Weather: A 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly sunny, with a high near 80. East wind 5 to 13 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph. Thursday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 65.
- 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:
“My Fair Lady,” at Daytona Playhouse, 100 Jessamine Blvd., Daytona Beach. Box office: (386) 255-2431. Tickets: $30 for adults, $20 for youth. 7:30 p.m. except on Sunday, 2 p.m. The tale of a cockney flower girl transformed into an elegant lady, featuring one of musical theatre’s greatest scores.
“Godspell,” Limelight Theatre, 11 Old Mission Avenue, St. Augustine. 7:30 p.m., except Sunday, 2 p.m. Godspell is a vibrant, contemporary musical inspired by the Gospel of Matthew. Framed as a group of strangers who come together to form a joyful community, the show blends storytelling, comedy, and song to explore themes of love, compassion, forgiveness, and faith. Through energetic ensemble numbers and heartfelt moments, the characters share parables that illuminate timeless moral lessons, culminating in a moving portrayal of sacrifice, hope, and the enduring power of unity.
Flagler Beach United Methodist Church Food Pantry: Flagler Beach United Methodist Church‘s food pantry is open today from 9:30 a.m. to noon at 1500 S. Daytona Ave, Flagler Beach. The church’s mission is to provide nourishment and support in a welcoming, respectful environment. To find us, please turn at the corner of 15 Street and S. Daytona Ave, pull into the grass parking area and enter the green door.
Story Time with Miss Kim at Flagler Beach Public Library, 11 to 11:45 a.m. at the library, 315 South Seventh Street, Flagler Beach. It’s where the wild things are.
Model Yacht Club Races at the Pond in Palm Coast’s Central Park, from noon to 2 p.m. in Central Park in Town Center, 975 Central Ave. Join Bill Wells, Bob Rupp and other members of the Palm Coast Model Yacht Club, watch them race or join the races with your own model yacht. No dues to join the club, which meets at the pond in Central Park every Thursday.
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: Not that I’d ever want to diminish or relativize the blight of maga. It is our blight to live with every day, so neither the past nor Aurelius-like wisdom are much help. But it doesn’t hurt to recall that even certain cultures at their best could be at their worst win chauvinism, as with Italy in the early Renaissance. In the John Garraty/Peter Gay Columbia History of the World, we read: “The recognized intellectual and artistic primacy of Italy in the Renaissance aroused pride in all Italians. That non – Italians were barbarians was as self-evident to them as the parallel conviction had been to the Greeks. In a famous canzone entitled Italia mia ( 1341-1342 ) Petrarch described Italy as ” the loveliest country of the earth ” and called on Italians to revive the ancient Roman virtues. By the fifteenth century it was a commonplace of humanist rhetoric that Italy was sacred soil where no barbarian had any right to be. The poignancy of the famous last chapter of Machiavelli’s Prince flows from this conviction. Writing after Italy had become the battle ground of foreign invaders, he quoted Italia mia and called for a virtuous ruler to arise and liberate Italy from the “barbarous domination that stinks in the nostrils of everyone.”
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
Free For All Fridays With Host David Ayres on WNZF
Scenic A1A Pride Meeting
Friday Blue Forum
Acoustic Jam Circle At The Community Center In The Hammock
Dead Men Tell No Tales…. Or Do They? Murder Mystery Dinner Show
“The Sound of Music,” at Athens Theatre
‘Line’ and ‘All In the Timing’ At City Rep Theatre
Flagler Woman’s Club Charity Golf Tournament
Flagler Beach Farmers Market
Coffee With Flagler Beach Commission Chair Scott Spradley
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Gamble Jam at Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area
Dead Men Tell No Tales…. Or Do They? Murder Mystery Dinner Show
“The Sound of Music,” at Athens Theatre
‘Line’ and ‘All In the Timing’ At City Rep Theatre
For the full calendar, go here.
Now, having talked about the most important of the qualities enumerated above, 1 want to discuss the others briefly under this generalization: that the prince should, as I have already suggested, determine to avoid anything which will make him hated and despised. So long as he does so, he will have done what he should and he will run no risk whatsoever if he is reproached for the other vices I mentioned. He will be hated above all if, as I said, he is rapacious and aggressive with regard to the property and the women of his subjects. He should refrain from these. As long as he does not rob the great majority of their property or their honour, they remain content. He then has to contend only with the ambition of a few, and that can be dealt with easily and in a variety of ways. He will be despised if he has a reputation for being fickle, frivolous, effeminate, cowardly, irresolute; a prince should avoid this like the plague and strive to demonstrate in his actions grandeur, courage, sobriety, strength. When settling disputes between his subjects, he should ensure that his judgement is irrevocable; and he should be so regarded that no one ever dreams of trying to deceive or trick him.
