To include your event in the Briefing and Live Calendar, please fill out this form.
Weather: Patchy frost before 7am. Otherwise, mostly sunny, with a high near 70. Light southwest wind increasing to 5 to 9 mph in the morning. Wednesday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 46.
- 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:
River to Sea Transportation Planning Organization (TPO) meets at 9 a.m. at the Airline Room at the Daytona Beach International Airport. The TPO’s planning oversight includes all of Flagler and Volusia counties, with board representation from each of those jurisdictions. See the full agendas here. To join the meeting electronically, go here.
Separation Chat, Open Discussion: The Atlantic Chapter of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State hosts an open, freewheeling discussion on the topic here in our community, around Florida and throughout the United States, noon to 1 p.m. at Pine Lakes Golf Club Clubhouse Pub & Grillroom (no purchase is necessary), 400 Pine Lakes Pkwy, Palm Coast (0.7 miles from Belle Terre Parkway). Call (386) 445-0852 for best directions. All are welcome! Everyone’s voice is important. For further information email [email protected] or call Merrill at 804-914-4460.
The Circle of Light Course in Miracles study group meets at a private residence in Palm Coast every Wednesday at 1:20 PM. There is a $2 love donation that goes to the store for the use of their room. If you have your own book, please bring it. All students of the Course are welcome. There is also an introductory group at 1:00 PM. The group is facilitated by Aynne McAvoy, who can be reached at [email protected] for location and information.
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: A humanitarian crisis is unfolding 100 miles southeast of Miami, in Cuba. The crisis is Trump-made: “Early last month, the United States cut off all oil and money going to Cuba from Venezuela, the Caribbean island’s most important economic partner, and a few weeks ago threatened to slap tariffs on any country exporting oil to Cuba, a threat aimed mainly at Mexico, its second-most-important oil provider,” The Nation reports. Stéphane Dujarric, the UN’s spokesperson (with whom I went to school, incidentally, in our United Nations International School days), says the crisis “will worsen, if not collapse,” without oil shipments. The embargo is of course illegal, though you won’t read that in any of the America press reports, just as reports about the Gaza and West Bank occupations stopped mentioning their illegalities decades ago. “The UN chief noted that the General Assembly has been calling for an end to the US embargo for more than three decades: “The Secretary-General urges all parties to pursue dialogue and respect for international law.” The Miami Herald a few days ago reported on mountains of garbage piling up in Cuban streets, people getting buried in cardboard coffins, transportation networks curtailed. Ubu Roi says he doesn’t think an invasion will be necessary. He must be getting tips from Netanyahu: starvation as a weapon of cold war is now routine. Marco Rubio, who is really the architect of this splendid little horror, can’t contain himself. He wants to plant his flag and ride it to the 2028 GOP nomination. They could hold their convention in Havana.
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
Flagler Beach Farmers Market
Flagler Beach All Stars Beach Clean-Up
Coffee With Flagler Beach Commission Chair Scott Spradley
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
2nd Annual Italian Festival
Book Dragons, the Kids’ Book Club, at Flagler Beach Public Library
“My Fair Lady,” at Daytona Playhouse
Celebrating Celine! with Jenene Caramielo, at the Fitz
“Godspell,” at the Limelight Theatre
Random Acts of Insanity Standup Comedy
ESL Bible Studies for Intermediate and Advanced Students
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village
“My Fair Lady,” at Daytona Playhouse
Al-Anon Family Groups
For the full calendar, go here.
“… Castro’s Cuba, the moonlit fixation in the emerald sea.”
–From Don DeLillo’s Libra (1988).
Pogo says
Better late
… than never.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Cuba
Dennis C Rathsam says
Id like to thank the Democratic party, for the best gift they can give the midterm elections. When TRUMP ask everyone to stand that puts AMERICANS before Bidens invaders….Not one JACKASS stood up!!!!! TRUMP looked at them is discust, then called them CRAZY… To which the crowed roared, cheered, & clapped for a good 5 minutes. So this is what it comes down to, if you want open borders, murderers, crooks, mental maniacs, & FRAUDE…Your a Democrat.If you don’t want photo ID to vote in AMERICA…Your a Democrat. TRUMP hit the nail on the head last night, a great speech! Our president, has acomplished, many good things in one year. He has made AMERICA, the comeback kid award.More American are working now than ever before. Our future is bright, its our destiny, to do great things, you see its happening already. Hop on the bus, as TRUMP takes AMERICA to the promise land, where everyone has a seat at the table.
