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Weather: Showers likely with a chance of thunderstorms. Lows in the lower 70s. Northeast winds 10 to 15 mph with gusts up to 25 mph. Chance of rain 70 percent. Friday: Showers likely. A chance of thunderstorms in the morning, then thunderstorms likely in the afternoon. Highs around 80. 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 Nobel Prize for literature is announced around 7 a.m by the Swedish Academy (Svenska Akademien) in Stockholm not before 7 a.m.
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.
Flagler Beach United Methodist Church Food Pantry: Flagler Beach United Methodist Church‘s food pantry is open today from 9:30 a.m. to noon at 1500 S. Daytona Ave, Flagler Beach. The church’s mission is to provide nourishment and support in a welcoming, respectful environment. To find us, please turn at the corner of 15 Street and S. Daytona Ave, pull into the grass parking area and enter the green door.
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.
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.
Evenings at Whitney Lecture Series hosted by the University of Florida Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience at 6 p.m. Tonight: “Beyond the Skeleton: Modeling the Soft Tissues of Dinosaurs and Why We Should Care,” by Dr. Emma Schachner, Assistant Professor, Department of Physiological Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Florida. What were dinosaur lungs like and how do we know? Reconstructing the soft tissues of extinct animals requires careful detailed study of the anatomy and physiology of living animals – specifically birds, the closest living relatives of dinosaurs. This means getting up close and personal with as many birds as possible. By combining cutting edge imaging techniques like 3D digital anatomical modeling, with classical anatomical dissection and paleontological analysis, Dr. Emma Schachner will explain the myriad good and bad ways we can investigate what dinosaurs were really like. Additionally, she will share how some of the methods she uses to address these questions can be directly applied to human and veterinary medicine. This free lecture will be presented in person at the UF Whitney Laboratory Lohman Auditorium, 9505 Ocean Shore Boulevard, in St. Augustine. Those interested also have the option of registering to watch via Zoom live the night of the lecture. Go here to register for this month’s lecture. See previous lectures here.
The Palm Coast Democratic Club holds its monthly business meeting at noon at the Flagler Democratic Party Headquarters in City Marketplace, 160 Cypress Point Parkway, Suite C214, Palm Coast. This gathering is open to the public at no charge. No advance arrangements are necessary. Call (386) 283-4883 for best directions or (561)-235-2065 for more information. For further information, please contact Palm Coast Democratic Club’s President Donna Harkins at (561) 235-2065, visit our website at http://palmcoastdemocraticclub.org/ or Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/groups/palmcoastdemclub/permalink
Notably: I did not write this at dawn today, so by the time you read it the Swedish Academy will probably have announced the year’s Nobel Prize winner for literature. But what are the odds this year? Aotp the list of course is the greatest writer the world has ever seen, Donald Trump, who’d be recognized for his tweets, or whatever they call his literary gems at his own social media channel, followed in close second by the eternal Charlie Kirk, who was not much of a writer, but as an archangel of hate (to borrow Jules Verne’s phrase for Captain Nemo) he had to have caught the Academy’s attention. Somehow, I don’t see either name atop the oddsmakers’ lists this year. Nicer Odds has the Hungarian László Krasznahorkai at the top of the list. I’ve never heard of him, though he’s one of Europe’s most decorated writers and Susan Sontag loved him. His last novel, Herscht 07769, was one sentence long. Very, very long, kind of like the essay he wrote for the Times in 2022, which has the printed look of a dense, endless, paragraph-less entry in FlaglerLive’s briefings. Second in odds is Haruki Murakami, the Susan Lucci of the list and much better known, and beloved, than Krasznahorkai. Can Xue, who led the list last year, is in third or lower, depending on which number you go with. Margaret Atwood seems to be out of it. There’s also Gerald Murnane, the Australian novelist, and a bit further down the French reactionary writer and nympho-humorist-provocateur Michel Houellebecq, there’s Salman Rushdie, the Norwegian Karl Ove Knausgaard (I just picked up his Morning Star), and way down there Paul Simon, Stephen King and Joyce Carol Oates. I don’t have a favorite this year. (See Literary Hub’s list here.) I just hope the Swedish Academy doesn’t make one of those “Prove Me Wrong” choices it so often makes, though it is the year of that sorry-ass phrase.
—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.