–From Machiavelli’s Prince (1513).
Ray W. says
During a recent podcast produced by the Norges Bank’s investment fund, Faith Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, the body set up after the original OPEC oil embargoes to develop and then oversee the world’s strategic petroleum reserve systems, said:
“The next month, April, will be much worse than March.”
He then described the “crisis” in the Strait of Hormuz as “potentially more disruptive” than the two disruptive international oil shocks of the 1970’s.
According to Mr. Birol, dating from the closing of the Strait, the international oil marketplace has lost from its supply side an estimated average of 12 million barrels of crude oil input per day, a figure greater than the sum of the two 1970’s-era oil shocks.
“We are heading towards a major, major disruption, and the biggest in history”, he warned.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
Perhaps, FlaglerLive readers should consider the economic idea of demand destruction. Of many available definitions for demand destruction, one reads:
“[T]he permanent or long-term decline in consumer demand for a specific good – often energy, fuel, or commodities – caused by sustained high prices or limited supply. It occurs when consumers switch alternatives, improve efficiency, or stop buying, moving beyond temporary dips to structural changes in consumption habits.”
A demand destruction event may be in the offing. The cause of the event matters little. One or the other side may be entirely to blame, or both sides may share blame. Again, blame doesn’t really matter. The invisible hand of the marketplace may drive an irreversible shift in regional, national and individual energy choices, regardless of blame.
As with any fundamental shift in perceptions and policies, we very well soon be hearing about and reading about a slew of new or repurposed lies emanating from the many professional liars who sit at the top of one of our two political parties. Lie launderers might proliferate. And it’s an election year, with much at stake.
So long as the Strait of Hormuz remains open only to shipping approved by the government of Iran, Iran has not been defeated. There has been a change in regime leadership, but that is not automatically the same thing as “regime change.”
Iran war hostilities may end, but the economic damage may likely continue. Yes, its air force is likely non-existent and its navy largely degraded, but Iranian forces are still targeting shipping throughout the region and tankers are not attempting to run the Strait without Iranian permission. Deescalation of the oil crisis, the freight crisis, is not guaranteed.
As an aside, when OPEC voted in February 2021 to slowly phase in the removal of six million barrels of crude oil from the international energy supply, and Saudi Arabia decided on its own to withhold another million barrels of product per day, there was no energy “shock”, yet prices at the gas pump rose. When Russia invaded the Ukraine in February 2022, it shocked the world’s energy markets, and prices at the pump skyrocketed. The IEA determined that the international crude oil marketplace had entered “emergency” status and nations were authorized to sell petroleum out of their reserves at market prices. The U.S. eventually sold a total of 180 million barrels of crude oil out of various reserve sites at a rate of one million barrels per day. The IEA has already authorized nations to sell certain amounts of crude oil out of their reserves, and it is considering a second authorization.
Ray W. says
Lazard is a financial services company that focuses part of its research on utility-scale electricity generating costs; its Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) report is commonly accepted as a reliable source of energy information. But Lazard is not the only financial services company that assesses the levelized costs of producing electricity.
On February 18, 2026, BloombergNEF published its seventeenth annual LCOE study, with results based on a proprietary algorithm interpreting economic data concerning long-term costs for operating 28 different forms of electricity production collected from 50 regions around the world.
Here are some bullet points from the report:
– Compared to 2025 cost figures, by 2035, projections show that levelized costs to generate solar power will drop by 30%. Battery energy storage costs (BESS) are projected to drop by 25%. Onshore wind costs will drop by 23%. Offshore wind costs will fall by 20%.
– Year-on-year, from 2024 to 2025, levelized costs for new battery storage capacity dropped by 27% to an average of $78 per MW-hour.
-Year-on-year, the levelized cost of new power generation by solar panel, combined with the cost of battery storage capacity, dropped to $57 per MW-hour.
– Building a new combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT) plant carries a levelized cost of $102 per MW-hour.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
Levelized costs for a power plant include all related costs of building and operating the plant over the anticipated lifetime of the project, from land rental or purchase costs to permitting costs to construction costs to employee costs to financing costs to repair and maintenance costs to input costs, and more. Input costs for wind and solar plants are free. Input costs for fossil fuels vary widely, depending on fuel availability and price volatility. The Iran war proves that much about the volatility of fuel availability and price volatility.
