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Weather: Mostly sunny, with a high near 72. Northeast wind 3 to 8 mph. Thursday Night: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 57. Northeast wind 3 to 6 mph.
- 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:
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.
Nexus Center Grand Opening Ribbon Cutting and Gala: A ribbon-cutting for Flagler County’s combined South-side library and Health and Human Services division is scheduled for 4 p.m. followed by a gala, at 2199 Commerce Parkway, with tours from 4:30 to 7 p.m. Snacks and beverages will be available in the Community Room where a DJ and a 360 photobooth will be set up. Magician Mark Alan will do a show in the Youth Services Program Room and will also do some sleight-of-hand tricks as he strolls through the crowd. Princess Tiana and Sonic the Hedgehog will delight youngsters in the Children’s Room. There will be video games in the Teen Center. There will be an Ozobot demonstration and button making in the Innovation Lab. Tours will be self-guided with staff ready and available to answer questions.
The Flagler Beach City Commission holds a special workshop on the proposed Veranda Bay/Summertown annexation at 5:30 p.m. The annexation applies to the Summertown portion of the development, on the west side of John Anderson Highway. See: “Flagler Beach Takes Momentous Step to Annexing Veranda Bay as Developer Pledges Protections for Bulow Creek.”
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.
Story Time for Preschoolers at Flagler Beach Public Library, 11 to 11:30 a.m. at the library, 315 South Seventh Street, Flagler Beach. It’s where the wild things are: Hop on for stories and songs with Miss Doris.
‘Annie,’ at Limelight Theatre, Limelight Theatre, 11 Old Mission Avenue, St. Augustine. 7:30 p.m. The beloved musical about the optimistic orphan who captures hearts (and maybe even saves a billionaire). Perfect for families and the holiday spirit. Book here. (Note: all Sunday matinees are sold out, but there is a wait list you may join.)
Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn, at Athens Theatre, 124 North Florida Avenue, DeLand. 7:30 p.m. 386/736-1500. Tickets, Adult $37 – Senior $33 Student/Child $17. Book here. Celebrate the magic of Christmas with Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn—a heartwarming holiday treat packed with show-stopping dance numbers, dazzling costumes, and a treasure trove of timeless tunes. When Broadway performer Jim leaves the bright lights behind for a quiet Connecticut farmhouse, he ends up transforming his home into a seasonal inn, open only on the holidays. But with love in the air, rivalries heating up, and performances for every festivity, the holidays get a lot more exciting than he ever imagined. Featuring 20 beloved Irving Berlin classics—including “White Christmas,” “Happy Holiday,” “Blue Skies,” and “Cheek to Cheek”—this delightful musical delivers all the laughter, romance, and seasonal sparkle of a Christmas card come to life. Presented through special arrangement with Concord Theatricals
Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center: Nightly from 6 to 9 p.m. at Palm Coast’s Central Park, with 57 lighted displays you can enjoy with a leisurely stroll around the pond in the park. Admission to Fantasy Lights is free, but donations to support Rotary’s service work are gladly accepted. Holiday music will pipe through the speaker system throughout the park, Santa’s Village, which has several elf houses for the kids to explore, will be open, with Santa’s Merry Train Ride nightly (weather permitting), and Santa will be there every Sunday night until Christmas, plus snow on weekends! On certain nights, live musical performances will be held on the stage.
Notably: Robert Antelme’s The Human Race (L’espèce humaine), his 1947 book on his experience in a Nazi concentration camp, he describes early on the train transport of prisoners from Buchenwald to a camp further north, and the comportment of an SS guard along the way, and when the train reaches the destination: “No one has escaped. The young SS is satisfied. He smiles and nods his head looking at us. He doesn’t give a damn about us. He smiles as if he had discovered our intention to escape and that we had not succeeded. He is now motionless, legs apart, hocks tense. But this display of his power in front of us is not enough for him. Something should come from us to make it perfect, that we say to him for example: Yes, you are the strongest, we tell you because you deserve to be told that you are the strongest. We have never seen anyone stronger than you. We too once believed we were strong, but now we know that you are stronger than we ever were; it is understood that we will not move. Whatever you do, we will never try to measure our strength against yours, even through imagination.” The passage made me thing of Trump cabinet meetings.
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
Flagler Beach United Methodist Church Food Pantry
Book Dragons, the Kids’ Book Club, at Flagler Beach Public Library
NAACP Flagler Branch General Membership Meeting
Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center
Random Acts of Insanity Standup Comedy
Separation Chat: Open Discussion
The Circle of Light A Course in Miracles Study Group
Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center
For the full calendar, go here.
