To include your event in the Briefing and Live Calendar, please fill out this form.
Weather: A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly after 2pm. Sunny, with a high near 94. Sunday Night: A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly cloudy, with a low around 77.
- 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:
Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village: The city’s only farmers’ market is open every Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. at European Village, 101 Palm Harbor Pkwy, Palm Coast. With fruit, veggies, other goodies and live music. For Vendor Information email [email protected]
Gamble Jam: Musicians of all ages can bring instruments and chairs and join in the jam session, 2 to 4 p.m. Note that in a temporary change from the regular schedule, Gamble Jam will be the 2nd and 4th Sunday of each month through August 17. The program is free with park admission! Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area at Flagler Beach, 3100 S. Oceanshore Blvd., Flagler Beach, FL. Call the Ranger Station at (386) 517-2086 for more information. The park hosts this acoustic jam session at one of the pavilions along the river to honor the memory of James Gamble Rogers IV, the Florida folk musician who lost his life in 1991 while trying to rescue a swimmer in the rough surf.
Al-Anon Family Groups: Help and hope for families and friends of alcoholics. Meetings are every Sunday at Silver Dollar II Club, Suite 707, 2729 E Moody Blvd., Bunnell, and on zoom. More local meetings available and online too. Call 904-315-0233 or see the list of Flagler, Volusia, Putnam and St. Johns County meetings here.
Grace Community Food Pantry, 245 Education Way, Bunnell, drive-thru open today from noon to 3 p.m. The food pantry is organized by Pastor Charles Silano and Grace Community Food Pantry, a Disaster Relief Agency in Flagler County. Feeding Northeast Florida helps local children and families, seniors and active and retired military members who struggle to put food on the table. Working with local grocery stores, manufacturers, and farms we rescue high-quality food that would normally be wasted and transform it into meals for those in need. The Flagler County School District provides space for much of the food pantry storage and operations. Call 386-586-2653 to help, volunteer or donate.
ESL Bible Studies for Intermediate and Advanced Students: 9:30 to 10:25 a.m. at Grace Presbyterian Church, 1225 Royal Palms Parkway, Palm Coast. Improve your English skills while studying the Bible. This study is geared toward intermediate and advanced level English Language Learners.
Notably: The London Review of Books has an 8,000-word review essay on Richard Beck’s Homeland: The War on Terror in American Life, an important part of the story of a war we have not so much forgotten as absorbed and enshrined, and in so many ways continue to revere through the hyper-militarization of the homeland and the indifference to its unlit transfiguration into a police state. This Richard R. Beck should n ot be confused with the Richard Beck of The Shape of Joy: The Transformative Power of Moving Beyond Yourself and Hunting Magic Eels: Recovering an Enchanted Faith in a Skeptical Age. This is a slightly different book. Some excerpts from Lears’s review, which appears to be fully available outside the paywall: “Now, nearly a quarter of a century on, the wet dream of an ageing militarist has become a fundamental force driving American foreign policy. This should come as no surprise, given Cheney’s central role in creating a permanent warfare state. The media cliché that 9/11 ‘changed everything’ offered a convenient excuse for unprecedented violations of fundamental constitutional principles – the unchecked expansion of executive power, the utter disregard for habeas corpus and defendants’ rights in general, the warrantless mass surveillance of millions of citizens and the legitimation of torture as a military tactic. To warriors against terror, the Bill of Rights had become ‘quaint’, as Bush’s attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, said of the Geneva Conventions.” “This is the sensibility – a blend of visceral revulsion, righteous anger and sentimental moralism – that the war on terror bequeathed to American foreign policymakers on both sides of the aisle, shaping their perceptions of every enemy manufactured by the national security state since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The media have collaborated in this project by personalising projected threats, demonising foreign adversaries by turning them into comic-strip villains. Behind these monstrous figures are subhuman hordes, whose menace can be conjured by the magic words ‘Russia’ or ‘Hamas’. This cartoonish world picture has flourished in the decades since 9/11 – never more flagrantly than in the current American and Israeli attempt to justify Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. The great unpunished war crime of our time is a product of the war on terror; Israelis who descend from survivors of one holocaust are now creating another.”
—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.
August 2025
Flagler Beach Farmers Market
Coffee With Flagler Beach Commission Chair Scott Spradley
Democratic Women’s Club
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Random Acts of Insanity’s Roundup of Standups from Around Central Florida
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
For the full calendar, go here.