Levelized costs of energy are averages of all costs. Building a natural gas plant on an island that has no domestic supply of gas costs much more in input costs over the lifespan of the project than putting the same gas power plant in a West Texas spot in the middle of multiple producing gas wells.
A coal plant located a mile by rail line from a coal mine will likely have lower fuel input costs than a coal plant located hundreds of miles away from the closest mine.
I am old enough to remember the daily barges transporting coal on the St. John’s River south from Jacksonville to FP&L’s Sanford power plant. Presumably, the coal arrived in Jacksonville via rail car.
When Duke Energy converted its Crystal River nuclear plant location by building two new natural gas power plants, the company had to build a short branch gas pipeline off of a 515-mile-long spur line that was already being built south into Florida off of an existing major Texas to New York City gas pipeline just to bring fuel to the Duke facility.
There is a reason why the Fed places weight on “core” CPI figures that are overall CPI figures stripped of the volatile food and fuel categories.
Ray W. says
The Mirror US built a story around a sand and gravel company.
Years ago, in 2018, according to the story, the company’s owner appeared on a FOX News segment, during which appearance he said his company had initiated plans to build border wall two years earlier when then-candidate Trump announced campaign plans for his wall. The company eventually received contracts to build portions of the envisioned wall.
Since that FOX News appearance, according to the reporter, who relied in part on a Bloomberg story, the company has built three miles of Texas border wall. The company paid $1.2 million in fines, penalties and restitution after admitting to allegations of fraud amid claims of other environmental, safety and labor violations. Portions of that built wall, allege the reporter, have such a shallow foundations that the portions may fall in heavy flood conditions; and in 2020 a number of building code violations were filed against the company.
Since passage of The Big Beautiful Bill, the sand and gravel company has received more than $8 billion in new DHS contracts to plan and build new border wall.
Make of this what you will.
Skibum says
April fool’s day yesterday was such an appropriate date for the bigliest fool there is to have stood before the American people on live TV and reinforced to all what an abject FOOL his is!
He has spent the last year since his inauguration making fun of America’s European allies, calling their leaders disparaging names and insulting their citizens and their governments. He has repeatedly denounced NATO and has threatened to try to remove the U.S. from it’s membership, despite the reality that the ONLY time in the history of NATO that they came together to defend a member nation was just after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on American soil, when those European NATO nations put their armed forces in harms way while helping to fight Al Quaeda.
This criminal president never consulted our allies in Europe to seek their input or support before attacking Iran. Well, for that matter, ne never even consulted or received approval from our own Congress before starting his war of choice, bowing down to pressure from Israel’s own criminal prime minister who is fighting his own battle to keep him out of prison, so these two moronic war mongers certainly have something in common.
A war of choice, no clear battle plan, no plan for contingencies, to clear stated objectives or outcome, conflicting messaging, making threats and then backing down, then repeating that scenario over and over again. Not even intelligent enough to know what every previous president, military and intelligence experts have always knows… that Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz if attacked, closing off vital worldwide shipping and stopping the very important production and distribution of oil.
Then, to top it all off, this criminal president has the unmitigated gall to beg for assistance from our European allies AFTER the fact, presuming that they would just jump in and come to our aid after such a horrendous military “adventure” into Iran without even understanding clearly known consequences that have come to fruition, to the anger of the citizens and governments of the countries who we should be supporting and having critical discussions with, not threatening and disparaging! So it is no surprise at all that every single one of our European allies have refused to get involved in this war of choice, understanding that their citizens are overwhelmingly opposed to this war and that there would be severe political consequences if they bowed down to our criminal president and did what he wants.
Yes, the FOOL certainly came to town last night, saying FOOLISH things, acting like the head fool-in-chief that he is and always has been, and reinforcing to the rest of the world that America has been hoodwinked, defrauded and made to look like a fool of a nation by our own elected president, and they are not only not amused, but not going to come and fix the problems we let happen by electing such a degenerate FOOL for a president!
Can anyone blame them?
Sherry says
BARBIE. . . Er. . . PAM BONDI is “OUT” as Attorney General! Hooray!
This just in from the AP:
By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER, ERIC TUCKER, MICHAEL BALSAMO and MICHELLE L. PRICE
Updated 10:47 AM PDT, April 2, 2026
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday that Pam Bondi is out as his attorney general, ending the contentious tenure of a loyalist who upended the Justice Department’s culture of independence from the White House, oversaw large-scale firings of career employees and moved aggressively to investigate the Republican president’s perceived enemies.
