To include your event in the Briefing and Live Calendar, please fill out this form.
Weather: Mostly sunny, with a high near 67. Tuesday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 52.
- 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: Ex-Firefighter James Melady is scheduled for his second day of trial at 8:30 a.m. in Courtroom 401 before Circuit Judge Dawn Nichols. Melady faces a first-degree felony rape charge, a third-degree felony voyeurism charge, and a second-degree charge of fraud stemming from an incident aboard an ambulance, when Melady was on duty and he allegedly assaulted an unconscious patient. See: “Ex-Paramedic Accused of Raping Patient in Ambulance Is Denied Bond; County Issues New Rescue Protocols.”
The Community Traffic Safety Team led by Flagler County Commissioner Andy Dance meets at 9 a.m. in the third-floor Commissioner Conference Room at the Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell. You may also join virtually by computer, mobile app or room device. Click here to join the meeting. Meeting ID: 276 236 998 121 Passcode: CyEKoW [Download Teams | Join on the web]
The Flagler County School Board, with newly selected Chair Christy Chong and Supreme Vice Chair Will Furry (assuming he’s back from his AIPAC-funded trip to Israel), meets at 3 p.m. in workshop to go over the items on its upcoming school board meeting two weeks hence. The board meets in the training room on the third floor of the Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell. Board meeting documents are available here. (See: “Furry and Chong Won Their Sleazy Battle. Ramirez and Ruddy Won the School Board.”)
The Flagler County Planning Board meets at 5:30 p.m. at the Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell. See board documents, including agendas and background materials, here. Watch the meeting or past meetings 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 St. Johns River Water Management District Governing Board holds its regular monthly meeting at its Palatka headquarters. The public is invited to attend and to offer in-person comment on Board agenda items. Note: meeting start times vary from month to month. Check here to verify the time. A livestream will also be available for members of the public to observe the meeting online. Governing Board Room, 4049 Reid St., Palatka. Click this link to access the streaming broadcast. The live video feed begins approximately five minutes before the scheduled meeting time. Meeting agendas are available online here.
Weekly Chess Club for Teens, Ages 10-18, at the Flagler County Public Library: Do you enjoy Chess, trying out new moves, or even like some friendly competition? Come visit the Flagler County Public Library at the Teen Spot every Tuesday from 4:30 to 6 p.m. for Chess Club. Everyone is welcome, for beginners who want to learn how to play all the way to advanced players. For more information contact the Youth Service department 386-446-6763 ext. 3714 or email us at [email protected]
The Flagler Beach Library Book Club meets at 5 p.m. at the library, 315 South Seventh Street, Flagler Beach.
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.
Readings: From Charlie Hebdo in Paris, Editor in Chief Gerard Briard writes: “Since the beginning of summer, Donald Trump has deployed the National Guard—meaning the army—to several major Democratic cities, such as Los Angeles (California), Washington D.C., Memphis (Tennessee), and Chicago (Illinois), which he calls, depending on his mood, the “murder capital of the world” or a “rat hole.” In recent days, he plans to send them into the streets of Portland, Oregon, on the pretext that a few mostly peaceful demonstrators protested against heavy-handed raids by immigration police. “Portland is burning. There are insurgents everywhere,” he claims. Federal Judge Karin J. Immergut firmly disputed this: “There is no insurrection in Portland nor a threat to national security” justifying the use of the military. The Oregon Attorney General stated that his state “will absolutely not participate in the president’s attempt to normalize the use of the U.S. military in our cities.” As one might guess, Trump doesn’t give a damn. […] It is therefore official: America is entering a war, literally and figuratively, against a part of its own society and half its population. And every reasonably sensible commentator is worried about what looks increasingly like the implementation of a totalitarian regime. Not to mention that in a country where political violence is part of the furniture and of history—including the most recent kind—where anyone can quite legally acquire three crates of assault rifles at the corner supermarket, pitting citizens against one another like this and designating domestic enemies to be gunned down by the thousands could have consequences that even Trump will have a hard time finding “great”…
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
Nar-Anon Family Group
Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center
Flagler Beach United Methodist Church Food Pantry
Wadsworth Park Reopening
Weekly Chess Club for Teens, Ages 10-18, at the Flagler County Public Library
Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center
Random Acts of Insanity Standup Comedy
For the full calendar, go here.
