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Weather: Partly sunny. Highs in the upper 80s. Friday Night: Partly cloudy in the evening, then becoming mostly cloudy. Lows in the mid 60s.
- 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:
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. with FlaglerLive Editor Pierre Tristam’s Reality Check. Today, Ayers, Tristam and Observer Publisher Brian McMillan discuss what’s ahead for the Palm Coast City Council, with call-ins from Council member Dave Sullivan and former Council member Dave Ferguson. See previous podcasts here. On WNZF at 94.9 FM, 1550 AM, and live at Flagler Broadcasting’s YouTube channel.
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 Friday Blue Forum, a discussion group organized by local Democrats, meets at 12:15 p.m. at the Flagler Democratic Office at 160 Cypress Point Parkway, Suite C214 (above Cue Note) at City Marketplace. Come and add your voice to local, state and national political issues.
RockabillieWillie At City Repertory Theatre: Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m., Sunday at 3 p.m., City Repertory Theatre, 160 Cypress Point Parkway (City Marketplace, Suite B207), Palm Coast.  Tickets are $25 adults and $15 students, available online at crtpalmcoast.com or by calling 386-585-9415. Tickets also will be available at the venue just before curtain time. Get ready for Shakespeare like you’ve never heard—or seen—before! RockabillieWillie mashes up scenes from The Taming of the Shrew, Romeo & Juliet, and Henry V with a jukebox of rockabilly hits. Musical numbers like “Willie and the Hand Jive,” “Love and Marriage,” and Buddy Holly’s “Oh Boy” are reimagined to playfully clash and complement Shakespearean drama. Adapted by John Sbordone, RockabillieWillie is dedicated to the proposition that “All’s well that ends.” Don’t miss this fun, fast-paced ride through the Bard’s greatest hits! See Rick de Yampert’s preview: “City Repertory Theatre Untames Shakespeare, Doo-Wop and R&B with “RockabillieWillie.”
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
Sneaker Ball Gala, 6 to 9 p.m. at the Palm Coast Community Center, 305 Palm Coast Parkway NE. Join us for our 1st Annual Sneaker Ball Gala an exclusive evening of mindfulness, philanthropy, and community impact. This event will introduce Rise Above the Violence, Inc., also known as LLC (Long Live Curtis), with the theme “Be Great”. This unforgettable night will bring together community leaders, educators, business owners, and advocates committed to uplifting and empowering our youth. Enjoy an evening filled with entertainment, networking, and purpose, as we showcase our mission to provide young people with essential tools for emotional resilience, mental health awareness, leadership development, and violence prevention through education. We are switching it up! Come with your formal attire and snazzy Sneakers!
Notably: Bunnell’s State of the City came and went Monday with hardly a peep from us elitist media vultures, who only a few weeks ago were chomping at what went for Palm Coast’s State of the City as Mayor Norris mistook it for Nixon Revivalist Day. It’s been much more civilized in Bunnell, where the City Commission and City Manager Alvin It’s-a-great-day-in-Bunnell Jackson have unwittingly watered down the meaning of the State of the City in recent years: they begin every Commission meeting with a sometimes lengthy update on the city’s innumerable projects. The segment invariably turns into a back-patting exercise usually reserved for the State of the City. Bunnell has been happy with itself. It’s been churning along, with its City Hall about ready to open and Commerce Parkway about ready to pierce through to U.S. 1, from State Road 100. Ironically it’s Rick Belhumeur, the Flagler Beach city commissioner, who sent in the picture above. He’s not envious: he agreed with his colleagues last Tuesday that Flagler Beach doesn’t need one of these palaces. It’ll wait another 10 years for its own new city hall, if not more. It’s got too many projects going. The residents, one commissioner told me, would rip their heads off if they went ahead with a city hall. Unreported, but not entirely ignored. The State of the City is below, preceded by a nice proclamation in recognition of the city clerk, Kristen Bates, who pretty much runs the city.
—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.
May 2025
Free For All Fridays With Host David Ayres on WNZF
Scenic A1A Pride Meeting
Friday Blue Forum
Acoustic Jam Circle At The Community Center In The Hammock
Flagler Beach Farmers Market
Coffee With Flagler Beach Commission Chair Scott Spradley
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Peps Art Walk Near Beachfront Grille
Pool Safety Day
ESL Bible Studies for Intermediate and Advanced Students
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village
Gamble Jam at Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area
SunBros Cafe Celebrates the Life of Travis Sundell
Al-Anon Family Groups
For the full calendar, go here.
