To include your event in the Briefing and Live Calendar, please fill out this form.
Weather: Mostly sunny, with a high near 83. Southwest wind 5 to 11 mph, with gusts as high as 17 mph. Friday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 58.
- 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:
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. Guests today include Charles Gambaro and House Rep. Sam Greco. Today’s guests: Catherine Eastman of Whitney Lab’s turtle hospital and all about Taste of the Fun Coast’s fundraiser for it next week. See previous podcasts here. On WNZF at 94.9 FM, 1550 AM, and live at Flagler Broadcasting’s YouTube channel.
The Flagler County Cultural Council (FC3) meets at 11 a.m. at the Tourism Development Office, 120 Airport Road, Palm Coast, in the 3rd-floor conference room. The meetings are open to the public. Contact [email protected] for additional information. See: “Over Mayor’s Objections, Palm Coast Signals It’ll Extend Agreement with Cultural Council to Manage $100,000 in Grants,” and “How Peter Johnson’s ‘Bullshit’ Trespass Led to Sunshine on FC3 Cultural Board and Its Accountability to Palm Coast.”
“The Colored Museum,” at City Repertory Theatre, 160 Cypress Point Parkway (City Marketplace, Suite B207), Palm Coast, 7:30 p.m. except on Sunday, at 3 p.m. Tickets are $30 for adults, $15 for students. Book here. With eleven powerful vignettes blending humor, drama, and sharp social commentary, this groundbreaking play challenges conventions and redefines what it means to celebrate Black history on stage. A must-see theatrical experience—moving, hilarious, and unforgettable.
‘Social Security,’ At the Daytona Playhouse, 100 Jessamine Blvd., Daytona Beach. Call 386-255-2431. 7:30 p.m. except on Sunday at 2 p.m. Domestic tranquility for two married art dealers is shattered when a goody-goody sister and her uptight CPA husband arrive to save their college niece from the horrors of free love. Jewish Grandma arrives and wants to make whoopee with the art dealers’ best client! Tickets are $15 to $25. Book here.
The Friday Blue Forum, a discussion group organized by local Democrats, meets at 12:15 p.m. at the Flagler Democratic Office at 160 Cypress Point Parkway, Suite C214 (above Cue Note) at City Marketplace. Come and add your voice to local, state and national political issues.
Free Tax Preparation Services in Flagler County: The AARP Foundation’s Tax Aide provides free tax preparation services at six locations in Palm Coast, Flagler Beach and Flagler County through April 15, but you must make an appointment first and fill out paperwork. To do both, go here.
Notably: According to Adam Begley in his biography of John Updike, a 1946 New Yorker marketing pamphlet boasted that its readers were “at least all of the following: Intelligent, well-educated, discriminating, well-informed, unprejudiced, public-spirited, metropolitan-minded, broad-visioned and quietly liberal.” When I think of the little extent to which those characterizations could apply to this–or, really, any publication these days, the New Yorker included: the recent Netflix documentary on the New Yorker at 100 was disappointingly thin, more Tina Brown than David Remnick, more glitzy than literary, more self-indulgent than revealing–I’m grateful I have my Baker Act taxi on speed dial.
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.
April 2026
Contractor Review Board Meeting
Free Tax Preparation Services in Flagler County
In Court: Kristopher Henriqson Trial
Flagler County’s Technical Review Committee Meeting
Tourist Development Council Meeting
Conversations in Democracy
Flagler County Industrial Development Authority Meeting
The Circle of Light A Course in Miracles Study Group
Bingo Night at Palm Coast Elks Lodge 2709
Palm Coast Planning and Land Development Board
Flagler Beach United Methodist Church Food Pantry
Flagler County Drug Court Convenes
Story Time with Miss Kim at Flagler Beach Public Library
Model Yacht Club Races at the Pond in Palm Coast’s Town Center
Palm Coast Democratic Club Recap Meeting
For the full calendar, go here.
I had a lunch meeting up at the Academy–pleasant but pointless, though necessary in a parliamentary sense–and the day before a lunch with Tina Brown, the new head at The NYer, which was pleasant but pointless also. She is a year older than you are, Liz, and is now my boss (sort of) and the captain of the fate of a unique American literary institution, without which none of us Ipswich Updikes would have had the same carefree life. She is rather low-key and bluestocking in conversation, but what she has done to the magazine in her first two issues shouldn’t happen to a dog. Enlarged the title type, put in some jazzy junk before “Talk of the Town,” taken the bylines from the end of the piece and run them under the title, and solicited contributions from the sort of lit-glitterati who couldn’t get into the magazine before. I have been in all three of her first issues–story in one, poem in the next, review upcoming–but that about cleans me out and I’m just not sure this is a magazine I want to devote much of the rest of my life to.”