But the principal dogmas of Orientalism exist in their purest form today in studies of the Arabs and Islam. Let us recapitulate them here: one is the absolute and systematic difference between the West, which is rational, developed, humane, superior, and the Orient, which is aberrant, undeveloped, inferior. Another dogma is that abstractions about the Orient, particularly those based on texts representing a “classical” Oriental civilization, are always preferable to direct evidence drawn from modern Oriental realities. A third dogma is that the Orient is eternal, uniform, and incapable of defining itself; therefore it is assumed that a highly generalized and systematic vocabulary for describing the Orient from a Western standpoint is inevitable and even scientifically “objective.” A fourth dogma is that the Orient is at bottom something either to be feared (the Yellow Peril, the Mongol hordes, the brown dominions) or to be controlled (by pacification, research and development, outright occupation whenever possible).
–From Edward Said’s Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient (1978).
Dennis C Rathsam says
CANT SIT ON YOUR ASS ANYMORE, TIME TO GET A JOB & STOP ABUSING SNAP! The jackass party, has so much to say. constantly bashing TRUMP! The lies they tell are only believed by fools. The jackass party APPRUVAL is at a 35 year low! Looks like the end is near, as socialists & Communists take over the party, your grand parents voted for. I haven’t seen 1 Democrat stand up to scum that’s taking over thier party. That’s why more & more folks with a brain, are now members of the GRAND OLE PARTY! Americans love a winner, No bigger winner than TRUMP! Out of all the past presidents, history shows TRUMPS achievements, second only to FDR!
Pogo says
@Adam Zyglis
Your “cartoon” is equivalent to a million words. Thank you.
Elsewhere, a bloody shirt owned by a wounded soul (or the alternative) moves slightly, and restlessly, in its usual place.
Today is Sunday.
Pogo says
@Also notable
Just ignore — or whatever
https://www.google.com/search?q=Democrats+Get+Lowest+Rating+From+Voters+in+35+Years
RCONS must go says
Biggest Robbery in history!!!! So where’s all those jobs? Cheeto pedo started a recession possibly a depression with his tariffs! Where’s the local open positions that pay enough to live? They should be plentiful right? Enough to force disabled people to work right! What a joke of a system!
Jess says
Dennis you should get checked for mental competence . Worst president ever and also the world’s biggest pedophile! If you didn’t know republicans have all the numbers to push their terrorist agenda! Checks and balances have been removed! Bootlicking yes men from tv shows have been placed in charge of government departments. Orange stain will bankrupt murikkka like every company he ever ran! Where’s all these jobs ?
Mario says
Apparently the republi cons don’t know what happens to jobs during a recession or depression…..just because you ended the department of education doesn’t mean it’s less important than ever! You see Jerome Powell is the only adult left in the room so of course the orange terror will go after him and point fingers as the orange tariffs brought back inflation!! And there will be no chance at even a shred of accountability by the Cheeto pedo or his pedo protection klan (bankrolling from insider information)! Kneel to the terror or fight it your choice!
James says
Speaking of a “ghastly” mess…
https://lasvegassun.com/news/2025/jul/26/the-latest-child-to-starve-to-death-in-gaza-weighe/
… I think I’ve seen the picture of this child recently on the news.
Not sure exactly.
As a counter point…
https://lasvegassun.com/news/2025/jul/27/no-israel-is-not-committing-genocide-in-gaza/
History repeats itself again.
Just terrible.
Dennis C Rathsam says
Europeans to invest $1.35 TRILLION in the good ole USA. EUROPEANS tariffs are 15%!!!!! HOLY SHIT!!!!! TRUMP DID IT AGAIN!!!!! I’m the fool, Im the moron Im the one who believed in TRUMP! Democrates you have no room to talk, your party,s dead & on life support. As the socialist, & communist, tear the Jackasses to threads! All you naysayers on this platform are amazed at what TRUMP has accomplished…. Tell me folks, what have the democrats done in the past 6 months? You democrats are the ones who needs mental help, TRUMP is thier DADDY! No matter what they try, no matter how they cry. TRUMP has surprised everyone! Mid terms are around the corner, America is back from the dead, everyone called TRUMP nuts…. Tariffs are a tax, it wont work. A recession is coming….. Recession my ass! America is booming, prices Comming down. It took Biden 4 yrs to try to destroy America. Rmember $10 dollar eggs? & that open border. Back in 24 TRUMP promised the American people many things! Promises made promises kept! Looks to me 26 is gonna be another blood bath for Dems. It’s a demise of your own making!!!! Long live the GOP
Laurel says
You know what’s really sad? Republicans, here, don’t seem upset that the Speaker shut down the House, through August, to avoid voting on the Epstein files. Republicans are hoping their voters have short, little memory spans.