The great solitary city of Buchenwald; a small tourist town on the banks of the Weser, Porta Westphalica, with hollow hills along the river and factories slowly organizing themselves beneath a world of roots and trees; Neuengamme in the dismantled perspective of Hamburg: construction sites multiplying and spreading out around the channel and its port (Klinker, Metallwerk, Industrie, Messap); Helmstedt: halls arranged in a circle and camouflaged with their festering garbage, exposed tiers of bomb crates and torpedoes, fields of wheat and mustard, and, on the plain, the tall black silhouette of the wells; five hundred meters underground, the sumptuous order of towers and milling machines in the polychrome bursting of salt blocks; wagons haphazardly on destroyed lines beyond the dead stones in the spaces emptied of hunger, pierced from moment to moment by the calls of war, near and never grasped; like a canker on the forest, Woebbelin’s camp near Ludwigslust, the bare skeleton of the walls and, on the clay, the dried excrement next to helpless corpses: a long journey of sixteen months, material for experience.
–From David Rousset’s L’Univers concentrationnaire (“A World Apart,” 1946).
Laurel says
In my opinion, Hegseth is an incompetent, idiotic, ass kisser.
So, magas, why do you like him? Why do you think he is better than four star generals?
Pogo says
@Maybe
… Hegbreath is the best Pox News weekend couch weight and white-knuckle alcoholic with somewhat controlled DT’s Dump could find. With Dump, there is no bottom — what is darker than total darkness?
We will know soon.
Pogo says
@Elsewhere
and otherwise
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/153237/constructing-egypts-new-capital
and
https://www.google.com/search?q=Amman+Jordan
and
https://www.google.com/search?q=qatar
and
https://www.google.com/search?q=dubai
and
https://www.google.com/search?q=saudi+arabia
and
https://www.google.com/search?q=flagler+county
Good day.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/nfxPfaYvjX0
Pogo says
@The next time
… you find yourself, and your fellow inmates, parked in one of the funeral industry’s waiting rooms (otherwise known as the US healthcare system) take heart — Slippery Rick is coming…
Florida Sen. Scott and Texas Rep. Pfluger unveil ‘More Affordable Care Act’
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/florida-sen-scott-and-texas-rep-pfluger-unveil-more-affordable-care-act/ar-AA1RXmvP?ocid=nl_article_link
What could be better?
Laurel says
Why do I not trust them? Why should I believe them?
Just because Rick Scott’s company frauded Medicare? Why in hell do people vote for these fraudsters? I don’t get it.
R.S. says
The stultification of US citizens is ongoing. And so noticeable in this Trump cocunty.
Pogo says
@Make something
… of this…
https://www.google.com/search?q=singlet+fission
Ray W. says
Thank you, Pogo. Innovation abounds.
Laurel says
Very cool! Maybe then solar energy could be made portable. Take it with you when you move!
Drones that kill on their own? says
And so the “Age of Darkness and Deceit” begins a-new…
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/12/09/opinion/editorials/us-china-military-ai-tech.html
No such thing as A.I. folks… augment intelligence yes… but the existence of even that too, depends very much on who is being “augmented.” That is, who is ultimately pulling the levers behind the machine.
Just an opinion.
Laurel says
Drones that kill on their own?: I love listening to Neil Degrasse Tyson. He defines the difference between AI and AGI. AI can be used with good or bad intentions, but it would not evolve on its own, and it benefits society. AGI is not beneficial to humans, therefore will not be scientifically progressed.
“AI, or artificial intelligence, refers to systems designed to perform specific tasks, while AGI, or artificial general intelligence, is a theoretical concept where machines possess human-like cognitive abilities across a wide range of tasks. AGI aims to replicate or exceed human intelligence, which current AI does not achieve.”
– Search Assist, Coursera, Forbes
So I wouldn’t worry about that.
