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Weather: Showers with thunderstorms likely in the morning, then showers likely with a chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon. Highs in the upper 70s. Northeast winds 10 to 15 mph with gusts up to 25 mph. Chance of rain near 100 percent. Friday Night: Showers likely with a chance of thunderstorms. Lows in the upper 60s. Northeast winds 10 to 15 mph with gusts up to 25 mph. 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 Peace Prize: The Norwegian Nobel Committee announces the peace prize at the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo at 5 a.m.
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. after FlaglerLive Editor Pierre Tristam’s Reality Check. Today’s show is all about coping with grief. See previous podcasts here. On WNZF at 94.9 FM, 1550 AM, and live at Flagler Broadcasting’s YouTube channel.
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.
Notably: No kidding: the oddsmakers had Donald Trump as third-most favorite to win the Nobel, behind Sudan’s Emergency Response Rooms and Yulia Navalnaya, the Russian economist and widow of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was likely murdered in one of Putin’s prisons. Trump is actually ahead of UNRWA (my pick for the year), the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees that Israel loves to slander when it isn’t murdering its members, and ahead of Doctors Without Borders, also a perennial favorite of all of us. UNESCO is also on the list, as is Greta Thunberg, the now-22-year-old environmental activist. But Elon Musk? Julian Assange? Marco Ruybio? Really? NATO? Are you kidding? By the time you read this, it’ll be old news. We’ll know, and either weep or bellow with happy relief.
—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
Hall of Terror at Fire Station 21
Thornton Wilder’s ‘Our Town,’ at Limelight Theatre in St. Augustine
‘The 39 Steps,’ at the Daytona Playhouse
Rocky Horror Picture Show at Athens Theatre
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
For the full calendar, go here.
Czeslaw Milosz, winner of the 1980 Nobel Prize for Literature, remarked in his acceptance speech in Stockholm that our age is characterized by a “refusal to remember”; he cited, among other things, the shattering fact that there are now more than one hundred books in print that deny that the Holocaust ever took place. The historian Carl Schorske has, in my opinion, circled closer to the truth by noting that the modern mind has grown indifferent to history because history has become useless to it; in other words, it is not obstinacy or ignorance but a sense of irrelevance that leads to the diminution of history. Television’s Bill Moyers inches still closer when he says, “I worry that my own business … helps to make this an anxious age of agitated amnesiacs…. We Americans seem to know everything about the last twenty-four hours but very little of the last sixty centuries or the last sixty years.
–From Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death (1986).
Laurel says
Nope! Authoritarians who turn the citizens against each other, and blow boats out of the water without due process, do not deserve a Nobel Peace prize.
So, this may be a conundrum for him. On one hand, baby didn’t get his way. On the other hand, Norway isn’t a “shit hole country.” Well, he could punish Venezuela with additional tariffs…yeah, that’s it.
More gold paint, now!
BillC says
Trump didn’t get the NPP. US invasion of Norway imminent!
Bob says
Maybe Kmala with all her international expertise could have brought about a cease fire in Gaza. Maybe she would have closed the boarders and stopped the drugs from entering the US. Dream on all u trump haters
BillC says
@ Bob Hope you enjoy the drastic increase in your health care premiums in order to pay for tax reductions for the wealthiest.
The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” is projected to lead to a 90% increase in premiums resulting in millions of Floridians losing their health insurance coverage.
Sherry says
How’s your grocery bill “booob”? What about your health insurance premiums? Costs of clothes, school supplies, and almost everything else? What about jobs? Your kids and grandkids learning roofing, road building, waiting tables, butchering, picking tomatoes? Yep, somebody’s gotta do those things. Just keep lying to yourself! It’s so much easier that way. Reality will eventually come around. . . LOL! LOL! LOL!
Laurel says
Bob: What does Kamala Harris have to do with Trump’s illegal actions?
Jim says
@Bob says, you really nailed it (except it’s “borders”….).
Hey, you know what else Kamala wouldn’t have done?
– Succeeded in getting China to buy ZERO soy beans, killing the entire market for USA soybean farmers (can you say “bail out”?)
