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Weather: Sunny. Highs around 80. West winds around 5 mph, becoming south in the afternoon. Wednesday Night: Clear. Lows in the upper 40s. Southeast winds around 5 mph, becoming southwest after midnight.
- 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 enters its third day at 8:45 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?’” and “12-Year-Old Testifies of Years of Sexual Abuse at Grandfather ‘Mike’ Jennelle’s Hands; He’ll Take Stand in His Own Defense.”
Joint workshop of local governments: Flagler County, Flagler Beach, Palm Coast, Bunnell and Beverly Beach governments hold a joint meeting, 5:30 p.m. in board chambers of the Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell. Discussion points include the county’s proposed beach management plan. The Beach Management Plan in Details:
River to Sea Transportation Planning Organization (TPO) Bicycle/Pedestrian Advisory Committee meets at 9 a.m. at the Airline Room at the Daytona Beach International Airport. The TPO’s planning oversight includes all of Volusia County and the developed areas of eastern Flagler County including Beverly Beach and Flagler Beach as well as portions of the cities of Palm Coast and Bunnell, with board member representation from each of those jurisdictions. The committee is responsible for reviewing plans, policies, and procedures and rank priority projects as they relate to bicycle and pedestrian issues within the TPO planning area. 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.
Weekly Chess Club for Teens, Ages 9-18, at the Flagler County Public Library: Do you enjoy Chess, trying out new moves, or even like some friendly competition? Come visit the Flagler County Public Library at the Teen Spot every Wednesday from 4 to 5 p.m. for Chess Club. Everyone is welcome, for beginners who want to learn how to play all the way to advanced players. For more information contact the Youth Service department 386-446-6763 ext. 3714 or email us at [email protected]
Notably: I was looking over some notes I wrote on Nov. 25, 1983, where I’d mentioned a couple of things about Flora Lewis and Tom Wicker, then writing columns for the Times. For the hell of it I looked up that day’s paper in Times Machine. There on the front page were a pair of stories by Thomas Friedman and David Shipler about a prisoner exchange between the PLO and Israel. Made me think of newspaper morgues. That’s what they call (what, before the age of everything digitized, they called) repositories of a newspaper’s old stories, and how today’s reporters could have just ambled over there, pulled up those old stories, and plugged in a few different details: dates, belligerents, names. The stories are identical but for those minor details. Back then it was the PLO. Now it’s Hamas. Same terrorism. Different names. Back then it was Menahem Begin. Now it’s Netanyahu. Same terrorists, different names. “Hundreds of Palestinians and Lebanese gave a hero’s welcome today to their fathers, brothers and sisters released from the Israeli Ansar prison camp near here,” Thomas Friedman reported from Sidon, the southern Lebanese seaside city whose soap museum I wrote about in an earlier Briefing. Same prison, too: Israel’s Ansar is as busy a torture dungeon as Iran’s Evin Prison. Identical, too, or nearly so, is the ratio of Israeli-to-Arab prisoners: Israel released 4,500 Lebanese and Palestinians. The PLO released six Israelis. Israel loves that ratio because it likes to underscore the inhumanity of Arabs. An Arab is not even three-fifth of a human being to Israel. An Arab is 750th of a human being. Israel had trawled most of those Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners without anything resembling due process during Israel’s mini-genocide of the 1982 war on Lebanon, which killed 18,000 Lebanese and Palestinians in a matter of weeks between June 6 and the end of August that year, an end marked by Israel’s blasting of West Beirut with such violence that even Ronald Reagan got angry with Begin, who ignored him. Down to the details, it’s all the same, except for the firepower. The devastation of 1982 now looks tame compared to the devastation of Gaza since October 2023. Even the bombing of Dresden didn’t tally up as many deaths. Of course by Israeli standards, the death of 50,000 Palestinians in Gaza is propaganda, a lie perpetrated by the western and Palestinian press who would dare compare a Palestinian life to a human, to an Israeli, life. By the more proper ratio of the 1983 prisoner exchange, by the 750th ration, only 66 Palestinians were killed in Gaza. How humane. As the 1949 TV report of a prisoner exchange from that year concludes, “peace is returning to the holy land.”
—P.T.
Now this:
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
Wednesday, Mar 12
River to Sea Transportation Planning Organization (TPO) Bicycle/Pedestrian Advisory Committee Meeting
Airline Room, Daytona Beach International Airport
Wednesday, Mar 12
Separation Chat: Open Discussion
Wednesday, Mar 12
The Circle of Light A Course in Miracles Study Group
Wednesday, Mar 12
Weekly Chess Club for Teens, Ages 9-18, at the Flagler County Public Library
Flagler County Public Library
Wednesday, Mar 12
Joint Workshop of Local Governments
Government Services Building
Thursday, Mar 13
Flagler County Drug Court Convenes
Flagler County courthouse
Thursday, Mar 13
Model Yacht Club Races at the Pond in Palm Coast’s Town Center
Central Park in Town Center
Thursday, Mar 13
Palm Coast Democratic Club Meetings
Flagler County Democratic Party HQ
Thursday, Mar 13
Flagler Beach City Commission Meeting
Thursday, Mar 13
Reserve at Haw Creek Joint Workshop
Government Services Building
Thursday, Mar 13
Evenings at Whitney Lecture Series
Whitney Laboratory Lohman Auditorium
Thursday, Mar 13
‘The Drowsy Chaperone,’ at St. Augustine’s Limelight Theatre
No event found!
For the full calendar, go here.
As of November 1, Israeli authorities held nearly 7,000 Palestinians from the occupied territory in detention for alleged security offenses, according to the Israeli human rights organization HaMoked. Far more Palestinians have been arrested since the October 7 attacks in Israel than have been released in the last week. Among those being held are dozens of women and scores of children. The majority have never been convicted of a crime, including more than 2,000 of them being held in administrative detention, in which the Israeli military detains a person without charge or trial. Such detention can be renewed indefinitely based on secret information, which the detainee is not allowed to see. Administrative detainees are held on the presumption that they might commit an offense at some point in the future. Israeli authorities have held children, human rights defenders and Palestinian political activists, among others, in administrative detention, often for prolonged periods. The large number of Palestinian detainees is primarily the result of separate criminal justice systems Israeli authorities maintain in the occupied territory. The nearly 3 million Palestinians who live in the occupied West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem, are ruled by military law and prosecuted in military courts. By contrast, the nearly half a million Israeli settlers in the West Bank are governed under civil and criminal law and tried in Israeli civil courts. Discrimination pervades every aspect of this system.
–From Omar Shakir, “Why Does Israel Have So Many Palestinians in Detention and Available to Swap,” Human Rights Watch and Los Angeles Times, Nov. 29, 2023.
The Cartoon and Live Briefing Archive.