November 2025
Flagler Beach Farmers Market
Flagler Beach All Stars Beach Clean-Up
Coffee With Flagler Beach Commission Chair Scott Spradley
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
‘The 39 Steps,’ at the Daytona Playhouse
Thornton Wilder’s ‘Our Town,’ at Limelight Theatre in St. Augustine
‘The 39 Steps,’ at the Daytona Playhouse
Random Acts of Insanity Standup Comedy
ESL Bible Studies for Intermediate and Advanced Students
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village
Thornton Wilder’s ‘Our Town,’ at Limelight Theatre in St. Augustine
‘The 39 Steps,’ at the Daytona Playhouse
Al-Anon Family Groups
For the full calendar, go here.
I was nine years old when my family left Gwangju in January 1980, roughly four months before the mass killings began. When I happened across the upside-down spine of “Gwangju Photo Book” on a bookshelf a few years later and looked through it when there were no adults around, I was twelve. This book contained photographs of Gwangju residents and students killed with clubs, bayonets, and guns while resisting the new military powers that had orchestrated the coup. Published and distributed in secret by the survivors and the families of the dead, the book bore witness to the truth at a time when the truth was being distorted by strict media suppression. As a child, I hadn’t grasped the political significance of those images, and the ravaged faces became fixed in my mind as a fundamental question about humans: Is this the act of one human towards another? And then, seeing a photo of an endless queue of people waiting to donate blood outside a university hospital: Is this the act of one human towards another? These two questions clashed and seemed irreconcilable, their incompatibility a knot I couldn’t undo. So that one spring day in 2012, as I tried my hand at writing a radiant, life-affirming novel, I was once again confronted by this unresolved problem. I had long lost a sense of deep-rooted trust in humans. How, then, could I embrace the world? I had to face this impossible conundrum if I meant to move forwards, I realised. I understood that writing was my only means of getting through and past it.
–From Han Kang’s Nobel Prize Lecture, December 7, 2024.
Laurel says
Nothing to be proud of there. Where are their white robes and pointy white head covers with the eye holes cut out? Shame needs to be covered.
Jim says
ICE is the brown shirts of 2025. They are Trump’s private police. While the administration says they are going after the “worst of the worst”, actually it appears they go after anyone who gets in their way, regardless of what nationality. Trump sends troops into Chicago to “protect ICE”. If you take the time to actually look at the “violence” in Chicago, you’ll see that ICE is the one actually doing the violent acts. They don’t even pretend to follow any procedures that would protect a US citizen’s rights to protest (and, yes, we still have that for now…).
Now Trump is vocalizing the thought of implementing the Insurrection Act of 1807 which empowers the president of the United States to nationally deploy the U.S. military and to federalize the National Guard units of the individual states in specific circumstances, such as the suppression of civil disorder, of insurrection, and of armed rebellion against the federal government of the U.S. The only place that you can find civil disorder, insurrection or armed rebellion in the US right now is on Fox News. There is no insurrection taking place and there would be absolutely no reason to even bring it up unless there is a strong desire to do so within this administration.
We are watching the same playbook Hitler used in Germany to assume complete power over the country. There is a video on YouTube titled “Night of the Long Knives” which recites the events leading up to Hitler taking power. Watch it and tell me you can’t see the parallels to the Trump administration. He is following it very, very closely. I challenge any Trump supporter to actually watch it and then tell me where I’m wrong.
I could go on for quite a while citing the many things Trump is doing that is setting the stage for a military takeover. I do believe he is on track to have this in place before next year’s midterm elections. He pretty much has to if he wants to stay in power. Most thinking people are tired of this incompetent circus he has brought to power and, if there are “free and fair” elections, I think the Republicans are going to see a huge red wave push them completely out of power. (Not that they are in power; it’s Trump’s say on everything – he says “jump” and they ask “how high”?)
One last comment, though. Do you MAGA people just love that Trump is going after his enemies, regardless of justification (or facts)? Are you happy that, during the current government shutdown, he speaks of not paying the government workers when it’s over (despite the law)? Are you actually content to see National Guard troops in cities who didn’t ask for that and don’t need it? Do you not see that Trump constantly makes false statements about everything (gas is $1.80 in Trumpland); he’s settled how many wars?)? He supports Putin when there is absolutely no question that Putin started this war with Ukraine and Russia has committed untold atrocities almost daily; yet Putin gets red-carpet treatment from Trump. Canadians pretty much hate the USA now. The NATO nations do not trust us. Or do you not even acknowledge the truth of these statements?
We are going to lose this democracy. And the saddest part is that we will do so willingly.
Ray W. says
Fox News reports recently published its own take on the international soybean marketplace.
Here are some bullet points from the article:
– Prior to the 2018 “trade war” with China, U.S. farmers exported 28% of their soybean crop to China.
