To include your event in the Briefing and Live Calendar, please fill out this form.
Weather: Sunny, with a high near 71. Breezy. Thursday Night: Clear, with a low around 50.
- 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:
In Court: Kim Zaheer sentencing on an aggravated manslaughter charge, 1:30 p.m. before Circuit Judge Dawn Nichols. Zaheer was charged in the death in 2001 of her mother, Frances Hildegard King, 86. Zaheer, 68, was judged incompetent to proceed with further court hearings or trial until Sept. 3, when the court found her competent. Zaheer tendered a an open plea on Sept. 16, leaving it to Nichols to set the sentencing terms, with the understanding that the prosecution has agreed to waive the sentencing guidelines.
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.
The Halloween Hall of Terror is back at Palm Coast Fire Station 21, 9 Corporate Drive in Palm Coast. Thursday, Oct. 30 and Friday, Oct.31 from 7 to 10 p.m. This year’s theme, Friday the 13th: Jason Takes Station 21, pays homage to the iconic Friday the 13th horror film series, with sets and locations inside the attraction inspired from the series’ first 8 entries. Visitors can indulge in a variety of delicious offerings from food trucks as they await their turn to tour the spine-chilling haunted house. Parking is available in the lot adjacent to the firehouse on Corporate Drive, with overflow parking available in the Kohl’s parking lot. Please note that the event features strobe lights, fog, and other special effects. Those with epilepsy or sensory sensitivities are invited to join us for a special sensory-friendly walkthrough of the Hall of Terror from 6-7pm on both nights of the event.
Rocky Horror Picture Show at Athens Theatre, Thursday, Oct. 30 at 8 p.m., and Friday, Oct. 31, at 11 p.m., Athens Theatre, 124 North Florida Avenue, DeLand. Note: this is the show the idiotic Volusia County Council cancelled all $611,000 cultural council grants over Council member Danny Robins objecting to the “drag” show. So show up, and show your support. Whether you are experiencing “Rocky” for the first or 100th time (as long as you are over the age of 18) we invite you to come and do “The Time Warp” again. The evening will consist of a pre-show featuring several DeLand Pride drag performances (bring those $ bills for tips!) and the Absent Friends (with emcee Robert Baldwin) with their hysterical Rocky-virgin initiation fun, the ever-popular 1975 20th Century Fox film, live shadow cast (in other words, costumed actors portraying the movie while it is being screened above), dancing, and audience participation (with call backs and prop bags). The film’s plot revolves around a newly engaged and admittedly naïve couple (Brad and Janet) who get stranded on the side of the road during a stormy night and seek refuge in the nearby castle of a strange (yet alluring) Dr. Frank-N-Furter. From there the story becomes increasingly more ridiculous, raunchy, and above all, fun.
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.
Thornton Wilder’s ‘Our Town,’ at Limelight Theatre in St. Augustine, 11 Old Mission Avenue, St. Augustine. 7:30 p.m. most days, with matinees on Sundays, at 2 p.m., and on Nov. 15. Thornton Wilder’s timeless masterpiece chat quietly and powerfully explores life, love, and loss in small-town America. A deeply human story that resonates with every audience.
‘The 39 Steps,’ at the Daytona Playhouse, 100 Jessamine Blvd., Daytona Beach. Box office: (386) 255-2431. Adults, $25, seniors, $24, Youth, $15. Book here. Mix a Hitchcock masterpiece with a juicy spy novel, add a dash of Monty Python and you have The 39 Steps: a fast-paced whodunit, with over 150 zany characters (played by a cast of only four), an onstage plane crash, handcuffs, missing fingers, and some good old-fashioned romance! Content advisory: Fake guns and gunshot sound effects
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.
