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Weather: Mostly sunny, with a high near 83. Light south wind becoming southeast 5 to 10 mph in the morning. Winds could gust as high as 15 mph. Wednesday Night: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 63. South wind 5 to 9 mph, with gusts as high as 18 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:
River to Sea Transportation Planning Organization (TPO) Bicycle/Pedestrian Advisory Committee meets at 9 a.m. at the Airline Room at the Daytona Beach International Airport. The TPO’s planning oversight includes all of Volusia County and Flagler County, with board representation those jurisdictions. The committee is responsible for reviewing plans, policies, and procedures and rank priority projects as they relate to bicycle and pedestrian issues within the TPO planning area. See the full agendas here. To join the meeting electronically, go here.
Separation Chat, Open Discussion: The Atlantic Chapter of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State hosts an open, freewheeling discussion on the topic here in our community, around Florida and throughout the United States, noon to 1 p.m. at Pine Lakes Golf Club Clubhouse Pub & Grillroom (no purchase is necessary), 400 Pine Lakes Pkwy, Palm Coast (0.7 miles from Belle Terre Parkway). Call (386) 445-0852 for best directions. All are welcome! Everyone’s voice is important. For further information email [email protected] or call Merrill at 804-914-4460.
The Circle of Light Course in Miracles study group meets at a private residence in Palm Coast every Wednesday at 1:20 PM. There is a $2 love donation that goes to the store for the use of their room. If you have your own book, please bring it. All students of the Course are welcome. There is also an introductory group at 1:00 PM. The group is facilitated by Aynne McAvoy, who can be reached at [email protected] for location and information.
Free Tax Preparation Services in Flagler County: The AARP Foundation’s Tax Aide provides free tax preparation services at six locations in Palm Coast, Flagler Beach and Flagler County through April 15, but you must make an appointment first and fill out paperwork. To do both, go here.
Diary: The Mediterranean is to me cradle, memory, paradise lost and, again in memory more mythical than actual, regained. The word alone, Mediterranean, even better in French, Méditeranée, is all evocation down to the none-too aromatic smells of that stretch of highway I loved, just outside Beirut, where the refineries–if that’s what they were–ranked the air. Stories of the Mediterranean are my siren calls. They were also Camus’. He’d grown up on its shores in Algeria. I just got hold of his earliest, adolescent works. An early poem, never published until now, is called “Méditeranée,” written in 1933, when he was 20 and his alliterative excesses did not stop at “Latin pearl with lily-like glimmers,” as Gemini translates it. It’s the story of a day on the Mediterranean, from first light to darkness and, because it’s Camus, death. Here’s Gemini’s first-light translation, alternating with the original French (the rest is below):
Au vide regard des vitres, le matin rit
To the empty gaze of the panes, the morning laughs
De toutes ses dents qu’il a bleues et brillantes
With all its teeth which it has blue and shining,
Jaunes, vertes et rouges, aux balcons se bercent les rideaux.
Yellow, green and red, at the balconies rock the curtains.
Des jeunes filles aux bras nus étendent du linge.
Young girls with naked arms spread out laundry.
Un homme; sur une fenêtre, la lunette à la main.
A man; on a window, the telescope in hand.
Matin clair aux émaux de la mer,
Clear morning with enamels of the sea
Perle latine aux liliales lueurs:
Méditerranée.
Latin pearl with lily-like glimmers:
Mediterranean.
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.
April 2026
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
2nd Annual Italian Festival
Book Dragons, the Kids’ Book Club, at Flagler Beach Public Library
“My Fair Lady,” at Daytona Playhouse
Celebrating Celine! with Jenene Caramielo, at the Fitz
“Godspell,” at the Limelight Theatre
Random Acts of Insanity Standup Comedy
ESL Bible Studies for Intermediate and Advanced Students
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village
“My Fair Lady,” at Daytona Playhouse
Al-Anon Family Groups
For the full calendar, go here.
