To include your event in the Briefing and Live Calendar, please fill out this form.
Weather: A 50 percent chance of showers. Cloudy, with a high near 53. North wind 9 to 11 mph, with gusts as high as 17 mph. Thursday Night: A 20 percent chance of showers before 1am. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 34.
- 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 Cold-Weather Shelter known as the Sheltering Tree will open tonight: The shelter opens at Church on the Rock at 2200 North State Street in Bunnell as the overnight temperature is expected to fall to 40 or below. It will open from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m. The shelter is open to the homeless and to the nearly-homeless: anyone who is struggling to pay a utility bill or lacks heat or shelter and needs a safe, secure place for the night. The shelter will serve dinner and breakfast. Call 386-437-3258, extension 105 for more information. Flagler County Transportation offers free bus rides from pick up points in the county, starting at 3 p.m., at the following locations and times:
- Dollar General at Publix Town Center, 3:30 p.m.
- Near the McDonald’s at Old Kings Road South and State Road 100, 4 p.m.
- Dollar Tree by Carrabba’s and Walmart, 4:30 p.m.
- Palm Coast Main Branch Library, 4:45 p.m.
Also: - Dollar General at County Road 305 and Canal Avenue in Daytona North, 4 p.m.
- Bunnell Free Clinic, 4:30 p.m.
- First United Methodist Church in Bunnell, 4:30 p.m.
The shelter is run by volunteers of the Sheltering Tree, a non-profit under the umbrella of the Flagler County Family Assistance Center, is a non-denominational civic organization. The Sheltering Tree is in need of donations. See the most needed items here, and to contribute cash, donate here or go to the Donate button at this page.
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.
The Palm Coast Beautification and Environmental Advisory Committee meets at 5 p.m. at City Hall, 160 Lake Avenue, Palm Coast. The committee will discuss two requests to rename city facilities–one to rename the Community Wing of City Hall, where council meetings take place, for Jon Netts, the former mayor and council member who died in 2021, and the other to rename the main show tennis court at the Southern Recreation Center the “Friends Court,” in recognition of the Friends group at the tennis center.
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. The commission is expected to award a $14.1 million contract to Vecellio & Grogan i to get started with pier demolition and reconstruction.
Lee Greenwood in concert at Palm Coast’s Fitzgerald Performing Arts Center (Flagler Auditorium), 5500 State Road 100, Palm Coast. 7 p.m. Tickets $64 to $74. Throughout his expansive career, international country music icon Lee Greenwood has earned multiple CMA and ACM Awards, a Grammy Award for Top Male Vocal Performance on “I.O.U,” in 1985, and a multitude of other prestigious awards nominations. His discography includes twenty-two studio albums, seven compilation albums, seven No. 1 hits, and thirty-eight singles including songs like “It Turns Me Inside Out,” “Ring On Her Finger Time on Her Hands,” “She’s Lyin’,” “I Don’t Mind the Thorns if You’re the Rose,” “Dixie Road,” “Somebody’s Gonna Love You,” “Going Going Gone,” “You Got A Good Love Comin’,” among others. See: “Lee Greenwood Brings His ‘God Bless the USA’ and American Spirit Tour to Palm Coast’s Fitz Arts Center.”
‘Crimes of the Heart’ at St. Augustine’s Limelight Theatre, 11 Old Mission Avenue, St. Augustine. 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. $25. Book here. The three MaGrath sisters are back together in their hometown of Hazelhurst for the first time in a decade. Under the scorching heat of the Mississippi sun, past resentments bubble to the surface and each sister must come to terms with the consequences of her own “crimes of the heart.”