Pogo says
@Floriduh
… life’s a beach.
Ozymandias
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
— P B Shelley
https://www.google.com/search?q=p+b+shelley
Ray W. says
Yesterday, Barron’s reported on Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic’s farewell public remarks as he soon leaves office at the end of his appointed term.
President Bostick expressed concern about public and business perceptions of inflation. Over the past 12 to 18 months, inflation has “stalled out” at a level “unacceptably” above 2%, in his estimation. In his opinion, there is an economically risky possibility that people and businesses will “normalize” this unacceptable situation. They will negotiate contracts with this in mind, determine wages with this in mind, make investment decisions with this in mind. All of us risk factoring high inflation into daily decisions.
He argued, per the reporter, that uncertain trade policies make tracking the economy more difficult, that in an unsettled marketplace, policy making will become more “art” than science, that historical economic models will make for less reliable guidance.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
I have long accepted the idea that a stable economy fosters improved business planning. Financing decisions, hiring decisions, purchasing decisions, all are more likely to succeed than not in a stable economy.
I recall a story long ago out of Australia. Yes, I admit it is anecdotal.
Starting in 2005, the governments of China and Australia began negotiations on a comprehensive trade pact. More than nine years later, in 2014, negotiations concluded. Terms were announced. A currency exchange rate was announced, based on China’s historical position of refusing to expose its currency to exchange fluctuations.
An Australian tire maker contracted with a Chinese company to make and sell utility tires over a long term of time. The owner contracted to purchase the equipment needed to modernize the efficiency his company, obligating the allocation of a large sum. The trade pact was officially signed in June 2015, right around the time that the Chinese government unexpectedly allowed its currency to devalue over a three-day span. The tire maker suddenly could no longer profitably meet the terms of his contract. He was not alone.
What President Bostic may be arguing is that 18 months ago, when year-over-year inflation had dropped to 2.3%, the Fed over three straight meetings began lowering lending rates. Inflation shot up to 3.0%. The Fed stopped lowering lending rates and by April 2025, the year-over-year inflation rate dropped back down to 2.3%. At around this time, President Trump significantly raised or threatened to raise tariff rates. Inflation has been slowly rising ever since, for many reasons; it is back near 2.9%, year-over-year.
If President Bostic is prescient, what do business owners do in this environment? Employees? Will a fluctuating inflation rate be normalized? Will this perception of long-term unstable inflation figures impact business efficiencies?
Ray W. says
According to a Reuter’s story, worldwide LNG export capacity is expected to grow faster than demand.
The reporter describes how U.S. LNG export capacity once existed for many years, but only in Alaska and only in “thin” amounts.
10 years ago to the day of the story, Cheniere Energy shipped the first LNG cargo from its Louisiana base, a facility some six years in the making. Over time, the company has invested some $50 billion in two huge LNG complexes. America has become the world’s largest LNG exporter.
The number new LNG projects coming into operation threatens to overload the supply side of the market. A worldwide natural gas glut already exists. Worldwide LNG export capacity is expected to double over the next five years. The reporter wonders how the increasing supply will be absorbed? The answer? It is “an open question.”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
This convergence between a current and increasing glut in LNG export supply and a paucity of demand rise carries the specter of long-term stranded assets. What will LNG exporters choose to do in a battle over market share? Which, if any, will fail?
Ray W. says
According to an Interesting Engineering story, Google intends to power a new Minnesota data center build entirely by renewable energy, which ought to put rest to the commonly laundered lie that solar and wind cannot work in a northern climate. The complex will have access to up to 1.9 GW’s of power.
Google is working with Form Energy on installing the world’s largest capacity battery backup unit, designed to smooth over any power fluctuations.