–From an Oct. 10, 1992 John Updike letter to his daughter Elizabeth and her family.
Ronbo says
Can you just once get over your TDS and hate for half of the people of the U.S.
According to “The Tallahassie Democrat” …
Did Jesse Jackson like Donald Trump? They once collaborated.
What did Donald Trump say about Jesse Jackson’s death?
Trump posted on Truth Social on Feb. 17, discussing their previous relationship and arguing that it countered accusations that he is racist.
“I knew him well, long before becoming president. He was a good man, with lots of personality, grit, and ‘street smarts.’ He was very gregarious – Someone who truly loved people!” the post read.
“He loved his family greatly, and to them I send my deepest sympathies and condolences. Jesse will be missed!”
IS THAT DISTASTEFUL?
“C’mon man” make fun of his policies, his politics, and his hair etc. but don’t distort his words for your purposes.
Read the whole article https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/trump/2026/02/18/donald-trump-jesse-jackson-relationship-explained/88725339007/?gnt-cfr=1&gca-cat=p&gca-uir=true&gca-epti=z117958v117958d–88–b–88–&gca-ft=224&gca-ds=sophi
Dennis C Rathsam says
Democrats are up to their eyeballs trying to discredit TRUMP. Everyday its a new lie, TRUMP had nothing but great things about Rev Jackson, I watched it live on TV! With the mid-term ellections looming in Nov, The Jackass party is about as popular as a snake in your garden.The Golden Age in America has taken off. More people are working than at any other time in history! Tarriffs, Tax Cuts, & the Deportation of Bidens invaders has America reclaiming the title of the Greatest Country on Earth. The donkeys continue to lie to the American people about food prices… You’d have to be a fool not to see the prices going down. Americans are seeing in real time what a real president can do. TRUMP & CO have uncovered mass FRAUDE in many Democrat controled city, even as the paid protesters rally. The police are now acting like police, arresting the fools with no brains.TDS, folks are losing there minds… Thier once grip on the black vote is gone! They finally realized TRUMP has done more for them than Obama & Biden combined. All you haters are gonna hate, If TRUMP cured cancer, you’d still hate him! So continue to your lies, & your communist plans…. America will never go back to the woke Jackass life, of Obama & Biden. TRUMP has turned AMERICA lose & prosperity, for everyone.
Ray W. says
Are you telling the FlaglerLive community that, in order to avoid a display of hypocrisy, you will never again claim that former Presidents Obama and Biden destroyed America?
Ooh, wait, you displayed your hypocrisy yet again in your comment!
Wittgenstein was right. The hardest thing in life is for a person to not fool himself.
For the umpteenth time, I oppose President Trump because he is a vengeful inveterate liar. As an aside, I oppose you for the same reasons. I don’t wish either him or you harm.
I have repeatedly argued that his tariff policies might work, simply because there does not yet exist a valid economic study about tariffs in the percentages him imposed. I agree with Ed P. on this point. I seldom commented on the constitutionality of the policy because I considered it a novel theory.
I haven’t forgotten that for the first time, in February of 2025, President Trump announced that the United States had provided to the Ukraine some $350 billion in military, humanitarian, and financial aid after Russian forces invaded the Ukraine. He added that the EU had, in contrast, provided $100 billion in aid.
I commented about his lies back then.
I checked this morning. According to the Kiel Institute, from January 2022 through December 2025, the U.S. has provided to the Ukraine $135.5 billion in total aid, as compared to Europe’s $236.2 billion provision of total aid.
Every FlaglerLive reader ought to know by now that no one should take at face value anything said by President Trump. Neither should anyone believe anything Dennis C. Rathsam types.
As an aside, food prices are not coming down. The rate of inflation that rose to about 3%, year-over-year, in the spring of 2025 is lessening now. A lessening rate of inflation means that food prices are still rising, only not by as much as they once were.
Ray W. says
“More people are working than at any time in history!”