… there was no other sound in the world, he alone was the nation…
–From Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s The Autumn of the Patriarch (1975).
Laurel says
Please allow me to introduce myself,
I’m a man of wealth and taste…
Pogo says
@And this
… pay no attention to the pigs behind the curtain:
Sooey, … sooey!!! C’mon out, the folks is waitin’ for ya — to learn em what they is spose to know, think, and how to repeat what ya done learned em to say and do…
All that is allowed, and whatever can be got away with
https://www.bing.com/search?q=who+owns+justthenews.com
Pigs don’t really fly, but lots a folks believes whatever they want.
Bo Peep says
So I’m guessing that you haven’t noticed the huge bales of drugs on the decks of these boats.
Skibum says
Having been in law enforcement my entire career, I am not like some who leap to conclusions when there is zero evidence to support them. Were you there? Did you actually SEE drugs, and if so, exactly what kind of drugs, pray tell, were on those boats?
You cannot answer those questions just like the rest of us. Neither can the military or the idiot in the WH, because the boats were put in the crosshairs of juvenile delinquents with deadly weapons, parading around as avengers with no rules to follow, in violation of military rules of engagement and international law.
I always back our troops when they do the right thing. This scenario that keeps happening in international waters off the coast of Venezuela is NOT that! And by the way, what happened there, specifically when two survivors who were clinging to wreckage in the ocean after their boat was blown up were summarily murdered so there would be no witnesses, constitutes a war crime.
Responsibility goes right to the top of the chain of command when the head juvenile delinquent, the secretary of war crimes, had the audacity to summon all of our nation’s top military leaders to that moronic meeting where he paced back and forth across the stage, lecturing and badgering those who had decades of experience under their belts… telling them they are to execute HIS orders with “mass lethality”. Just what do you think that means? This is exactly when several members of Congress had to resort to making a group video to remind members of our military that they have a responsibility to the U.S. Constitution, NOT one individual. Why they have an obligation to follow lawful orders, but also an obligation to refuse to carry out unlawful orders!
Turn off fauxinfotainment nuze and stop fantasizing about what you THINK was on those boats, because all of the evidence of illegal drugs, IF there was any onboard, was destroyed by nincompoops who have no idea how to properly carry out drug interdiction efforts. They would rather play combat, sitting behind video screens from a distance while they kill human beings they didn’t take the time to identify, nor did they identify what was on those boats. Pure speculation on your part, as well as on the part of supposed “professionals” who damn well should have known better and could have easily handled what they ASSUMED was illegal drug trafficking in the professional manner that our U.S. Coast Guard has handled it on the open seas for many decades!
Jim says
So, I’m guessing you haven’t seen the contradiction of shooting boats allegedly carrying drugs by the same president who just pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras? US prosecutors argued that he was a central figure in a more than 18-year-long drug-trafficking scheme that funneled over 400 tons of cocaine into the US – equivalent to roughly 4.5 billion individual doses.
The reason I ask is it just seems a little strange to kill the little guys (i.e., the “boat people”) while letting a convicted kingpin go.
Laurel says
You have guessed correctly, I’ve seen the videos, and some boats look completely empty of the cargo you mentioned. Also, any “huge bales” you claim, have you inspected inside them yourself? Do tell how you know exactly what is on those boats. They were blown up, after all.
If you’re going to post personally known information, please give us factual details.
Also, while you’re at it, explain the pardoning of Hernandez, who was a major cocaine trafficker. Funny guy, that Trump!
Again, it’s not about drugs, clearly.
Ray W. says
The Tampa Bay Times just won’t let go of a story about the state paying over $83 million for a four-acre undeveloped parcel on a panhandle spit of land in Destin that a person who contributed more than $400,000 to state political committees, including one tied to Governor DeSantis, owns.
According to the story, information drawn from state records show the political contributor paying just under 10 years ago less than $8 million for the property.
On the last day of this year’s state budget negotiations, Republican Senator Jay Trumbull inserted into the state budget a proposal originating from a lobbyist representing the property owner. The proposal made the $83.3 million purchase the top priority project over all other conservation projects spread throughout the state. And, perhaps most unusual of all, according to the story, the proposal authorized the state to rely on appraisals provided by the landowner/political contributor.
The money comes from a fund “set aside for the high-priority Florida Wildlife Corridor.” The Destin 4-acre parcel is not part of that Corridor.