I Would appreciate it if they would call a halt on all their devoted efforts to find a way to abolish war or eliminate disease or run trains with atoms or extend the span of human life to a couple of centuries, and everybody concentrate for a while on how to wake me up in the morning without my resenting it. It may be that a bevy of beautiful maidens in pure silk yellow very sheer gowns, barefooted, singing Oh, What a Beautiful Morning and scattering rose petals over me would do the trick, but I’d have to try it.
–From Rex Stout’s Before Midnight (1955).
Pogo says
@P.T.
Bunnell is still the best part of Flagler County.
Mr. Stout, god bless ya, sir.
James says
“…Bunnell is still the best part of Flagler County. …”
Do you mean that in the Lynyrd Skynyrd sense Pogo?… As in the “Sweet Home Alabama” relative sense?
Just a wonder’n.
James says
‘… In a Truth Social post Thursday night that did not mention the June 14 plans, Trump wrote, “We are going to start celebrating our victories again!” He vowed to rename May 8, now known as Victory in Europe Day, as “Victory Day for World War II,” and to change November 11, Veterans Day, to “Victory Day for World War I.” …’
Victory Day for World War I???
Just wonder’n when the net comes out.
Btw, full article here…
https://lasvegassun.com/news/2025/may/01/army-plans-for-a-potential-parade-on-trumps-birthd/
James says
“… Just wonder’n when the net comes out. …”
As in the “when are they going to throw a net over this nut case” sense.
Just-a-clarify’n… for those out there that might not have heard of such an expression.
Ray W, says
This just in from CNN:
Last night, during his commencement address to graduating University of Alabama students, President Trump said:
“Gasoline prices just hit $1.88 cents a gallon in three states. … Can you believe that?”
This morning, in a social media post, Trump wrote:
“Gasoline just broke $1.98 a Gallon, lowest in years.”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
Is the commencement address claim structured in such a way as to imply that gasoline prices now average $1.88 per gallon statewide in three states, or is it structured in such a way to imply that gasoline prices at perhaps as few as one gas station in each of three different states hit $1.88 per gallon?
And is this morning’s social media post structured in such a way as to imply that gasoline prices now average $1.98 a gallon across the entire land, or is it structured in such a way as to imply that some gas stations all over the country now sell gasoline at $1.98 per gallon, even if the average statewide price of gasoline is higher?
Back to the article.
The CNN reporter writes:
“Two weeks ago, Trump falsely claimed ‘a couple’ states had just seen gas prices fall to $1.98 per gallon. That was not even close to true — no state had an average lower than $2.70 per gallon, and there was no evidence any individual station was offering gas for under $2 per gallon — but the next day Trump said ‘three states’ had just hit $1.98 per gallon, which was also far from the truth.”
“Trump repeated this inaccurate assertion about three $1.98 states at least three times this week.”
As an aside, I know from my own checking on or about January 20, 2025, that the average national price for a gallon of gasoline on Inauguration Day was roughly $3.13 per gallon.
Back to the article again.
According to the CNN reporter, who today checked with AAA, the national average price stands at $3.18 per gallon. “That wasn’t even in the vicinity of the ‘lowest in years’, he wrote.
“At no point since Trump started making these claims in mid-April has GasBuddy found a single gas station offering gas for the sub-$2 price Trump claimed some states just hit.”
According to the reporter, GasBuddy scans gas prices at “tens of thousands of stations around the country.”
GasBuddy’s head of petroleum analysis told the reporter that one person at one Texas gas station bought gas at $1.99 per gallon due to a special discount offering 50 cents off the station’s general price of $2.49 per gallon.
On this matter, I agree, because I know that the Daytona Buccee’s just opened its long-planned car wash; it is offering gas buyers a hefty discount on their as of last Sunday $2.89 per gallon gasoline purchase price if they purchase a car wash.
The reporter found that the lowest average statewide price for gasoline was in Mississippi at about $2.66 per gallon.
Again, make of this what you will.
Me?
I have long maintained that the modus operandi of the professional lying class that sits atop one of our two political parties is to lie in hopes that the more gullibly stupid among us will launder their lies. President Trump is the embodiment of this modus operandi when he repeatedly lies about gas prices, but there are so many other professional liars standing beside him.
Perhaps the best example of this type of lying to support the chief liar occurred when then-candidate J.D. Vance told a reporter that he knew he was lying when he claimed that Haitians were eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. He added that if it took him lying about Haitians eating pets to get reporters to talk about immigration issues, then he would continue to lie.