– In the 2018-19 crop year, that 28% figure dropped to 11%.
– During the 2020-21, U.S. exports rebounded to a 31% share of the Chinese soybean market, before declining to 22% in the 2023-24 crop year.
– Now, the U.S. share of the Chinese soybean market is zero percent.
– Said a “multigenerational soybean farmer”, Brad Arnold, as described in part by the reporter:
“… China’s halt on U.S. soybean purchases ‘has huge impacts on our business and our bottom line. … There are domestic uses for soybeans, looking at renewable diesel, biodiesel specifically produced from soybeans. … In the grand scheme of things, that’s such a small percentage currently, you know it’s going to take a customer like China to buy beans to make a noticeable impact. You can’t take our number one customer, shut them off and just overnight find a replacement.'”
Mr. Arnold added that farmers just can’t stop farming:
“It’s not like you can quit farming one day and then all of a sudden go do something else. There’s a huge financial commitment tied up in not only the year-to-year efforts, but the land also.”
Finally, Mr. Arnold stated:
“I feel like this is a manmade or a political situation that we’re in right now. President Trump trying to do what’s right with China and hold them accountable, and I think that’s good. … But we can’t lose sight of the fact that, you know, we’re hurting people and hurting farmers in playing hardball.”
– On the issue of market share in the international soybean marketplace, American Soybean Association chief economist Scott Gerlt told the Fox News reporter that:
“Brazil expands nearly every year and has the capacity to keep expanding. … The lack of a trade deal and sitting out of the market has very long-run effects.”
From that expanding capacity, he opined, Brazil poses a longer-term threat to U.S. market share, particularly since U.S. farmers are not competing in the global marketplace.
“Having dependable trading partners is better in the long run. Trade aid can get farmers through short-term, help keep them in business and get to the next year. … But the problem is, if we’re not in the markets now, that’s just a further signal to South America to keep expanding.”
Make of this what you will.
Ray W. says
Physics.org published its own take on the agricultural import-export market place.
Here are some bullet points from the article:
– From the reporter:
“The U.S. has traditionally been an agricultural powerhouse with a healthy trade surplus. But global dynamics are changing due to a confluence of political and economic factors. U.S. agricultural imports now exceed exports, and the trade deficit is projected to worsen in the coming years.”
– From a study conducted by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Texas Tech researchers, re: row crops such as corn, soybeans, wheat and cotton, comes this language:
“For most of recent history, the U.S. was a net agricultural exporter. But in the last couple of years, that has reversed, and what used to be a persistent surplus has turned into a persistent and growing deficit, where we’re importing much more than we export. Current projections estimate that the agricultural trade deficit will reach $49 billion by the end of 2025.”
– Said one of the researchers:
“Row crops are the backbone of U.S. agricultural exports, but markets are shifting as trade conflicts create uncertainty and instability. One of the main factors causing exports to nosedive is the ongoing trade dispute with China.”
– Once the U.S. set new tariffs on Chinese imports, China retaliated with tariffs on U.S. agricultural commodities like corn, cotton, soybeans and wheat. In the researchers’ opinion, these counter-tariffs targeted agricultural exports from states that support the current administration. And China invested in its own research and development of genetically-modified crop varieties, in order to “bolster self-sufficiency”.
– The researchers found that U.S. agricultural productivity has remained stable over that past few years, but agricultural productivity in other countries has improved, permitting those countries to become more competitive with U.S. farmers. As an example, Brazil recently expanded acreage devoted to soybean crops and its government spent money to improve regional transportation infrastructure, allowing Brazilian farmers to surpass American farmers in crop productivity.
– The researchers pointed directly to cuts in funding for agricultural research conducted by universities:
“There’s a strong link between research funding and productivity, and productivity affects the position of the U.S. agricultural sector globally. That also includes funding of research to mitigate the effects of climate change on the agricultural industry.”
– Finally, according to the research:
“U.S. row crop exports are trending in a negative direction, and forecasts predict the downward trend will continue. Producers may look to other markets, but there’s only one China, and they’re not coming back tomorrow. Even if you pulled these tariffs back right now, sales would not resume. And other markets have barriers to trade; for example, the EU has tight restrictions on imports of genetically modified crops.”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
Is it reasonable to consider whether the current administration have seriously miscalculated President Trump’s tariff policies, re: American agriculture? Is it fair to consider that once a nation’s agricultural export market share is lost to other just as competitive countries, that the lost market share just doesn’t magically come back once a trade agreement is reached, if one is ever is reached?
