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Weather: Partly cloudy with showers and thunderstorms likely. Highs in the lower 90s. Lows in the mid 70s. Chance of rain 70 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:
The Saturday Flagler Beach Farmers Market is scheduled for 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. today at its new location on South 2nd Street, right in front of City Hall, featuring prepared food, fruit, vegetables , handmade products and local arts from more than 30 local merchants. The market is hosted by Flagler Strong, a non-profit.
Coffee With Commissioner Scott Spradley: Flagler Beach Commission Chairman Scott Spradley hosts his weekly informal town hall with coffee and doughnuts at 9 a.m. at his law office at 301 South Central Avenue, Flagler Beach. All subjects, all interested residents or non-residents welcome. The gatherings usually feature a special guest.
Democratic Women’s Club of Flagler County meeting at 9:30 a.m. at the Palm Coast Community Center, 305 Palm Coast Parkway NE.
Grace Community Food Pantry, 245 Education Way, Bunnell, drive-thru open today from 10 a.m. to 1 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.
Random Acts of Insanity’s Roundup of Standups from Around Central Florida, 8 p.m. at Cinematique Theater, 242 South Beach Street, Daytona Beach. General admission is $8.50. Every third Saturday RAI hosts Live Standup Comedy with comics from all over Central Florida.
Notably: According to Martin Amis, Elvis once said, “There was a party at the Statue of Liberty, but I’d already read publicly of me going to it so I felt it was done already.” No wonder we keep thinking that news of his death was fake. I’m surprised by how the New York Times played his death. He got two columns above the fold, which is not minor, but on the left side, the lead story going to a non-story about Brezhnev depicting “Carter’s overture as a positive move.” Carter, who just then must’ve been weeping at least a little. Elvis’s funeral remains one of the South’s five biggest. The other four? Jefferson Davis, Huey Long, Bear Bryant, and Martin Luther King Jr.
—P.T.
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.
October 2025
Free For All Fridays With Host David Ayres on WNZF
Friday Blue Forum
‘Sweeney Todd’ at Athens Theatre
Flagler Beach Farmers Market
Coffee With Flagler Beach Commission Chair Scott Spradley
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Second Saturday Plant Sale at Washington Oaks Gardens State Park
American Association of University Women (AAUW) Meeting
Peps Art Walk Near Beachfront Grille
‘Sweeney Todd’ at Athens Theatre
For the full calendar, go here.
Elvis is a perfect example of why the South-is-dead theory is such a crock. One need only surf the Internet-the least intrinsically Southern medium imaginable-to see how it has become yet another cultural vehicle used to spread the gospel, whether it’s the neo-Confederates on the Southern League home page, the Bubba chauvinists, or the Elvis cultists. Thus, one can spend a day-and Vernon Chadwick no doubt has many times-surfing from the Elvis Home Page to Disgraceland to the First Presleyterian Church of Elvis the Divine, Elvis and Jesus, Jesus and Elvis, the Lesser Elvis Banishing Ritual of the Sequined Pentagram, the First Church of Jesus Christ-Elvis, the 24-Hour Church of Elvis, and other Elvis sites without end, where the faithful can partake of such wisdom as “The King’s Prayer,” at the Greater Las Vegas Church of Elvis. With solemn cyber-reverence, it pays homage to the King and castigates false prophets like Billy Ray Cyrus’s “Achy Breaky Heart,” the quintessence of faux country, nouveau Nashville at its most heretical:
Our King, who art in heaven Hallowed by thy hips.
Thy Graceland come, Thy song be sung.
In Reno as it is in Vegas.
Give us this day our fried chicken.
And forgive us our Achy Breaky
As we forgive those who step on our blue suede shoes.
And lead us not into line dancing,
But deliver us from Billy Ray.
For thine is the Graceland,
and the rhinestones,
and the rock ‘n’ roll,
Forever and ever.
Viva Las Vegas.
–From Peter Applebaum’s Dixie Rising: How the South Is Shaping American Values, Politics, and Culture (1996).
Ed P says
The self deportation policy currently in effect pays a $1000 stipend per individual and a free plane ticket home.
Initially my opinion was that it was ridiculous. The actual number of people who would participate would be almost zero. And that the actual cost of a forced deportation must cost significantly more than this program.