– Given $20B (billion) to Argentina to bail out a loser. (And, hey, guess who China is buying their soy beans from? Argentina!!!)
– Put US troops into “Democrat” cities under false pretenses. (Portland is NOT burning; and, surprise, there are stores open there!)
– Alienated every ally the USA has (but, hey, who needs them?)
– Turned our next door neighbor (Canada) against us (don’t they understand they should be happy to be the 51st state?!?)
– Put the absolutely most incompetent and corrupt cabinet in place (like no one has ever seen before!)
– Lay off US government workers as punishment to the Democrats over a government shutdown. (I guess all those laid off workers are Democrats; surely there are no Republicans working in the government, right?)
– Treat Putin like an equal (maybe he is to Trump now that I think about it….) even though Putin has bombed innocent civilians for over two years in Ukraine and the rest of the civilized world considers him a war criminal.
– Told US generals to treat US cities are training grounds for troops as they are war zones.
– Raised the national debt by around $4B (billion) while cutting programs many Americans depend on (but, in his defense, he succeeded in getting the top 1% in the USA tax cuts so I guess that balances everything out…)
I could go on but I suspect you quit reading long ago. I’m not saying Kamala was the greatest candidate there ever was but I think she is committed to democracy. You can’t say that about Trump unless you are deaf, dumb and blind (and it must be all three!).
Well, let’s sit back and wait for Trump to declare the Insurrection Act of 1807 to put down the huge, violent rebellion taking place in the USA right now! I do feel sorry for the soldiers trying to put down that insurrection. Those daggone insurrectionist have done a great job of hiding since January 7, 2020!
Ray W. says
There is a snippet in Jim’s comment about Portland not being on fire.
The Wall Street Journal devoted an article about the question of the existence of any type of violence by protesters at a Portland ICE detention facility sufficient to support a presidential order to deploy federal troops to the city, a facility that has been drawing protesters for months.
As background, on September 5th, President Trump used terms like “unbelievable” and “the destruction of the city” to describe his perception of protests at the Portland ICE detention facility. The White House described the situation at the Portland ICE detention facility as being “under siege.”
As more background, on September 27th, President Trump announced on Truth Social that he was “directing Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to provide all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland, and any of our ICE Facilities under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists. I am also authorizing Full Force, if necessary.”
As a final instance of background, on October 4th, after a hearing on the deployment of the federal troops, a federal district court judge issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) blocking the deployment of those federal troops to Portland, finding that as a matter of fact drawn from the hearing record, there existed “substantial evidence that the protests at the Portland ICE facility were not significantly disruptive in the days — or even weeks — leading up to the President’s directive.”
And of those few those sporadic events needing either city police or federal law enforcement action, the judge wrote that these events came “nowhere near the type of incidents that cannot be handled by regular law enforcement forces.”
In response to President Trump’s descriptions of events in Portland, the judge found that the president’s account of events “was simply untethered to the facts.”
On Sunday, October 5th, the day after the federal judge’s ruling, President Trump said:
“Portland is burning to the ground. It’s insurrectionists all over the place.”
The Journal reporter was sent to Portland to obtain for a potential story evidence submitted into the federal hearing record of a number of Portland police department daily reports. Also obtained from hearing record were official logs of the Federal Protective Service, the federal law enforcement agency that provides security for the Portland ICE facility. The reporter also witnessed events as they unfolded on the perimeter of the Portland ICE detention facility.
Here are the accounts that the reporter entered into the story:
– On Labor Day, Monday, September 1st (estimated maximum number of protesters – 125):
“A group of about 125 marched to the ICE facility and stood outside with ‘little or no energy,’ according to a police summary. A Federal Protective Service official ‘was not concerned about the group,’ according to the report. Some demonstrators brought a makeshift guillotine that generated ‘significant media coverage,’ police noted.”
– On Thursday, September 4th (estimated maximum number of protesters – 20):
“Federal officials reported that homeless people were being coerced by demonstrators into rattling a gate outside the ICE facility, Portland police said. The Federal Protective Service detained an elderly man ‘after he asked the agents if he could just come up to the gate and rattle it so the antifa instigators would leave him and others alone.’ He was cited and released.”