Just a couple of days ago, one of the oft-gullible FlaglerLive commenters among us defended a lie launderer who has for years habitually laundered disinformation on this site.
The oft-gullible lie launderer defender just didn’t seem to comprehend that it is the government that cannot impose limits on free speech. I, too, would defend the lie launderer should the government seek to sanction him for his lie laundering. But I am not the government. As an individual, I have a duty to oppose lie launderers, as does the oft-gullible lie launderer defender. This is the message left to us by James Madison. It is one thing for a person to be able to lie without government sanction. It is a “pestilence” when non-government persons celebrate lie launderers for partisan gain when the person knows that what is being laundered is a lie.
Let’s get back to the basics.
The unexpected and deadly outbreak that was the 2020 worldwide pandemic is the proximate cause of the economic destruction that took place throughout 2020 and into 2021, which disruption lingers still in the underpinnings of the economy. There exists no valid argument otherwise.
There may be one or many intervening other causes from which blame can be inferred, but all are secondary to the proximate cause of the pandemic, which occurred due to a mutation, either man-made or in the wild, that made SARS-Covid2 a much more virulent and deadly virus.
Yes, many argue that Fed Chair Powell acted too soon when the Fed lowered lending rates to zero percent and that he acted too late when he began raising the lending rate long after inflation began its predicted rise. And some argue that it was a second mistake for Powell to inject the $3 trillion he chose to inject into the credit market that drove mortgage rates down to as low as 2.7% and overheated the comparatively rapid rise in housing prices.
Yes, many argue that Trump wrongly signing into law two acts passed by Congress that threw $2.9 trillion at the pandemic aftermath, and others argue that Biden wrongly signed into law three acts passed by Congress that threw another $3 trillion at the pandemic aftermath.
Yes, there is one economist who argues that when you add up all the acts passed by Congress that Trump signed into law, the total that his administration threw at the pandemic aftermath was roughly $6 trillion.
Each of these individual acts were secondary causes to the proximate cause of the pandemic, meaning that without the economic destruction of the pandemic, they would never have occurred.
One of the most consistent lies laundered on this site by the pestilential partisan members of faction among us pertain to the economic recovery that occurred over the past four years.
Again, no one can validly dispute that the pandemic disrupted national economies all over the world. Indeed, prior to the pandemic, the first three years of Trump’s administration saw a steadily improving and overall healthy economy that was according to many economists an economy still in recovery from the effects of the Great Recession that ended in 2009. No one can dispute that Trump inherited one of the strongest economies in the world from the Obama administration, just as no one can dispute that the inherited economy simply kept improving during Trump’s watch until the pandemic hit.
When President Biden took office, no one can dispute that he inherited a badly damaged economy, yet due to many different factors, it too slowly yet inexorably improved over his four years in office to the point that Trump inherited once again a relatively strong economy, one that economists of many stripes repeatedly called the strongest in the world at the time of the 2025 Inauguration. It was, as the Wall Street Journal and The Economist wrote, an economy that was the “envy of the world.”
Under these indisputable circumstances, for Trump to now claim that he inherited an economy that had been destroyed by President Biden is simply a lie.
The only way one can claim with intellectual honesty that President Biden destroyed our economy during his term in office would be if it were true that the mutation to the SARS-Covid2 virus had been engineered by human hands and that the Biden administration had orchestrated that engineering. Lacking such evidence, Dennis C. Rathsam has been for years, and with intellectual dishonesty, laundering lies.
Pogo says
@Ray W
Well said sir.
A briefer version:
As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.
— Proverbs 26:11, King James Version
Dennis C Rathsam says
[Comment disallowed. Please comply with our comment policy. Thank you.–FL]
Sherry says
Thank You Ray!
When I speak about the moral character traits like “Honesty”, “Ethics” and “Integrity” as the underpinnings of a society built on trust, I mean just that. Those that excuse, twist and spin incessant pathological lies from “ANY” person are themselves so psychologically damaged and corrupted in their own lack of principals, that they tout criminal “Dishonesty” as the norm. NO everybody doesn’t lie! When “loyalty at all costs” is treasured more that “honesty”, the entire moral structure is destroyed. True loyalty requires trust, and trust requires “Honesty”.
LIES MATTER!
Laurel says
Maybe one person wants what Trump is selling so badly that the lies are excused and twisted into *truths* by the filtering portion of the brain. The other person, however, knows better.