But, is also provides a humanitarian alternative to being rounded up by any government enforcement agency. Not ideal or what some would say is compassionate but remember that only 35-50% of Illegals will ever qualify for amnesty and citizenship. Just the reality.
To date, over 1 million individuals have participated. Proving that there is an alternative and reinforcing that any immigrant that has over stayed a visa, has already had a deportation order, or has any criminal issue pending should accept the offer.
Factor this into the equation when vilification of ICE occurs. The illegal immigrants actually had a choice, on their timetable, and isn’t financially crippling.
Pogo says
Tim says
Ice = gestapo
Melt those Nazi bitches!
the new Nazis doing the same as the old Nazis! Stop the GoP terrorism! Stand your ground! the gop human traffickers and their child rapist don’t care much for humans !!
Jim says
In America, we now have a federal police force – ICE – going anywhere they want; any time they want and just taking people off the streets, out of their homes, from their work, kid’s sports fields and anywhere else they decide. Unless you are just totally dense, you have to see that this effort is completely directed at putting fear in the migrant community and, quite frankly, letting the American citizens know that the federals can get anyone at anytime. It’s not subtle.
These “officers” wear masks and are dressed in full battle gear in these raids. When did wearing masks while representing the police become standard and acceptable? No names or ID on the uniforms. This is what we see in Russian and other authoritarian regimes. This isn’t supposed to be in the US. And don’t tell me it’s for their own protection. Throughout this country, federal, state and local police do their jobs daily wearing full identification and with no masks. These men and women handle the absolute worst kind of criminals that exist. They do their jobs and we can respect them for that. How do you respect ICE agents?
Now ICE has been “superfunded” by the government. They’ve got plenty of money and they are going to expand massively over the next few years. Now, you might ask yourself, if we’re deporting every single person we can find and if the number of arrests at the borders is near an all time low, what need will there be for this huge, armed, masked, unidentified federal police force? Common sense is that the number of “targets” are dropping. What could the federal government possibly do with a large force like this? I have some thoughts and none of them are good.
And what quality of “police” will ICE be made up? It seems they have lowered and raised age limits to open the gates to more “candidates”. What training will they get? Is ideology a concern or will they favor candidates who want to “bust heads” and get all the “bad guys” (note: less than 1/3 of the people ICE has taken into custody have any legal issues at all and legal issues include such critical items as speeding tickets, possession of marijuana or other less than lethal crimes.) Of course, they are targeting the “worst of the worst”. Anyway, what we’re really watching is the formation of the American version of the Nazi “brown shirts”. These were Hitler’s thugs who ran wild through Germany terrorizing anyone who dared question or protest the Nazis. If you don’t know that history, take the time to read up on it. Trump will soon have his goon squad and he’s got the right team in place to put them to work. Noem, Bondi, Lyons, Hegseth, Vance all are perfect minions to make sure Americans are properly treated by the government so long as we all tow the line and keep our mouths shut.
And, one final question for MAGA. If all these fine “accomplishments” of the Trump administration are so well received by the citizens of this country, why is it necessary to redistrict Texas to gain seats in next year’s elections? I’d expect that a party who is comfortable that they are doing what’s best for we citizens and “MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN” would be excitedly looking forward to those elections to gain more seats in the House and Senate based on their fine results. But, no, Republicans decide to redistrict mid-decade (which historically has only been done after a census) with the stated goal of gaining five more Republican seats. One thing is for sure, cheating, lying and stealing is no longer done behind closed doors by the Republicans, It’s out in the open for all of us to see.
Sherry says
Your dollar is worth over 10% LESS since trump took office. . . This from Yahoo Finance on August 8th:
Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham warned on Thursday that Americans need an 11% increase in net worth just to maintain purchasing power following the dollar’s significant decline since President Donald Trump‘s inauguration.
Dollar Index Shows Sharp Decline From Inauguration
The U.S. Dollar Index has fallen from 109.29 on Trump’s January 20 inauguration to 98.07 as of Thursday—a 10.26% decrease.
