eedition The Daily Mail March 12-13 2022

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Saturday-Sunday, March 12-13, 2022

Catskill murder suspect pleads not guilty

By Ted Remsnyder Columbia-Greene Media

CATSKILL — Jeffrey Field of Round Top pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Friday to felony charges of second-degree murder, second-degree attempted murder and second-degree assault in the Aug. 22 stabbing death of Adam White of Catskill and a second attack on a Cairo man.

According to the prosecution, Field, 33, allegedly stabbed White, 28, at 31 Summit Ave. home in Catskill, according to the prosecution. He was stabbed in back and chest. Field allegedly attacked a second man, Christopher Gere, during the incident, with Gere surviving the alleged assault.

Following the alleged attacks, Field was injured in a car crash as he allegedly

fled police in Saratoga County and was recovering from his injuries at Albany Medical Center when he was first arraigned Sept. 21 from his hospital bed.

“That arraignment took place in Albany County,” Greene County District Attorney Joseph Stanzione said during Friday’s arraignment. “At the time of the arraignment, the issue was raised whether or not this court required

jurisdiction because the arraignment had occurred in Albany County. So today we’re before the court with the purpose of resolving that issue.”

A second suspect in the case, Michael White, has been charged with second-degree murder and firstdegree assault in the case. Stanzione said the case against White, who is not related to the victim, is working its way

through the legal system.

“He’s in jail,” Stanzione said. “We’re simply going through the discovery process and working with his attorney.” White is also being housed in the Greene County Jail.

Greene County Judge Terry A. Wilhelm ruled that a second arraignment See SUSPECT A8

— EXCLUSIVE REPORT —

Police records spark AG probe FILE PHOTO

Coeymans Town Hall, at 18 Russel Ave., Ravena.

By Kate Lisa Johnson Newspaper Corp.

ALBANY — Investigators with the state Attorney General’s Office recently entered a new phase of a multi-year probe into the Coeymans Police Department after officers falsified training documents, invalidating the initial certificates of four past recruits.

Former Coeymans Police Chief Daniel Contento and former part-time Coeymans police officer Kevin Schwebke signed and approved documents sent

to the state Division of Criminal Justice Services attesting Schwebke personally supervised rookie officers Michael Case, Kelly Arnold, Alexander Hazelton and Robert Stark III for 496 hours of field training, at eight-hour shifts each, over a combined 52 days in 2018.

State investigators have interviewed multiple current and former members of the town police department as part of a larger probe sparked by the improper records.

At the end of January, Division of Criminal Justice Public Integrity Bureau officials within state Attorney General Letitia James’ office requested the personnel records of 11 people employed by the Coeymans Police Department in 2018.

“We can’t confirm or deny an investigation,” according to a statement from the attorney general’s office.

The Municipal Police Training Council requires police recruits in the state complete about 700 hours of instructional curriculum, including a minimum 160-hour component of supervised field training.

Schwebke, who served as the Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk school resource officer from August 2016 through October 2018 in the middle, high school and Pieter B. Coeymans Elementary buildings, may have reported he was training Coeymans police recruits while working shifts as the district’s SRO. The district could neither confirm nor deny Schwebke’s attendance or dates and times he worked as the school district’s resource officer.

“We do not maintain

KATE LISA/CAPITAL REGION INDEPENDENT MEDIA

Then-Coeymans officer Michael Case, one of the department’s 2018 recruits who had to be retrained because of falsified documents, speaking at the town board meeting in January 2020 next to Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple.

attendance for people not employed by the RCS school district,” RCS Superintendent of schools Brian Bailey said in a statement. “And likewise, an alternative officer may have been in our buildings during any of these dates listed for Officer Schwebke.”

State DCJS stripped Schwebke of his state-issued Field Training Officer instructor certification to train rookie law enforcement officers in December 2019 after the department concluded he falsely reported witnessing hours of required field training he did not attend.

The department questioned six specific shift dates in June and December 2018 where Schwebke may have been working as the RCS school resources officer while claiming he supervised training rookie officers on state documents.

The school district and Coeymans police had an agreement to have a town police officer assist at the department’s discretion.

“Therefore, officer Schwebke may have worked some days in our RCS buildings either prior

Index

to, or after those dates,” Bailey said, referring to Schwebke’s appointment from August 2016 through fall 2018.

DCJS revoked Contento’s general topics, firearms instructor and field training officer certifications March 4, 2021, for signing and approving the improper training and failing to oversee Schwebke.

Contento declined to comment on the filings or incident.

“I’m not discussing that, sorry, have a good day,” he said Tuesday before hanging up the telephone.

DCJS first notified Contento on Dec. 10, 2020, his training officer certifications were under review.

Contento, who served as the town’s acting police chief starting in spring 2018, filed his letter of intent to retire Dec. 29, 2020, or fewer than three weeks after he was notified of the state’s review into his certifications.

Contento did not provide a reason for his retirement, effective Feb. 1, 2021, in the letter submitted to town administrators.

DCJS officially revoked Schwebke’s three instructor

certifications for general topics, field training officer and radar/ lidar training Dec. 3, 2019 for not complying with field training standards.

Schwebke declined to comment on the improper training records state administrators said he approved in 2018.

“I don’t have any comment at this time,” Schwebke said Tuesday. “If there’s an ongoing investigation, I don’t have a comment to make.”

A state investigation continues into the department’s past training practices and submitted documentation.

Representatives from the attorney general’s office would not answer repeated questions about the Coeymans Police Department filings under fire, the length or status of the ongoing investigation or other details about the probe.

State Division of Criminal Justice Services officials would not comment on, nor confirm or deny, the state attorney general’s investigation into Coeymans Police Department filings.

State DCJS is responsible for tracking police officer training,

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but is not a criminal investigative agency. It is standard procedure for the department to refer a case to the attorney general for review — especially if agency officials suspect criminal activity.

A case referred to the attorney general’s office can result in criminal charges, fines or other consequences.

Philip Crandall, a Democrat, who was town supervisor when police submitted problematic filings and the attorney general’s investigation began, did not return multiple phone calls requesting comment for this story.

Town Supervisor George McHugh, a Republican, took office Jan. 1, 2020. He declined to answer questions about the attorney general’s investigation or potential records sent to the agency for review.

“In response to your question regarding the nature of any investigation into the Coeymans Police Department, I cannot comment,” McHugh said.

It is unclear when the attorney general’s office will complete its probe or how investigators will See PROBE A8

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Region ........................A3

Obituaries ...................A6

Opinion .......................A4

Sports .........................B1

Local ...........................A5

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State/Nation ................A6

Comics/Advice ...... B7-B8

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Rain to snow, 3-6”

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COLUMBIA-GREENE MEDIA • THE DAILY MAIL

A2 - Saturday - Sunday, March 12-13, 2022

In Putin’s Russia, ‘fake news’ now means real news

Weather

Will Oremus The Washington Post

FORECAST FOR HUDSON/CATSKILL

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Peterborough 24/9

Plattsburgh 34/15

Malone Potsdam 29/9 29/11

Kingston 25/11

Watertown 26/11

Rochester 26/17

Utica 29/16

Batavia Buffalo 25/15 27/16

Albany 36/16

Syracuse 29/19

Catskill 37/19

Binghamton 26/11

Hornell 26/13

Burlington 36/15

Lake Placid 27/5

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Last week, Russia passed a law making it a major crime to publish what it deems “fake” news about the country’s military.

Violators could face 15 years in prison.

And what is “fake” news, exactly? That’s up to Russian authorities. Reportedly, it will include any references to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that call it an invasion, which would contradict the Kremlin’s insistence that it’s simply a “special military operation.” The Kremlin has also applied the term “fake news” to reports that a Russian airstrike hit a maternity hospital in Ukraine.

In other words, fake news means real news.

The law is part of a sweeping crackdown on freedom of expression in the country as President Vladimir Putin tries to cover up the indefensible: an unprovoked invasion of a peaceful neighboring country.

Russia’s Orwellian use of the word to criminalize truth is the logical endpoint of a years-long heel turn for the term “fake news.” The concept was first popularized in the United States by well-meaning misinformation researchers to describe hoax websites that posed as news outlets to intentionally spread fabricated information. But it wasn’t long before it was turned against the media itself, most notably by the new president, Donald Trump.