A Forum on the Future of Volusia County’s Beaches, hosted by the League of Women Voters of Volusia County, October 30, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Ocean Center, Room 101 (101 N. Atlantic Ave, Daytona Beach). This follow-up to the League’s April 2024 session will feature key county and engineering experts presenting updates on the Volusia County Beach Feasibility Study. Attendees will gain an in-depth understanding of both the technical and economic challenges involved in protecting the county’s beaches and coastline. Featured speakers include: Suzanne Konchan, Deputy County Manager, Jessica Fentress, Coastal Director, and Representatives from Taylor Engineering, the County’s coastal engineering consultants.
Notably: Randy Fine, one of Congress’s most promiscuous mills of bigotry, has a new one: a bill to require all members of Congress to abjur dual nationalities. It’s not clear whether there are any members of Congress who have other nationalities. It’s not illegal: I have never renounced my Lebanese passport, though it expired sometime in the 20th century. Of course that’s not what Fine is after. (He’d have to abjur his loyalty to Israel ahead of, say, Flagler County, first, although I’m not sure how you abjur loyalty to the 51st state.) He’s after those who don’t look American and who wear veils and who muck up his “America for Americans.” In her excellent America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States (written in the next-to-last year of the first Trump declension), Erika Lee noted the KKK’s pamphlet from the 1920s: “Claiming to speak for “all true Americans,” the Klan condemned the “flood of foreigners” who took advantage of the United States, pushed her “native born” aside, and retained allegiance to foreign flags. This pamphlet was also titled “America for Americans”; its red, white, and blue cover featured a white-robed-and-hooded Klansman brandishing an enormous American flag astride a similarly styled horse. Finally, in 1925, best-selling author and eugenicist Madison Grant used the now familiar white nationalist rallying cry “America for Americans” to report that native white Americans were being “submerged” by an “influx of foreigners.” He warned that strict immigration restriction, even the suspension of all immigration, might soon be necessary. The Roosevelt speech, the Klan pamphlet, and the Grant article are all documents from an era that historians have identified as a high point of xenophobia, but their messages resound across the centuries: immigrants are a threat to the United States; white Americans are the only “true Americans”; and vigilance and regulation, through the KKK’s campaign of racial violence, Grant’s immigration restriction, or Teddy Roosevelt’s coercive “Americanism,” are the only ways to protect an “America for Americans.” Randy Fine’s bill does not give proper attribution to its muse.
—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
Contractor Review Board Meeting
Flagler County’s Technical Review Committee Meeting
Flagler Tiger Bay Club Guest Speaker: Aaron Kaplowitz
Separation Chat: Open Discussion
Flagler County Industrial Development Authority Meeting
Scale & Thrive 2026: Growth Strategies for Local Business Owners
The Circle of Light A Course in Miracles Study Group
In Court: Leigha Mumby Pre-Trial
Palm Coast Planning and Land Development Board
Flagler Beach United Methodist Church Food Pantry
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
Palm Coast Democratic Club Recap Meeting
Town of Marineland Commission Meeting
For the full calendar, go here.
In 1911, the US government was concerned enough with the issue to commission a massive study on immigration led by US senator William P. Dillingham, two other US senators—including sympathetic Henry Cabot Lodge—three representatives, and three other citizens appointed by President William Howard Taft. The resulting forty-one-volume congressional report, known as the Dillingham Commission reports (1911), confirmed that mass immigration was indeed a “problem” and that it was the federal government’s job to solve it. Moreover, its Dictionary of Races or Peoples endorsed the IRL’s paradigm of “old immigrants” versus “new immigrants” that dominated the contemporary debate over immigration. It included the government’s definitive list of races and ethnic groups and their general characteristics and physiognomies. It also ranked them according to desirability. The commission offered helpful generalizations about the immigrants coming to the United States that made it clear which ones were good, such as Scandinavians, “the purest type,” and which ones were bad, such as Slavs, who exhibited “fanaticism in religion, carelessness as to the business virtues of punctuality and often honesty,” and Italians, who were allegedly “excitable, impulsive, highly imaginative, impracticable.” It recommended major transformations in immigration policy that would ensure that both the “quality and quantity” of immigration be managed “as not to make too difficult the process of assimilation.”