The announcement follows months of scrutiny over the Justice Department’s handling of files related to Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking investigation that made Bondi the target of angry conservatives even with her close relationship with Trump. She also struggled to satisfy Trump’s demands to prosecute his political rivals, with multiple investigations rejected by judges or grand juries or yet to produce charges.
Trump named Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche as the acting attorney general, though three people familiar with the matter have said he has privately discussed Lee Zeldin, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, as a permanent pick.
Ray W. says
A Deutsche Welle reporter wrote that in 2015, total worldwide solar power capacity was at 228 gigawatts (GW), or 1% of total generating capacity from all types of power plants.
By 2020, total solar generating capacity had climbed to 759 GWs, or 3% of overall generating capacity.
By 2025, solar capacity had climbed again, to 2,919 GWs, or 10% of total generating capacity, passing nuclear power capacity (9% of the total) along the way.
Projections have total solar power capacity reaching 9,000 GWs of generating capacity by 2030, or 20% of the world’s total power capacity.
In 2024 alone, of all the new power generating capacity added around the world, or 632 GWs, solar comprised 72% of that quantity, with wind providing another 18%. Natural gas came in at 4% of the total, and coal 3%. Nuclear added 1% of the new capacity that year.
According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, in a July 22, 2025 article, 91% of the renewable energy projects commissioned in 2024 were less costly than the least expensive fossil fuel alternative that was commissioned that year.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
Studies that I find report on cost comparisons based on average costs to operate power plants of different types, which makes sense because installing solar power in Spain is different from installing solar power in Canada. Building a coal-fired power plant in Iceland, which lacks coal reserves, would be prohibitively expensive, but geothermal and hydropower plant are cheap there. Conventional nuclear power, in need of large quantities of water for cooling, won’t work in a desert setting. So, yes, it makes sense that certain individual fossil fuel power plants in the most favorable locations will come in as less costly than 9% of all solar projects.
As I commented to FlaglerLive readers a short while ago, Texas regulators had the foresight, intentionally or accidentally, to understand that sunny and windy West Texas was prime land for renewables. In 2005, the regulatory body ordered a long-term effort to install a number of ultra-high-capacity transmission corridors from that empty arid region into more densely populated East Texas. By 2014, the transmission projects were done, right when the renewables boom began in Texas. Now, Texas leads the country in new renewables projects.
Jim says
MAGAland, what in God’s name is happening??!!
First, Kristi Noem gets fired. I’m not sure whether it was because she is incompetent, stupid, corrupt, ignorant of laws, having a very public affair with another MAGA, shooting American citizens (not to mention the occasional dog…), violating countless laws or maybe, just all of the above. But it’s hard to see Trump canning someone so loyal and faithful, isn’t it???
Today, Pam Bondi joins the trash heap. Heck, she didn’t even get another government job (like ol’ Kristi). She’s out to pasture and their finding her a job in the private sector. Why is she getting fired? She’s done everything Trump has wanted. Gone after his enemies without having any grounds, put incompetents in charge at various DOJ offices around the country (many canned by the judiciary, have you noticed?), hiding as many Epstein files as she could and delaying as long as possible the release, and firing many career professionals from the DOJ because they had done their jobs under previous administrations. She sucked up to him like “no one has seen before”. And yet, here she is, gone like a rag tossed in the garbage.
Just goes to show you once again: Loyalty to Trump is a one-way street! You suck up to him, do his dirty work, sing his praises and put yourself in legal peril and it means absolutely nothing to Trump. He’ll crap all over you whenever he wants regardless. What a guy! No wonder you all fawn over him like he’s the second coming (News Bulletin: He’s not.)
But you probably won’t even notice. Too busy rushing to the gas station to buy more of that $2/gallon Trump said he had given America!
Or maybe you’re distracted by the Great Special Operation in Iran. The one that’s supposed to (pick one:)
– Regime change (note: Same government, different guy at the top).
– Allow the Iranians to over through to government (nope, not happening – no guns and the government is still well armed and in control).
– Destroy the Iran nuclear program (not sure why we’re there now – I’m certain Trump said he “obliterated” their nuclear program in June 2025. Apparently “obliterate” doesn’t mean what is used to….
– Eliminate the threat that Iran has been at war with US for 40 years. (Anybody think the Iranian regime won’t hold a grudge and, perhaps, retaliate???