In 2014, a researcher at Columbia University’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism who tracked factual errors by media outlets was noticing a new trend: websites that looked like news outlets but published entirely made-up stories that would often go viral on Facebook and other social media platforms. The researcher, Craig Silverman, referred to them as “fake news” sites. Prior to that, the term “fake news” had appeared in fewer than 1,000 stories per year in major U.S. news outlets, most often in reference to satire sites such as the Onion that aim to amuse, not deceive, according to a query of the news database Factiva.

By 2016, the trend of hoax sites hoodwinking social media users with wholecloth fabrications had exploded. Silverman, then a journalist at BuzzFeed, published an analysis that found the most viral “fake news” stories - such as a baseless report that Pope Francis had endorsed Donald Trump - were reaching wider audiences on Facebook than real news stories from real news outlets. That was thanks in part to Facebook’s news feed algorithm, an efficient machine for widely distributing the posts

STRINGER/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES/TNS

A woman walks past huge placards bearing images of Russian President Vladimir Putin and reading “Russia does not start wars, it ends them” (left) and “We will aim for the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine” in the city center of Simferopol, Crimea, on March 4, 2022. - Ukraine accused the Kremlin of “nuclear terror” on March 4, after Europe’s largest atomic power plant was attacked and taken over by invading forces, sparking Western horror at the threat of Russia’s war contaminating all of Europe.

that provoke the most reactions, regardless of whether they’re true.

Suddenly, fake news was big news in the United States, as Facebook faced pressure to crack down on misinformation and many liberals blamed those viral falsehoods for helping to propel Trump into office.

But Trump, in a rhetorical masterstroke, saw an opportunity to twist the term to his own ends. By January 2017 he had adopted “fake news” as an epithet to characterize mainstream news reports that he wanted to dispute or cast doubt on. Over the course of his presidency, the term largely shed its original meaning, especially for Trump’s supporters, and came to mean instead any news report or outlet that made the president look bad.

Trump’s rhetorical jujitsu was not lost on political leaders in other countries - particularly, but not exclusively, those with a populist or authoritarian bent. Numerous countries in recent years, from Singapore to Hungary to Vietnam, have passed laws against fake news or misinformation, some of them arguably using the covid-19 pandemic as cover for a press crackdown with wider implications. Russia previously passed fake news laws in 2019, instituting fines and jail sentences of up to 15 days for

“unreliable” information that disrespects state authorities.

Russia’s latest law goes much farther, with jail terms up to 15 years. Media outlets that were prepared to navigate the threat of censorship and wrist-slaps under the previous laws have understandably balked at the prospect of their employees and journalists spending large chunks of their lives incarcerated.

In just the past week, news organizations from the BBC to the New York Times to Bloomberg News and tech platforms such as Netflix and TikTok have either suspended or scaled back their operations in Russia, contributing to a truth desert in the name of “fake news.” No doubt that was part of the Kremlin’s intent.

Silverman and other misinformation researchers have been distancing themselves from the term “fake news” for years.

“I helped popularize the term ‘fake news’ and now I cringe every time I hear it,” Silverman wrote in 2017. Facebook, after initially denying that fake news played a significant role in the 2016 election, later pledged to crack down on it - but then dropped the term in favor of “false news” as it became politically loaded.

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The higher the AccuWeather.com UV Index number, the greater the need for eye and skin protection. 0-2 Low; 3-5 Moderate; 6-7 High; 8-10 Very High; 11+ Extreme. The patented AccuWeather.com RealFeel Temperature is an exclusive index of effective temperature based on eight weather factors.

NATIONAL WEATHER TODAY Winnipeg 16/10 Seattle 53/43

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The Washington Post

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An assistant principal read the children’s book ‘I Need a New Butt!’ to second graders. He was fired.

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When a guest who was scheduled to read to second graders over Zoom earlier this month didn’t show up, Toby Price, the assistant principal at a Mississippi elementary school, improvised.

Price’s boss at Gary Road Elementary School suggested Price read to the students, so he reached for one of his favorite children’s books: “I Need a New Butt!” written by Dawn McMillan and illustrated by Ross Kinnaird.

“It’s a funny, silly book,” Price, 46, said in an interview with The Washington Post.

“I’m a firm believer that . . . if kids see that books can be funny and silly, they’ll hang around long enough to see all the other cool things that books can be.”

The students “thought it was hilarious,” Price recalled.

But the superintendent for the Hinds County School District near Jackson, Miss., did not, and about an hour after the event, Price was placed on administrative leave. Two days later, on March 4, he was fired.

The superintendent, Delesicia Martin, who did not respond to The Post’s request for comment, wrote in Price’s termination letter that he “showed a lack of professionalism and impaired judgment” because “the topics described in this book were inappropriate.”

Now, Price is fighting to overturn the district’s decision. His efforts have garnered

overwhelming support, he said, with parents, current and former students, and strangers speaking out and donating to a GoFundMe so he can pay for a lawyer and continue to support his family.

Price’s firing is the latest flash point over books in schools, though most of the conflicts have been over those that reference race and sexual orientation. In November, the American Library Association called the rate at which books are being challenged “unprecedented.” In several states where new laws are dictating how teachers discuss race in schools, many educators are scared they could lose their jobs over one misstep.

Price said he fears his situation could set a “scary precedent” for teachers in his district.

He worries educators will wonder if they have to get approval for every book they read to their students.

“Teachers already have so much else to worry about when they come into a building: One, getting fired over test scores; two, is someone going to come in and shoot up the building?

Or am I going to catch covid?”

Price said.

The events leading to Price’s firing began March 2, when he organized a Zoom event for second graders at the Byram, Miss., elementary school. The gathering was to celebrate Read Across America Day, which is Dr. Seuss’s birthday and a day dedicated to encouraging children to read. The plan was to

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have a special guest read a book to them.

When the guest did not arrive, Price’s boss asked him to read to the students. Price said the second graders loved the book, which is about a boy who thinks he needs a new butt after noticing his has a large crack.

Fifteen minutes after the event, Price said the principal at his school called him into her office. According to Price, she told him that he shouldn’t have chosen that book and that parents might complain. Soon after the meeting, he said he was told the superintendent wanted to see him at the district office immediately.

“They kind of just let me have it,” Price said. “She said, ‘Is this the kind of thing you find funny and silly? Fart and butt and bulletproof butts?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I did until I walked in.’”

On March 4, Price was called back to the district office and fired, he said.

Price said he was blindsided by the sudden decision, noting that he has never had any disciplinary issues. Not only does he love working with children, but he also has a family to support, he said. Two of his three children have autism.

Since the firing, Price said he has not been allowed back into his office to collect his personal items. And though he wants the district’s decision overturned, he’s unsure about returning to the job, since he fears he’ll be scrutinized by senior administrators. He is more concerned with ridding the termination

from his record.

Price said he hasn’t heard of any complaints about the book from parents and noted that members of the parentteacher organization wrote to him offering their support. Former students have also spoken out, including one who wrote a thread on Twitter about how “amazing” Price was at his job. “[T]he man absolutely loved reading and actively encouraged it,” the former student wrote. “Even lending books from his own office for kids to read.”

The Washington Post’s Michael Cavna contributed to this report.

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Saturday - Sunday, March 12-13, 2022 - A3

COLUMBIA-GREENE MEDIA • THE DAILY MAIL

CALENDAR EDITOR’S NOTE: Most events and meetings are cancelled or have been moved online due to the virus outbreak. Please call ahead to confirm.

Monday, March 14 n Ashland Town Board 7:30 p.m.

Town Hall, 12094 Route 23, Ashland n Catskill Village Planning Board 7 p.m. Robert C. Antonelli Senior Center, 15 Academy St., Catskill 518-943-3830 n Greene County Legislature county services; public works; economic development and tourism; gov. ops.; finance; and rep and dem caucus 6 p.m. Greene County Office Building, 411 Main St., Catskill

Tuesday, March 15 n Athens Village Planning Board

6:30 p.m. Village Hall, Meeting Room, 2 First St., Athens 518-9451551 n Coxsackie Village Election Day 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Village Hall, 119 Mansion St., Coxsackie 518-7312718 n Durham Town Board 7:30 p.m.