Dennis Harrington says
Every one calling ice Hitlers brown shirts . Have no idea of history. The left always calls the right racist. They don’t look at history. Who founded the KKK southern white democrats in 1858 . Who is Jim Crow , southern white democrats. Who passed the civil rights act under LBJ , republicans. I M sure some liberal here will say the parties switched in the sixties.
Pierre Tristam says
Because the parties switched in the sixties. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, especially when it’s an instrument of torture.
Ray W. says
This article resonates with me.
According to Autopost, Nissan is releasing a three-cylinder engine, named the ZR15DDTe, designed for use in its new line of e-POWER hybrid EVs.
The unique characteristic of the new engine is that during assembly there is no longer any need to press valve seats into the cylinder head. Instead, a copper-based alloy powder, via a process called “cold-spray”, is propelled at supersonic speeds sufficient to bind the alloy material onto the aluminum surface of each the engine’s intake and exhaust tracts.
Not only does this “cold spray” process allow for better heat transfer from the combustion chamber through the head (because copper very efficiently transfers heat), which in turn lowers valve temperatures, thereby extending the life of the valves, but the process, by eliminating pressed valve inserts, allows for more efficient intake and exhaust valve surface angles that reduce “airflow turbulence” within the combustion chamber, which increases overall engine thermal efficiency for a production engine to 42%, breaking the 41% thermal efficiency record set by both Toyota and Hyundai engines.
Engine efficiency in this context means that Nissan’s new engine converts 42% of the total amount of energy stored in a defined unit of gasoline into usable energy. The energy contained in a unit of gasoline is measured in BTUs, or British Thermal Units. Thus, the total amount of usable energy that can be derived by a gallon of gasoline can easily be measured in heat values.
Much of the heat contained in a unit of gasoline goes out the exhaust pipe of a vehicle. Some of it goes out via the cooling system through the radiator. Some of it goes out through the exposed engine block and head. But prior to this new Nissan production engine, 42% usable energy efficiencies and higher were reserved for racing engines.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
From the article, the Nissan engine will not need a transmission, as it will be used solely to generate electricity. This makes it what is called an EREV engine, or an extended range electric vehicle hydrid. That means the engine will seldom be used during daily driving. But when it is started to keep the EV battery charged, it likely will be one of the most efficient vehicles on the road.
I remain convinced that EREVs can provide an excellent bridge between gasoline engines and true EVs. Battery technology continues to rapidly evolve and in perhaps a short time true EVs will be so much cheaper to operate compared to gasoline engines that there will no longer be an economic need for gasoline engines.
Dennis Harrington says
I expected some comment from you . You don’t show why I am wrong . It like all liberals they just don’t like Trump and will do anything to slander him
Ray W. says
About three weeks ago, an aluminum plant suffered a long-term shutdown after a fire. The plant supplies aluminum to Ford for its F-150 truck lines, including its EV truck line.
Early estimates are that the aluminum plant may not reopen until the second quarter of next year.
Reuters reports that Ford will pause its F-150 Lightning EV assembly plant next week. More shutdowns may follow.
While the aluminum plant is only one of several aluminum suppliers to Ford, Ford has not yet worked out possible supply chain disruptions to other truck assembly plants.
Ford faces a potential $1 billion loss if it can’t meet demand for its trucks.
Make of this what you will.
Laurel says
Dennis Harrington: Trump manages to slander himself on, nearly, a daily bases. The “…grab ’em by the pussy” boy.
Yeah, those damned leftist! Fox Entertainment kept that one under wraps for a loooooong time.
Sherry says
Cherry picking historic semantics and labels do NOT change actual “FACTS” in this “Culture War”. After all, Lincoln was a Republican. As Pierre said, a cigar is still a cigar until it is used as an instrument of torture. So what that trump contributed to Democrats running for office. . . a “Convicted Felon and Twiced Impeached GUILTY Sexual Abuser” is still UNFIT for President!!!
Ed P says
Has anyone shopped for a new car recently?
Short term, little if any tariff effect. Nissan will ignore tariffs even on 2026 models but will have subtle price increases to maintain sales levels.
Mercedes,BMW, Audi, annd others are all responding differently. Some scramble to move more production to the U.S. Others will used a blended cost matrix between domestically produced models, markets and even counties. Some will eat the tariff. Their need to maintain sales volumes will push them to get creative and hold their prices until they can not. They must remain competitive with US manufacturers.
Larger manufacturers are more likely to adapt and remain competitive, while others may, in time exit the market. The consumer will be the judge.
Not predicting anything, but as of today, the sky has not collapsed on your new car dreams.
Kick a few tires, don’t be scared.