–From Erika Lee’s America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States (2019).
Dennis C Rathsam says
Did you see the crown, S Korea gave TRUMP???? They TROLL the Democratic party from across the seas. And TRUMP gets another trade deal. AMERICA 1st
Laurel says
Dennis C Rathsam: Tell us how the deal with China went.
Pogo says
@P.T.
Dixie never died…
Just one example — still around
https://www.google.com/search?q=league+of+the+south
If you used a copy of a list of Florida, and indeed, elected Republicans everywhere, to update the membership roll of the League — it would be little changed, except for the names of those gone to their eternal reward — below.
The Lord, our God, and what’s his name (Trump’s hero) — as usual, ain’t saying much about anything; Pox News fills in for them.
Laurel says
Trump’s mind is like a steel trap…left open to rust.
Okay, I stole that joke from cartoonist Jerry Van Amerongen, who was referring to his cartoon character. It’s worthy!
Spray painting everything gold does not gold frame good taste. The Oval Office looks ridiculous today. Superficial and empty of what it originally stood for.
Ed P says
Arctic Frost
Jack Smith
197 subpoenas
430 people/entities targeted
Talk about an “enemies list” and targeting your political opponents….
JC says
Dennis C Rathsam, why you are screaming on your keyboard in caps in certain words? That’s what an angry boomer would do.
Laurel says
JC : You do love your categories, don’t you?
Skibum says
Dennis boasts about drumph receiving a gold crown from a foreign head of government like it is a good thing, something to be celebrated. No, it is just one more acknowledgement, one more piece of evidence, one more nail in his coffin that drumph’s behavior and the unilateral actions he has been taking are seen not only by Americans but by foreigners near and far as authoritarian by a wanna-be “king” who rules the land above all others.
If the majority GOP members of Congress were actually doing their constitutional jobs as the third branch of our federal government and acting responsibly instead of cowering in a corner and letting this unhinged authoritarian dictator push them around, threatening to “primary” them if they dared speak out against him taking their power and authority away, America would not be in this constitutional crisis we are currently in!
What has happened to so many “adults” that they have made horrible decisions and disgusting acts of betrayal of their oaths of office? Drumph himself is a yellow-bellied COWARD for faking bone spurs in order to avoid serving in the U.S. armed forces, yet he stands in front of our nation’s most senior military leaders saluting him like he is a revered leader instead of the puny, small hands small appendage (according to Stormy Daniels), vile old convicted felon with cankles that he is.
The cowering maga members of Congress who have relinquished their decision making authority and oversight control to the convicted felon president are also yellow-bellied COWARDS. They value keeping their cushy senate or house positions AND their federal salaries and exclusive benefits over abiding by their oaths of office and actually doing the work of the people who elected them into office. Not one of their constituents would tell them “Oh great work taking my healthcare away from me”, or “I really appreciate your being out of Washington D.C. for a six week long vacation so you don’t have to be voting to release the Epstein files and let us know who the sexual predators are that Mike Johnson and drumph are protecting.”
The ONLY reason the government is closed right now is because the democrats in Congress know what a human catastrophe it would be for millions and million of Americans… including LOTS of republicans by the way, if they went along with the maga GOP legislation to dramatically raise healthcare costs that would essentially strip healthcare altogether from so many Americans who NEED it for themselves and their families. The GOP is demanding that democrats give in only because they are too cowardly to stand up to drumph and say NO we will NOT do that to the American people! And it is the democrats who have the people’s backs… like usual.
And here is Dennis, jumping up an down, I assume clapping furiously in his living room in front of the TV while watching fauxinfotainment nuze, almost fainting while prostrating himself onto the floor just wishing drumph was standing in front of him so Dennis could kiss his cankled feet. He does not even realize the reason drumph would be standing in front of him in the first place… to urinate all over him because he views others as worthless pieces of you know what, to be used and discarded as tools who are sometimes necessarily useful, but ultimately thrown away like discarded garbage.
Wow, Dennis, you really can pick ’em, huh?
Ray W. says
From a Barron’s story comes news of a positive nature for American soybean farmers.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told a Fox Business Morning with Maria audience three things:
First, China has just committed to the purchase of 12 million metric tons of soybeans during the 2025 soybean crop export season, plus a further commitment that China will purchase a minimum of 25 million metric tons of the crop during each of the next three soybean crop years. As an aside, since soybeans are harvested in late summer, the soybean crop year straddles two years. For example, the 2025 crop is exported during late 2025 and 2026.
Second, Secretary Bessent stated that he “expect[s] President Trump in the future to convince Chinese President Xi Jinping to increase their commitment.”
Third, he talked of other countries agreeing to purchase U.S. soybeans “to the tune of another 19 million metric tons”, without naming the countries or the amounts each of them would purchase during the 2025 crop year.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
I hope that every last metric ton of soybeans harvested by American farmers during this crop year is sold at a price profitable to the farmers either to domestic or to foreign buyers.
If I understand accurately the revelations listed in the Barron’s story, during the remainder of the 2025 soybean season, China will purchase 12 million metric tons of soybeans. Other nations have committed to the purchase of 19 million more metric tons of soybeans from the date of publication of the article. Thus a minimum future purchases of 31 million metric tons of American soybeans have been committed to export markets.
The reporter cited to 2024 overall soybean exports in 2024, elicited from U.S. Department of Agriculture reports: 52 million metric tons, with China purchasing 25 million of those 52 million metric tons.
To me, China purchasing 12 million metric tons of soybeans during 2025′ crop year is significantly less than China purchasing 25 million metric tons during 2024’s crop year. And if other foreign countries had agreed to purchase 19 million metric tons, that is less than the 27 million metric tons that other foreign countries purchased during 2024’s crop year.
But there is a gap in the figures. I concede that foreign countries other than China may have purchased soybeans prior to the publication date of the story, but after July 1st, which is the start of the 2025 crop year.
The story simply does not address this gap. So I looked. I found a September 25, 2025 story by a news outlet named Argus that lists purchase commitments for American soybean exports to countries other than China during the 2025 crop year had already reached 11 million metric tons as of September 18th, with minimal “cancellations” for the year.
Adding those 11 million metric tons exported to other foreign nations to the 19 million tons in export commitments after the date of the Barron’s article would put the total amount exported 3 million metric tons higher than the 27 million metric tons exported to foreign destinations other than China during 2024’s crop year.
And more soybean cargoes were probably sold between the September 18th Argus publication date and the October 28th Barron’s date, but I haven’t yet found another export story with a more recent publication date.
Back to the Barron’s story.
President Trump posted to Truth Social:
“Our Farmers will be very happy! In fact, as I said once before during my first Administration, Farmers should immediately go out and buy more land and larger tractors.”
He then, in the reporter’s words, pointed “to other agricultural products China could buy.”
A White House official, in the reporter’s words, “said that the 25 million metric ton purchase agreement is a ‘floor not ceiling’ and that the administration ‘is also pursuing market access for soybeans and other agricultural products in other markets.'” The White House official added, “[t]hat effort to find new markets for American ag products is not being put on the back burner.”
The reporter asked Owen Tedford, an analyst with Beacon Policy Advisors, of his position on the news:
“As much as they’re touting it as a win, my perception is that this is a return to the status quo.” He added that 25 million metric tons of soybeans might be more of a “ceiling than a floor” and that there had been no announcement of an enforcement mechanism in the new commitment should China renege on its promise.
If Mr. Tedford’s analysis of a lack of an enforcement mechanism in the commitment has merit, could that mean that the Trump administration may be counting its chickens before they hatch?
Time will tell.
As another aside, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service, the estimated total crop yield for the 2025-2026 soybean growing season will be 4.3 billion bushels, up 8.0 million bushels from last year’s yield. Converted to metric tons, 4.3 billion bushels is slightly over 117 million metric tons.
Ray W. says
According to an October 21 Big Sky Business Journal article, the Wyoming coal lease sale process, the first since 2012, that brought in a bid of less than a penny per ton of coal has been “indefinitely postponed.”
According to the reporter, while coal industry leaders say the drop in the bid price is due to a “lingering impact from Obama and Biden’s decades long war on coal”, the reporter added that “also having an impact is cheap natural gas and the subsidized wind and solar industry.”
Scientific American reported on June 17, 2025, that an investment bank known as Lazard had just released its annual report on the “levelized cost of energy”(LCOE) for various types of electricity generation, a study that measures the cost of producing electricity “by dividing a project’s lifetime energy production by its cost”, shows that “renewables are the ‘most cost-competitive form of generation,’ even without subsidies.”
The Lazard report concluded”
“As such, renewable energy will continue to play a key role in the buildout of new power generation in the U.S. … This is particularly true in the current high power demand environment, where renewables stand out as both the lowest-cost and quickest-to-deploy generation source.”
“Bureau of Land Management and Interior Department officials are still reviewing the Spring Creek Bid, and those close to the process expect that another date will be set for the West Antelope III coal lease sale.
According to the reporter, there are some argue that the coal industry itself sees the writing on the wall. If a fraction-of-a-penny bid is any indication, some critics say, the thermal coal industry — which relies on U.S. coal-burning power plants — isn’t yet confident that Trump’s policies will turn around years of market decline.
“‘It tells you that there’s no competition for that coal in the ground, and it’s not worth very much money, Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis Energy Data Analyst Seth Feaster told Wyofile on Wednesday. ‘It points to the fundamental, structural decline the coal industry is facing — for thermal coal — and that story hasn’t been reversed, despite all the things that they’re talking about.'”
Per the reporter, shortly after the low Wyoming bid from the sole bidder and the “lackluster” offer from the same sole bidder for the Montana coal that was up for bid, but before the bidding process was indefinitely postposed, the Trump administration has “touted sweeping regulatory rollbacks and $625 million in federal spending to revitalize ‘clean beautiful coal.'”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
The math is simple. Even if a company seeking a permit to build a coal-fired power plant receives the permit, no bank will lend the project money unless the proposing company can obtain long-term contracts from utility companies to buy the electricity that can be produced. Why would a utility company enter into a long-term contract to pay more for electricity when it can get its power over the long-term from cheaper sources of electricity, be they natural gas, solar or wind?
Joe D says
News from my prior home state this week:
Maryland Governor Wes Moore is suing the Federal Government to reinstate the prior Federal assistance already approved to complete a wind turbine project already underway in the Chesapeake Bay, before Trump just summarily CUT the already approved funds in favor of HUGE FOSSIL FUEL subsidies (mostly coal, but also oil) to his fossil fuel donor buddies.
The project (if allowed to finish construction) would supply pollution free renewable energy for 70,000 homes in Maryland, at an overall fraction (over its useful lifetime) of the cost of maintaining coal fired “clean”( TRUMP’S joke) energy.
Laurel says
Did you see Trump, while in Japan, stop and salute the U.S. flag, then completely ignored and passed by the flag of Japan, stunning the Prime Minister? The Japanese take respect very seriously. He then walked around the room, reminding me of my robot vacuum cleaner, that bumps into things and turns directions.
What a terrible representative of the United States of America! The embarrassment continues.
Ed P says
Any success on policy?
Signed the trade agreement.
Includes estimated investments of $550 billion in U.S.
Secured critical minerals and rare earth metals
Strengthened ties with Japans ne Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi
Lowered tariffs to 15% from 25%
Opens Japan to more American Products such as cars and soybeans
And the take away is embarrassment?
Pure nonsense.
Laurel says
Clearly, there is much pure nonsense you refuse to acknowledge from Top Crapper Gun. He is a constant source of embarrassment, and if Biden ever came close to his foolish behavior, Trump supporters would lose their minds.
Enjoy your much needed Trump Ballroom.