Town Hall, 7309 Route 81, East Durham n Hunter Town Board 7 p.m.

Town Hall, 5748 Route 23A, Tannersville

Wednesday, March 16 n Catskill Central School District Board of Education regular business 6:30 p.m. CHS Library, CHS Library, 341 West Main St., Catskill 518943-2300 n Catskill Library Board 6:45 p.m. at either the Catskill Library, 1 Franklin St., Catskill or Palenville Library, 3303 Route 23A, Palenville n Catskill Town Board committee meeting/public meeting 6:30 p.m. Town Hall, 439 Main St., Catskill 518-943-2141 n Greene County Legislature meeting No. 3 6:30 p.m. Greene County Office Building, 411 Main St., Catskill

Thursday, March 17 n Coxsackie Planning Board 6 p.m. Village Hall, 119 Mansion St., Coxsackie 518-731-2718

Another storm shows winter is not over

By Bill Williams

Columbia-Greene Media

Between four and 10 inches of snow are expected to fall across Columbia and Greene counties in the latest winter storm that will affect the area this weekend, said local meteorologist Allan Porecca.

The National Weather Service in Albany posted a Winter Storm Warning for western Greene County and a Winter Weather Advisory for eastern Greene County and all of Columbia County ahead of the storm.

The storm is a nor’easter, Porreca said.

A low pressure system is tracking up the east coast from Georgia, and will combine with a cold front, coming down from the northwest, to drop temperatures so it will be cold enough for snow, Porreca said.

The storm will move into the area in the early morning hours as rain or a mix of rain and snow. It should change to all snow between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m., and snow heavily until late afternoon, Porreca said.

Winds during the storm will average from 20-30 mph, with gusts around 40 mph.

The higher elevations, in western Greene and eastern Columbia, will see higher accumulations than the valley areas, Porreca said.

The Winter Storm Warning for western Greene County is in effect Saturday from 1 a.m. until 10 p.m., the Winter Weather Advisory for eastern Columbia County is in effect Saturday from 7 a.m. until 10 p.m., and the Winter Weather Advisory for eastern Greene and western Columbia is in effect from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m., according to the National Weather Service.

Several area communities declared snow emergencies ahead of the storm.

In the village of Catskill beginning Saturday at 8 a.m., all vehicles need to be parked on the even side of the street from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m., then vehicles need to be moved to the odd side of the street from 8 p.m. until 8 a.m. This

BILL WILLIAMS/COLUMBIA-GREENE MEDIA

Another winter storm will bring snow to the area on Saturday.

BILL WILLIAMS/COLUMBIA-GREENE MEDIA

Another winter storm will have residents shoveling snow on Saturday.

procedure will continue every 12 hours until the snow emergency is lifted.

In the town of Greenport, 8 a.m. Saturday until noon Sunday no vehicles

are to be parked on town streets. Vehicles will be towed at owners’ expense.

In the village of Athens, starting at 8 p.m. Friday, vehicles need to be parked on the odd side of the street until 8 a.m.

Saturday. Then vehicles need to be moved to the even side of the street until 8 a.m. Sunday when the snow emergency will end.

National Grid has increased staffing and extended evening, overnight and weekend work shifts in preparation for the storm, said National Grid communications manager Patrick Stella. In addition, the company has activated its comprehensive emergency response plan.

Central Hudson Gas and Electric is prepared to respond if outages occur from the storm, said Ryan Hawthorne, vice president of Electric Engineering and Operations at Central Hudson. “In addition to our full complement of internal and core contract professionals we have secured mutual aid with more than 50 line workers and supervisors to help expedite repairs if the need arises.”

On Friday, Gov. Kathy Hochul directed state agencies to deploy emergency response assets.

“I am directing state agencies to deploy emergency response assets to areas expected to face heavy snow and gusty winds. While we’re lucky that this storm falls on a weekend when traffic is lighter, I encourage New Yorkers to remain vigilant and take common-sense precautions this weekend: Avoid driving if possible so our plows can keep the roads clear and monitor your local forecast to assess local conditions,” Hochul said.

While this weekend’s storm will bring snow to the area, it will not compare to the snow Columbia and Greene Counties faced 29 years ago, Porreca said.

On March 13 and 14, 1993, the great blizzard of ’93 dumped 21 inches of snow in the valley areas, 24 inches in Albany and much higher amounts in the mountains of Greene County. The two-day weather event was dubbed the “Storm of the Century.”

Monday, March 21 n Athens Town Board 7 p.m.

Athens Volunteer Firehouse, 39 Third St., Athens 518-945-1052 Changes will be on the Town of Athens web page n Greene County Legislature public works executive session 5 p.m. Greene County Office Building, 411 Main St., Catskill n Greenville Town Board 7 p.m.

Town Hall, 11159 Route 32, Pioneer Building, Greenville

Tuesday, March 22 n Catskill Town Planning Board

6:30 p.m. Robert C. Antonelli Senior Center, 15 Academy St., Catskill 518-943-2141

Wednesday, March 23 n Athens Village Board 6:30 p.m. Athens Fire Department, 39 Third St., Athens Consult the village website for updates the day of the meeting n Catskill Town Zoning Board of Appeals 6 p.m. Town Hall, 439 Main St., Catskill 518-943-2141 n Catskill Village Board of Trustees 6:30 p.m. Robert C. Antonelli Senior Center, 15 Academy St., Catskill 518-943-3830

Thursday, March 24 n Coxsackie Village Board 7 p.m.

Legislature calls for state tax changes

By Ted Remsnyder Columbia-Greene Media

CATSKILL — With lawmakers in Albany in the thick of 2022-23 budget negotiations, the Greene County Legislature has joined with the New York State Association of Counties to petition Gov. Kathy Hochul and state legislators to stop the practice of channeling county sales taxes to the state.

Since New York’s 2019 fiscal year budget, the state has diverted county sales taxes to fund state programs. As part of her 2022-23 budget proposal, Hochul has called for eliminating the diversion of local sales taxes to support the state Aid and Incentives to Municipalities, a proposal that the counties are calling on lawmakers to adopt in the final budget.

“Local tax revenue should stay in the community where

it is collected,” Greene County Legislature Vice Chairman Matthew Luvera said in a statement. “This is money that is meant to support the residents of Greene County, and helps fund local services, community colleges, meals for seniors, 911 programs and mental health and addiction services here in our communities. We shouldn’t be required to use it to foot the bill for state and federal expenditures.”

With the state’s new fiscal year set to begin April 1, NYSAC Executive Director Stephen J. Acquario said counties are requesting that the remaining sales tax diversion be allowed to sunset on March 31.

In 2021, the state diverted $250 million per year in local sales taxes to finance a temporary state-controlled distressed health facilities fund

TED REMSNYDER/COLUMBIA-GREENE MEDIA

Greene County Legislature Vice Chair Matt Luvera being sworn in at the legislature’s Jan. 3 meeting. The legislature is calling on the state to end the diversion of county sales taxes to the state’s coffers.

in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Nobody disputes aid to municipalities and distressed

health care facilities are incredibly important, especially during the pandemic,” Acquario said in a statement.

“What local governments are saying is that these programs should be funded by the state and federal government who have more capacity to raise revenue and are not reliant on regressive taxes. It’s time to get back to normal in this state, and that means returning to responsible budgeting that keeps local tax revenue in local communities.”

The counties are recommending that the distressed hospital fund should expire March 31 and that the legislature should support Hochul’s proposal to stop the diversion of county sales tax and return the responsibility to the state general fund through the regular AIM program.

The county is requesting residents to contact their elected state representatives to call for the end of the county sales tax diversion.

Village Hall, 119 Mansion St., Coxsackie 518-731-2718

Latest scam involves fake ‘police officer’

Monday, March 28 n Catskill Village Planning Board

7 p.m. Robert C. Antonelli Senior Center, 15 Academy St., Catskill 518-943-3830

Thursday, March 31 n Coxsackie Village Board Bud-

get Work Session 6 p.m. Village Hall, 119 Mansion St., Coxsackie 518-731-2718

By Bill Williams

the text if they received it, Rivero said.

