export total of American dairy products had increased to $1.1 billion.
I suppose that many of those FlaglerLive readers who follow tweets posted by President Trump or listen to other sources loyal to him, know that he has been claiming that Canada has tariffs enacted on dairy products exported by American dairy farmers, in many instances above 200%.
CNN just posted an article that supports Trump’s claims, with an explanation.
Under the 2018 trade treaty that a Trump negotiation team handled, there are 14 categories of American dairy products addressed by the treaty, including but not limited to items such as butter, yogurt and ice cream. Butter has a 298.5% tariff and cheddar cheese has a 245.5% tariff, as examples of the negotiated tariffs. As an aside, I don’t know if poutine fits into any of the 14 dairy categories.
But there is a catch. Each of the 14 categories has a tariff-free ceiling; it imposes tariffs only if American imports rise above the American-negotiated ceiling. Anything below that ceiling is a zero-tariff product.
And there is a second catch: the ceilings are set so high that for each of the 14 categories the ceilings have never been topped in the seven years of the treaty.
This means that no American dairy product has been subjected to a Canadian tariff under the Agreement that the American team negotiated with Canada.
Don’t get me wrong. According to the reporter, the Biden administration argued to a treaty-authorized dispute mediation panel that Canada’s governments have been using administrative means to keep American dairy exports below the USMCA ceiling. To me, that is a legitimate argument to raise if it is true, but even if that is true, the fact is that no Canadian tariff has been imposed, meaning that Trump flat-out lied to his followers when he claimed that Canada was hiking tariffs on American dairy products.
On a broader agricultural note, USDA notes on its website hold that under NAFTA, “almost” all Canadian and American agricultural products had no tariffs. This means that from 1996 to late 2018, very few items were ever taxed by a tariff.
And it should also be noted that under Trump’s USMCA, Canada is America’s second largest agricultural export market, importing $28.4 billion in agricultural product in 2024, according to the USDA, a fact that makes bizarre Trump’s February claim that “they [Canada] don’t take our agricultural product for the most part.”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
I have long argued that the modus operandi of the professional lying class of one of our two political parties is to lie to their gullibly stupid supporters, in hopes that the supporters will launder their lies.
Canadian tariffs on dairy products, or the lack thereof, is just another example of the Republican modus operandi in action.
Can it be argued that if one has to lie to support his or her point, that the point, then, lacks validity?
Sherry says
Thank you Ray W.! Again, proof positive that “Character Matters”!
Ray W, says
Most of us have a weak point.
Dennis C. Rathsam will go all caps when any FlaglerLive commenter mentions that Social Security and Medicare benefit cuts are the long-term goal of the no-longer conservative Republican Party. And he might be right to protest the arguments. Who knows? As Ed P. suggests, time will tell.
I have repeatedly mentioned my own weak point.
When I first learned as a much younger man that in 1968 Roger Stone had created and spread the lie that Democratic Presidential-candidate McGovern was a “coward” in order to get Nixon elected, even though McGovern had piloted a heavy bomber and its crew through 25 missions at a time when the lifespan of an American aircrew member was less than 12 missions, I formed a measure of disgust towards anyone who would create such a lie. When Stone led the effort to swiftboat Kerrey in 2004, my disgust for him deepened.
To me, Stone’s lies meant that my Uncle Max, the eldest of the three Warren sons who became combat airmen, could be branded a coward by political liars. Uncle Max completed 137 combat missions in the Pacific, reupping twice, in P-38s, P-39s, P-40s, P-60s, and P-61s. His P-40 still flies, having been brought from his old base in New Guinea and restored by a group of Australian rice farmers.
To me, Stone’s lies meant that my Uncle Joe, the middle brother, could be branded a coward by political liars. Uncle Joe completed 90 combat missions, reupping once, almost all in P-47s. Two of these extremely rugged aircraft were declared no longer airworthy after he returned from missions, having been shot up too badly to be repaired.
To me, Stone’s lies meant that my father, the youngest brother, could be branded a coward by political liars. Dad completed 16 missions as a nose gunner in a B-24 heavy bomber. He was the only brother to be shot down, on a mission to bomb a Hungarian oil refinery. His pilot managed to keep the bomber aloft despite the loss of two engines until reaching partisan-controlled territory around the town of Split, where there was an airstrip long enough to handle a landing B-24.
I just read a Raw Story article about an X exchange between Elon Musk and Senator Mark Kelly.
I hope you fully understand me when I comment on Elon Musk’s reply to Senator Mark Kelly’s comment on X on Sunday.
Senator Kelly, a pilot in Desert Storm who flew 39 combat missions, and later an astronaut who flew four missions into space, wrote on X:
“Just left Ukraine. What I saw proved to me we can’t give up on the Ukrainian people. Everyone wants this war to end, but any agreement has to protect Ukraine’s security and can’t be a giveaway to Putin.”
Within hours Musk tweeted that Kelly was a “traitor.”
I hope each FlaglerLive reader now understands the level of disgust I now hold for Elon Musk.
I don’t care whatever anyone else makes of this. Musk is a disgusting failure of a human being.
This is perhaps the worst recent example of the professional lying class that sits at the top of one of our two political parties. Lying permeates to the very core of the Republican leadership “character.” They just say or type things, in hopes that the most gullibly stupid of their followers will launder their lies.