Form Energy makes an iron-air battery that can discharge electricity over a 100-hour window, far longer than lithium-ion’s four-hour window. Iron-air batteries come in at a cost of $20 per kilowatt-hour of storage capacity, which is one-third the initial cost of the best of today’s lithium-ion batteries. This battery can store 300 MW’s of power and discharge at a rate of up to 30 MW’s per hour. From previous news articles, iron-air batteries are rated at a 30-year life expectancy.
As part of the deal with the state, Google will build another $50 million worth of smaller battery backup sites spread across Minnesota to bolster the reliability of its grid. And, the contract signed by Google mandates that consumers not be on the hook for rate increases, the data center must carry its weight.
On a related subject, the February edition of the EIA’s Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), long a publication geared toward the curious, projects an updated outlook that overall U.S. electricity generation capacity by natural gas will be flat in 2026 and grow by 1% in 2027. Coal-fired generation capacity will drop by 6% in 2026 and by another 4% in 2027. Wind-generation capacity will rise by 6% in 2026, plus another 7% rise in 2027. Solar capacity will eclipse that of natural gas and coal by rising 17% in 2026 and 23% in 2027.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
There was a time when renewables needed financial support to compete. No more. The economics now favor wind and solar and battery backup and the gap is widening. The money is almost all flowing to renewables and it isn’t even close. Coal is dying and natural gas is wobbling.
In time, I will comment on “base load” power plants, “follower” power plants, and “peaker” power plants.
Ray W. says
The Washington Post recently phrased the data center issue as: “Silicon Valley is building a shadow power grid for data centers across the United States.”
The above-described Google story looks like evidence that the Post might be right. There are a number of stories out there about Texas data centers being built out in the desert near natural gas supplies that can be consumed by new natural gas power plants not hooked into the grid without the plant owners having to pay gas pipeline distribution costs.
Make of this what you will.
Laurel says
I just posted here yesterday that it is offensive that Southern Blvd, in Palm Beach (and probably traveling west through West Palm Beach), has been renamed “President Donald J Trump Blvd.” So repulsive! Will he now complete with the “Jimmy Buffett Memorial Highway”?
Will y’all please vote these a-holes out and “free Florida” from its current, pea brained state of mind?
Ray W. says
CNN covered the impact of the recent Minnesota ICE surge on Minneapolis home construction.
As background, according to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), a historic high of more than 25% of the nation’s skilled home construction workforce are immigrants, documented or undocumented.
A large multi-state home builder with hundreds of current builds, including some in Minneapolis, told the reporter under condition of anonymity: “I think most of us would take Covid over this. … This is misery for us in the housing industry.” Only six of his 80 roofers are showing up. Revenues are down 25% to 30%. Jobs see months-long delays.
Mark Williams, a Minneapolis custom home builder, says he normally signs roofing contracts 30 days before need, but his roofing and siding contractors tell him that they need four to five months to line up sub-contractors, a circumstance that has forced him to delay completions of homes.
As for concrete work, Mr. Williams said:
“We work with two or three concrete masons and two of them pushed us out by two months because they couldn’t get any of their crews to show up on any of our jobs. … They often subcontract out to other masons and none of those masons show up either.”
He added:
“If everyone wants their roof sided and no one is going to do it, anyone that can do it will charge whatever they want.”
Barack Steenlage, co-owner of a Minnesota home building company, talked of a company project manager telling him of suppliers and sub-contractors who are declining to work in Minneapolis.
A fall NAHB estimate has the current shortfall of skilled construction workers costing the industry $2.7 billion per year.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
I state again that should an immigrant commit a violent crime, prosecute him or her and imprison, if guilty. Then, deport them all. But I remain offended by the hypocrisy of the first Trump administration’s release of some 8,000 violent convicted immigrants, including 308 convicted murderers, into the American hinterlands so that the administration could house immigrants seeking asylum, per a Cato Institute study.
Is it fair to argue that to one of our two political parties, the political power to be gained by lying about immigrants outweighs the value of the economic and fiscal benefits that immigrants bring?
Laurel says
It’s not about immigrants, it’s about gaining, and retaining power at any expense, put upon us by psychopaths and sociopaths hungry for this power. These are people who cannot find happiness in every day moments.