Notably: Must we not read Rousseau, let alone Rousseau’s Emile, his treaty on education, because he abandoned five children to foundling hospitals? Must we not watch “House of Cards” because Kevin Spacey was once alleged of sexual misconduct toward several people (he denied, he was found not liable in one case, acquitted in another), or laugh at Louis C.K. specials because of his issues under the table, or not watch any movies produced by Harvey Weinstein, that rogue of a thousand assaults (with Bill Cosby, it’s easy: his materials are not watchable anyway), or not read Celine because of his fascist sympathies and his racism–and so on: the list of the impermissible, by certain standards, would be very long, though the moral demarcation should not be as difficult: if no one was hurt in the production of a work of art, the work should be judged separately from its makers’ morals, on its own terms. If the work betrays a certain something about its makers’ morals, it’s a different matter. Judge that. But don’t remove, prohibit, or go all sanctimonious. So we come to Alice Munro, the 2013 Nobel Prize winner for literature, the Chekhov of the last century, the Canadian writer whose books have been removed from library shelves and ended up in a few shredders, too unfairly. Her daughter not too long ago revealed that she had been molested by Munro’s second husband when the daughter was 9, that Munro found out, and handled the situation terribly. The facts are not in dispute. The man turned himself in and served all of two years in probation. There’s been several good reported pieces on the case recently, in The New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, Foreign Policy. Educators “wonder how to teach the writings of Alice Munro in wake of daughter’s revelations.” Reading headlines alone, you’d think Munro was the criminal. She was not. Without excusing the way she reacted once she learned a truth she might have suspected, it seems to be yet another example of our overly prosecutorial culture that she–or we–should pay the price of her cowardice and self-preserving selfishness (that seems to be the consensus judgment about the way she reacted) by de-shelving her. We now know what prompted her to write several of the stories she did after she became aware of the crime. The stories read in some parts like self-absolutions. That’s still no reason to condemn her to some sort of literary oblivion, at least for a generation, since in any case her work will reemerge largely unscathed by all this in some years: we don’t read Greek philosophers of the fifth and fourth and third centuries b.c. any less today because they may have done things with boys that would send them to prison for life today. But we read guardedly.
—P.T.
View this profile on Instagram
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.
Flagler County Commission Workshop
Flagler Woman’s Club Forum for Flagler Beach City Commission Candidates
St Thomas Episcopal Rummage Sale
Flagler County Commission Morning Meeting
Beverly Beach Town Commission meeting
Nar-Anon Family Group
Flagler Beach Library Writers’ Club
Flagler Beach Planning and Architectural Review Board
Palm Coast City Council Meeting
Bunnell Planning, Zoning and Appeals Board
Random Acts of Insanity Standup Comedy
For the full calendar, go here.
The family did what families often do after an episode of abuse: They carried on as if nothing happened. Munro took Fremlin back after just a few weeks, and for years Andrea continued to visit them. It was the arrival of her own children, twins born in 2002, that brought clarity to her emotional haze. Andrea told her mother she didn’t want Fremlin anywhere near them. Munro objected that visiting without Fremlin would be inconvenient, because she couldn’t drive. “I blew my top,” Andrea told a reporter for The Star. “I started to scream into the phone about having to squeeze and squeeze and squeeze that penis, and at some point I asked her how she could have sex with someone who’d done that to her daughter.” The next day, Munro called her back — not to apologize but to forgive Andrea for how she had spoken to her. It was the end of their relationship. In 2004, this magazine ran a profile of Munro, who was about to publish her 11th book, the widely celebrated “Runaway.” Throughout the article, Munro speaks lovingly of Fremlin, whom she says she was “enormously lucky” to have met. She is also described as being “close today to her three daughters.” Floored by her mother’s dishonesty, Andrea felt as if she was being erased. She gathered the letters that Fremlin sent in 1992 and took them to the police. When an officer arrived at their house to arrest him, he reported that Munro was apoplectic, denouncing her daughter as a liar. In March 2005, Fremlin, then 80, quietly pleaded guilty to indecent assault and was sentenced to two years’ probation. For years, Andrea tried to make her story public, with no success.
–From “What Alice Munro Knew,” by Giles Harvey, New York Times Magazine,. Dec. 8, 2024.
Jackson says
Trump’s 25% tariff taxes in his first year on steel and lumber caused inflation. Then Republican executives raised prices sky high to get the voters very angry at Democrats so they could keep their personal tax cuts. If you thought inflation was bad, wait until Trump’s 20 to 60% tariffs kick in. Don’t forget to add in the 7% sales tax on the extra tariffs.
Ed P says
Tariffs are a tool. Nothing more. Trump is going to leverage our economy to slow illegal drug scourge and to protect US jobs.
Foreign countries dump steel and lumber below cost to “buy” market share. In some instances, even with a tariff, the country of origin simply reduces their prices even more, nullifying the costs of the tariff and lining our governments coffers. Consumers don’t always pay the costs and tariffs are not forever. They are also very industry specific.
Even Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan, has stated similar comments.
Jim says
Really? According to your logic, we shouldn’t be bothered by tariffs. After all, “some” countries of origin “reduce their prices” to offset the tariffs. Also, tariffs “are being used to slow illegal drug scourge and protect US jobs”. That’s some major BS you’re spouting. You think because “some” countries lower their prices that we consumers are not being impacted by tariffs? What about the “other” countries that don’t? And exactly how many countries are “eating” the tariff costs? I think your argument is highly disingenuous.