– On Friday, September 5th (estimated maximum number of protesters – 8):
From an e-mail prepared by a Portland police sergeant:
“At 1400 hours today, I drove by ICE and observed 1 person standing accross (sic) the street by the entry way. I touched base with Will Turner from FPS and was told there was a small group with low energy.
“Drove by around 2100, saw 8 people out front and couldnt (sic) get one of them to flip me the bird. Very low energy. It appeared two trucks made entry to the building with no issues. The camp site just East of the entry way is horrible.
“No calls for service that I am aware of.”
– On Thursday, September 11th (estimated maximum number of protesters – 20):
From the same Portland police sergeant:
“Nothing much to note tonight. FPS called and reported that a small group of counter protesters showed up and instigated a confrontation with the regular protesters. One of the regular protesters pulled out and ASP or baton of some sort and chased the single counter protester off. We did not receive a call from a victim or any involved.
“When I checked throughout the night, I saw no more than 15-20. I paused near Macadam to watch and got flipped off.”
– On Wednesday, September 24th (estimated maximum number of protesters – 10):
From a Portland police record:
“No assaults, no calls for service.”
– On Thursday, September 25th (estimated maximum number of protesters – 20):
President Trump told reporters that “nobody’s ever seen anything like it.” He claimed that professional agitators and crazy people (reporter’s words) were trying to “burn down buildings, including federal buildings.”
– On Friday, September 26th (estimated maximum number of protesters – 15):
From a Portland police report:
Protesters were “mostly sitting in lawn chairs and walking around. … Energy was low, minimal activity. As officers drove through the area the group would often flip us off but as the night went on they stopped acknowledging the police.”
– On Saturday, September 27th, in the hours after President Trump announced on Truth Social his troop deployment directive to Secretary Hegseth, the maximum number of protesters was 60:
Portland police reported the arrest of one person by federal officials for blocking vehicles attempting to exit the ICE facility.
On Sunday, September 28th (estimated maximum number of protesters – 200):
The reporter described the crowd that night as including one naked woman, one retired manufacturing worker holding an “I AM ANTIFA” sign, between six and twelve people dressed in black with facial coverings holding signs like “F–K ICE” and “Release the EPSTEIN FILES! NOW!” and “THERAPY LLAMAS NOT TRAUMA.” Protesters danced to music and sprayed bubbles. “Officers in tactical gear would occasionally emerge to push the crowd back for vehicles entering and exiting. At least twice they pepper-sprayed demonstrators. The smell of pepper spray and marijuana was pervasive.”
Portland police records referred to an incident on that date when a motorist attempted to drive into the crowd, but the vehicle was surrounded by demonstrators.
– On Monday, September 29th (estimated maximum number of protesters – 40):
The reporter described members of the crowd as holding signs of “DUE PROCESS ISN’T OPTIONAL” and “WHAT’S YOUR FAMILY STORY.” According to the reporter, the leader of the crowd wore a chicken suit and a cape with a “stylized” American flag theme.
Oregon Governor Tina Kotek told reporters that the only criminal events occurred when counter-protesters picked fights with protesters.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
Depending on perspective, it seems that either Portland antifa elements are burning down Portland’s buildings, including more than one federal building, or small groups of low energy protesters are struggling to decide whether to flip off police officers when police linger nearby.
I don’t know. I wasn’t there.
I can rely on a Wall Street Journal reporter’s synopsis of police reports derived contemporaneously with events, accompanied by what was witnessed at the ICE facility.
I can rely on President Trump’s interpretations of what was happening in Portland.
But there is a third possible consideration for those who were not in Portland near the ICE facility during the month of September.
A federal judge conducted a hearing at which both attorneys for the government were accorded the opportunity to introduce into the hearing record any competent and reliable evidence that might at the very least by inference support their respective positions.
After all of the evidence that the attorneys deemed relevant to the issue had been entered into the record, the judge ruled that the evidence in the record established that our President’s account of events in Portland was “untethered to the facts.” The TRO was then issued.