Ray W. says
On November 24, 2025, the CATO Institute, hardly a left-wing research group, published a CATO AT LIBERTY blog, written by David J. Bier, the director of its immigration studies section.
Mr. Bier sourced criminal history data of all immigrants detained by ICE between October 1, 2025 to November 15, 2025, from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement website link named, “ICE Initial Book-ins by Criminality and MSC: FY 2025.”
America’s fiscal year runs from October 1 to the next year’s September 30, so anyone should be able to get additional ICE updates on FY 2026 immigration detentions on this subject matter as the year progresses.
Here is what was gleaned from the ICE data.
There are 7 categories in the ICE database for detained immigrants:
No convictions of any time: 73%.
Traffic offenses: 6%.
Immigration offenses: 5%.
Property offenses: 3%.
Vice offenses: 3%.
Undefined other offenses: 4%.
Violent offenses: 5%.
From other ICE detention data, under policies enacted during the years of the Biden administration, nine in 10 immigrants detained during those four years had prior charges or convictions.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
During the Biden years in office, 90% of immigrants detained had pending charges or prior convictions. Now, in FY 2026, 27% of immigrants detained have pending charges or prior convictions. Thus far this fiscal year only 5% of Trump detainees have either a pending violent criminal charge or a violent criminal history.
Also from the CATO Institute blog, according to ICE data obtained via FOIA request by a research group named Deportation Data Project, compared to the number of immigrants detained who lacked any pending charges or prior convictions at the beginning of 2025, detentions of immigrants in this category at the end of July have leaped up: “ICE arrests of immigrants without criminal convictions or criminal charges increased a staggering 1,500 percent since January 1.”
And, on January 1, 2025, the number of immigrants in detention sans pending charges or prior criminal convictions was under 1,000. As of November 15th, that number had jumped to over 21,000, an increase of 2,370%.
So, here are questions for all FlaglerLive readers:
When Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claims, as she has repeatedly claimed, that DHS personnel are arresting the “worst of the worst”, is she being honest with the American people?
And when President Trump claims that his administration will be returning millions and millions of criminal aliens, is he being honest with the American people?
When I see the venom injected into statements against immigrants posted by the more gullibly stupid among us, I wonder why the worst among the FlaglerLive community, i.e., the vengeful, the liars, the lie launderers, etc., think it good to deport people who are better than they are.
Laurel says
It’s not about immigration. Hitler exasperated the hatred of Jews to consolidate his supporters. Trump is using the same method by targeting Hispanic people, which is morphing into all marginalized groups, which will morph into Democrats, which will morph into any single group or person he doesn’t like, with the blessings of the Heritage Foundation, the billionaire tech boys, the “Republican” Party, the Supreme Court and the Federalist Society. Throw in a few Kristians for *love*.
The problem with that is, in a free thinking society, eventually, that type of government effects everyone. His group is working on education, too.
Skibum says
Armed drones that are “flown” remotely from a room far, far away are great for specific, military purposes, and are wonderful for reducing the risk death or injury of our military personnel in extremely dangerous situations during war. When juvenile delinquents with unmitigated power and zero common sense misuse our nation’s extreme military might, especially for blatant political reasons that are unrelated to any legitimate and rational justification for it, then it becomes an issue of importance and concern, not only for Congress, but for the American people.
If the stated purpose and intent for what president bone spurs has been orchestrating in international waters off the coast of Venezuela is really to stop drug traffickers on the high seas, then the method he has chosen to deal with it is not only overkill, but a complete and total misuse of our military’s resources, to include an enormously expensive cost to U.S. taxpayers. The U.S. Coast Guard’s legal authority AND expertise in their many, many years of successfully searching for, targeting and interdicting drug smugglers in boats is being diminished and sidelined, in deference to idiots sitting in a room with joysticks and looking at a computer monitor as if they were merely playing a video game where enemy combatants on screen are killed over and over again. Except in this case, real people are blown out of the water, and if they are not killed outright, a follow-up strike is called in and any wounded survivors in the water are brutally murdered instead of picked up as both U.S. and international law dictates.
