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Weather: Mostly sunny with a slight chance of showers. A slight chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon. Highs in the lower 80s. Southeast winds 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 20 percent. Thursday Night: Partly cloudy. A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms in the evening. Lows in the mid 60s. South winds around 5 mph, becoming west after midnight. Chance of rain 20 percent.
- 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:
Drug Court convenes before Circuit Judge Dawn Nichols at 10 a.m. in Courtroom 401 at the Flagler County courthouse, Kim C. Hammond Justice Center 1769 E Moody Blvd, Bldg 1, Bunnell. Drug Court is open to the public. See the Drug Court handbook here and the participation agreement here.
The Flagler Beach City Commission meets at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall, 105 South 2nd Street in Flagler Beach. Watch the meeting at the city’s YouTube channel here. Access meeting agenda and materials here. See a list of commission members and their email addresses here.
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.
Evenings at Whitney Lecture Series hosted by the University of Florida Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience at 6 p.m. This free lecture will be presented in person at the UF Whitney Laboratory Lohman Auditorium, 9505 Ocean Shore Boulevard, in St. Augustine. Those interested also have the option of registering to watch via Zoom live the night of the lecture. Go here to register for this month’s lecture. See previous lectures here. Tonight: Dr. Steven Noll. His talk will focus on the relationship of Floridians and manatees in historical perspective – how they moved from useless sea cow to beloved marine mammal icon. It will examine their endangered status and how larger issues like politics and development affect them. Noll is an Instructional Professor in the History Department at the University of Florida and received his Ph.D. in 1991 in American History from the University of Florida, his M.A. in 1985 from the University of Florida, his M.Ed. from the University of Florida in Special Education in 1976, and his B.A. in 1974 from the College of William and Mary. He joined the University of Florida Department of History in 1992.
The Palm Coast Democratic Club holds its monthly meeting at noon at the Flagler Democratic Party Headquarters in City Marketplace, 160 Cypress Point Parkway, Suite C214, Palm Coast. The June speaker is US Congressional Candidate James Stockton. Noon 32164. Stockton, running to represent Flagler County in Congress. He is the eldest son of a public school bus driver and a heavy equipment operator. He was raised in a home of morals and values based on the principle of “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” All are welcome to attend and meet Stockton. This gathering is open to the public at no charge. No advance arrangements are necessary. Call (386) 283-4883 for best directions or (561)-235-2065 for more information.
Notably: Since I made it permanently to the United States when I was 15, I haven’t gone a day without reading The New York Times (price the day I landed at JFK in 1979: 20 cents; a headline: “Gold Surpasses $300 and Dollar Slumps on Fears About Oil”) even when I was receiving it two or three days late in West Virginia, by mail, where it was nowhere available the day of publication (I vaguely remember paying either $300 or $600 for the year; the cover price weekdays was 50 cents), and before that in England there was the daily Guardian or the less tolerable (and tolerating) Daily Telegraph, and before that in Lebanon there were the daily Le Reveil, where my mother wrote (yes, for the vaguely fascist Phalangist Party organ), and L’Orient-Le Jour, where she had stopped writing after the outbreak of war. (One of Lebanon’s mass killers, Elie Hobeika, the architect, with Israel, of the massacre at the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps in 1982, killed Le Reveil in 1985 before he was himself assassinated in 2002 (Le Big Sleep), L’Orient, bless its heart, is still going, the entire Middle East’s best French-language newspaper). Since the Wednesday after the American Nakba, by which I mean of course the Trump re-election, I have not clicked on, swiped, looked at or peeked at a New York Times or at any press, with a couple of errant exceptions–not the Times, but an inevitable verification of this or that in The Economist or a check of AP’s House count. A few friends are doing the same. Denial? Not if I understand the meaning of the word, though in a sense there’s certainly a form of denial, or at least a sort of rejection, and more especially dejection, with the obligation of the press to normalize a horror in the name of professional objectivity. Like a quartet playing Schubert as the Titanic sinks kind of thing. Sooner or later I’ll have to look. I’m paying enough money for it–and not just the Times, but that $35-a-month subscription to the world’s press through Press Reader, which I have also ignored. It’s not good form for a reporter to be so cut off. But I’ve found 18th century literature and 1940s crime novels to be more than adequate substitutes: most pages read like current news.
—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.
January 2026
Flagler Beach United Methodist Church Food Pantry
Flagler County Drug Court Convenes
Story Time for Preschoolers at Flagler Beach Public Library
Model Yacht Club Races at the Pond in Palm Coast’s Town Center
Palm Coast Democratic Club Recap Meeting
Town of Marineland Commission Meeting
Free For All Fridays With Host David Ayres on WNZF
Flagler County Cultural Council (FC3) Meeting
Friday Blue Forum
‘Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill,’ the Billie Holiday Story, at City Rep Theatre
For the full calendar, go here.
But Sulzberger seems to underestimate the struggle he is in, that all journalism and indeed America itself is in. In describing the essential qualities of independent journalism in his essay, he unspooled a list of admirable traits – empathy, humility, curiosity and so forth. These qualities have for generations been helpful in contending with the Times’s familiar problem, which is liberal bias. I have no doubt Sulzberger believes in them. Years ago he demonstrated them himself as a reporter, covering the American Midwest as a real place full of three-dimensional people, and it would be nice if they were enough to deal with the challenge of this era, too. But, on their own, these qualities have no chance against the Times’s new, more dangerous problem, which is in crucial respects the opposite of the old one. The Times’s problem has metastasised from liberal bias to illiberal bias, from an inclination to favour one side of the national debate to an impulse to shut debate down altogether. All the empathy and humility in the world will not mean much against the pressures of intolerance and tribalism without an invaluable quality that Sulzberger did not emphasise: courage.
–From James Bennet’s “When the New York Times Lost Its Way,” 1843 Magazine (The Economist), Dec. 14, 2024.
Pogo says
@FWIW
All will be well
https://www.google.com/search?q=beef+wellington+in+palm+coast
Use it up, wear it out — make do; Palm Coast strong.
Pogo says
@FWIW, and your consideration
Ray W, says
A Benzinga reporter wrote of a speech Chairman Powell gave today to Dallas business figures.
According to the article, Powell “highlighted the remarkable strength of the U.S. economy, indicating that there’s no need for the Fed to ‘be in a hurry to lower rates.’
“[Powell] reiterated the central bank’s commitment to reaching its 2% inflation target, stressing the need for careful decision-making as inflation remains above desired levels.
“[Powell] highlighted productivity gains, which he said have ‘grown faster over the past five years than at any point in the two decades preceding the pandemic,’ positioning the U.S. economy as ‘the best-performing among major economies.’
“Addressing the October producer price index (PPI) uptick, Powell labeled it ‘more than an upward bump’ but maintained confidence in the trajectory toward the 2% inflation goal.”
Make of this what you will.
Me? A recent Wall Street Journal article proclaimed that whoever won the election would inherit an economy that is the envy of the world. Chairman Powell echoed that sentiment today. We have the strongest economy in the world. We have enjoyed strong productivity growth over the past five years. We have not been destroyed. We are better off economically than we were four years ago.