It is important not to send money to anyone that you don’t know until you’ve confirmed the situation through an independent source and feel comfortable with it. If it’s a scam, once the money is sent it’s

Columbia-Greene Media

Area sheriff’s offices are warning the public of a new scam, where a caller pretends to be a member of law enforcement.

The Dutchess County Sheriff’s Office received calls from residents about the most recent scam on Wednesday. The perpetrators identified themselves as “Sgt. Jason Mark” and left voicemails instructing the victims to call them back right away about an urgent matter.

The call recipients recognized it as a scam and contacted the Sheriff’s Office immediately.

Scams are ways in which criminals will attempt to get money from people by contacting them and making up elaborate stories. In some cases the perpetrators have tried, sometimes successfully, to use the victim’s emotions about a loved one in trouble to get money. It’s common for the perpetrators of these scams to try to get money by telling people that one of their relatives has been seriously hurt or is in jail, and that they

difficult, and most times impossible, to get it back, Dutchess County Sheriff’s officials said.

Contact your local sheriff’s office in Columbia County at 518-828-3344, in Greene County at 518-943-3300, and in Dutchess County at 845-4863800.

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

Dutchess County Sheriff’s Office vehicle.

need money right away. In many cases they will pose as a law enforcement official or another relative to try and convince the victim that it’s legitimate.

“This scam has been going on for a while,” said Capt.

Tracey Quinn of the Greene County Sheriff’s Office. The victim’s phone may even display a phone number that says it’s the sheriff’s office, Quinn said.

Generally the phone numbers are routed through another country and are voiced over internet phones, so it is next to

impossible to trace, Quinn said.

A recent scam, targeting Columbia County residents, involved the selling of sheriff’s office shirts, said Lt. John Rivero of the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office.

In February, a text to area residents using the phone holders name and offering a sheriff’s office shirt for $10 by clicking on the attached link, Rivero said.

After receiving reports of the scam, the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office advised residents to disregard and delete

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OUR VIEW

Village elections should be bellwether for COVID recovery Two years after the onset of the coronavirus epidemic, village elections will be conducted with emphasis on getting out to polling places to vote.

We’re calling on all registered voters to take advantage of the opportunity.

Voters will not face the choice of balloting at a distance, relying on absentee ballots or worse, not bothering to vote at all.

The total number of voters declined since 2019, the last year non-pandemic elections were held. The years 2020 and 2021 were lost as boards of elections struggled to get absentee ballots out under heavy

deadline pressure.

Election commissioners and village clerks put the pieces back to a semblance of normal by issuing calls for election inspectors to staff the registries and count ballots.

Of the nine villages in Greene and Columbia counties, only three will have contested races Tuesday.

The biggest contest for a single office will take place in Kinderhook, where voters will elect a new chief executive. Michael Abrams, Barry Knights and Quinn Turner are competing for the chance to succeed Mayor Dale Reiser, who did not

seek reelection.

In terms of candidates, the largest race will be run in Catskill with six candidates — Natasha Law, Jeffrey Holliday, Diane Petrianni-March, Jamie HyerMitchell, Michelle Williams and Megan Henry — vying for three open trustee seats.

The first village elections in three years not impeded by the COVID-19 pandemic are too important to be ignored, although the number of races and candidates are low. Voters must turn out in greater numbers Tuesday to chart the courses they will take as their communities reclaim their health and safety.

ANOTHER VIEW

Striking hospitals is vile.

For Russia, it’s standard operating procedure.

The Washington Post

From Guernica to Sarajevo, European cities have been made into synonyms for slaughter wrought by aircraft and artillery in the wars of the 20th century. Now, through wanton attacks on Ukrainian population centers, Russia has started a 21st-century list. Heading the roll call of atrocity is the besieged port of Mariupol, on the Sea of Azov, where Russian explosives shattered a maternity hospital - yes, a place of medical care for pregnant women and infants - leaving three dead, including a child, and 17 wounded.

This occurred during a supposed temporary truce to allow civilian evacuation.

In response, Russian officials denied and dissembled, with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov mocking “pathetic shouting” about the Mariupol strike. In truth, attacking a hospital would be consistent with recent Russian military conduct, even before its Ukraine invasion.

In May 2019, Russian planes bombed four hospitals in Syria in 12 hours, according to a New York Times investigation. At President Vladimir Putin’s orders, the planes were operating in support of Syrian dictator Bashar

al-Assad’s side of a civil war.

Now, in just two weeks of the war in Ukraine, the World Health Organization has confirmed 18 attacks on health providers, causing at least 10 deaths.

In short, the past was prologue. And in all likelihood, there is even more destruction in store for Ukraine’s civilian population. Having failed to conquer the country swiftly, because of Ukrainian resistance and his own forces’ incompetence, Putin seems to have switched to a militarily primitive Plan B: blasting Ukraine into submission with rockets, shells and bombs.

Mariupol, a city of more than 400,000, might serve as a bloody model for what awaits other urban areas.

More than a week of relentless Russian bombardment has cut off water, heat, electricity and communication links for most of the population. Residents say they are running out of food. City authorities have resorted to digging mass graves for what they say are more than 1,300 civilian dead. Attempts to set up an evacuation corridor for civilians failed when Russian shells targeted areas where buses were assembling.

Ukraine and its presi-

The Daily Mail welcomes letters to the editor. All letters must contain a full name, full address and a daytime telephone number. Names will be published, but phone numbers will not be divulged.

Letters of less than 400 words are more likely to be published quickly. The newspaper reserves the right to edit letters for length, clarity and content.

Letters should be exclusive to this publication, not duplicates of those sent to other persons, agencies

dent, Volodymyr Zelensky, are determined to resist.

For the United States and its NATO allies, the challenge is how best to help.

In that respect, the Biden administration committed its first error of alliance leadership by signaling that it would support the transfer of NATO-member Poland’s Russian-made fighter planes to Ukraine - then nixing the idea as too likely to risk direct NATO-Russia conflict. This conveyed confusion and prompted public criticism from Zelensky. “This is not ping-pong, this is about human lives,” he said.

Fortunately, Ukraine continues to receive large supplies of other defensive munitions from NATO - including new, sophisticated antiaircraft systems from Britain, a kind of second-best air defense solution in lieu of the Polish planes. Its ground weapons and Turkish-made drones have destroyed hundreds of Russian tanks, artillery systems, planes and vehicles, according to one independent account. Thanks to international support, and its own valor, Ukraine’s defenses are still mostly holding.

How America became a nation of the woke and the wary, walking on eggshells WASHINGTON — Today’s festival of offended sensitivities was prefigured in 1991 at a Penn State University branch, when a female English instructor demanded that a reproduction of Goya’s “Naked Maja” (the original is in Madrid’s Prado), which had been hanging there for years, be removed from her classroom.

Her alternative demand was — think about this — that a male nude be placed beside it. To balance the affront?

A campus executive ordered the picture removed because it could contribute to a “chilly” classroom climate, thus violating sexual harassment law. This harbinger of the era of “microaggressions” occurred while Congress was enacting the Civil Rights Act of 1991, adding to existing law a provision for compensatory and punitive damages — not for lost wages because of harassment, but for emotional distress.

Law shapes as well as reflects culture, and Gail L. Heriot of the University of San Diego School of Law argues in her essay “The Roots of Wokeness” that those new Title VII damage remedies propelled the nation’s downward spiral into identity politics, speech regulation and an epidemic of irritability. After the change, Heriot reports, there was “a dramatic increase in the number of harassment charges filed” and in the monetary stakes. In the final quarter of 1991, the number of Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) harassment charges increased 71% over the same period in 1990.

The change discouraged racial and sexual harassment. At the considerable cost, Heriot argues, of “strengthen[ing] identity politics while weakening support for free expression” concerning race or sex. Because employers could be liable for a “hostile environment” created by employees, the change regarding remedial measures “made it pay for employers to start

WASHINGTON POST

GEORGE F.

WILL vigilantly policing their employees’ speech.” Because there were now “generous remedies for a vaguely defined wrong” — a “hostile environment” could be the cumulative effect of small annoyances — employers tended toward “zero tolerance” policies.