I At the empty gaze of the panes, the morning laughs With all its teeth which it has blue and shining, Yellow, green and red, at the balconies rock the curtains. Young girls with naked arms spread out laundry. A man; on a window, the telescope in hand. Clear morning with enamels of the sea, Latin pearl with lily-like glimmers: Mediterranean.
II Noon on the sea motionless and warm: Accepts me without cries: a silence and a smile. Latin spirit, Antiquity, a veil of modesty over the tortured cry! Latin life which knows its limits, Reassuring past, oh! Mediterranean! Still on your shores voices triumph which have gone silent, But which affirm because they have denied you! Enormous and so light, You assure and satisfy and murmur the eternity of your minutes. Oh! Mediterranean! and the miracle of your history, Mediterranean You enclose it all entire In the explosion of your smile. Inalienable virgin, at each hour its being is conceived in beings already made. Its life is reborn on our pains. It flies away! and from what ashes – in luminous phoenix! Mediterranean! your world is at our measure, Man to the tree unites and in them the Universe plays itself the comedy In travesty of the Golden Number. From the immense simplicity without clashes springs the plenitude, Oh! nature who does not make leaps! From the olive tree to the Mantuan, from the ewe to its shepherd, nothing but the unnamable communion of immobility. Virgil embraces the tree, Meliboeus leads to pasture. Mediterranean! Blond blue cradle where swings the certainty, So near, oh! so near to our hands That our eyes have caressed it and our fingers have abandoned it.
III At evening which comes, the jacket on the shoulder, he holds the door open Licked by reflections of the flame, the man enters into his happiness and dissolves into the shadow. Thus these men will return into this earth, sure of being prolonged, Exhausted rather than weary of the happiness of having known. At the marine cemeteries there is nothing but eternity. There, the infinite tires itself at the funereal spindles. The Latin earth does not tremble. And as the detonating ember whirls in the motionless mask of a circle, Indifferent, the inaccessible intoxication of light appears. But to her sons, this earth opens the arms and makes her flesh of their flesh, And these, saturated, gorge themselves on the secret flavor of this transformation slowly savor it according as they discover it.
IV And soon, again and after, the teeth, the teeth blue and shining. Light! Light! it is in her that man completes himself. Dust of sun, sparkling of arms, Essential principle of bodies and of spirit, In you the worlds polish themselves and humanize themselves, In you we surrender ourselves and our pains rise. Urgent antiquity Mediterranean, oh! sea Mediterranean! Alone, naked, without secrets, your sons await death. Death to you will return them, pure, finally pure.
–Camus’ “Mediterranean” (1934).
Dennis C Rathsam says
High gas prices, has the Democrats thinging Biden is still president! Everyone in the world knows, the gas prices will come down. Lower than they have ever been in yrs. That’s everyone except the donkey.
A republic if you can keep it says
Oh Dennis , bless your heart. You drank the Kool Aid and paid close attention to the press conference where we were told that prices will be lower that they have ever been. Mr Trump also said we are going to be rich, did you believe that one too ? You know he was talking to his cabinet and the billionaires , right? He is destroying this country , but you keep believing that crap. The Universe and stupidity , but they say that maybe the Universe might have a limit.
Skibum says
Wait a MF maga minute!? You mean that WASN’T Biden’s fault? Wasn’t Obama’s fault? Wasn’t Hillary Clinton’s fault? Are you sure??? LOL!
Land of no turn signals says says
Yep, now at Biden gas prices.What was his answer? “democracy costs money”
Pierre Tristam says
Yeah. Now tell me in what Solar System you see the Israeli-American bloodbath as in any way related to democracy. Ukraine may be corrupt as hell, but only marginally more so than other western democracies, and these days certainly less than our own executive branch.
Ray W. says
News of additional Iranian strikes on commercial shipping trying to navigate the Strait of Hormuz! At least three new commercial vessels reportedly have just been struck. The International Energy Agency just authorized the drawdown of a record quantity of crude oil from the many strategic petroleum reserves maintained by the 32-nation IEA group. The IEA was created some 50 years ago to monitor and respond to international energy crises.
Late yesterday, the USNI, a Navy news outlet, released a bulletin. Since the start of Operation Epic Fury, 13 commercial vessels have been struck by “projectiles.” Six “seafarers” are dead.
Historically, the average daily traverse count for the Strait is 138 commercial ships of all types. Between March 1 – 9, 39 ships made it through. The Joint Maritime Information Center assesses the transit risk as “critical.” This means that “attacks are almost certain.”
Lloyds employs risk underwriters in a Joint War Committee. A Committee insurance advisor told the reporter that “it took weeks for the U.S. and multinational partners to begin providing protection to commercial shipping” during the 2023 Houthi attacks on shipping traveling through the Suez Canal.
French President Macron said that a multi-nation “support mission” would begin “as soon as possible after the most intense phase of the conflict has ended.”
Pre-war estimates, per the bulletin, had Iran possessing between 6,000 to 8,000 mines, deployable by either surface ships and boats or by submarines.
The reporter wrote that, considering drones, missiles, and mines, Iran has “options to deny passage to ships through the region.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
The information above comes from a U.S. Navy news outlet.
We are hearing that the war has already been won, that it is almost won, that it will last a few more weeks, that the Iranian people will soon rise on their own, that the blockage of the Strait will soon end. Some of the claims seem to rely on magical thinking. It seems that people are more than willing to guess at the future in hopes that, magically, it will all end the way they guess it will end. Maybe, it will all soon end. I don’t know. I hope it soon ends. But I don’t put much stock in those many soothsayers who speak ever so beguilingly into my ears.
At least when I channeled Churchill when asserting that Russian had already lost its war on the Ukraine, but for the killing, that meant that war’s end was years away.
As an aside, a news outlet called The National Interest based a September 27, 2025 story on the retirement of many of the Navy’s 14 purpose-built minesweepers, due to age. The last four of the fiberglass-clad wooden-hulled Avenger-class ships are based in Japan. In 2025, four Bahrain-based minesweepers were decommissioned. Due to the age of the story, it may well may be that the last four Japan-based Avenger minesweepers are in the process of decommissioning.
Three Littoral Combat vessels are being outfitted as minesweepers, according to the reporter. I have to think that minesweepers were sent to the Middle East before the onset of fighting. If none of our own are in the region, we might have to rely on allies for help.
As a second aside, The Week reports that after the announced destruction of 16 Iranian mine-laying vessels, some 80 to 90% of Iranian mine laying vessels remain intact. The problem with sea mines is that they stop all sea traffic, not just “enemy” traffic.
Ray W. says
The monthly Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation report for February came out today, at 0.3% for the month. Annualized, this would end up at 3.6% inflation. But I caution against monthly reports, as they are too volatile to be considered reliable. Don’t ignore such reports, but do not overestimate their value. Year-over-year inflation through February, a more reliable and valuable figure, was 2.4%.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
A decent inflation report. The Fed goal remains 2.0% annualized inflation, so any suggestion that inflation is moving away from the stated 2.0% goal is negative. But the report apparently cannot be considered as either good or bad.
Ray W. says
Patterson-UTI oil company CEO, Andy Hendricks, recently explained that each December is the month that oil companies finalize their budgets for the coming year. With oil prices below $60 per barrel this past December, energy companies likely did not plan to expand production.
Since it takes more than six months to bring a new well online, oil companies are going to be slow to react, unless oil company leaders come to believe that the Iran war oil and natural gas disruption will last a long time.
Make of this what you will.
Laurel says
So, what’s the gas price today, $3.799? A little pain is necessary? How’s your grocery bill? What about healthcare, a little more pain? We need the money for war, right? Well, we have nothing more to fear from 170+ little Iranian girls.
Will your kids escape an unnecessary war? If they do, there is always Florida’s Attorney General James Uthmeier who likes the idea of high school students taking over the jobs of immigrants.
So many ideas and actions; so little thought of the middle class. Big Beautiful What?
Ray W. says
According to a story published by The Guardian, Australia’s energy minister, Chris Bowen, recently argued that now is the time for the nation to push toward energy independence from both Vladimir Putin and the Strait of Hormuz.
The reporter framed the story with the theme that now is not a good time to be on the wrong side of the fossil fuel marketplace.
In recent years, Australia’s renewable sources of electricity have increased from a 35% share of the market to a 44% share. Conversion of the personal transport market, admittedly lagging for a time, is now rapidly shifting toward EVs.
Australia is home to only two refineries. Diesel fuel stocks are at only 32 days reserve supply. Energy independence, Bowen argued, has its own national security value.
Make of this what you will.
A republic if you can keep it says
What happens when the dog catches the car? Donald Trump realizing the harm his lackeys in Congress are going to suffer in November is now saying that since he has won, he is looking to wind down the war. Iran has lost ,in his eyes and by sinking his navy and destroying most of his Air Force , they are defeated. I don’t know about you, but after someone kills my father, my mother, my wife, son , etc peace would not be what I would want. Benjamin Netanyahu wants the complete destruction of Iran leadership ( and unfortunately a lot of civilians as well) and will not allow Trump if he can help it to back off, minimizing the death of all those little girls in “the fog of war “as Pete says . Our Secretary of Defense , “Steroid Pete “might think he can send special forces to take uranium in bombed buildings , these men will be sent to their death since Iran will be waiting for this and their blood will be in administrations hands.
Which brings us to our representative in Congress , Randy Fine who never saw a dead Muslim that he felt sorry for. If he should win another term , you can guarantee that he will help in directing U.S policy for the Middle East from Israel . What is good for Israel is not necessarily good for the United States and loosing our young people’s lives for their benefit as well as Russia and China should not happen. Mr Fine cannot win and represent the interests of Israel instead of the people in FL District 6 .
Ray W. says
In February or March of 2021, I began referring to news stories about OPEC voting that February to phase in cuts in oil production by six million barrels per day, beginning that March. Saudi Arabia voluntarily cut another one million barrels of output per day. Industry journals of the day pointed to Saudi Arabia’s desire to drive up crude oil prices to at least $76 per barrel, as that level would yield income sufficient to meet that nation’s fiscal needs.
Worldwide crude oil prices began to rise. Gasoline prices at the pump began to rise. Some of the more uneducable among us began to blame former President Biden for OPEC’s vote.
In February 2022, the Russians invaded the Ukraine, further destabilizing the world’s oil marketplace. Oil prices broke $120 per barrel. Once again, some of the more uneducable among us blamed the Biden administration for Russia’s decision to go to war and for the resulting even higher prices they were paying at the pump.
In 2026, Iran blocked by threat the Strait of Hormuz. In 2021, OPEC, by refusing to pump oil into tankers, voluntarily embargoed for profit the export of crude oil through the Strait of Hormuz. Different motives. Same result.
Now, five years after the wrongful blaming began, some of the more uneducable among us continue to spread disinformation about the factual cause for the rise in gasoline prices during the early years of the Biden administration.
President Trump just blamed Biden for the current level of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, even though a Republican-controlled Congress denied Biden’s request for sufficient funds to buy more crude oil to refill the reserve. In 2025, Congress gave President Trump additional funds to buy oil, but nearly a year was wasted for pestilential political gain. In the real world, what President Trump just claimed is called lying for political gain. In the magical thinking of the professional lying class that sits atop one of our two political parties, this is called alternative facts.
Sherry says
Good morning Maga. . . How’s your 401 K today?
Yeah. . . gas prices were high during the Biden administration. But, but, but President Biden did NOT directly cause those high gas prices. This gas hike is on trump!
You think prices at the grocery store are high now, due to trump’s tariffs . . . “be patient”. . . the much higher cost of delivering those goods are soon coming to a store near you!
VOTE against this “Insanity”!
Laurel says
Trump is our current covid. If only he’d be gone by Easter, the way he said covid would be when it first got here.
Winning, winning, winning! Putin and Netanyahu are winning, at our expense.
Skibum says
His maga supporters worship him as if he was Jesus. Well, come to think of it, it’s almost Easter. Nail him up on a cross and then entomb the bastard and if he comes back to life after three days, THEN I’ll gladly fall down to my knees in forgiveness.