Weather: Sunny in the morning, then becoming partly cloudy. Highs in the upper 70s. North winds 10 to 15 mph. Monday Night: Partly cloudy with a 20 percent chance of showers. Lows in the lower 60s. North winds 5 to 10 mph. Tropical storm watch: The tropics are not entirely calm. Two disturbances are making their way west, but neither is expected to develop into anything threatening, as you can see from this animated forecast.
Today at the Editor’s Glance:
It’s Nobel Prizes Week: The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is announced this morning at 5:30 Palm Coast time, 11:30 a.m. at The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute near Stockholm. Physics on Tuesday, Chemistry on Wednesday, Literature on Thursday and Peace on Friday. Economics will be the following Monday.
In Court: Felony court hears various pleas, bond and status cases.
The U.S. Supreme Court is back in session today for its new term. See: “The Supreme Court Is Back in Session. Cue the Controversial Cases that May Change Your Life.”
Flagler County schools and other schools are back in session today after the three-day hiatus due to Hurricane Ian.
The Flagler County Commission meets at 9 a.m. at the Government Services Building, 1769 E. Moody Boulevard, Building 2, Bunnell. Ryan Belhumeur, a Flagler County Parks Employee, will be recognized for his vigilance in helping law enforcement stop a thief and recover stolen bleachers last month. See: “Wadsworth Park Employee’s Vigilance Leads to Veteran Felon and Bleacher Stealer’s Arrest in 2 Hours.” Access meeting agendas and materials here. The five county commissioners and their email addresses are listed here. Meetings stream live on the Flagler County YouTube page.
The Beverly Beach Town Commission meets at 6 p.m. at the meeting hall building behind the Town Hall, 2735 North Oceanshore Boulevard (State Road A1A) in Beverly Beach. See meeting announcements 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.
Editorial notebook: Palm Coast is represented in the Florida House by Paul Renner, the Republican who will be Speaker of the House in the next session of the Legislature. Good for Flagler. Renner is as sharp as he’s charming. But there are two Renners. There’s Policy Paul: fascinating, brilliant, earthy and brimming with ideas. He was the keynote speaker at the Flagler Humane Society’s 40th anniversary Sunday evening, at the Florida Agricultural Museum. One of the initiatives he spoke of for the near future is the planned preservation of a wildlife corridor through Central Florida, including Flagler, by way of buying conservation easements from farmers. In exchange, they’ll pledge to keep their lands in agricultural production: food security and environmental protection combined, because “if we pave over the entire state, we don’t get there,” he said, projecting the day when Florida has 30 million residents. That’s not too far off. But it’ll take “tens of billions of dollars” to realize that corridor. Anyway: that’s Policy Paul. He also summarized several other animal-friendly initiatives that recently became law and referred to A Land Remembered, the 1984 Patrick Smith novel of Cracker-era Florida (I am referring to the term in the book’s historical context, not as its more recent connotation). If that were the Renner we always had–like the DeSantis of the Emergency Operations Center during the three-four days of Ian–Florida would live up to its more literal name. Instead, we have Policy Paul in places, and Ideological Paul in others, where he becomes as unrecognizable as DeSantis started becoming the moment he stepped into the sun, touring ravaged communities. The ideological edge was back, the comity was gone. It’s naive of course to think it would be any other way. But the starkness of contrasts is shocking, making Carlos Lozada‘s point about so much of this being a big joke. I know I quoted him last week. The more reason to quote him again after hearing Policy Paul speak on Sunday, knowing Ideological Paul is a beat away from the next television mic: “When politicians publicly defend positions they privately reject, they are telling the joke. When they give up on the challenge of governing the country for the rush of triggering the enemy, they are telling the joke. When they intone that they must address the very fears they have encouraged or manufactured among their constituents, they are telling the joke. When their off-the-record smirks signal that they don’t really mean what they just said or did, they are telling the joke. As the big lie spirals ever deeper into unreality, with the former president mixing election falsehoods with call-outs to violent, conspiratorial fantasies, the big joke has much to answer for.”
Now this:
Flagler Beach Webcam:
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.
January 2026
ESL Bible Studies for Intermediate and Advanced Students
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village
Al-Anon Family Groups
‘Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill,’ the Billie Holiday Story, at City Rep Theatre
East Flagler Mosquito Control District Board Meeting
Nar-Anon Family Group
For the full calendar, go here.
The first thing you need to understand about the Hunter Biden laptop, though, is that it’s not a laptop. The FBI reportedly took possession of the original — at least if you accept the version of events promoted by those who have distributed the data, which Hunter Biden and his lawyers don’t — and all we have now are copies of copies. When it first publicly surfaced, 20 days before the 2020 election, the authenticity of the material was doubted to the degree that Twitter and Facebook effectively banned the story from legitimate political discourse. Since then, mainstream news organizations, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, have come to verify that at least some of the information contained in the cache is authentic.
It is hard to think of a single living individual who has experienced as total an annihilation of digital privacy since our devices became extensions of our consciousness. A suite of executives and thousands of employees were victimized by the Sony hack. In the iCloud hack known as “the Fappening,” nude photos of dozens of celebrities ended up on Reddit and 4chan. The 2016 hack of DNC servers and John Podesta’s Gmail exposed the private communications of a major political party. But in terms of the vastness of the data breach, the narrowness of its target, and its capacity to be deployed as a political weapon, none of those compare to the exposure of Hunter Biden’s entire virtual life.
–From Andrew Rice and Olivia Nuzzi’s “The Sordid Saga of Hunter Biden’s Laptop,” New York magazine, September 12, 2022.
Referring to the comic... says
Villanize Desantis all you want but taking out a loan is a choice you make when you sign your name on a contract promising to repay the loan with interest. People that did not borrow the money and spend it as they wish should not have to repay someone else’s loan, This is common sense and has absolutely nothing to do with storm relief funding to repair damaged infrastructure. Just pay out the money and shut up Biden, When you speak without your handler’s tele prompting you sound ridiculous, stop wandering around on stage shaking hands with the air and seeing dead people and prioritizing communities of color is Racism kamala!
Timothy Patrick Welch says
Concerning the cartoon…
Student debt relief- shows college education may not be worth the cost.
Hurricane relief- shows you should not build (or rebuild) within 100 yards of the water or in areas that flood.
Bottom line- American middle class carries the burden again, with little benefit.
Patriot says
Shame shame on you buddy! You’re more and more a threat to our Country with your BS cartoons! Shame!!!
Pierre Tristam says
Ah, yes. Spoken like the murderers of Charlie Hebdo’s staff.
joe says
wicked liberals have nothing better to do
Timbo says
Wow, comparing voluntary student loans to involuntary destruction from a killer hurricane!! Someone should be ashamed.