So, a multibillion-dollar training (“consciousnessraising,” updated) industry was born to supplement the programs of corporations’ burgeoning human resources bureaucracies. Heriot says trainers and administrators wished to justify not just their basic services, but also the expansion of them: “The level of sensitivity they promoted grew ever more exacting, as exemplified by the popularization of the concepts of micro-aggressions and white privilege.”

For the sensitivity industry, the concepts of microaggressions and zero tolerance have become gifts that can never stop giving. Mostly invisible, the aggressions can only be identified by the sensitivity industry’s experts. Everyone else cannot be too careful.

It has become legally fraught for employees to say “the most qualified person should get the job,” or “America is the land of opportunity,” or “America is a melting pot,” or “All lives matter.” America has become the land of wary people walking on eggshells.

Vague, shifting definitions of “harassment” inhibit the exercise of First Amendment speech rights.

In 1986, the Supreme Court held that the EEOC had correctly decided that employees have a right

(herewith the court’s language) “to work in an environment free from discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult.” Heriot correctly calls this “a somewhat unusual statement” because “no one has a general ’right’ to be free from ridicule or insult, and the federal government cannot, consistently with the First Amendment, create such a right” for “the context of employment.”

The evolving law of “harassment” and “hostile environment” prompted attitudinal changes congruent with three emerging cultural ideas: That it is wholesome to define one’s identity with reference to race, sex or ethnicity. That this should make one acutely alert to affronts, even if micro. And that there is an entitlement to pass through life without emotional distress occasioned by abraded sensitivities.

Time was, America’s aspiration was for preoccupations with racial, sexual and ethnic differences to lose political saliency, and to recede as relations between the sexes and races became more relaxed. Instead, those preoccupations have intensified as government policy has encouraged them, and embraced discrimination on the basis of them.

The Penn State instructor who objected to “Naked Maja” felt “embarrassment”: “I identified with her as a woman. I felt as though I were standing there naked, exposed and vulnerable ... I have always felt that when one woman is portrayed naked and ridiculed, we all are.” One wonders: Do people viewing the original in the Prado see ridicule?

Never mind. For America’s cultural sensitivity industry, all that matters is the response of the “victim.”

The day Penn State ordered the removal of the reproduction was the day Congress passed the expanded remedies for “harassment.”

George Will’s email address is georgewill@washpost.com.

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Grafting part 2

By Bob Beyfuss For Columbia-Greene Media

Last week I wrote about the various ways that grafting has been used to create street trees and repair injuries on girdled trees. This week I will explain how to perform cleft and whip grafting.

As I wrote last week, the technique of grafting involves lining up the vascular tissues of the stock and the scion, (plumbing) so that with the help of some living cells nearby the vessels, fusion can occur as the straws become connected. There are several different techniques for grafting that require various levels of skill and also luck. Most fruit trees and street trees are bud grafted. This process uses a single bud that is cut off the desired tree and inserted into a small cut in the stem of the stock tree.

Most of the time bud grafting is performed in August as the tree is going dormant, but you can certainly try it right now. In early spring the bark of most woody plants “slips” or is easily peeled from the trunk. Use a sharp knife both to cut the buds off and to make a tiny “T” shaped incision in the stem or trunk you are grafting onto. The T cut needs to be no more than a half inch in length and the stem tissue beneath the bud that you cut off, no more than ¼ inch thick.

Use the sharp point of your knife to tease away the bark and insert the bud so that it fits snugly into the slit. Rubber bands are sometimes used to hold the bud in place tightly, but most of the time it is not necessary if the bud is covered with grafting wax. The grafting wax is to retain moisture and prevent the bud from drying

GARDENING TIPS

BOB

BEYFUSS out until it starts to grow. You may use beeswax if you cannot find grafting wax at your local garden center. With luck, in another month or two, the bud will begin to grow into a new shoot. When the new shoot is several inches long you can remove everything above it and the new shoot will become dominant.

I have had much better luck with what is called a “cleft” graft. This involves inserting a number of scions into the stock in the hope that at least one of them will take! It is also a good way to graft smaller scions into a larger branch or trunk. Prepare the scions by cutting several shoots from your desired tree that are about the diameter of a pencil.

Vigorously growing vertical branches, called watersprouts, which are common on most fruit trees are often just the right size for this. These cuttings may be made and grafted right now, but I have had better luck doing the actual grafting in late April. If you make the cuttings now, they can be bundled into groups of ten, placed in a sealed plastic bag and stored in the refrigerator.

Cut these into four of five inch lengths with at least a few buds remaining on each of them when you are ready to graft.

Using your sharp knife, carve about an inch of the bottom side of the cutting into a V shape, as if you were sharpening a broken pencil tip, but only sharpen two sides to make a flat shaped point and not a pencil point. Next prepare the stock by completely cutting off a branch that is about as thick as your wrist, leaving a stub that is at least a few inches long. You can also graft onto the main stem of a tree if it is the same, wrist sized, diameter.

With the tip of your knife, gently separate the bark from the inner wood of the stock, just enough to insert the cutting into the separation. In late March or early April, the bark should easily peel away and separate from the inner wood. You can usually insert 3 or 4 scions into a wrist sized branch stub, thus increasing your odds of success. Next, wax the whole operation to prevent desiccation. By May, at least one or more of the scions should begin to grow into a new branch and the others can be removed.

Whip grafting is a bit trickier. It involves fusing two twigs that are roughly the same diameter. The bottom of the branch (scion) from the desired tree, which may be about ¾ of an inch in diameter, is cut on a slanted angle of about 30 degrees and then matched to a similar sized branch on the stock tree that is cut at the same angle. The two sections are then secured together with a rubber band and covered with wax. The scion should not be more than a few inches long for best results.

Reach Bob at rlb14@cornell.edu.

Leadership Greene Club hosts village trustee debate March 14 CATSKILL — Catskill High School’s Leadership Greene will host the Meet the Village Candidates event for candidates running for the Catskill Village trustee seats. The event will be held at 6 p.m. March 14 in the Catskill High School library media center.

Candidates will have the opportunity to present their views from questions asked by the students from Catskill High School’s Leadership Greene. Community members will also have an opportunity to ask questions of the panel. This event will be live

streamed on Catskill Media Youtube page.

Candidates included in the panel are: Natasha Law, Megan Henry, Michelle Williams, Jamie Hyer Mitchell, Diane Petrianni March, and Jeffrey Holiday.

DEC announces summer camp registration to open April 10 ALBANY — The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) announced that the start of registration for the 2022 DEC Summer Camp season is being postponed from March 6, as previously announced, to 1 p.m. April 10.

In addition, due to current staffing challenges, this summer’s camp program offerings have changed. Camp Rushford and Pack Forest will open for a seven-week season.

DEC may open registrations for Camp DeBruce if additional staff become available this spring. Camp Colby will remain closed until 2023 to complete major renovations

to the camp.

Updates and changes can be found on the DEC Summer Camps webpage https:// www.dec.ny.gov/education/29.html and on DEC’s Facebook page https://www. facebook.com/NYSDEC and the Summer Camps Facebook page https://www.facebook. com/NYSDECsummercamps/. Campers and camp families can contact EducationCamps@dec.ny.gov with any questions.

DEC’s Summer Residential Camps are now hiring counselors, lifeguards, and cooks for the 2022 season. These are great opportunities to be involved in the education and

enrichment of New York’s youth at locations designed to create a life-long passion for nature and a dedication to environmental stewardship.

Employment at camp begins in mid-June and ends mid-August, and all positions include room and board. Visit https:// www.dec.ny.gov/education/1869.html to learn more about the qualifications and opportunities as a DEC camps staff member.

Additional information, including plans to limit the spread of COVID-19 and other updates about DEC summer camps, will be provided as it becomes available.

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Sometimes you just gotta treat yourself

By Dick Brooks For Columbia-Greene Media

The Queen of the house recently told me that she was going to a friend’s house and that I would be on my own as far as the evening meal was concerned. This really didn’t present as much of a problem for me as it might have for some other members of my sex that I know. Some of my guy friends would be hard put to come up with a peanut butter sandwich to stave off starvation. I, on the other hand, am well versed in the culinary arts and in fact, do most of the cooking in our house.