It is believed that a thousand, or more, girls were sexually abused and trafficked by Trump’s buddy, some as young as 12. As usual, people come to Trump’s defense, as we see in these comments, and those girls just don’t matter.
In the 15, or so, years he hung out with, and partied with Epstein and Maxwell, the Genius had no idea, or interest, in what Epstein was up to. Not a clue, right?
Lives ruined, just move along. Nothing to see here, it’s “boring.” What else did he say? Something about he’s not following the story? Golfing in Scotland, now that’s not boring.
Yes, that is really sad.
Ed P says
Isn’t a safety net different from a hammock?
Once the states assume more of the cost burden, maybe they will be incentivized to spend those dollars wiser and insure only the deserving receive. It’s called having skin in the game.
Sherry says
“Let the Eat Cake”!!!
Meanwhile. . . this from Pro Publica :
In 2007, Jeff Bezos, then a multibillionaire and now the world’s richest man, did not pay a penny in federal income taxes. He achieved the feat again in 2011. In 2018, Tesla founder Elon Musk, the second-richest person in the world, also paid no federal income taxes.
Michael Bloomberg managed to do the same in recent years. Billionaire investor Carl Icahn did it twice. George Soros paid no federal income tax three years in a row.
Batman says
Ahhh, Ed, Ed… tisk, tisk… still swimming with the sharks, eh?
Well, perhaps Rick Scott will get back into the health insurance business when he’s finished as state senator. Get some “skin” back in the game he knew so well… there might not even be any conflict of interest ethical concerns by then.
But that’s wishful thinking no?
Clearly he’s too busy hard at work earning his own congressional health care benefits to consider such a thing… yet.
Sincerely yours,
The Caped Crusader of Gotham.
Ray W, says
I checked on Dennis C. Rathsam’s claim of $1.35 trillion being invested in the U.S.
The number is accurate. The overall purchasing and investing are set to occur through to 2028.
More specifically, $750 billion of that $1.35 trillion figure is to be directed to purchasing American liquefied natural gas (LNG) at a rate of $250 billion per year.
So, I checked on how much LNG Europe bought from the U.S. in 2024: $375 billion. Imagine that. Trump got the leader of the EU to promise to pay less money for natural gas over the next three years than the 27-member bloc of nations paid during the last year of the Biden administration.
As for the remaining $600 billion of the $1.35 trillion, it is widely reported that the EU president promised that the EU would invest that figure in America by 2028, meaning an average investment of $200 billion per year?
I checked that figure, too. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, European countries invested $3,437.8 trillion in “direct investment positions” in America in 2023. That figure rose by $204.7 billion in 2024, to $3,642.5 trillion. So, the EU president agreed to continue for the next three years what the bloc had already been doing before the Trump administration took office.
What can we take from this news?
The Trump administration is crowing that it “won” something from the EU. The EU, in reality, simply promised to keep doing what it had already been doing before Trump took office.
There is something different about Dennis C. Rathsam. He hears a number, any number, and so long as it comes from those professional liars in whom he places his trust, he swallows the numbers whole and regurgitates them to other people without understanding what the numbers for what they are.
The proof of this? Dennis C. Rathsam continually launders the lie that Biden administration policies were the cause of high American egg prices. $10 per dozen, he repeatedly claims.
By now, every FlaglerLive reader other than Dennis C. Rathsam knows that in the spring of 2022 a highly virulent variant of the bird flu began infecting wild bird flocks all over the world. During migrations sick wild birds all over the world defecated virus particles as they migrated. The virus then transmitted itself into egg-laying hens on egg farms located all over the country, and all over the world.
The number of slaughtered hens and turkeys over the past three years in America is at or over 170 million. The Biden administration spent $1.2 billion to mitigate losses and eradicate the disease. The Trump administration spent another $1 billion doing the same things the Biden administration did. We are in a summer hiatus, but migrations will begin again in a few months. Dennis C. Rathsam, being the gullible fool that he repeatedly shows himself to be, just cannot abandon the lies about egg prices that he has been laundering for some time.