Also, what US jobs are being saved by tariffs? You think car manufacturing is moving back to the US? Or maybe the textile industry is making a huge comeback?
Finally, what I see so far is Trump is going to “tariff” Canada and Mexico. Thank God we’re going after those two evil countries on our borders first.
Ed P says
Here’s a factual nugget. It’s estimated that an $82 tariff on a Chinese washing machine raises the price about $12.
Yes the Chinese reduced prices, the importer took a smaller cut and yes you paid $12.00 more. We have many “friendly nations” that have begun eating the Chineses’ lunch and dinner. Take South Korea for instance. TCL has recently eclipsed the big screen tv industry as #1 volume producer.
Additionally, many products are diverted to other countries from China for final assembly, to be shipped to US and thwart the tariff. And don’t discount the fact that many importers bill of ladings are “erroneously” labeling the products to bypass the fees as well.
You also aren’t acknowledging that once a tariff is imposed, it takes months to reach retail and the negotiations could be over by them and the tariff might be removed.
Finally, Covid taught that we need to uncouple from China and it will cost consumers but the stark reality is it’s imperative.
What would you propose?
Jim says
Tariffs are not beneficial to American consumers. Many jobs have left this country because Americans want to pay as little as possible for things (just like everyone else) and most manufacturing costs in this country can be beaten by foreign workers who will work for much less. That’s one big reason for manufacturing job loss in this country. How to bring it back? I really don’t know. The “answer” would be to be able to manufacture here just as competitively as our foreign competition. I guess we could automate manufacturing at a greater rate than others but the only jobs that creates are for the technicians who can operate and maintain automated equipment. That’s not easy to do and I freely admit I don’t know how to bring those jobs back. You can single out one item (Chinese wash machines) and show that they are not charging the full tariff but I guess the $12 they are charging more than before is inconsequential to you. It’s a price increase on consumers for no benefit. You point out goods are shipped to other countries from China to avoid the tariffs. Probably so. That’s a smart business move, I would say. And I haven’t seen where all the tariffs currently in effect have done a single thing to reduce my taxes. So, as a consumer, I’m seeing no benefit. And, even if you are claiming ALL imports that have tariffs attached are “absorbing the costs” of tariffs, the fact stands that tariffs cost American consumers.
What I do know is tariffs hurt all American consumers and the fact that there is a delay between when it’s enacted and when it actually affects the price we’re paying doesn’t matter.
Sherry says
You will not likely see this report on Fox. . . This is what a woman of “character” did when trump tried to pardon her for her participation in the “Insurrection” (as defined by the Colorado Supreme Court). Pamela Uphill you are a fine example of a “Moral” person! This from the BBC:
One of the people who served jail time for taking part in the US Capitol riot four years ago has refused a pardon from President Donald Trump, saying: “We were wrong that day.”
Pamela Hemphill, who pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 60 days in prison, told the BBC that there should be no pardons for the riot on 6 January 2021.
“Accepting a pardon would only insult the Capitol police officers, rule of law and, of course, our nation,” she said.
“I pleaded guilty because I was guilty, and accepting a pardon also would serve to contribute to their gaslighting and false narrative.”
Jim says
I’d like to see some of the MAGAtes out there respond.
How do you justify the pardons of all the J6 convicted criminals by dear leader? And in that justification, please include the strong support you all have for “Back the Blue”. These people invaded the capitol, beat police, used tasers and other weapons, destroyed property, etc. I realize dear leader says it was a “day of love” but for those of us who have eyes and enough brains to comprehend what our eyes see, it was far from a “day of love”. And don’t bother pointing at Biden and his pardons. That wasn’t something many are defending and it has nothing to do with what Trump has done.
The thing is Trump said he’d do it and he has. And you all voted for him so clearly you support that action. So explain to all the rest of us how this makes America great again. Please explain how this supports the rule of law in this country. Please explain how this is any different from pre-war (WWII) Germany.
I think you’re a bunch of hypocrites. Prove me wrong.
Sherry says
Another person with TDS? OMG! trump is now demanding apology from Bishop asking for mercy for immigrants and LGBTQ children:
Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, who made waves this week for asking President Trump to “have mercy” on LGBTQ children and immigrants during a prayer service he attended at the National Cathedral, said she does not “hate” the president, but his demand for an apology will likely go unanswered.
“I am not going to apologize for asking for mercy for others,” Budde, 65, told Time on Wednesday. She told NPR similarly, “I don’t feel there’s a need to apologize.”
Sherry says
This is what some leaders of other countries really think of trump. . . is just too bad that so many of our own leaders are such cowards!