I fed the dog and then was ready for a culinary adventure that I hadn’t been faced with for some time, I could have anything to eat I wanted. I didn’t have to take into account any one else’s likes or dislikes. There were no dietary restrictions to be accountable to anyone for, this could be good! I checked out the fridge, there were some good leftovers but they were all of the “twigs and bark” variety, high in fiber, low in fat and sugar. They would serve as great fodder for midnight snacking but didn’t qualify as a treat. I could go get takeout, Chinese or pizza would be good. I ruled them out, not special enough.

I flipped through my mental menu, ran through some of my mother’s recipes, pleasant but they didn’t make my taste buds tingle.

I got to the file, “Favorite Forbidden Foods” and decided to take a quick cruise through it. In it, I found what I was searching for. An item

WHITTLING AWAY

DICK

BROOKS from the distant past that made my mouth water.

I headed for the supermarket and started my search. I found the first item quickly, I wasn’t even sure it was still being made — Wonder Bread. It said “Classic” on the wrapper, I squeezed it.

It was still wonderfully soft and squishy, just like the old days. Into the cart it went and I headed for the meat counter. I found the baloney section and located a package of the kind with the red rind on it, you know, the piece of plastic that you had to either cut off or if you were a baloney aficionado, you ripped off with your teeth. It joined the bread in the cart.

Off to the dairy section, the white American cheese I wanted was harder to find.

I didn’t want the individually wrapped kind, I wanted the kind you had to peel off of its companions. I found a package near the back and it joined the bread and baloney in the cart. Off to the condiment aisle where a jar of bright yellow mustard found its way into the cart, not that brown stuff with the dots in it, proper screaming yellow mustard.

I headed for the checkout, proud of the fact that at no time had I looked at the nutritional information panel on any of the products I was about to purchase. As I passed the bakery section, a package of Twinkies called to us. My new found adventurous self said, “What the heck” and for old times sake, the Twinkies hopped into the cart too.

Arriving home, I checked to see if any of the neighbors were looking and hurried with my bag of goodies into the house. I then spread my purchases out on the kitchen table and proceeded to make two of the most beautiful baloney and cheese sandwiches you’ve ever seen. I added the Twinkies to the edges of the plate and stood back to admire my masterpiece. Nothing I’ve seen on the Food Channel can compare with the sight of those beauties. I filled up a glass with whole milk from the bottle usually reserved for making yogurt and went into the family room, set the plate down on the end table, flopped into my recliner, kicked the feet up, clicked the TV on. There was a NASCAR race on. I picked up the first sandwich, admired it and took a bite.

There are times when life is just so good that it almost hurts.

Thought for the week — If a cow laughed, would milk come out of her nose?

Until next week, may you and yours be happy and well.

Reach Dick at Whittle12124@ yahoo.com.

College Corner CLARKSON UNIVERSITY POTSDAM - The following local students from Clarkson University were awarded bachelor’s, masters and doctoral degrees this winter on Dec. 18.

Jenna Keute of West Coxsackie received a bachelor of science degree with distinction in environmental science and policy, biology minor, environmental health sci minor.

Rowan Thomas True of Leeds received a bachelor of science degree with great distinction in mechanical engineering.

SAINT FRANCIS UNIVERSITY SELKIRK - Anna Bernasconi of Selkirk was named to the President’s List for the fall 2021 semester at Saint Francis University in Loretto, Penn.

ROCHESTER INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY ROCHESTER — The following local residents made the Dean’s List at Rochester Institute of Technology for the Fall 2021 Semester.

Erik Langdon Potts of Prattsville, Amy Roberts of Coxsackie, Michael Lennon of Round Top, Donovan Barros of Saugerties, Mark

Danza of Saugerties, Carter Vail of Saugerties, Neve O’Neal of Saugerties, Diya Mathai of Selkirk, Tim Curran of Saugerties, Michaela Cohen of Saugerties, Nicholas Hummer of Saugerties.

PURCHASE COLLEGE, SUNY PURCHASE — Purchase College announced that more than 1,250 students were named to the Dean’s List for the fall semester.

Lydia Mardas of Freehold, Kaitlyn Synan of Palenville, Lenore Mardas of Freehold.

ST. LAWRENCE UNIVERSITY DURHAM — Rebecca Boyle of Durham is participating in the Italy off-campus study abroad program through St. Lawrence University during the Spring 2022 semester. Boyle is a member of the Class of 2023 and is majoring in neuroscience. Boyle attended CairoDurham High School.

SUNY DELHI DELHI — SUNY Delhi announces its dean’s list for the fall 2021 semester, a recognition of academic achievement for students who enrolled in six or more credits and earned a 3.5 or higher grade-point average

for the semester.

Local students named to the list include: Madisyn Woods-Heath of Greenville; Caitlin White of Catskill; Jordan Corvin of Saugerties; Bryan Enriquez of Athens; Jacob Miller of Selkirk; Cole Matthews of Haines Falls; Garrett McKenna of Leeds; Maycie Reich of Elka Park; Daniel Westlake of Athens; Elaine VanValkenburg of Tannersville; Karlyn Monroe of Shandaken; Madison Ryan of Saugerties; Kirstyn Peterson of Cairo; Alexis Deeg of Catskill; Jamie Ford of Fleischmanns; Jessica Hill of Palenville; Jamya Johnson of Catskill; Francesca Michalek of Greenville; Julia Reda of Coxsackie; Mareena Vatalaro of Athens; Kyle Todd of Lexington; Alexandra Goodwin of Saugerties; Carter Jackson of Saugerties.

FAIRLEIGH DICKINSON UNIVERSITY SELKIRK — Sean Greagan of Selkirk. a student at Fairleigh Dickinson University’s Florham Campus in Madison, NJ, has been named to the Honors List for the Fall 2021 semester.

A6 - Saturday - Sunday, March 12-13, 2022

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Jeremiah ‘Jerry’ S. Brosnan Jeremiah “Jerry” S. Brosnan, 64, of Palenville passed away on Wednesday, March 9, 2022. Millspaugh Camerato Funeral Home, Catskill.

Charles W. Brewer January 8, 1937 - March 8, 2022 Charles W. Brewer, 85, of Claverack, passed away Tuesday March 8, 2022 in the comfort of his daughters home. Born January 8, 1937 in Brooklyn, NY, he is the son of Charles and Catherine (Pollock) Brewer.

Charlie’s family moved from Brooklyn to Rensselaer where he played basketball and baseball in high school. After high school, he earned his degree from Cobleskill College, and served honorably in the United States Army from 1961-1964. Charlie had a distinguished career in the banking industry, serving as branch manager of the State Bank of Albany, and Vice President of Fleet/Norstar Bank. He was a member of the Hudson Lion’s Club, a 47 year member of Hudson Elk’s Lodge #787, and served as Claverack Town Assessor for 25 years. Charlie was a dedicated New York Yankees fan, and loved boxer dogs and boating on the Hudson River.

Charlie will be forever loved and remembered by his daughters and their families, Tracey Jennings and husband Aaron, Kimberly Canez and her husband Jules, along with his cherished grandchildren Madison Drahushuk, and Jack and Matthew Canez. Charlie was predeceased by his wife Beverly (Hedderman) Brewer.

Visitation at the Bates & Anderson-Redmond-Keeler Funeral Home will be Friday March 18, from 12:00-2:00pm, followed by a prayer service at 2:00. Interment will be in Cedar Park Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, contributions in memory of Charlie are requested to be made to the Columbia County Health Care Consortium 325 Columbia St. Hudson, NY 12534.

Jodie Lynn Carl Fisher March 22, 1971 - March 11, 2022 Jodie Lynn Carl Fisher, age 50, of Athens, died Friday, March 11, 2022 at Albany Medical Center Hospital. She was born March 22, 1971 in Catskill, the daughter of Robert and Marilyn (Capobianco) Carl of Catskill.

Jodie was a graduate of Catskill Central Schools, Class of 1989. She was a graduate of SUNY New Paltz with two Bachelor and two Masters Degrees. Jodie previously taught at Middletown Central Schools; CairoDurham Central Schools, SUNY New Paltz, and was presently employed as an Elementary Art teacher at Saugerties Central Schools.

In addition to her parents, Robert and Marilyn Carl of Catskill, Jodie is survived by her husband Thomas Fisher of Athens; two sons, Griffin Fisher and Lucas Fisher, both of Athens; two brothers, Robert Carl and wife Vee of Athens and Brian Carl of Jewett; and many aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends.