Ray W. says
A few months ago, I described in a comment to FlaglerLive readers a study about researchers combining carbon black with Portland concrete. During the curing process, the carbon black, derived from an “aqueous potassium chloride solution”, “self-assembled” into a porous conductive network capable of storing electrostatic energy, i.e., it became a superconductor. A 45-cubic-meter concrete pour could store enough electrostatic energy to power an average American house. Excess electricity produced by a home’s solar panels could be stored for use whenever needed.
If I am reading a Morning Overview story correctly, MIT researchers replaced the carbon black in the concrete with an electrolyte combining “quaternary ammonium compounds.” The new concrete mix raises the voltage of the supercapacitor’s conductive network formed inside the concrete to a level high enough to reduce the cubic meters needed to power an average American home from 45 to five.
The new MIT study, peer reviewed, appears in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
Pour a concrete mix of sufficient quantity into forms for a new home’s foundation and it self-forms during curing a supercapacitor of sufficient storage capacity to power an average home. The greater the volume of the cement pour, the greater the electrostatic energy storage capacity. Electrostatic superconductors last far longer than do electrochemical batteries. Intermittent solar power generation would no longer be an issue. Even without solar power, the concrete supercapacitor would remain charged if hooked to the city grid, to act as backup should power go out.
I am reminded of a distant cousin who lived in an aluminum-hulled houseboat docked at a marina near the Inlet. So long as the hull was connected to an AC grid converted into a DC power supply that was properly grounded, he was safe from the current. Unplug the power supply and the hull immediately began to corrode from interaction with salt water.
WilliamP says
Anyone that writes “Why don’t we get drunk and screw” should have a highway.
Ray W. says
The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis published on February 19, 2026, a graph drawn from data produced by a study of all of the operating and maintenance costs spent on running each of 125 power plants owned by small electric coops and associations spread over geographic areas of New Mexico, Colorado, Nebraska and Wyoming.
Apparently, each of the three owners of the four coal-fired units comprising the Tri-State Springer Coal complex independently decided to shut down the entire facility because the four coal plants are no longer cost-competitive against renewables, i.e., that it is economically unwise to continue to throw good money after bad.
The first two units opened in 1985. Unit 3 opened in 2006. Unit 4 opened in 2009.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
Most coal-fired power plants have a 50-to-60 year operating life cycle. Shutting down a power plant 17 years after opening says a lot about today’s changing power plant dynamics.
There are three categories of electricity power plants.
First are “base load” power plants designed to operate at all times. These are the primary generators whose output is bought first for economic reasons. Right now, whatever electricity that can be produced by wind and solar is bought first. So long as wind and solar cannot produce the minimum needs of consumers, other forms of power generation operate full-time alongside those most economical power plants.
Second are “follower” power plants. These plants operate whenever grid demand exceeds minimum base load capacity.
Third are the “peaker” plants, which operate only during high load events like summer heat waves and extreme winter storms. The rapidly expanding buildout of battery backup capacity will in time gut the need for coal or gas peaker plants.
If a grid has access to sufficient inexpensive energy to displace coal-fired power plants from “base load” category into “peaker” category, the plants become so economically inefficient as to become wasteful.
Ray W. says
I came across an Oil Price US story about “base load” power plants.
Many FlaglerLive readers may recall comments posted by a smattering of coal devotees who asserted that China’s constructing of coal-fired power plants proves the viability of coal in America. I argued that China had a history of stating that the country needs to be prepared to invade Taiwan by 2027 and that diversifying its electricity grid, given China’s access to its vast coal reserves, would be an asset in a war environment.
Well, according to the Oil Price US article, the Chinese government is now going to spend a large sum of money to retrofit its coal contingent from “base load” capacity to “follower” capacity. China’s entire grid, by this expenditure, will be modernized to be less reliant on coal.
At nearly the same time, the French government announced that it, too, would convert, at great expense, its nuclear generating capacity from “base load” capacity to “follower” capacity.
So the reporter asked the question relevant to the issue of American “base load” generating capacity:
“What does the future look like for America’s base load generating fleet? The harder point here is that legacy power generation technologies are being forced by dint of economic challenges to respond to increased renewables penetration.”
The story then acknowledged recent national demand growth caused by many factors, not least that caused by data center construction. But, the author opined, current data center construction rates may not last long.
