To include your event in the Briefing and Live Calendar, please fill out this form.
Weather: A 20 percent chance of showers. Mostly sunny, with a high near 81. Breezy, with an east wind 14 to 16 mph, with gusts as high as 22 mph. Thursday Night: A 20 percent chance of showers. Partly cloudy, with a low around 70.
- 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.
Northeast Florida Regional Council Board of Directors Meeting, 10 a.m. at 40 East Adams Street, Suite 320, Jacksonville. The council spans Flagler, Baker, Clay, Duval, Putnam, Nassau, and St. Johns counties, and includes 25 municipalities. It includes several county and city representatives from Flagler County, among them First Vice President Andy Dance, a Flagler County commissioner, and Palm Coast City Council member Charles Gambaro. See the full list here. The council focuses on economic development, emergency preparedness, policy and planning and resiliency. It offers access to state and federal programs benefiting all counties, technical assistance through paid service agreements, and project-specific support via grant application and implementation. Zoom Link: https://nefrc-org.zoom.us/j/87499770491 Meeting ID: 874 9977 0491 See meeting materials here. Today’s agenda is here.
The Battle of Shallowford, a play at Limelight Theatre, 11 Old Mission Avenue, St. Augustine. 7:30 p.m. except on Sunday, 2 p.m. Buy tickets here (generally $37.60 for adults). The play centers around the dramatic events that unfold when the residents tune into Orson Welles’ famous “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast. The locals, who rely on the radio for news and entertainment, are thrown into a frenzy when they believe an actual Martian invasion is taking place in their own town.
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.
Story Time with Miss Kim at Flagler Beach Public Library, 11 to 11:45 a.m. at the library, 315 South Seventh Street, Flagler Beach. It’s where the wild things are.
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.
Diary: Bill Bryson in his Sheherazadian Short History of Nearly Everything writes about the loneliness of the universe: “Carl Sagan calculated the number of probable planets in the universe at large at 10 billion trillion—a number vastly beyond imagining. But what is equally beyond imagining is the amount of space through which they are lightly scattered. “If we were randomly inserted into the universe,” Sagan wrote, “the chances that you would be on or near a planet would be less than one in a billion trillion trillion.” (That’s 1033, or a one followed by thirty-three zeroes.) “Worlds are precious.”” To think about the universe in those terms–to really think, to try to imagine it, to explore the near eternity of it, the impossibility of grasping it, of remotely understanding its distances–is as close as it gets to looking into the abyss. Do it long enough, and your sanity begins to flinch. It is also a reminder not only of our smallness, our irrelevance, but of the limits of the comprehensible, of the vastness of the absurd and of those myths we create to fill in the void, variations on god foremost among them. And yet, here we are, and in that realization alone, even in that absurd context, we begin to understand what Sagan meant by “precious.” In al this, here we are, and how lucky we are, at least as long as we are. I like to think, when I’m on the edge of that abyss, that once we no longer are, and if the afterlife is not nothingness, whatever consciousness we may have, if any, is a denial of distances, placing this and any universe within instant reach. There’s an elegance to the wish that just may redeem the absurd and that inevitable end so gleefully staring us down like so many indifferent stars.
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.
July 2026
Flagler Beach Farmers Market
Coffee With Flagler Beach Commission Chair Scott Spradley
Democratic Women’s Club
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Chess Meet-Up At the Flagler Beach Public Library
Random Acts of Insanity’s Roundup of Standups from Around Central Florida
ESL Bible Studies for Intermediate and Advanced Students
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village
Al-Anon Family Groups
Story Time on the Farm at the Ag Museum
For the full calendar, go here.
XThe first one wasn’t spotted until 1991, and that was after it had already gone by. Named 1991 BA, it was noticed as it sailed past us at a distance of 106,000 miles—in cosmic terms the equivalent of a bullet passing through one’s sleeve without touching the arm. Two years later, another, somewhat larger asteroid missed us by just 90,000 miles—the closest pass yet recorded. It, too, was not seen until it had passed and would have arrived without warning. According to Timothy Ferris, writing in the New Yorker, such near misses probably happen two or three times a week and go unnoticed. An object a hundred yards across couldn’t be picked up by any Earth-based telescope until it was within just a few days of us, and that is only if a telescope happened to be trained on it, which is unlikely because even now the number of people searching for such objects is modest. The arresting analogy that is always made is that the number of people in the world who are actively searching for asteroids is fewer than the staff of a typical McDonald’s restaurant. (It is actually somewhat higher now. But not much.)
–From Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003).
Dennis C Rathsam says
As the democrates , continue to call TRUMP a Natzi! The Jackass party has elected more communist, more un Americans, & now one with a real SS Natzi tattoo on his chest, in Maine. You fools that suffer from TDS, should wise up to what the Dems are up too! Come Nov, we must pass a law, so no one is ELLECTED that wasn’t born here!