“Mr. Trump, f*** off!” said Anders Vistisen, a Danish member of the European Parliament, rejecting the idea that Greenland could ever be for sale. He was then rebuked for using profane language in a parliamentary session.
Sherry says
trumps never ending LIES. . . just a couple of the latest:
Trade with the European Union
In his speech at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, Trump repeated false claims about the European Union. He said: “They don’t take our, essentially, don’t take our farm products, and they don’t take our cars.”
It’s not true, “essentially” or otherwise, that the EU doesn’t buy US farm products. The US government says the EU bought $12.3 billion worth of US agricultural exports in the 2023 fiscal year, making it the fourth-largest export market for US agricultural and related products behind China, Mexico and Canada.
And while US automakers have often struggled to succeed in Europe, according to a December 2023 report from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, the EU is the second-largest market for US vehicle exports — importing 271,476 US vehicles in 2022, valued at nearly 9 billion euro. (Some of these are vehicles made by European automakers at plants in the US.)
The US trade deficit with China
Trump complained of the US trade deficit with China, saying, “We’ve been having massive deficits with China. Biden allowed it to get out of hand. He’s – $1.1 trillion deficits; ridiculous, and it’s just an unfair relationship.”
This is misleading at best. The record US goods and services trade deficit with China, about $378 billion, was actually set during Trump’s first presidency in 2018. It has bounced around under Biden, but it has been lower than $378 billion every year, and the last available full-year figure, for 2023, was about $252 billion – lower than in any year of Trump’s presidency. The Trump-era low was about $282 billion in 2020.
When Trump mentioned “$1.1 trillion deficits,” he may have been thinking of the total US trade deficit with the world, which was about $1.1 trillion in 2023 if you only consider trade in goods and don’t count services. But he strongly suggested he was talking about trade with China in particular.
The US trade deficit with Canada
During the question-and-answer portion of the Thursday event, Trump falsely claimed that the US has a trade deficit with Canada of $200 billion or $250 billion, saying “it’s not fair” that the bilateral deficit should be this high. In fact, the US goods and services trade deficit with Canada was about $40.6 billion in 2023, according to the US government’s Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Even if you only consider trade in goods and ignore the services trade at which the US excels, the US deficit with Canada was about $72.3 billion in 2023, the bureau reported, still far shy of Trump’s figure. And it’s worth noting that the deficit is overwhelmingly caused by the US importing a large quantity of inexpensive Canadian oil, which helps keep Americans’ gas prices down.
Pogo says
@America’s humiliation
… while slouching towards oblivion.
As stated
https://www.google.com/search?q=trump+speak+davos+2025
Directly related
https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+grade+level+donald+j+trump+vocabulary
There is no good reason good can’t triumph over evil, if only angels will get organized along the lines of the mafia.
— Kurt Vonnegut
Sherry says
This from Canada’s Andrew Coyne:
THE TRUTH MATTERS
In 2023, Canada exported $427 billion in goods to the U.S. while the U.S. sent $355 billion north — a $72 billion gap. Once services are factored in, however, the U.S. actually enjoys a $32 billion surplus, reducing the overall trade deficit to $40 billion.
Much of Canada’s trade advantage lies in energy exports — a sector where Canada props up the American economy, not the other way around.
If one were to only exclude oil exports, Canada would run a trade deficit with the United States — a sobering, inconvenient truth conspicuously absent from Trump’s calculus.
The U.S. refinery system is tooled to process heavier crude. And where does most of that heavier crude come from? Canada.
Without Canada’s exports of heavy oil, American refineries would shut down, driving up costs, putting tens of thousands out of work, and creating chaos in the energy supply chain. America’s economy depends on Canadian crude oil sales at below-market prices.
Canada is subsidizing America — not the other way around.
Sherry says
Take just a couple of minutes to read what many Canadians think of trump, and now of US citizens:
“Nothing mattered, in the end. Not the probable dementia, the unfathomable ignorance, the emotional incontinence; not, certainly, the shambling, hate-filled campaign, or the ludicrously unworkable anti-policies.
The candidate out on bail in four jurisdictions, the convicted fraud artist, the adjudicated rapist and serial sexual predator, the habitual bankrupt, the stooge of Vladimir Putin, the man who tried to overturn the last election and all of his creepy retinue of crooks, ideologues and lunatics: Americans took a long look at all this and said, yes please.
There is no sense in understating the depth of the disaster. This is a crisis like no other in our lifetimes. The government of the United States has been delivered into the hands of a gangster, whose sole purpose in running, besides staying out of jail, is to seek revenge on his enemies. The damage Donald Trump and his nihilist cronies can do – to America, but also to its democratic allies, and to the peace and security of the world – is incalculable. We are living in the time of Nero.