Research shows that the national grid has since 2005 engaged in a “business as usual” process of natural gas elbowing out coal’s market share at a rate on average of nine new gigawatts of new natural gas generating capacity per year, a rate expected to last perhaps to 2030.
America, right now, per the story, has a number of competing technologies that produce the same product – utility-grade electricity. The economic figures behind each competing technology are changing. Renewables, according to the reporter, will continue to erode fossil fuel and nuclear profitability. Renewables will continue to make inroads, to continue to increase market penetration.
New fossil fuel plant construction, in time, will cease, “because the economics won’t justify them. … ‘legacy fossil fuel generation will have to increasingly accommodate the needs of a renewables focused grid’, which means an ever larger amount of stranded asset exposure.”
Though new fossil fuel and nuclear plant construction may cease, legacy power plants will continue to find niche roles within the overall American grid.
Make of this what you will.
Sherry says
Yep. . . trump’s name is everywhere. . . Most notably all over the EPSTEIN FILES. . . which trump’s private Justice Department is still ILLEGALLY trying to COVER UP. . . This from the AP:
At issue is a series of interviews said to have been conducted in 2019 with a woman who made an allegation against Trump, who has consistently denied any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein. News reports from recent days say the accuser was interviewed four times but a summary of only one of those interviews was included in the publicly released files.
The missing records were earlier reported by the journalist Roger Sollenberger on Substack and NPR, and have since been documented by other news organizations, including The New York Times, MS Now and CNN.
Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement that his panel would investigate the withheld records. He said he had reviewed unredacted evidence logs and “can confirm that the DOJ appears to have illegally withheld FBI interviews” with the accuser.
Laurel says
The fact of the matter is that maga has accepted pedophilia. Forty percent of the adult population, in the U.S., simply are not so naive that they believe that Trump hung out with his “best friend” Jeffrey Epstein, and thus hung out with Ghislaine Maxwell, and didn’t know they were the center of an international pedophile trafficking ring. They are just not that stupid. As a consequence of support, they have accepted pedophilia, and therefore are complicit.
We’re in a very sad state, to ignore law and ignore the Constitution in order to satisfy the need for acceptance in a tribe, or to temporarily bolster a 401K. This tribe is damaging children by ignoring their cries, by not feeding and sheltering them, and not preventing preventable diseases, and placing them deeper into poverty and denying them healthcare. As a society, we are currently failing, no matter how much smoke trump is blowing up our asses.
Sherry says
Maga Saya:
EPSTEIN Files Again! Damn it. . . distractions didn’t work, blaming the Democrats for not making the files available to the public didn’t work. . . Hey, how about deposing Hillary under oath? She wanted the deposition to be “OPEN” to the “free press”. No way! We Maga Republicans are going to ask her stupid questions about UFOs behind closed doors so we can control what is “leaked” to media outlets, and exactly which ones get “OUR” message. All Maga loves a good “cherry picked, distorted” Hillary story!
We’ll “GET” Bill Clinton today! Same thing, we Maga Republicans will “control the narrative” of what the public will see/hear/read! Hee1 Hee! Hee!
Wait. . . now those fu@#$%^ Democrats are saying that since “Presidents” are being deposed under oath, our lord and master trump should testify under oath as well. NO WAY! Just because our dear leader, trump, had one pix snapped “last century” when accidently at a party with Epstein doesn’t mean he isn’t a saint!
Just because the Dems somehow found out that Pammie’s “completely unbiased” DOJ accidently left out a few pages of the Epstein files! Just because the DOJ used up all the wide black “magic” markers within a 500 mile radius for their redactions! Just because there are still many redactions on what was “required” to be an “UNREDACTED” copy of the files in the scif for congressional access! None of that means there is the “COVER UP” those Democrats with TDS are claiming!
TRUMP is Lord and Master!!!!
Laurel says
What’s funny is, after the drilling of Hillary Clinton, under oath, a Republican politician (I forgot who) came out and announced that Ms. Clinton did not give the grillers satisfactory answers.
How about: Yes sir, I’m close friends with little green people from outer space! Or: The Bermuda Triangle is REAL!
Next?!
Sherry says
OOPS. . . “Maga Says”: