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Weather: Sunny. Highs in the lower 70s. North winds around 5 mph. Thursday Night: Mostly clear. Lows in the upper 40s. Northeast winds around 5 mph, becoming northwest 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:
In Court: The trial of Edward Sampson, who faces a charge of aggravated battery of a pregnant woman, begins at 9 a.m. before Circuit Judge Terence Perkins in Courtroom 401 at the Flagler County courthouse. The charge is a second-degree felony and would normally be punishable by little prison or jail time, and probation. But Sampson, a repeat offender released from prison earlier this year, could face up to 30 years if convicted. See: “‘Ed Boy,’ Target of Murderers in a Trial 9 Months Ago, Is Now a Defendant Facing Up to 30 Years Over a Shove.”
Palm Coast City Manager Job Interviews: The Palm Coast City Council holds a special workshop starting at 1:30 p.m. to interview the two remaining candidates for city manager. Individual council members will have met one-on-one with each candidate earlier in the day. The full council is interviewing the candidates in open, public session starting with David Fraser at 1:30 p.m. and Michael McGlothlin at 3:15 p.m.
Palm Coast City Manager Candidates Community Meet and Greet at 5 p.m. at City Hall.
The Flagler Beach City Commission meets at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall, 105 South 2nd Street in Flagler Beach. The commission is expected to consider the annexation of large swaths of Veranda Bay and Summertown on the mainland. 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.
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.
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. (Note the new time.) 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: From Statista, a reminder: “Almost 4 in 10 SNAP recipients in the fiscal year of 2023 were children, data from the USDA shows, as families, especially single-adult families, struggle with finances more often. Additionally, around 2 in 10 recipients were over the age of 60, and 1 in 10 was a child or non-elderly adult with a disability. One-third of SNAP recipients were non-disabled adults between the ages of 18 and 59. However, on a household level, only 16.9 percent of households receiving SNAP contained only adults under the age of 50. In 2023, 27.3 percent of households receiving SNAP had an earned income. Able-bodied adults up to 54 years of age without dependents fall under a work requirement if they want to receive more than three months of payments in three years. The share of households that had an income from work rose to 54.9 percent among households with children, once more highlighting the plight of many working parents to make ends meet. Among married-couple families, this rate rises to more than 80 percent. More than 60 percent of SNAP-receiving household also received a form of cash benefit like Social Security payments or Supplemental Security Income, while 20 percent received no earned income or cash benefits. African-Americans are overrepresented among recipients at 25.7 percent (compared to around 14 percent of the population), while Latinos are underrepresented (15.6 percent of SNAP recipients compared to 19.5 percent of the population).”
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.
December 2025
Holiday Plant Class Series
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
Nexus Center Grand Opening Ribbon Cutting and Gala
Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center
Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn
Florida Ethics Commission Meeting
Free For All Fridays With Host David Ayres on WNZF
First Friday Garden Walks at Washington Oaks Gardens State Park
Holiday Sale to Benefit Area Homeless
Friday Blue Forum
Santa in Bunnell
First Friday in Flagler Beach
For the full calendar, go here.
But love, in the form of sympathy, or benevolence, cannot exist freely in an aristocratic society. The aristocrat has to persuade himself that the slave or proletarian or colored man is inferior clay, and that his sufferings do not matter.
–From Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian (1957).
Skibum says
The Epstein files scandal is not going away as the pedo protecting sex offender and convicted felon in the WH wanted. It is exploding and will increasingly be damaging to drumph and the maga brand simply because of his incessant attempts to hide the horrible truth from the American people. Yesterday’s outrageous and ill-fated meeting in the WH situation room, where house member Lauren Boebert was summoned before AG Bondi and assistant AG Blanh, who apparently pleaded with her and cajoled her to remove her signature from the discharge petition that 217 other members of the house signed in an effort to have the Epstein files that are “on Pam Bondi’s desk” made public.
Boebert, who revealed previously that she herself is a survivor of a sexual assault that occurred years ago, adamantly refused to bow to drumph and his administration sycophants, telling them before walking out of that secret meeting that she would NOT remove her name. She even went further and made a public tweet that let everyone know her position about transparency, even while drumph tries to be as secret and untransparent in protecting priveleged sexual predators of young girls as he possibly can, with the approval and support of the Attorney General of the United States… the highest ranking law enforcement official in the nation, who is supposed to be on the side of victims, NOT criminals!
I suspect that the discharge petition vote will pass the house next week and probably will pass the senate when it comes up for a vote as well. After all, which members of congress want to be put on record with a public vote to protect those who are sexual abusers of young girls? I doubt drumph would sign it into law regardless of what happens in both chanbers of congress, because the information he is trying to hide and prevent from becoming public is likely to be so damning to him that he would rather keep lying about his own involvement with someone like Epstein, whether or not he actually was abusing young girls himself.
Congress needs to keep releasing all of the sordid details that have been uncovered through the use of their subpoena power, and they should allow any of the victims who wish to testify to congress to do so. They should also require Epstein’s co-conspirator to testify and explain the inconsistencies between what she told the assistant AG (drumph’s previous personal attorney), and her emails back and forth with Epstein that suggest drumph was completely aware of the abuse of young girls for many years.
This scandal is NOT going away, and the longer drumph and his pedo protecting administration officials try to sweep this under the rug, the more attention it will continue to attract. Sex offenders, especially those who prey on young victims, should always be identified, prosecuted and imprisoned… not protected, not excused, and not irrationally be made out to be the victims by a president who has himself been adjudicated responsible for committing a sex offense against a woman years ago!
c says
@Skibum ;
Quite literally, I could not have said it better myself. Thank You.
Sherry says
Excellent comment Skibum! Thank You!
Sherry says
trump’s “sick” blatant self aggrandizement is beyond egregious! This from Robert Reich:
Friends,
Trump has ordered the U.S. Treasury to draft a $1 coin featuring him on both sides, for the purpose of “honoring America’s 250th Birthday and @POTUS,” according to Treasury officials.
Meanwhile, Trump wants the Washington Commanders to name their planned $3.7 billion stadium after him. A senior White House source told ESPN: “It’s what the president wants, and it will probably happen.” Presumably, Trump’s name will be carved into a granite facade at the stadium’s entrance.
The giant $300 million ballroom that Trump is adding to the White House is called “the President Donald J. Trump Ballroom” on the list of donors to the project, and senior administration officials say the name is likely to stick.
Trump is moving to immortalize himself with his name etched into coins, carved into pediments, and inscribed into White House marble. He wants to glorify himself in the most permanent ways possible.
This is what fascist dictators do when in power. Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini built monuments to glorify themselves so they’d be exalted in history.
Democracies don’t do this. They memorialize their heroes only after they’ve died, and only if the public wants them commemorated.
Trump deserves to be remembered — but not as a hero. To the contrary: It is our solemn duty to ensure he is remembered for all that he has done and may still do to destroy American democracy.
He must be remembered as the president who claimed without evidence that an election was “stolen” from him. Who then instigated a coup that included false electors, threats to state officials, and an assault on the U.S. Capitol that resulted in five deaths and injuries to 174 police officers.
He should be remembered as the president who, after being reelected, tried to erase the nation’s memory of what he had done by pardoning 1,600 rioters who had been criminally convicted for participating in the Capitol attack and 77 people who had conspired with him to carry out the attempted coup. He called them all “patriots.”
He must be remembered as the president who then usurped the powers of Congress. Who denied people due process of law. Who prosecuted his political opponents. Who violated international law by killing people he labeled enemy combatants. Who sent the military into American cities over the objections of their mayors and governors. And who openly and brazenly took bribes.
We must not allow Trump to erase this history with false tributes to himself, etched into silver, marble, or granite.
Instead, after he is gone, a monument should be erected to remind future generations of Trump’s treachery and the treachery of officials who supported him.
It would be a simple building constructed of iron and cement, containing the records of his attacks on democracy and the names of everyone who aided him.
