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Weather: A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms after 2pm. Sunny and hot, with a high near 95. Heat index values as high as 109. Southeast wind 5 to 10 mph, with gusts as high as 16 mph. Tuesday Night: A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms before 8pm. Mostly clear, with a low around 76. Southeast wind 5 to 7 mph becoming calm after midnight.
- 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:
The Flagler County School Board holds a 5:15 p.m. public meeting to adopt its budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year, at the Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell.
Random Acts of Insanity Standup Comedy, 8 p.m. at Cinematique Theater, 242 South Beach Street, Daytona Beach. General admission is $8.50. Every Tuesday and on the first Saturday of every month the Random Acts of Insanity Comedy Improv Troupe specializes in performing fast-paced improvised comedy.
Food Truck Tuesday, 5-8 p.m. in Palm Coast’s Town Center, at Central Park. July’s beneficiary is the City of Palm Coast Summer Camp Scholarship Fund in honor of National Parks & Recreation Month. Celebrate with special guests including a Dino Dig for the kids and an interactive steelpan performance with a drum circle for all!
Juxtapositions: My son the perennially disappointed Yankee fan–he was not yet one when they last won the World Series 16 years ago, when the country was emerging from the abyss of the Bush years during that interregnum before the abyss of the Trump years–told me of the Yankees’ acquisition last week of a third baseman, Ryan McMahon. The face struck me. I’d seen it before, well before McMahon was born in 1994, during that other interregnum after the Reagan years. Of course! Bruce Dern in “The Cowboys.”
—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
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
In Court: Whitfield v. Flagler County
Flagler County Industrial Development Authority Meeting
‘Let’s Talk Palm Coast’ Town Halls with Council Members
Palm Coast Democratic Club Recap Meeting
Town of Marineland Commission Meeting
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
For the full calendar, go here.
–From a Bruce Dern quote on Cinema Shorthand Society‘s Facebook page.
Laurel says
See, it’s not just me whose hair rises on the back of my neck at the thought of Gabbard!
Something’s amiss.
Pogo says
@P.T.
You’re at your best today; and that — pilgrim — is as good I usually ever hope for: here, anywhere, now or anytime.
Thank you.
Skibum says
When one’s entire political philosophy and “truth” social platform involves the prolonged history of believing in and peddling ridiculous conspiracy theories, it is not difficult to understand why one of the most pervasive, fraudulent conspiracies that drumph ran on during just this last election has now grown into a huge, fire breathing dragon of his own making that is lighting his bulbous rear end on fire. The Epstein files and Bondi’s rabid protection of her pedo president master is turning even his most fervent conspiracy theory believing maga mush brains against him.
It’s no wonder that after her fumble into irrelevancy and being publicly ridiculed by drumph, sidelined Tulsi Gabbard is trying hard to get back into drumph’s graces by fantasizing yet another fake conspiracy theory about former president Barack Obama, hoping against hope that it would be a big enough distraction to take some heat off the WH press corps so she could once again speak about things she knows nothing about without drumph actually saying what the sane among us have known all along… that she really DOESN’T know what she is talking about!
Despite his minions’ ongoing failure to change the subject, the orange terror knows full well how damaging his own maga approved conspiracy theory is becoming to his presidency as well as himself personally. And for good reason. Every attempt to change the subject or vainly try to explain away his past, long association with his good bruh Jeffrey Epstein has been another laughable disaster for the person who wants everyone to believe that he is such a brainiac, but just cannot help himself from one regrettable but laughable slip of the tongue after another.
The latest was when the idiot in the WH told the American public that he never had the PRIVELEGE of going to Epstein’s private island, where years and years of sexual assaults of young girls took place. Privelege?!?!?! Wow, jealous you think?
And in just another of his ridiculous trajectory misdirections that continuously spout forth from the hole in drumph’s orange face, he now has the audacity to say that ok, I’ll tell you all why Epstein and I are no longer friends. No mention whatsoever of all of the young girls who were sexually abused over a period of years by Epstein and others at his private island pedo paradise or in NY city or other places Epstein had homes, NO! That apparently bothered drumph not. But what DID really get him angry was the story drumph is now telling about how Epstein “stole” some of drumph’s own employees from him!!!
Well, hold on… just how in the world could Epstein, or anyone for that matter, “steal” employees from drumph. Not unless those people were not actually employees but indentured servants who were chained up and prevented from leaving Mar-A-Pedo, and Epstein somehow snuck inside in the middle of the night, unchained them and forced them against their will into a truck and carted drumph’s human personal property off the premises, Ridiculous!
If employees left drumph’s employment for better opportunities elsewhere, they did it voluntarily, of their own free will. That is NOT theft! But we all know that drumph believes that everything he has belongs to him, and what we have is somehow his also. When you have a contorted, fantasmical conspiracy theory mind like the great “Carnac” drumph himself, such a smarty pants, well then that is how you get such a jaw dropping statement that when anyone who works for the great imposter decides to leave and go to work elsewhere, his ego is so shattered that he cannot comprehend that a human being actually has a will of their own and that he cannot OWN them… perhaps forever.
He really doesn’t care! Perhaps that’s why he and Melania are such a good match… they may just be heartless cohorts, he with that brainiac mentality of his, and she with that infamous overcoat with the words “I couldn’t care less” emblazoned across the back.
Oh, Tulsi Gabbard, you are so minor league compared to your “hero”. Good luck with your hope of once more being endeared to your “dear leader”, LOL!
Ray W, says
Two reporters affiliated with the New York Times toured the Fed buildings under renovation earlier on the same day that President Trump visited the sites.
Fed staff spoke with the reporters about the costs expected to be incurred by the renovations.