Or maybe you’re so busy going over Trump’s plan for the Great Big Beautiful Ballroom.
Or maybe you’re busy going over Trump’s plan for the “Arc de Trump” in DC.
Or maybe you’re busy going over Trump’s plan for the Great Big Beautiful Presidential Library (and hotel).
Or maybe you’re busy going over Trump’s plan for remodeling the Kennedy Center (which will resume that name on the 21st of January, 2029.
There’s just so much great news coming out of the Trump administration nowadays that I know it’s hard to keep up. Probably better just to attach that Trump flag you bought from him (and he appreciates your hard earned money going to his pockets) to your vehicle of choice and run up and down the road proclaiming your allegiance. And speaking for 70% of Americans right now (check out the polls if you can take it), we appreciate you doing that flag thing. It’s a lot easier to keep an eye on the nutcases when they are so clearly identified….
Okay, let’s puts some odds on Kash Patel, Pete Hegseth, RFK, Jr., Jeanene Pirro, Steven Miller, Karoline Leavitt, Marco Rubio and JD Vance just for the fun of it. Thank the Lord that loyalty pays off with DJT!!!
Skibum says
Spot on!
Ed P says
Just one observation about any high profile, high pressure, results mandated employment position. Applies to political appointments or private enterprise.
Everyone who is in that sphere, knowingly accepts the “job” with the express understanding they will be terminated at some point.
When you serve at the pleasure of one person or even a board of directors, it is an unspoken realization.
It’s not an embarrassment to be fired nor is it necessarily just about performance or achieved results. Sometimes it’s as simple as someone believing a better candidate with a better skill set is available.
If you haven’t experienced employment on those terms, I don’t suspect you would understand.
Laurel says
The underwear probably also says “Saturday,” too!
Sherry says
OMG! Soooo FUNNY and Creative! You’ve just gotta check these out!
https://www.buzzfeed.com/mychalthompson/no-kings-protest-signs-buzzfeed-community
Ray W. says
Some two weeks ago, under the headline “As Trump pushes deportations, immigration data becomes harder to find”, an Associated Press reporter wrote of a number of immigration data resources that the Department of Homeland Security either no longer releases or the release has been delayed.
For example, a commonly used link to certain “key” DHS data on immigrants now displays the note “delayed while under review.” Other data hasn’t been updated since early 2025. It isn’t that some of the data cannot ever be found, it seems, it is that some of the data has become much harder to find.
Mike Howell, head of a self-described conservative immigration advocacy group named the Oversight Project, told the reporter that DHS news releases now contain numbers “that purport to be statistics with no statistical backup and the numbers jump all over the place.” He added, “We deserve to know the numbers just like we deserve to know who’s in our country and who needs to leave.”
Per the reporter, by congressional mandate, each December, ICE publishes an annual report on its activities. As of mid-March 2026, the 2025 report has yet to be released. But on January 20, 2026, Homeland Security claimed that 675,000 immigrants had been removed from the country in the year since January 20, 2025. The next day, Homeland Security put the figure for the year at 622,000. On March 4, 2026, now-former Homeland Security Secretary Noem put the figure at 700,000 immigrants removed. The reporter obtained ICE documents that the agency has to release by law. The number of removed immigrants detailed from the reporters review of those documents was 400,000.
Make of this what you will.
Laurel says
Bondi canned. So, if testifying under oath, at Congress is cancelled, since she is no longer AG, then we’ll know the whole batch of politicians are corrupt.
Pogo says
Elsewhere and otherwise
Batteries not required
https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/04/sweden-goes-back-to-basics-swapping-screens-for-books-in-the-classroom/
Make what you will of this.
Me?
Damn good idea.
Sherry says
More amazing signs. . . Maga, are you starting to get it yet?
https://www.buzzfeed.com/mychalthompson/no-kings-best-protest-signs-march-2026
Sherry says
Great Canadian Satire:
TEHRAN (The Borowitz Report)—Shortly before Donald J. Trump was set to address the American people on Wednesday night, Iran declared that it would agree to end the war only if there was regime change in the United States.
“The United States is a rogue state led by an unstable ruler,” the Iranian statement read. “Such a madman must not be allowed to possess nuclear weapons.”
The Islamic Republic’s ultimatum drew immediate and strong support from Greenland, Canada, and the rest of NATO.
At the White House, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said only that Trump was well-rested for his televised address, having spent the day sleeping at the Supreme Court.