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Weather: A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly after 1pm. Mostly sunny, with a high near 92. Heat index values as high as 106. Calm wind becoming southeast 5 to 8 mph in the afternoon. Tonight: A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly before 8pm. Partly cloudy, with a low around 75. Southeast wind around 6 mph becoming calm in the evening.
- 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 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. See previous podcasts here. Today: Assistant County Administrator Holly Albanese and Commissioner Dave Sullivan talk about the new south branch library, breaking ground next week. On WNZF at 94.9 FM and 1550 AM
First Friday Garden Walks at Washington Oaks Gardens State Park, 6400 North Oceanshore Blvd., Palm Coast, 10 a.m. Join a Ranger the First Friday of every month for a garden walk. Learn about the history of Washington Oaks while exploring the formal gardens. The walk is approximately one hour. No registration required. Walk included with park entry fee. Participants meet in the Garden parking lot. The event is free with paid admission fee to the state park: $5 per vehicle. (Limit 2-8 people per vehicle) $4 per single-occupant vehicle. Call (386) 446-6783 for more information or by email: [email protected].
The Blue 24 Forum, a discussion group organized by local Democrats, meets at 12:15 p.m. at the Palm Coast Community Center, 305 Palm Coast Parkway NE. Come and add your voice to local, state and national political issues.
First Friday in Flagler Beach, the monthly festival of music, food and leisure, is scheduled for this evening at Downtown’s Veterans Park, 105 South 2nd Street, from 5 to 9 p.m. The event is overseen by the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency and run by Laverne M. Shank Jr. and Surf 97.3
Free Family Art Night: “Textured Turtles”, Ormond Memorial Art Museum and Gardens, 78 East Granada Boulevard, Ormond Beach. All art supplies are provided. No art experience is needed, and all ages are welcome. Free Family Art Night is a popular, monthly program typically scheduled on the first Friday of each month to coordinate with the free, family-friendly movie shown outdoors at Rockefeller Gardens. The two programs offer a stimulating evening for families, at no charge, in the heart of downtown Ormond Beach. Our art program takes place in the OMAM Classroom, rain or shine, but the City’s outdoor movies are weather dependent. Movie information can be found here or call The Casements at 386-676-3216.
Notably: The Economist this week ran a graphic showing cost overruns, in percentages, between 1960 and 2024, of certain initiatives. Nuclear storage comes at just under 250 percent. The Olympics are second, at just under 200 percent, followed by Nuclear power, over 1000 percent, IT, dams, aerospace, buildings and defense, all at or above 50 percent. “But do cities benefit from holding the games?” The Economist asks. “The economics of hosting the Olympics are challenging. In 2016 a review of studies examining the economic impact of the games concluded that the short-term effects are “near-zero” and that the long-run ones are “elusive”. Ten of the 13 summer games until 2016 had resulted in losses, and all of them ran over budget.” Paris is expected to overshoot its budget by 115 percent. It cost $9 million to organize the Olympics 100 years ago in Paris, in 2022 dollars. This year: $9 billion. No wonder cities are more often rejecting hosting. But 3 billion people will still tune in. I write this with two screens on, from Paris.
—P.T.
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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.
August 2025
Free For All Fridays With Host David Ayres on WNZF
Friday Blue Forum
Flagler Beach Farmers Market
Coffee With Flagler Beach Commission Chair Scott Spradley
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
For the full calendar, go here.
Paris lifts the soul, and then exasperates. It expresses reason in its orderly layout and tugs at the heart. The City of Lights mixes magic with the mundane: it is a place of bridges in the moonlight and harshly lit rer underground stations; zinc rooftops and brutalist tower blocks; fine dining and fury on the streets. As the host of the Olympic games, which begin on July 26th, Paris is more than ever a showcase, set to dazzle and delight the world. But the French capital’s often-hidden complexity and paradoxes are also part of its richness.
–From an Economist review of a series of books on Paris, July 23, 2024.
Ray W. says
Yesterday’s whopper? J.D. Vance, upon hearing the news of the prisoner swap, commented:
“But we have to ask ourselves — why are they coming home? I think it’s because bad guys all over the world recognize Donald Trump’s about to be back in office, so they’re cleaning house. That’s a good thing and I think it’s a testament to Donald Trump’s strength.”
Is this going to be an election theme? Several months ago, after a sustained rise in stock values following positive economic news, candidate Trump announced that investors had realized he was going to win the election, and they were responding to that realization by investing in the market.
I thought of a Nietzsche quote I had saved, so I looked it up again.
“I am not upset that you lied to me. I am upset that from now on I can’t believe you.”
Skibum says
Yes, the delusional and extremist MAGA candidates are so two-faced that no matter what happens between now and election time, no matter how far removed they are from events and decisions made by others, they have to somehow take credit for anything and everything good happening, and criticize every Dem they can name for anything bad that happens no matter if it is an act of Mother Nature. When you cannot run on your record, you must run FROM it. Then the only thing left to do is try to change the subject as well as make immature, schoolyard bullying type personal attacks like they are doing now about Kamala Harris.