Ray W, says
The American Perfidy of 2025 grew again today.
According to the New York Times, after a day of negotiations between representatives of the Ukraine and those of the new Russian Empire, but from which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been specifically excluded, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the Ukraine would have to cede all the territories seized by Russia since 2014 as part of a peace plan.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
Nothing like giving Russia everything they have seized for plunder and giving nothing to the Ukrainians.
In a few short weeks, America has gone from trusted ally to a perfidious street thug extortionist.
Other articles published today report that the Ukraine agreeing to the American effort to extort rare earths from the Ukraine is no longer enough for America to return to sharing military intelligence and coordinates to Russian troops and armored vehicles with the Ukrainian army, which army has been fighting blind ever since America cut off the intelligence and data.
America has simply moved the goalposts against an ally yet again.
Ray W, says
On March 5, 2025, FOOD & WATER WATCH, a consumer protection organization, published a report on the rise in egg prices.
The report acknowledged the effect of the avian influenza viral outbreak on the egg-laying farm industry, but its primary focus was on the egg distribution industry. Ten companies control the vast majority of the egg marketplace. The largest is Cal-Maine, a publicly traded company.
Since Cal-Maine owns 43 egg production facilities that average one million egg-laying hens each, it possesses the capacity to produce and distributes over 20% of the eggs produced in America. Since Cal-Maine is a publicly traded corporation, FOOD & WATER WATCH obtained publicly available financial data for the corporation.
In fiscal year 2021 (June1 2020 to May 31, 2021), prior to the 2022 outbreak of the most recent and highly virulent bird flu, Cal-Maine profited “$0.15 per dozen eggs produced and sold.”
Even though the highly virulent form of the bird flu hit in 2022, Cal-Maine’s 43 farms did not see an outbreak until December 2023, which means that fiscal year 2023 did not see any impact from the bird flu on its operations.
Even so, during FY2023, it profited $1.14 per dozen eggs and sold 7% more eggs. That is a $0.99 increase, and a 750% increase, in profits per dozen eggs compared to FY 2021. The FY 2023 figures were from the early months of avian flu outbreak.
Since the start of the 2022 avian flu outbreak, the company’s stock price has tripled. And the company’s board chair’s holdings grew by $9 million.
And the company did the same thing in the 2015 outbreak of a less-virulent form of avian flu.
The state of Texas filed a lawsuit against Cal-Maine alleging that the company elevated egg prices even though none of its facilities experienced an outbreak of bird flu in 2015.
According to the lawsuit, Cal-Maine made $143 million in “windfall profits” in just one calendar quarter during the outbreak.
The state also alleges that Cal-Maine did the same thing during the outbreak of the 2020 Covid pandemic, when it tripled prices despite suffering neither shortages nor supply chain disruptions.
I have been commenting about Kroger’s effort at price-gouging customers on eggs (and milk). The watchdog group expanded a little on that front. Both Kroger and Albertsons admitted under oath that the grocery companies had raised prices higher than overall inflation. The FTC struck down their proposed merger and Kroger’s CEO was just forced to resign by shareholders due to “unethical practices.”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
Does every FlaglerLive reader recall the several gullibly stupid commenters who repeatedly blamed the Biden administration for the rising prices of eggs? Some of them have gone silent on this point, but one still maintains his gullibly stupid position.
The avian flu has caused the slaughter of some 170 million commercially raised birds of several species. Even Ed P. agrees with this, though he claimed that the Biden administration did little to fight the bird flu, and that mass-killing of birds started in 2022.
I then pointed to documentation showing that legislation authorizing federal authorities to reimburse farmers for losses causes by mass-slaughter passed in 2002; it was used during the 2015 outbreak.
I also pointed to documentation that proved the Biden administration had funded research to develop more than one prototype vaccine, and that the administration has spent some $2 billion to reimburse farmers and to study outbreaks on 150 farms and to recommend and fund improvements in sanitation and safety.
The slaughter alone triggered egg price rises. Now, there is evidence that widespread price gouging by egg distributors and grocery chains also caused some of the jump in prices. It was just announced that the federal DOJ has sent letters to grocers and egg distributors to preserve their pricing records. Whether the DOJ intends a civil investigation, or a criminal investigation is yet to be reported. How can Vice-President Vance continue his pre-election lies about egg prices while standing in front of a grocery store egg showcase if the DOJ concludes that egg producers and grocers gouged the public throughout the crisis? It is not lost on me that one FlaglerLive commenter insisted that grocery chains consistently have a razor-thin profit margin of 1.5% to 2.0%. I agreed with him; in that I had read over the decades about grocery store profit margins being that thin. I then sought data on Publix’s profit margin for its most recent fiscal year: 7.5%.
Can it be validly inferred that once the Trump administration has milked its repeated lies to the point of exhaustion that the Biden administration, generally, and Kamala Harris, specifically, caused the rise in egg prices, it will then shift to blaming egg prices on producers and grocers?
Sherry says
Thanks Ray W! I’ve been warning about the grave dangers of “Nihilistic” musk amassing a staggering amount of “power” over our government (and therefore us) for years now. In my opinion, musk is smarter and more ruthless than either trump or putin!