Dennis C. Rathsam types this as proof of the success of Trump’s policies.
Does every FlaglerLive reader understand that in March 2022, BLS data from the monthly JOLTS report established that a record 12.2 million posted jobs existed, with only 6.2 million unemployed persons.
American businesses needed far more workers than were available. Inflation was rising because employers were competing over too small a labor force.
We needed millions and millions of new workers to continue to grow our economy out of the wreckage of the pandemic. But American women had long before then lowered their statistical birth rate to below replacement level.
And so entered the millions of immigrants, documented or not, that were so economically vital to our economic recovery.
Let’s face facts, Dennis C. Rathsam. You could not praise what you just praised, but for the millions of immigrants who entered the country in a time of need. Without millions of immigrants we just can’t have today a record number of workers.
Irony?
I maintain my position.
Immigrants, as a political issue, are crucial to the perceived success of one of our two political parties. There is great political value to be gained by lying about immigrants.
As an economic issue, immigrants are a boon both to our economic health and to our fiscal health, such as it is.
Johnny Tsunami says
Actual cartoon should read “President Trump honors Jesse Jackson as force of nature.”
nice try though
Pierre Tristam says
Not at all. In the same “force of nature” post Ubu Roi bullshitted about, he vomited more bile about Obama. So no. Clay Jones is, as always dead on, and Ubu Roi’s boot-lickers are, as always, disingenuously desperate for any fabrication to make their farce of nature look less than the effluence it is.
Sherry says
Pierre. . . simply perfectly priceless! The use of the word “effluence” gave me quite the laugh this morning! Very well done!
Laurel says
Eighty year old men, who behave like ten year old, badly behaved brats, need a lot of gold spray paint, and a transactional trophy wife, to look like they have taste.
Ronbo says
So, what he said and what the article said are all distasteful. No wonder you can’t see past your hate.
Laurel says
Your assumption about my “hate” is incorrect, but it does suit your agenda. I did not condemn what Trump related about Mr. Jackson. My life’s experience is to not believe what a habitual, chronic liar says, about anything, and anyone.
What I don’t appreciate is, that the Trump supporters make excuses like we’ve never seen before for a man who is a demagogue who is robbing them blind and giving breaks to the oligarchs.
You know the boy ain’t right. Stop looking for miniscule instances of humanity in a man who is shredding our democracy and Constitution.
Sherry says
Right On Laurel! Where in the world do these despicable trolls come from? I guess humanity’s septic tank is still being emptied,. . .
Ray W. says
USSC rules 6-3 that President Trump’s tariff policy violates the Constitution.
Make of this what you will.
BillC says
President Trump lashed out at the Supreme Court for ruling against his global tariffs by accusing the justices of falling prey to undue foreign interest, a cabal of unnamed “sleazeballs” and “slimeballs”… “Foreign interests are represented by people who I think have undue influence, a lot of influence, over the Supreme Court,” the president told RealClearPolitics during a Friday news conference.
If that doesn’t shock MAGAteers back to reality of who Trump really is, nothing will.
James says
However the New Yorker might have changed over their history, and might change in the future (for nothing is certain), I’m convinced that they are currently on a roll when it comes to journalistic excellence.
Speaking of which…
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-lede/silicon-valleys-favorite-doomsaying-philosopher
Just shocking, in my opinion.
Btw, the people, not nessarily the AI. Again, just my opinion.
Ray W. says
CNN investigated a newly-created DHS website on which some 25,000 names of what DHS described as the “worst of the worst” immigrants who had been arrested were listed.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of those named on the list, it was discovered, had been either arrested for or convicted of only traffic offenses. One immigrant, given by CNN as an example, was listed as a convicted sex offender. In reality, he was no such thing. But the reporters admitted themselves that they could not track down the history of every wrongfully listed immigrant.
Checking deeper, CNN reporters noticed that comparatively small cities were over-represented on the site. It turned out that each of the over-represented cities had large detention center populations, suggesting that some or many of those listed on the site were not lurking among us; they were in custody the whole time. It is no secret that immigrant inmates are transferred directly from prisons and jails to detention centers.
DHS officials, when pressed, admitted to the many errors on the site and claimed that people were working to correct the many inaccuracies.
Make of this what you will.
Sherry says
@ Ray W. “Deliberate deception” of “every” kind, for every circumstance is SOP for the trump administration! “Fish Rots From The Head Down”!