What is happening are potential war crimes! And when more and more members of Congress express outrage and demand the video of the second strike showing survivors killed in the water as they are clinging on to remnants of their sunk boat, this corrupt and criminal empire masquerading as federal officials and the highest ranking military leaders all of a sudden are tongue tied and cannot properly justify releasing the strike orders or the video showing the unnecessary killings.
This is NOT going away. Just like the slow leak of the Epstein Files on Pam Bondi’s desk… the American public and our congressional investigators will ultimately be given the sordid details, and the individuals, no matter their titles or attempt to skirt accountability, will be held accountable for their actions.
Laurel says
It’s not about drug running, either. We know that as well. Trump showed us that, too.
Jim says
Will someone from MAGA please put a comment on here and defend Mr. Hegseth and Trump????
I was expecting you guys to get on here first thing and let us know how Christian, ethical, moral and militarily correct killing “known drug smugglers” floating on a sinking, capsized boat is. Isn’t this was “Making America Great Again (Again)” is all about????
Laurel says
The closest you will come to a response is Dennis calling “Democrates” “Jackasses.” There is, apparently, no explanation available.
Ray W. says
According to Lazard’s, a research group devoted in part to determining the lifetime costs of operating different types of electricity generating power plants, the most expensive form of generating electricity today from a newly-built facility is a coal-fired power plant.
Each time a fossil fuel-powered electricity plant ceases operation, for whatever the reason, there arises the issue of how best to continue to use, reuse, or recycle the non-fossil fuel-powered part of the structure, plus the surrounding land.
Nearly all fossil fuel-powered plants uses a steam turbine to generate electricity. When the fossil fuel-powered part of the plant shuts down, that doesn’t mean that the steam turbine part of the structure suddenly becomes of no further use.
The Cool Down published an article on the subject.
Geothermal energy production offers one option, depending on the geology below the plant. The idea is simple. Firing coal or natural gas was once used on the closed site to superheat water to power a steam turbine to generate electricity. Simply remove the coal or natural gas-fired part of the power plant and drill a well deep into the earth to permit the pumping of water down the pipe, water that returns up another pipe in a superheated state that can once again drive the steam turbine. The retired fossil fuel power plant that was once hooked into the grid can easily be reconnected
renewable power plant to the grid.
According to a story published by The Economist, if I understand the concept correctly, some 170 geothermal projects, either ongoing or already completed, are transforming these retired fossil fuel plants into renewable-energy plants.
With a faster development time for these types of conversions compared to building completely new renewable power plants, the levelized cost of renewable energy can be reduced.
Solar and wind farms, too, can maximize the space occupied by a retired fossil fuel-powered plant.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
For nearly 20 years now, American natural gas has been priced at less than the worldwide landed price (price paid at delivery that includes all transport costs, plus the price at the wellhead).
According to a Macrotrends chart depicting natural gas wellhead prices in the United States, the 20-year average price for natural gas measured over a month’s time hit a high of $14.84 for one million BTU’s of energy in September 2005, just a few years before the Shale Revolution. The lowest price at the wellhead for U.S. natural gas over the past 20 years was in March 2024, when the price per million BTUs of energy fell to $1.54. Right now, the price per million BTUs is $5.08. The summer after Russia invaded the Ukraine, at time when Europe was sanctioning imports of Russian natural gas, U.S. wellhead prices hit an average price for the month of August of $8.93 per million BTUs of energy.
How can a company obtain the financing necessary to build a brand-new natural gas-fired power plant with fuel price volatility of this type over the past 20 years? Any new natural gas build is expected to last 50 years. Yes, the plant will make money when natural gas sells for $1.54 per million BTU unit. Will the same power plant make money when the same unit of natural gas sells for $14.84 per unit? Is this why the Texas legislature voted to give $9.4 billion in taxpayer money to the executive branch to back loans just in case new natural gas power plants fail because solar and wind, coupled with battery backup becomes so much cheaper than natural gas five years from now? Is this why no company was applying to build natural gas power plants in Texas before the $9.4 billion became available? Is this why 130 or so companies are now lined up at the taxpayer supported lending trough?
Sunlight is free. Wind is free. The cost of manufacturing solar panels continues to drop. Solar panels continue to increase in efficiency. Wind turbines, too.
As an aside, according to an old Washington Post story, some 30 companies once sought permits to build natural gas liquefaction plants early during the first term of the Obama administration. The first of these plants, built by Cheniere Energy, opened its first liquefaction train in 2016. Now, the fifteenth export plant is under construction. Financing was the big problem. Lenders tiptoed around the emerging industry. Build too much LNG export capacity before the market is ready to absorb it and instability enters into the marketplace.
Ray W. says
Per Investor’s Hub, a news outlet with which I am unfamiliar, in the third quarter of 2025, American solar installations added 11.7 gigawatts of new capacity, up 49% over the third-quarter of 2024, according to a report from the Solar Energy Industries Association and Wood McKenzie.
For the year, the U.S. solar sector accounted for 58% of all new capacity brought online through the end of September, despite “disruptions” in the solar sector attributed to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA).
Make of this what you will.
Ray W. says
According to Oil Price US, the Trump administration’s Department of Energy just granted two $400 million financial awards, with another $100 million set aside for “contingencies. One award is to build a GE-Hitachi BWRX 300 Generation 3+ light water nuclear reactor at a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) facility. The other award went to Holtec to “repower” the Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan.
Generation 4 reactor designs were not eligible for the money.
The TVA estimates that the new 300 MW plant will cost $5.3 billion, or $18,000 per kilowatt, a figure about six times the expense of building a natural gas-fired power plant. It would even be cheaper per kilowatt generated to build a coal-fired power plant.
The reporter concludes the story thus:
“However, not to spoil the story, the biggest additions to grid capacity have been solar and grid storage, presumably for a reason that they are more economical than the alternatives, including nuclear power. That is the case in many countries, not just in the USA. We are not sure what stimulates nostalgia for old technologies, like coal-fired and nuclear power stations and internal combustion engines, but we do know that that sort of nostalgia has consequences. It raises the price of electricity above what it would have been if the generators had made economical choices. Just what consumers need. We don’t hear anyone talking about that. In competitive markets, some arrangements will have to be made to cover the higher costs, such as a surcharge on all sales. In regulated markets, the new, uneconomical resources will lead to rate increases. Simple as that. (Unless the AI centers would like to buy all the nuclear output.) And here’s the real long-term issue: raising the price of grid electricity as non-grid resources become cheaper and cheaper will encourage better-off consumers to invest in on-site alternative resources (like solar plus battery), putting more of the burden of supporting the grid on less affluent consumers. Nukes don’t come for nothing.”
Make of this what you will.
R.S. says
Werner Hartenstein was a U-Boat commander who torpedoed a passenger liner, the Laconia, in error. Realizing his mistake, he surfaced and took lifeboats with passengers in toe. The high command in Berlin ordered two more U-Boats to assist. He did not cut the lines until a Lancaster bomber attacked the red-cross marked U-Boat despite its clearly marked and broadcast mission. Hartenstein in WWII was more morally capable than Hegseth.
Ray W. says
Hello R.S.
Reuters reports that a “Trump administration official” revealed that the Trump administration has threatened sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC), which court is considered a court of last resort for war crimes, unless the ICC amends its founding charter to prevent any authority to investigate allegations of war crimes against President Trump or any of his top officials, plus the Court must drop investigations of Israeli leaders over the Gaza war and investigations against U.S. troops from their time in Afghanistan.
Failure to do what the Trump administration demands could, according to the reporter, lead to sanctions against the Court and penalties against ICC officials.
According to the Trump administration official:
“There is growing concern … that in 2029 the ICC will turn its attention to the president, to the vice president, to the secretary of war and others, and pursue prosecutions against them. … That is unacceptable, and we will not allow it to happen.”
Per the reporter:
“The court’s mandate allows it to prosecute individuals for alleged crimes committed by them or nationals under their command on the territory of a member state, including sitting heads of state.”
Make of this what you will.
Pogo says
@Happening
… too.