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Weather: Sunny, with a high near 79. Monday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 63.
- 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: Kristopher Henriqson’s trail begins at 8:30 a.m. before Circuit Judge Dawn Nichols. Henriqson is representing himself. A 48-year-old state and federal felon and Palm Coast resident, he faces accusations of having routinely raped and abused his stepdaughter since she was 9. See: “Facing Life in Prison, Man Wants to Represent Himself and Depose Step-Daughter Accusing Him of Rape.”
The Bunnell City Commission meets at 7 p.m. at City Hall on Commerce Parkway. To access meeting agendas, materials and minutes, go here.
Nar-Anon Family Groups offers hope and help for families and friends of addicts through a 12-step program, 6 p.m. at St. Mark by the Sea Lutheran Church, 303 Palm Coast Pkwy NE, Palm Coast, Fellowship Hall Entrance. See the website, www.nar-anon.org, or call (800) 477-6291. Find virtual meetings here.
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.
Notably: This is the day when I traditionally mark the April 13, 1975 anniversary of the beginning of the civil war in Lebanon, the day when, at age 10, a wonderful Sunday in all other regards (we were spending it in the mountains, oblivious to what was happening in Beirut), my childhood ended. Marking it today seems churlish when every day Israeli bombings are claiming as many lives in 24 hours than did weeks of fighting back then, though the 1975-1990 toll was not minor: 150,000 dead all told, about 20,000 of those from the Israeli invasion of June 1982, tallied in just 18 weeks. It stopped, to some degree, when even Ronald Reagan lost his temper and reamed out Menahem Begin, one of Israel’s great war criminals, after Reagan got reports of that horrific day, August 14, 1982, which I remember distinctly. ( Menahem Begin “was one of the few people that Reagan genuinely disliked,” Max Boot writes in his recent biography of Reagan.) Ariel Sharon was directing the butchery on the ground. I had left the country by then (in 1978), I had graduated high school, I was spending a few weeks’ vacation in Germany, and had gotten a car ride to Paris that very day. As we listened to the news on the hour, hour after hour on the seven-hour drive, it became obvious that Beirut was burning. The disconnect as the driver dropped me off on the Champs-Élysées was as jarring as this moment now as I write this in comfortable Palm Coast while every hour I get reports of this or that neighborhood in Beirut getting obliterated, and all those villages in South Lebanon, razed the Gaza way. No Reagan in the White House now.
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.
May 2026
Flagler Beach Farmers Market
Coffee With Flagler Beach Commission Chair Scott Spradley
Palm Coast Spring Arts Festival
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Second Saturday Plant Sale at Washington Oaks Gardens State Park
Caleb Hathaway on Antebellum Flagler: A Palm Coast Historical Society Lecture
American Association of University Women (AAUW) Meeting
Gamble Jam at Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area
‘The Curious Savage” at Daytona Playhouse
ESL Bible Studies for Intermediate and Advanced Students
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village
‘The Curious Savage” at Daytona Playhouse
Al-Anon Family Groups
For the full calendar, go here.
But Reagan was always strongly affected by images of suffering, and he was repulsed by what he saw on television while Israeli troops encircled and assaulted West Beirut, the Shite Muslim neighborhood where Arafat and many of his PLO fighters were located. Normally the most placid of men, Reagan was angry when he talked on the telephone from the Oval Office with Begin on August 12, 1982. “Here on our television, night after night, our people are being shown the symbols of this war and it is a holocaust. A little seven-month-old baby with its arms blown off, two five-year-old twins dead-and this goes on night after night,” Reagan complained to Begin. “Mr. President, I know all about a Holocaust,” snapped Begin, who had lost both parents and a brother to the Nazis. But he listened as Reagan argued that “the massive shelling and bombing has been so out of proportion… that it has been a simple blanket barrage against an area that is populated by civilians.” Reagan warned that the US-Israeli relationship was at stake and demanded an immediate cease-fire.
–From Max Boot, Reagan: His Life and Legend (2024).
Jim says
Hungary has seen what a dictatorial leader can do to ruin a country. They’ve had enough and voted – overwhelmingly – for change. They’ve shown us that following the path Trump has us on leads to nothing good.
In November, let’s do like Hungary and vote for change (and democracy) and show the world it’s only taken us 5-1/2 years to learn the same lesson.
Laurel says
Good! I’m glad Orban lost. To think that the Vice President of the United States flew all the way to Hungry to promote this authoritarian leader is disgusting. However, it also shows how unpopular Vance is in the world.
Now, if only Putin, Netanyahu, Un, Xi, Salmon, Trump and Vance would follow him out the door, the world would be in much better shape.
Pogo says
As stated
scapegoat
https://www.bing.com/search?q=scapegoat
Ibid
https://www.bing.com/search?q=quotes+about+scapegoating
atonement
https://www.bing.com/search?q=atonement+definition
Ibid
https://www.bing.com/search?q=quotes+about+atonement
The scapegoat has always had the mysterious power of unleashing man’s ferocious pleasure in torturing, corrupting, and befouling.
— Francois Mauriac
https://www.bing.com/search?q=Francois+Mauriac
Good day.
EC: File
Wayne says
I’m so happy! I’ve been waiting for this moment. I can obtain Hungarian citizenship by blood. Orban was the entire reason why I didn’t submit my paperwork for dual citizenship. Why do I want a dual citizenship? I can live and work anywhere in the EU or US (since I won’t lose my citizenship because of a deal they signed ages ago) without any issues or paperwork or money exchanging hands. I can visit 182 countries and have lengthy stays if I so choose. It’s one of the best Visas to have. Plus, citizenship is also transferred to your spouse, so they will have the same status.
Skibum says
One doesn’t have to be psychic to see and understand what is happening with the current geopolitics. No reading of the tea leaves necessary. The big wave overseas swept in and washed away the Putin apologist authoritarian leader that was highly unpopular in Hungary.
Our own election denier, overseas election interferer, Putin apologists and wanna-be authoritarian prez and his puppy VP are both highly unpopular here and abroad and unwittingly helped Orban’s demise by inserting themselves in that foreign country’s election. Well, I hope they look out for the HUGE wave about to crash ashore in America in November, because it is surely heading our way and will wash out many spineless members of Congress, carrying away the stench of maga sycophancy… and hopefully turning our corrupt criminal prez into the lamest lame duck president in the history of American politics!
Pogo says
Tipping point
An Oligarchy of Old People
How elderly Americans amassed disproportionate wealth and power
By Idrees Kahloon
“…Although political gerontocracy has operated overtly, the rising economic power of the elderly has escaped much notice. Over the past 40 or so years, American wealth has grown ever more concentrated among the oldest generations. In 1989, Americans over age 55 held 56 percent of it; today they hold 74 percent. During that same period, the share of wealth held by Americans under 40 has shrunk by nearly half, from 12 to 6.6 percent. The color of money is now gray…”
https://archive.ph/A9Uoj
And so it goes — and then it stops.
Laurel says
That’s because we bought our little starter homes before investment companies bought them all up. They now buy apartments buildings, mobile home parks and even trailers, containers and tiny homes. All this to trap the younger generation into rentals, with little hope of buying their own homes, for profit to the investors.
When it comes to money, Americans don’t give a damn where it comes from.
Laurel says
I have no idea how my comment was logged as “Brynn Newton,” but now I know her email!
Laurel