Thank goodness for good investigative journalism!
Yes, I am worried that trump is hell bent on destroying the “free press”!
Laurel says
Here’s what I think:
The Republican politicians are taking away our rights and narrowing down our visions. They continue to drag down, and dumb down the public, while enriching their wealthy donors. They jump on tiny portions of the population, and wild, daily confusion, to distract us from where the money goes.
The Democratic politicians speak a good word, with promises of looking out for the average family, but do little to really make a difference for the working people. In reality, not much is done for us, while they accept donations from the large corporations. They jump on whatever the Republicans throw out as “woke” and go nowhere with it.
We continue to decline in wealth and personal power.
Both parties know the working class is being left behind, and play them. Guess who these politicians fear the most? Independents. They never really know where the Independents are coming from, and how to manipulate them. Some are previous Republicans, and some are previous Democrats, while others are Independent all along.
Here’s what I suggest:
Change your voting designation to Independent! You don’t have to change your belief system, and both parties will become confused and will have to listen to us for a change. They won’t know how to manipulate us. We the People.
Go to grass roots candidates who work for the general public, not the billionaires and the giant corporations. Be seriously suspicious of the candidates who get money from super PACs, regardless of party. They are both influenced by big donors.
The two main parties are dropping in popularity for a really good reason: they do not support us. It’s up to us to change that, and do it before the midterm elections.
United we stand, divided we fall. We are currently divided, intentionally, and are falling. Think about it.
Ray W. says
An Alternet reporter wrote about a National Review editorial column on President Trump’s assertion that his tariff policies reduced the nation’s trade deficit in 2025 by 78%. In no way can the National Review be considered a liberal source; it is, perhaps the flagship of what remains of the true conservative movement in America. I already commented on this, but the National Review editorialists did a better job than I did.
They wrote:
“Talk about bad timing. … On Wednesday, President Trump boasted on social media that the U.S. trade deficit had been reduced by 78 percent thanks to his comprehensive tariff regime, a claim apparently based on his cherry-picking of data between October and January. Less than 12 hours later, the Census Bureau published its annual trade report. It reveals that the U.S. trade deficit declined by 0.2 percent in 2025 – a far cry from Trump’s figure – from $903.5 billion in 2024 to $901.5 billion last year.
“The numbers beneath the headline are even worse for the president’s faulty narrative. The deficit in goods, which are all the tariffs apply to, hit a record high in 2025. Specifically, Americans purchased $1.2 trillion more in merchandise from foreign countries than they sold abroad. Imports were the highest on record at $4.3 trillion, as were imports of only goods at $3.4 trillion.”
The editorialists focused on what they described as Trump’s ‘erroneous’ belief that a trade deficit means money lost to other countries:
“In reality, the balance of trade has no bearing on a country’s economic prosperity. … The United States is one of the wealthiest countries in the world per capita, and it also runs the largest trade deficit. Several countries, like Libya and Papua New Guinea, run trade surpluses. … Tariffs… have proven unable to meaningfully shift the full balance of trade.”
Make of this what you will.
Ray W. says
Recently, Dennis C. Rathsam crowed that the Dow crossing an artificial yet emotionally symbolic threshold meant that America was on the verge of a fantastic future, and he might be right. Maybe not.
I argued that crossing any artificial yet emotionally symbolic threshold, such as 25,000 or 45,000 was the same thing as crossing 50,000. Each important only because it happened for the first time. You cross 50,000 and then look to 55,000. I recall a News-Journal headline in 1972 when the Dow first crossed 1,000. We had eleven more years of stagflation to come, but 1,000 was cool.
And, yes, a rising stock market is just as good when it rises during the Biden years as it is when it rises during the Trump years.
Believing that context can be important, I looked for an international comparison to the S&P 500. The MSCI All Country World Index, excluding U.S. equities, tracks large and mid-cap equity performance in 23 developed economies, weighted at 88%, and 24-26 developing economies, weighted 12%.
Since January 20, 2025, according to the site, the S&P 500 is up 17.8%. The rest of the world? Up 29.2%
Importantly, 2025 was one of the few years the S&P 500 underperformed the rest of the world. The fact that for the first time since 2017, the dollar lost 9.4% of its value during 2025, as measured against a basket of six developed foreign currencies, may explain some of the comparatively greater rise in equity value of the foreign stocks.