Pogo says
@Gone with wind (2025)
Aug 16 (Reuters) – Hurricane Erin, the first hurricane of the 2025 Atlantic season, has become a catastrophic Category 5 hurricane, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said on Saturday. The storm is currently 105 miles (170 km) north of Anguilla, with maximum sustained winds near 160 mph (255 km/h).1 hour ago
https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/erin-strengthens-category-5-hurricane-nhc-says-2025-08-16/
Sherry says
trump and Maga actively trying to “Rig” the elections for Congress in 2026. . . please watch this conversation between Heather Cox Richardson and California Governor Gavin Newsom:
Laurel says
Jim: You are so correct! Well said.
Please, people, take heed! History is so, so important. We are headed in a terrible direction, to appease a few. We should certainly know better. The current behavior is not what We the People have known and strived for all our lives. The United States of America is a democratic republic, not an authoritarian, dystopian nation.
Republicans, take back your party! Democrats, step up! Don’t sit idly by and let this government overreach continue. If not for you, then for your children, and grandchildren.
As my Republican husband said, “MAGA has been suckered by an advertisement campaign.” So, so true! But it needs to end. Stop being lead around by those who could not care less about you and me. That’s how you really win!
Skibum says
Having come from a law enforcement family and retired from my own law enforcement career, I will always support the hard work of ethical, caring and dedicated individuals who are in that profession for the right reasons. But I absolutely do not accept or support law enforcement being used as pawns or props merely for political purposes, which is what is going on now… first in Los Angeles, now in D.C. and soon to follow the potential of other large cities being invaded in an attempt to take over local law enforcement when the federal officers who are ordered into these cities have to abandon their own law enforcement duties and prioritize the hijinks that the convicted felon president and his moronic sycophants dream up to impress their maga mush brains.
I watched the short video a day or so ago showing one of the protesters in Washington D.C. lob his sandwich at one of the federal officers who were sent to that city by the idiot-in-chief in the WH as a political stunt. A sandwich… two pieces of bread with maybe some bologna and lettuce in-between, that landed on the officer’s uniform shirt. That federal officer and others chased that man down like their very lives were in danger from a horrible bread assault, they cuffed him, took him into custody, and now he is facing not just an assault charge, but a felony charge of assault by sandwich bread.
Drumph sycophant AG Pam Bondi stood in front of tv cameras and microphones, probably with bible in hand as well, spouting all kinds of BS about the sanctity of law and how horrible for any federal law enforcement officer to have a sandwich thrown at them… THIS CRIMINAL WILL PAY!!!
Hmmm, if only all those thousands of maga protesters and rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 had brought sandwiches with them that day to throw at the capitol and D.C. police officers who were pummeled, beaten and seriously injured while protecting members of congress and the sitting vice president. No, THOSE maga protesters arrived with all sorts of weapons to commit their acts of violence on law enforcement. Those thousands, who through very long and rigorous investigations by the FBI were identified, arrested, brought to trial and CONVICTED of felonies including very serious assaults on law enforcement… were all subsequently pardoned by the felon in the WH who to this day has never once recognized or said anything positive about law enforcement’s efforts that day and has actually spit in the face of every ethical and moral law enforcement officer in this country by calling those Jan. 6 rioters “patriots”!
Pam Bondi, as the chief law enforcement officer in the U.S. is right there with her felon president, making a total mockery of her high position and authority, completely okay with what the felon president did, and then turning around and saying how she now is supporting the overstepping of federal law enforcement coming into D.C. and wants to charge a man with felonious sandwich assault.
This is where we are in drumph’s new and Naziesque America!
Ed P says
True the US dollar has declined by almost 11% giving it the worst annual start since 1973.
That means anyone traveling abroad will be subject to higher costs via travel expenses and exchange rates.
But all this is not bad news. A weak dollar stimulates international sales. A weaker dollar makes US products more affordable. Exports increase. Companies with global operation may see greater profits as this currency fluctuation works in their favor.
On the flip side, a stronger dollar lowers the cost of imported goods into our country.
The dollar is fiat money, based on the stability and economic policies of the U.S. government and public confidence. The world table is being reset by Trump. The tariffs have created a sea change and markets are still digesting the America first global trading reality.
The dollar’s real value has actually risen during the past 10 years. No one is predicting losing dominance anytime soon.
To latch onto a single sound bite of any economic news is dangerously naive. The complex intertwined global economy is extremely complex.
Pogo says
@Sherry
Excellent — thank you.
Sherry says
No Pogo. . . ” Thank You”. . . you are one of the wisest of them all!