The first six months will be a time of maximum peril. NATO must from this moment be considered effectively obsolete, without the American security guarantee that has always been its bedrock. We may see new incursions by Russia into Europe – the poor Ukrainians are probably done for, but now it is the Baltics and the Poles who must worry – before the Europeans have time to organize an alternative. China may also accelerate its Taiwanese ambitions.
At home, Mr. Trump will be moving swiftly to consolidate his power. Some of this will be institutional – the replacement of tens of thousands of career civil servants with Trumpian loyalists. But some of it will be … atmospheric.
At some point someone – a company whose chief executive has displeased him, a media critic who has gotten under his skin – will find themselves the subject of unwanted attention from the Trump administration. It might not be so crude as a police arrest. It might just be a little regulatory matter, a tax audit, something like that. They will seek the protection of the courts, and find it is not there.
The judges are also Trump loyalists, perhaps, or too scared to confront him. Or they might issue a ruling, and find it has no effect – that the administration has called the basic bluff of liberal democracy: the idea that, in the crunch, people in power agree to be bound by the law, and by its instruments the courts, the same as everyone else. Then everyone will take their cue. Executives will line up to court him. Media organizations, the large ones anyway, will find reasons to be cheerful.
Of course, in reality things will start to fall apart fairly quickly. The huge across-the-board tariffs he imposes will tank the world economy. The massive deficits, fuelled by his ill-judged tax policies – he won’t replace the income tax, as he promised, but will fill it with holes – and monetized, at his direction, by the Federal Reserve, will ignite a new round of inflation.
Most of all, the insane project of deporting 12 million undocumented immigrants – finding them, rounding them up and detaining them in hundreds of internment camps around the country, probably for years, before doing so – will consume his administration. But by then it will be too late.
We should not count upon the majority of Americans coming to their senses in any event. They were not able to see Mr. Trump for what he was before: why should that change? Would they not, rather, be further coarsened by the experience of seeing their neighbours dragged off by the police, or the military, further steeled to the necessity of doing “tough things” to “restore order?”
Some won’t, of course. But they will find in time that the democratic levers they might once have pulled to demand change are no longer attached to anything. There are still elections, but the rules have been altered: there are certain obstacles, certain disadvantages if you are not with the party of power. It will seem easier at first to try to change things from within. Then it will be easier not to change things.
All of this will wash over Canada in various ways – some predictable, like the flood of refugees seeking escape from the camps; some less so, like the coarsening of our own politics, the debasement of morals and norms by politicians who have discovered there is no political price to be paid for it. And who will have the backing of their patron in Washington.
All my life I have been an admirer of the United States and its people. But I am frightened of it now, and I am even more frightened of them.”
Written by Andrew Coyne.
Andrew Coyne is a highly respected Canadian columnist with the Globe and Mail and a regular panelist on CBC’s The National, who has previously worked with Macleans Magazine (Senior Editor) and the National Post.
Sherry says
OOPS. . . Just a few more lies from trump, and he’s only 5 days in:
CLAIM: In an interview Wednesday night with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Trump said that he “won youth by 36 points.”
THE FACTS: That’s false. Former Vice President Kamala Harris won the 18 to 29 age group by 4 percentage points, 51% to 47%; and the 30 to 44 age group 50% to 47%, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 120,000 voters in the November election.
CLAIM: Asked by Hannity why he pardoned Jan. 6 rioters who attacked police at the Capitol, Trump said, “They were treated like the worst criminals in history. And you know what they were there for? They were protesting the vote because they knew the election was rigged and they were protesting the vote.” He noted that some of the rioters engaged with police, “but they were very minor incidents.”
THE FACTS: Rioters at the Capitol engaged in hand-to-hand combat with police and many of the rioters were carrying weapons, including firearms, knives, brass knuckle gloves, a pitchfork, a hatchet, a sledgehammer and a bow. They also used makeshift weapons, such as flagpoles and tables. One officer was crushed in a doorframe and another suffered a heart attack after a rioter pressed a stun gun against his neck and repeatedly shocked him. One rioter was charged with climbing scaffolding and firing a gun in the air during the melee.
CLAIM: “The government wouldn’t do it any longer, which is ridiculous,” Trump said during a visit to North Carolina on Friday, referencing temporary housing in hotels provided to survivors of Hurricane Helene by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
THE FACTS: FEMA is still paying for survivors to stay temporarily in hotels through its Transitional Sheltering Assistance program.