Make of this what you will.
Ray W. says
Today was not just a big day for the Constitution. Two important economic reports came out.
The initial estimate of 2025 GDP growth is 2.2% for the year, a figure that will be revised in the future, up or down.
In 2024, GDP growth was 2.8%. 2.89% in 2023. 2.5% in 2022.
Between 1947 to 2025, average GDP growth has been 3.20%.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
I suspect that the comparatively lesser 2025 GDP figure to the Biden figures, while positive, would have been better had more immigrants remained in the national workforce producing the output of their labor and the spending of their income. Economics 101.
The second report, the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index, the report said to be that most favored by the Fed, revealed several facts.
The monthly core PCE inflation rate, excluding the more volatile food and energy categories, rose from 2.8% in November to 3.0% in December. Neither of these are good numbers, as the target inflation rate remains 2%.
The PCE figure, including the more volatile food and energy categories, for December was 0.4%, a very unsettling number. Should that pace continue for eleven months, inflation for the year would be 4.8%.
Year-over-year inflation in November was 2.8%. For December, year-over-year inflation rose 2.9%. Just before Trump’s April tariff announcement, year-over-year inflation was 2.3%, but that figure included nine months of Biden’s comparatively low inflation figures.
Make of this, too, what you will.
Me?
To me, daily stock market closing figures mean little over time. Weekly unemployment figures mean little over time. Monthly economic reports carry weight, but year-over-year figures show real trends. Inflation is rising and it has been rising over about seven months. Food prices are not going down. Electricity prices are rising faster than inflation.
Today’s economy still has the echo of the Biden economy, but each day tilts the nation more strongly into the Trump camp. I do not claim that eleven months into a new administration means any more than it should, but more and more evidence supports an argument that The Economist and The New York Times were correct to assert that President Trump was inheriting an economy that was the “envy of the world.”
Sherry says
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump’s far-reaching global tariffs on Friday, handing him a stinging loss that sparked a furious attack on the court he helped shape.
Trump said he was “absolutely ashamed” of some justices who ruled 6-3 against him, calling them “disloyal to our Constitution” and “lapdogs.” At one point he even raised the specter of foreign influence without citing any evidence.
The decision could have ripple effects on economies around the globe after Trump’s moves to remake post-World War II trading alliances by wielding tariffs as a weapon.
But an unbowed Trump pledged to impose a new global 10% tariff under a law that’s restricted to 150 days and has never been used to apply tariffs before.
Ray W. says
A Mitsubishi subsidiary corporation, Turboden, has opened in Italy a novel electricity generating plant.
Pulp mills produce low-grade waste heat during the paper-making process. Anyone old enough to remember the tall stacks at the Palatka pulp mill knows about such waste heat. Driving through Jacksonville and Brunswick still brings memories of the smell.
The new company takes the already partially heated waste water and, through use of renewable energy, heats it the rest of the way sufficient to run a steam turbine, cutting overall heating costs.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
The current most efficient combined cycle gas turbine plants take the waste heat from three gas turbines and use it to run a single downwind steam turbine, so the idea isn’t really new, but the application is novel.
Sherry says
For the Maga Indoctrinated who keep harping about how “LEGAL” immigrants are welcome. . . take a good read about how your lord and master si trying to deport “LEGAL” immigrants and those going through that “LEGALIZATION” process:
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The Trump administration has issued a sweeping new order that could lead to the arrest of tens of thousands of refugees who are lawfully in the United States but do not yet have permanent residency, overturning years of legal and immigration safeguards.
A memo filed by the Department of Homeland Security ahead of a Thursday federal court hearing in Minnesota says refugees applying for green cards must return to federal custody one year after they were admitted to the U.S. for review of their applications.
DHS “may maintain custody for the duration of the inspection and examination process,” said the memo, which was filed Wednesday.
Advocacy and resettlement groups slammed the order, which will likely face legal challenges and could sow confusion and fear among the nearly 200,000 refugees who came to the United States during the Biden administration.
The order is the latest in a series of immigration restrictions by the Trump administration, which has upended long-standing policies toward refugees, including dramatically reducing the number admitted into the country. A memo obtained by The Associated Press late last year said the administration was planning a review of all refugees admitted to the U.S. during the Biden administration, and immediately suspended green card approvals for refugees who arrived during those years.