Skibum says
Wow, since you seem to be quite upset at the possibility of one idiot in Maine being a “Natzi”… I assume you meant Nazi… you just have to be completely, over the top outraged by all those violent maga supporting Nazi January 6 insurrectionists who 1) were in the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol, 2) beat, pummeled and injured many police officers, and 3) were tried by juries of their peers and convicted of felony criminal offenses.
Right, Dennis? I have to wonder how many of them had Nazi and or white supremist tattoos on their bodies?
Wait… you rightly ARE outraged and pissed off as most Americans are about the Jan. 6 Nazis that were part of the convicted felon president’s maga mob, aren’t you??????? Please confirm… thanks a bunch.
The dude says
He ain’t here for the hunting…
Pogo says
Hey Denny
Just a reminder that termite treatment can’t undo brain damage — but it can treat the cause.
Laurel says
OMG, so funny!
Pogo says
It’s true; we are bacteria on the shoulders of persons of exceedingly rare incidence — who live at the pleasure of the basest people of all.
Funny?
Might as well laugh as cry.
God, bless this mess.
Laurel says
Franklin Roosevelt had a mistress while in office. John Kennedy had a fling with Marilyn Monroe. Bill Clinton had an affair with Monica Lewinsky. Donald Trump had several affairs throughout all three of his marriages. Graham Platner was caught by his wife sending sexual texts to women. His wife’s discovery was shared privately with the campaign director, who gave it to the press. Platner, and his wife went to marriage counseling, and his wife claims their marriage is “stronger than before.”
Do I defend this behavior? No. For me, it’s a deal breaker. I don’t know what’s with men, especially men who have some power. Stop acting stupid!
Meanwhile, the Republicans are having a hard time trying to nail Talarico. They say “he’s gay,” “he’s transgender,” “he’s vegan,” “his girlfriend isn’t real,” “he’s an insult to Jesus.”
What bothers me, is the over the top, obnoxious pots calling the kettle black. Both sides are clearly guilty of bad behavior, (sans Talarico, but they’ll keep looking) yet the finger pointing flies.
Get a life.
Pogo says
Elsewhere — pluralism is real
https://www.google.com/search?q=pluralism
“Hungary’s PM announces historic deal moving Ukraine closer to EU membership”
“…In Hungary, it has been announced that an agreement has been reached with Ukraine on the rights of the Hungarian minority, which could influence negotiations on EU accession, said Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar.
According to Magyar, Kyiv and Budapest reached a comprehensive agreement after several weeks of negotiations on expanding the linguistic, educational, cultural, and political rights of the Hungarian community in the Zakarpattia region.
“In three weeks, we managed to achieve what Viktor Orbán and his team were unable to achieve in 10 years,” he stressed.
Ukrainian and Hungarian experts, representatives of Hungarian minority political organizations, and churches took part in the negotiations…”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/hungary-s-pm-announces-historic-deal-moving-ukraine-closer-to-eu-membership/ar-AA24MkT6?ocid=nl_article_link
Ray W. says
The Telegraph reports that early yesterday morning, mere hours before representatives from some 130 nations were to meet in Leningrad for the first day of Russian President Putin’s 2026 version of the west’s annual Davos economic forum, Ukrainian drones struck the city. A Russian missile corvette, the Boikyi, was hit while in dry dock for repairs. A large crude oil storage tank farm export terminal in Leningrad’s port complex was set ablaze.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
From Putin’s onset of war, western nations have placed restrictions on how the Ukrainian military can use their missile technologies against Russia. So Ukrainian manufacturers developed their own medium- and long-range drones and missiles. During the same periods of time, Russian air defense networks have steadily been destroyed or eroded or dispersed.
Once, a long time ago, the Soviets prized dispersing factories and refineries and depots across its vast landscape. Now, the Russians lack the capacity to properly defend all of these dispersed assets. Buildings in the heart of Moscow, supposedly the best defended place in Russia, collapse and burn under the impact of Ukrainian weapons. Leningrad is obscured under a blanket of smoke. Russian influencers complain of “black rain” falling from refinery fires.
Ray W. says
Finland’s president, Alexander Stubb, recently told attendees at an economic conference that the 27-nation EU bloc should consider inviting Canada to become its 28th member state. He also suggested the addition to the EU of Turkey and of a number of the Balkan states. Finally, he suggested the return of Great Britain to the fold.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
I accept that this may be nothing more than the musings of only one European president among many. On the other hand, Winston Churchill openly mused about a united Europe as necessary and helpful for a more complete restoration to health of a post-WWII Europe that had just torn itself apart. It took decades for his vision to become a reality. As a matter of precedent, President Stubb stands on firm ground.