Numerous conservation experts, including a former head of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, told the reporter, in the reporter’s words, that “the property’s conservation value doesn’t square with the price tag.”
When asked about the process, our governor originally said that the purchases will stop the owner from developing condos that “locals” do not want on the parcel.
Later, he said:
“This was put in by the Florida Legislature in this year’s budget, and this was how the priority above all the other projects that were there. And so we went ahead and honored that. … Had they not directed it, would it have happened? Probably not.”
Make of it what you will.
Me?
I have no idea what a parcel of land next to a number of condo towers is worth. Maybe it is worth every penny of the deal.
As my paternal grandmother used to say about mountain farmers who left pails of milk in front of their property to be picked up by the milkman: “If you find fingerling trout in the milk, be very suspicious.”
Sherry says
OK. . . Here’s the thing. . . The Coast Guard or our military amassed in the area most certainly “could” have boarded those boats. They “could” have arrested any criminals transporting drugs. They “could” have interrogated those arrested. They “could” have possibly found out who the drug masterminds/king pins are. The masterminds could have stood trial and been found guilty and put in prison.
Oh Wait. . . Then the head honchos of the drug cartels who were found guilty and imprisoned could receive a “get out of jail free” pardon by trump! Huh? Better to just murder the “suspected” peons, destroy all the evidence, to hell with “due process”, to hell with tracking down the “leaders”!!! Just looking at their dark skin color. None of them are human with families and loved ones. None of them could possibly be innocent, because the Maga Lord and Master trump says so.
Right Maga? Right?
Skibum says
Bo Peep just continues to waive off the murder of people she never met like they were mere ants to be stepped on and crushed on a sidewalk. The lack of human decency and lawfulness on the part of those who ordered these executions instead of incarcerations is abominable. The lack of human decency and concern for human life by people like Bo Peep is also vey concerning.
Here’s the thing that Bo Peep and the maga ilk are completely overlooking (or ignoring). Pick any of the numerous drug crimes on the books in any of the 50 states or federal statutes, and look at what the criminal penalty associated with that drug crime is. Not one, none, nada, zilch indicates a death sentence! The most serious state or federal punishment for ANY drug related crime is imprisonment in state or federal prison for an indeterminate period of time.
U.S. laws give our nation’s coast guard specific jurisdiction and authority to be the specific law enforcement agency responsible for drug interdiction in both U.S. waters and on the open seas in international waters. NOT the military! Our federal politicians know this, yet the maga sycophants who are adherent to the convicted felon in the WH conveniently ignore all laws including this one, and do what the hell they want anyway regardless of what the law and legal authority dictates.
Maga sycophants who bow down to an individual that has no regard for the law, no regard for our U.S. Constitution, and no regard for federal courts who rule against him are just a guilty as the convicted felon in the WH who ultimately is making and approving all of these orders to summarily kill everyone in suspected drug boats, along with orders NOT to look for and verify any criminal activity or evidence of drug trafficking specifically because they don’t care and don’t want anyone questioning their decisions, whether or not the results are warranted and legal. So they just lie to the American people and tell us they somehow “know” the boats that continue to be blown up are drug boats, they somehow “know” the humans onboard are dangerous “narco-terrorists”, and they somehow “know” that anything being carried or transported on those boats is drugs… all without a single piece of evidence they can point to in support of their “knowledge”.
This is NOT drug interdiction. It is NOT law enforcement. It is not making America safer. It is sending a message to the world that the occupier of the WH has at his immediate disposal “mass lethality” and the ability to make instantaneous life or death decisions for anyone, anywhere that he either likes or loathes. He envisions himself as the “King of the World” with the ultimate power, control and authority, not only over everything in the U. S. but all other countries in the world… and he is just unhinged and dangerous enough to order the murder of anyone who might get in his way.
Laurel says
Skibum: You are so correct! Trump is behaving like Mussolini, or Hitler, with his face and name on everything! He sticks his nose into everything, and behaves like he owns the world. The way people around him fall over themselves to kiss his ass is sickening. They make themselves look like fools. They have no shame, no conscience.
Mussolini’s statue was torn down. Hitler shot himself in his bunker. Trump may be able to push ahead, for awhile, but someday, even though the Heritage Foundation is busy whitewashing history, the truth will come out. Maybe these sycophants will be dead and gone, but their names will be synonymous with suppression and hate, and their offspring will have to endure.
Trump cannot whitewash world history. Too bad it has to shame the U.S.A.!