Over its doorway would be the words “Trump’s Treason.”
It would be situated on the White House lawn where the Trump ballroom (since demolished) once stood. It would face Pennsylvania Avenue so that families visiting the nation’s capital — including those commemorating America’s 500th anniversary — have easy access, and will long remember this catastrophe.
Laurel says
Worthy viewing. Adam Kinzenger’s message to Republicans:
Sherry says
Thank you Laurel! Not sure why my attempting to record a “thumbs up” is not working.
Maga. . . I DARE you to watch is video! If you do not, you are nothing but a “Coward”! Enough is enough!
Laurel says
Yeah, sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. Both on the phone and on the computer. More things for FL to think about!
Sherry says
This from Joyce Vance on trump’s “Vindictive” attempts to weaponize the Justice Department against his enemies:
Today, in Alexandria, Virginia, a senior federal judge from South Carolina, Cameron Currie, heard oral argument on consolidated motions filed by former FBI Director Jim Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James in their separate criminal prosecutions. Both of them filed motions challenging the legitimacy of Trump’s insurance-lawyer-turned-U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan’s role in their prosecution. Here’s what you need to know ahead of what Judge Currie said would be a pre-Thanksgiving decision:
The motions are being heard by Judge Currie, who was appointed by the chief judge of the Fourth Circuit (where Virginia and South Carolina are both located), since it would be problematic to have a judge from the same district where a U.S. attorney has been putatively installed consider whether the appointment was proper.
It’s reassuring to know that some people still care about ethics and conflicts of interest.
Appearing for the Justice Department, attorney Henry Whitaker told the court that any questions about the appointment of Halligan involved, at worst, mere paperwork errors. Whitaker was the Florida Solicitor General until earlier this year. He clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas after law school and worked in the Office of Legal Counsel during the first Trump administration.
Perhaps anticipating problems with the validity of Halligan’s appointment, Attorney General Pam Bondi tried to back-bless the indictments, filing that she had reviewed the grand jury proceedings. But the Judge pointed out this morning that wasn’t possible because they hadn’t been fully transcribed. And, while every attorney general would likely have loved to possess a magic wand that would permit them to fix errors after the fact, that’s not how any of this works. Prosecutors must follow the rules, which are in place to ensure that defendants’ rights are protected and justice is done. Cases are dismissed when they make procedural errors, in part to protect them and in part to deter prosecutors from making future errors. If ever an attorney general needed that sort of a reminder from the courts, it’s this one.
Politico characterized the hearing this way: “A federal judge expressed deep skepticism Thursday about whether a federal prosecutor handpicked by President Donald Trump to bring criminal cases against his political rivals was legally appointed to the role.”
We all know the history by now. Trump’s handpicked appointee to be U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, longtime, highly regarded prosecutor Erik Siebert, concluded there was insufficient evidence to indict either Comey or James. His removal and replacement with Halligan followed.
Skibum says
The convicted felon pedophile protecting prez is apparently so exhausted from spitting into the wind about the Epstein files being a “democrat hoax”, not getting the response and result he was looking for. Nope, all he continued to get is his own spittle all over his face. Even he can see the tide rising against those who supported hiding the files of sex perverts who prey on young girls.
So all of a sudden, he has done a complete about face, trying to save face, and says he is in full support of house republicans who will be voting tomorrow on whether or not to release all of the files that drumph’s DOJ has been hiding somewhere near AG Bondi’s desk apparently. So just watch… does anyone believe for one second that the convicted felon pedo protector in the WH is suddenly for full transparency about what is in these files? I wouldn’t bet on it. Call me jaded, but it would be just like him to tell Bondi… OK go ahead and release the files AFTER you redact all of the names of those who were identified and named.
Just what value or transparency would be achieved if all of the pertinent identifying information in the files remain hidden? NONE! We will see what comes of this, but I don’t trust the convicted felon sex abuser pedophile protector for one second!
Sherry says
Thank You Skibum! Excellent comment!