Relatives and friends may call 3-7 PM Tuesday at Traver & McCurry Funeral Home, 234 Jefferson Heights, Catskill. Funeral services will be held 11 AM Wednesday at the funeral home. Fr. Michael P. Melanson will be officiating. Interment will be at St. Patrick’s Cemetery in Catskill.

Allen B. Halstead December 18, 1934 - March 10, 2022 Allen B. Halstead, 87, of Ghent, NY, passed away Thursday, March 10, 2022 at his home surrounded by his family.

Born December 18, 1934 in Chatham Center, NY, he was the son of the late Albrecht Halstead and Beatrice Winter. Allen was a Longshoreman with the Port of Rensselaer and Head of Maintenance at Taconic Hills High School. He was a former Captain of J.W. Edmunds Hose Co. in Hudson, former President of the Ockawmick Little League, a member of the Chatham/Ghent Senior Citizens, the Goldenagers in Hudson and a Communicant of St. James Church in Chatham. Allen was an avid Nascar and New York Yankees fan and every Sunday he looked forward to cooking Sunday brunches for his family.

He is survived by his wife: Theresa (Gambacorta) Halstead, five children; Allen J. Halstead (Debra Hulse) of Waterford, Thomas E. Halstead (Loretta) of Miller Place NY, Gail M. Halstead of Ghent NY, Jill Shaw of Averill Park NY and Judy Mesick (Randall) of East Chatham NY, a sister Beatrice Nielsen of Ghent NY, a brother Charles Halstead of Michigan, eight grandchildren; Thomas and Ryan Halstead, Melissa Mock, Matthew Halstead, Eric Budd, Courtney Powell, Allison Mesick and Nicholas Shaw, five great grandchildren; Haylee, Giavanna, Lucas, Colson, Fiona and several nieces and nephews. He was predeceased by his brother Albrecht O. Halstead.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated on Wednesday, March 16, 2022, 11:00am at St. James Church in Chatham NY. Visitation hours will be Tuesday, March 15, 2022 from 4-7pm at the Raymond E. Bond Funeral Home, Valatie. Burial will follow in St. James Cemetery, Chatham, NY.

COLUMBIA-GREENE MEDIA

Susan D’Arcy Schultz

June Inez Wilber Johannes

March 21, 1946 - February 7, 2022

August 22, 1941 - March 2, 2022

Susan D’Arcy Schultz passed away Monday, February 7, 2022.

Born in Boston, MA on March 21st, 1946, and raised in Dover, NH, she was the daughter of the late Donald F. and Margaret (Woodworth) D’Arcy. She recently celebrated her 41st wedding anniversary with her loving husband, Edward “Skip” G. Schultz. Susan spent most of her adult life in New York City before settling in Hudson in 2012. She met her lifelong husband while working at Tin Pan Alley as a chef and bartender. Skip and Susan’s relationship blossomed through a shared passion for ballroom dance, entertainment, food, and family. Susan attended The Valley School for Girls in Arizona (‘64), Smith College, and NYU and Columbia graduate programs. Additionally, she received several professional certificates, most notably from the Intensive Chef’s Training program at The New York Restaurant School in 1984. She used her skills as a chef to run the St. Luke’s Church in the Fields PWA dinner during the height of the AIDS crisis in NYC. She brought her children with her to volunteer, laying the foundation for their own skills and appreciation of cooking. In the 2000’s, she became certified in various health and fitness programs to become a personal trainer and class instructor. After her retirement she started a small business, D’Arcy Butters, producing compound butters and other jarred delicacies she sold at local farmer’s markets.

Following that she lived out her dream of opening a restaurant – aptly named Tin Pan Alley - in Athens, New York. Her book of recipes is cherished by and used often in the homes of her children. Susan was an avid reader, a lover of animals and was very proud of her 3 grandchildren. She will be greatly missed by her surviving family – her husband, Skip; son Gerald Schultz and his wife Jeannine and 2 daughters, Clara and Freya; and daughter Margaret Viani, her husband Jason and daughter, Luna.

June Inez Wilber Johannes, beloved wife, mother and friend, 80, of Acra, N.Y. passed peacefully after a battle with cancer on March 2, 2022, surrounded by her loved ones.

June was born August 22, 1941, daughter of Ralph Vincent Wilber and Inez Marshall Wilber in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. June grew up in Netherwood, East Park and Salt Point and went to a one room schoolhouse in Netherwood. She graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1959.

June married Anton Rings in 1963 and had two daughters. The family primarily resided in Pleasant Valley, N.Y. They divorced after 14 years.

After receiving an Associate Degree in Nursery Education at Dutchess Community College “Miss June” worked at Pleasant Valley Nursery School on North Ave. Other Jobs she worked as a secretary for Vince Pangia CPA and IBM Fishkill. She volunteered doing crafts with people with developmental disabilities at Rehabilitation Programs Inc. Day Treatment. June was a social butterfly with a fun, bright spirit who cared about the people in her life.

June married Martin H. Johannes III on October 11,2003at a beloved park Innisfree in Millbrook, NY. They resided in Dover Plains before moving to Acra, N.Y. During that time June worked for Att. at law office Whalen & Whalen before moving on to Sharon Hospital in Conn. and had her own business for a short time cleaning homes and organizing. She also had an art studio at Webatuck Craft Village. Lastly, June worked at Catskill Family Medicine where she felt like she had a second family.

June enjoyed gardening, hiking, dancing, sewing, crafts and art.

She loved activities, decorating for every season and holidays. She was a member of the Hudson Valley Ski Club and a charter member and secretary of the Hop-O-Nose Boat Club.

June is survived by her husband Martin Johannes, her daughters Lisa A. Stone (Jim Stone) and Heather J. Rings (Mark Jenkins), her niece Karen Mulvaney (Thomas), nephews Carl (Vicky), Kurt, Christopher (Sonya) Probst and grandnephew Jack Marshall Mulvaney, and grandnieces Caitlyn, Olivia and Virginia Probst.

June is predeceased by her brother-in-law Alexander S. Probst and her sister Ilene Joan Probst.

The family would like to thank the staff at Catskill Family Medicine and Hospice of Greene and Columbia Counties and caregivers Aurora and Brandon for the compassion and care provided to June.

A memorial service will be held for June on Wednesday, March 16, 2022 at 2:00 P.M. at Richards Funeral Home, 29 Bross Street, Cairo, N.Y. A Celebration of Life at Martin and June’s home will follow afterwards.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the family as a bench and tree are being placed in June’s memory in The Angelo Canna Town Park, Cairo, N.Y. Condolences may be made at www.richardsfuneralhomeinc. net.

Robert (‘Bob’) Shnayerson March 6, 2022 Robert (“Bob”) Shnayerson, highly admired editor at Life and Time in the glory days of Henry Luce’s magazine empire, as well as editor-in-chief of Harper’s magazine and founder of Quest magazine, died on March 6, 2022 at age 96 at his home in Hillsdale, NY with his family by his side.

Through the course of a distinguished career as an editor and journalist, he held a ringside seat for much of the 20 th century’s major events.

He was born in 1925 to Madalene Griffin, a nightclub singer, and Charles Beahan, a novelist and screenwriter. After his parents divorced when he was six, he lived with his mother and later also his stepfather Ned Shnayerson, a surgeon.

During the Depression, the family was forced to live in Ned’s Manhattan office, where Bob slept on the operating table and was subjected to anatomy lessons in the morgue. At age nine, he was sent by his parents to the progressive Manumit school in Pawling, NY. At Manumit, students learned by doing, driving tractors and taking on farm chores.

After nearly a dozen schools, Bob graduated from DeWitt Clinton H.S. at the onset of World War II and enlisted in the U.S. Navy, becoming a quartermaster on an oiler that fueled larger ships in the North Atlantic. With the war’s end, he entered Dartmouth College on the G.I. bill, graduating in 1950.

That same year, he married Lydia Conde Todd, a classical pianist and music teacher.

Bob began his career as a junior police reporter at the New York Daily News. He moved on to Life, where he started as a runner carrying photos to and from the Time-Life picture lab.