When the projects were first discussed in 2018 and 2019, the estimated costs were some $1.8 billion. Seven years later, the estimated costs are $2.5 billion.
As explained by the Times reporters, the joint general contracting team overseeing the project structured contracts on a “firm fixed price” model. That means that as the remodel proceeds, “parts or packages of the overall project go out for competitive bids …” Some 80 such bid packages have been issued and another 20 or so remain to be bid upon.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
If this is true, in that subcontractors have yet to bid on some 20 packages of work that is coming up, then the original $1.8 billion estimate was always destined to change. Inflation, scarcity or surplus of construction workers, changes in materials costs such as concrete or drywall, tariff impacts on lumber, steel and rebar, all have their impact on the final price.
According to the reporters, a number of originally planned portions of the projects have been changed. For example, an elevator had to be extended by 18 inches to meet federal accessibility standards. And because an already existing building had exterior marble of a different color, the contract for the exterior of the building had to altered to use new marble of a matching color.
The Trump emphasis on rising prices is just another hoax on the public. Every long-term build sees changes in price. The rule from my youth about private new home builds remains true today: Any family contracting to build a new home needs to take the original contract price and increase it by 50%. That way the final cost for building your new home will not shock you.
Ray W, says
The Associated Press recently reported about yet another former inmate who was wrongfully imprisoned, this one for 32 years, starting when he was 18 years old; he spent 10 of those 32 years on Death Row.
Released by a judge in 2013, he was just pardoned by Maryland’s governor. Maryland’s legislature awarded the defendant $2.9 million for the lost 32 years.
A co-defendant testified against the defendant at trial.
Tried before the availability of DNA analysis, an expert testified that a hair relevant to guilt belonged to the defendant.
Eventually, the hair was tested for the existence of DNA; it was not his hair. Prior to the DNA test of the hair, a Washington Post reporter found from the prosecution’s file a 1999 report showing that the FBI expert who had testified at trial about the hair “may not have used reliable science” prior to his testimony. The report had been in a state prosecutor’s file since 1999, but he never revealed the exculpatory evidence to defense attorneys. Maryland’s highest court disbarred the prosecutor in 2021, finding that he had withheld exculpatory evidence and that he had then lied about withholding the report.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
There is a reason that our founding fathers gave to the judicial branch the political power to convict persons accused of crimes. Only judges and jurors can convict anyone of a crime. No one else holds such power.
Said another way, while we all have the right to speak our minds about a belief of who is guilty of what, not a single one of us has the political power to actually decide whether anyone is guilty of a crime, unless we are a judge or a member of a jury.
Police can swear to an allegation of probable cause in order to hold a person accused of committing a crime, but that is the extent of their political power; they cannot ever decide for themselves whether a person committed a crime, unless they are willing to violate their oath of office. And the affidavit that a police officer signs in front of a superior officer must be reviewed by a judge within 24 hours, give or take, of the arrest. In our constitutional form of government, only a judge possesses the political power to determine the existence of probable cause.
Probable cause, on its own, is not enough to convict of a crime. Within a few days, the probable cause affidavit reaches a prosecutor, whose duty under the law differs from that of a police officer.
Prosecutors possess the political power to allege under oath that a person has committed a crime beyond a reasonable doubt, but they too like police officers lack the political power to convict anyone of a crime; they have to ask a judge or a jury to convict.
When a baby prosecutor nearly 40 years ago, I realized quite rapidly that I had to ask a judge or a jury to convict someone and that I couldn’t decide on my own the issue of the guilt or innocence of anyone.
Laurel says
Ray W: I believe that one of our breakaways from England was to consider a person “innocent” until proven “guilty” whereas England thought a person “guilty” until proven “innocent.” Please correct me if I’m wrong, but if I’m right, I wonder if that still holds true today.
Alexa doesn’t know, no matter how I ask it.
Ed P says
Laurel,
Only if your are not a Maga or Trump is it ever possible for you be innocent until proven guilty.
The indisputable proof resides in your previous posts as well as others in the FL blogosphere.
Just sayin…..
Ray W, says
Hello Laurel.
As I understand English common law, there is one small sector of that law that presumes the defendant guilty and places upon him or her the burden of proving innocence, and that sector is English libel law.
In America, though truth is always a defense against a libel claim, the accuser bears the burden of proof that the alleged libelous writing is false.
Under English libel law, truth is but one of two elements to a defense. The accused libeler must not only prove truth of the statement but also prove that the published material was necessary to the public good.
Perhaps this presumption of guilt arose from the damage caused by the many aggressive newspapermen and women from an age long before “modern journalism.” Perhaps in the 18th century or so, newspaper owners in competition with other publications for scarce spendable income hired reporters who were willing to write anything in order to increase circulation. Regardless of the actual cause, English reporters and newspaper owners, alone, shouldered a presumption of guilt for what they published, plus the burden of proof that they were not guilty of libel.
I hope this helps. To my knowledge, no country presumes any criminal defendant guilty until proven innocent, unless one is an English libeler.
I concede that there exists a significant number of FlaglerLive commenters who presume all defendants guilty, human nature being what it is. The vengeful will always walk among us.
I have commented to FlaglerLive readers a number of times about this very old political joke:
There is no such thing as a conservative Republican. Neither is there any such thing as a liberal Democrat. The only true conservative is a Democrat who has been mugged, constitution be damned. To such people, safety trumps all. The only true liberal is a Republican who has been falsely accused of committing a crime, constitution be preserved. To such people, individual rights trump all. The rest rush to the center to plant their personal flag, whatever that flag might be; they then loudly proclaim that since they got there first and that since their plan is best, then everyone must vote for them.
Laurel says
Ray W: Thank you. I still love to learn, and you gave my understanding corrective, greater depth.