Other FlaglerLive readers know that there is a professional lying class that sits at the top of one of our two political parties. This time, the numbers floating around are accurate for what they are, but the meaning of the numbers has been distorted, and Dennis C. Rathsam has bought into the distortions and shared them as if they are important, i.e., he is lie laundering once again.
So, yes, Dennis C. Rathsam, because in this comment thread you once again prove yourself the lie-laundering gullible fool to every FlaglerLive reader, you have only yourself to blame.
So long as you continue to accept as true anything announced by the professional lying class that sits at the top of one of our two political parties, without your checking it out for yourself, you will continue to prove yourself the fool.
For the record, prior to the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, European nations were heavily reliant on the large quantities of Russian natural gas that had been piped into the European grid, mainly through Poland, Germany, and the Ukraine. The continent lacked the facilities sufficient to import large quantities of LNG, so the continent did not purchase much LNG from American energy exporters.
In the wake of Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine, Europe imposed sanctions on Russian natural gas and the entire continent began the difficult process of weaning itself away from supplies of Russian compressed natural gas. One difficulty arose from that lack of LNG import capacity. One can’t just navigate an LNG tanker into any seaport and offload LNG. Just as there is a process, called liquefaction, to convert compressed natural gas into LNG, there is a process, called regasification, to convert LNG into compressed natural gas.
Both a German seaport in the Baltic and a Portuguese seaport on the Atlantic rushed to build onshore “regasification” plants to convert LNG into compressed natural gas. And a compressed natural gas pipeline was built between the Portuguese port through the Pyrenees into France to hook into the European natural gas pipeline network. Four other European ports leased floating “regasification” plants, i.e., ships that can onload LNG from an ocean-going tanker and then degasify the LNG into compressed natural gas in order to enter it into the European pipeline network.
In this way, while it took some two years to increase Europe’s LNG import capacity, Europe no longer has to rely on Russian compressed natural gas. During those two years of transformation, though, natural gas prices paid for American LNG were unusually high throughout Europe, but the product is now more normally priced. In this way, the 2023 prices paid to American LNG exporters distort the figures for that year, but some $700 billion was paid by Europeans to U.S. energy companies, much more than the $250 billion per year that Europe just agreed to pay.
Ray W, says
A Politico reporter spoke with two “senior European Commission officials” a few hours after the Trump administration announced an EU pledge to invest $600 billion in the U.S. over the next few years.
The two officials stressed that the “pledge” was not from public EU funds; the money is to come from the European private sector. According to the officials, the EU lacks the authority to fulfill the pledge.
According to the reporter, the $600 billion over a number of years pledge was made after EU officials spoke with a number of private entities to learn of their already existing investment intentions. The $600 billion over time figure came from “… detailed discussions with different business associations and companies in order to see what their investment intentions are.”
The reporter quoted one of the officials as saying that “[i]t is not something that the EU as a public authority can guarantee. It is something which is based on the intentions of the private companies.” No tax money is part of the amount.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
If the comments are accurate that the EU agreed to a figure after discussions with private businesses that already plan to invest in the U.S., then that $600 billion figure on which Dennis C. Rathsam so ardently relies in this comment thread is built on quicksand. Yes, a German company might build a factory in the U.S., or it might not. Yes, in 2024, European companies directly invested over $200 billion in the U.S., so it is reasonable to infer that a similar amount might continue to be invested in the U.S. But nothing is written in stone.
Laurel says
Ray W: Oh my gosh! The Art of the Deal!
So that is what the EU is getting from us, in a trade deal. What is America getting from the EU besides the 15% tariff (consumption tax)?
Ed P says
What do we get?
The US secures significant energy purchases from the E.U. $750 billion annually.
The US also gains zero tariffs on aircraft, certain chemicals, select generic drugs, and the commitment to address non-tariff barriers for agricultural and digital trade. As well as E.U. maintaining zero duties on electronic transmissions.
However, the real cherry is the combined Japanese and E.U. trade deals will now entice China to negotiate a better deal with the United States. The strength of these two deals provides the United States a stronger negotiating position.
Hoping that everything Trump is wrong or fails will not win the day. The experts have been fooled. Trump is resetting global trade and if successful , our economic growth might be enough to provide a sunny future for your grandchildren.
Finally, there is absolutely nothing wrong by approaching every problem from the starting posture of America first. Tax dollars are our dollars and should be spent prudently with the strategic idea that it will benefit Americans. Isn’t that how we manage our families? Including our charitable contributions. We focus our giving on our own ideologies, not someone else’s.