He quickly rose in the ranks to become Life’s bureau chief in Seattle, covering the entire Pacific Northwest. Once back in New York, Bob became a writer and senior editor for Time.

He wrote 60 cover stories for the magazine during the tumultuous 1960s, invented and oversaw Time Special Issues – Black America, To Heal a Nation – and talked his superiors into starting two new sections: Law and the Environment. He also became known for his daily five-mile runs, so unusual that one Time’s “letter from the editor” lionized him for this curious practice called jogging.

In 1971 he was tapped to be editor-in-chief of Harper’s magazine, replacing his predecessor, Willie Morris. Bob was seen as a steadier hand, although he dazzled the magazine world by assigning stories to Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Wolfe, Simone de Beauvoir, and Germaine Greer, among others. He was a sensitive and principled editor, revered by his contributors, with a dry wit and marked modesty. After leaving Harper’s in 1976, he started Quest magazine, a monthly dedicated to excellence in all its forms, and The Giraffe Society, which honored March 8, 2022 courageous people who stuck out their necks. He wrote a subscriber mailing letter for Quest which became legendary in the marketing industry and is still taught today. Quest lasted five years—a long ball in those days. Bob’s fascination with the law led him to write the authorized History of the Supreme Court of the United States (Abrams, 1986). In later years, he was a magazine and book consultant.

Bob had two children, Michael and Kate, by their mother, Lydia Todd, who died in 1973. In 1980, he married his wife Laurie Platt Winfrey, a picture editor, with whom he had two daughters, Maggie and Bonnie. In 1985, he and Laurie discovered the great pleasures of Hillsdale, NY. Returning to the outdoor work that he had loved as a child at Manumit, Bob delighted in tractor picnics with his grandchildren, friends, and yellow rescue dogs. He was a listener and born storyteller who rarely hinted at his lifetime of voracious reading.

Along with his beloved wife and four children—Michael (Gayfryd Steinberg), Kate (Nadim Rouhana), Maggie, and Bonnie (Zachary Nusbaum)—he leaves three grandchildren: Jed and Adam Rouhana and Jenna Shnayerson. Bob’s family is grateful for the care he received from Loretta McQuillen, Dom Nicklaus, and Barbara Arpante. Arrangements are under the direction of the Peck & Peck Funeral Home, in Copake, NY. A celebration of his life will be held at a later date. Donations in his memory may be made to Report for America (an initiative of the GroundTruth Project), Citizens Climate Education (CCE), or the North Hillsdale Rural Cemetery. To leave a message of condolence for the family please visit www.peckandpeck.net

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Smollett spends first night in jail FUNERAL

www.facebook.com/ HudsonRegisterstar www.facebook.com/ CatskillDailyMail

Nardine Saad Los Angeles Times

After a three-year saga over a hate-crime hoax, former “Empire” star Jussie Smollett spent his first night in jail.

The 39-year-old entertainer was booked in Chicago late Thursday after an hourslong sentencing hearing.

Smollett officially became a “permanently convicted felon” when Cook County Judge James Linn read aloud his sentence in court and told him that it would begin immediately.

Smollett then entered Cook County Jail to serve the first of his 150-day sentence for lying to police about faking a racist and homophobic attack on himself in January 2019. That’s when he claimed that two assailants targeted him on a frigid Chicago night for being Black and gay, beat him, put a rope around his neck, splashed him with a liquid chemical and told him this is “MAGA country,” referring to former President Trump’s campaign slogan of “Make America Great Again.”

The roughly five-month jail sentence was coupled with 21/2 years of felony probation. Linn also ordered the entertainer to pay $120,106 in restitution to the city of Chicago and a $25,000 fine for his crimes.

Smollett sat quietly through most of Thursday’s courthouse proceedings, but the hearing took a dramatic turn when he learned he would be incarcerated — a punishment his attorneys, family and famous friends encouraged the judge to reconsider during the mitigating factors portion of the hearing.

DIRECTORS Copake, N.Y. (518) 329-2121 Pine Plains, N.Y. (518) 398-7777

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M. GRIMALDI FUNERAL HOME & CREMATION SERVICES 25 Railroad Ave., Chatham, N.Y. (518) 822-8332 Mario A. Grimaldi, Manager

ATTENTION FUNERAL DIRECTORS Obituaries, Death Notices or Funeral Accounts Should Be Submitted Before 2PM Daily For The Next Day’s Paper.

Notices should be emailed to:

obits@columbiagreene media.com

Call Patti to advertise your funeral home: (518) 828-1616 x2413

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Saturday - Sunday, March 12-13, 2022 - A7

COLUMBIA-GREENE MEDIA

Church Briefs Please send all Church news to editorial@thedailymail.net; or mail to Attention Church News, Register-Star/The Daily Mail, 364 Warren St., Unit 1, Hudson, NY 12534. For information, call 315-661-2940.

CORNED BEEF AND CABBAGE DINNER COXSACKIE — The First Reformed Church, 285 Mansion St., Coxsackie, will be serving corned beef and cabbage dinners with dessert 4:30-6 p.m.

March 17, take out only, until sold out. Tickets are $15. Advance ticket purchase preferred. Call 518-731-7503 to order tickets. www.firstreformecoxsackie.com.

PANCAKE BREAKFAST COPAKE — Our Lady of Hope Roman Catholic Church will hold a pancake breakfast to support Maci Cayea, a fiveyear-old from Copake Lake who has been diagnosed with stage 4 neuroblastoma. The breakfast will be held 8 a.m.-1 p.m. March 19 at Our Lady of Hope, 8074 Route 22, Copake.

The breakfast will include all-you-can-eat portions of blueberry or chocolate-chip pancakes, scrambled eggs, home fries, sausage, juice and coffee. The cost is $10. For information, call Mary at 518755-9763. Maci and her family have a long battle ahead of them and they need support from the local community.

BAKED HAM DINNER COEYMANS HOLLOW — Trinity United Methodist Church, 1313 Route 143, Coeymans Hollow, will serve a baked ham dinner, take out only, 4-6 p.m. March 26. The menu will include baked ham, potatoes, vegetable, applesauce, rolls, and pie. Adults, $13; children, $6. Reservations suggested by March 23 by calling 518-756-2629. You may check the day of the dinner to see if there are extra dinners available at 518-756-2091.

CRAFT FESTIVAL SEEKING APPLICANTS RICHMOND SPRINGS — Applications are currently being accepted for the 41st Annual Friendship Craft Festival sponsored by the Church Of Christ Uniting in Richfield Springs. It will take place 9 a.m.-3 p.m. June 11 in Spring Park on Scenic US Route 20.

For information and an application, go to www.rschurchofchristuniting.com, email friendshipcraftfestival@ yahoo.com or call Carla at 315858-1451.

LENTEN SERVICES HUDSON — The TriCounty Lutheran Parish announces the Lenten worship schedule. St. Luke’s Lutheran Church, 1010 Kinderhook St., Valatie, will be hosting a worship service starting at 6 p.m. every Wednesday during Lent through April 13 in person or via Zoom with the following link: https://us02web.zoom. us/j/2529435520.

Visit the TCLParish.org website for location, directions, worship schedules and Zoom live streaming worship service link. Contact the administrative office at 518758-6526 for pastoral services inquiries or any further information.

FIRST REFORMED CHURCH OF ATHENS ATHENS —The First Reformed Church of Athens, 16 North Church St., Athens, worships at 10:30 a.m. Sunday. All are welcome to join us. Communion is celebrated the first Sunday of each month. Senior Choir rehearsal is at 6:30 p.m. each Wednesdays. We ask that singers are vaccinated.

Hudson River Bells rehearsal is at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays.

Masks are worn during rehearsal.

For information, call the church at 518-945-1801.

LIVING FAITH COMMUNITY

CHURCH MAPLECREST — Living Faith Community Church, 54 Route 56, Maplecrest, welcomes locals and visitors to worship together at 10:30 a.m.

Sunday. Adult Bible Study meets before service at 9:30 a.m. Fellowship meal follows service on the second Sunday of each month. For information, call 518-734-4275.

FIRST REFORMED CHURCH OF COXSACKIE COXSACKIE — The First Reformed Church of Coxsackie, 285 Mansion St., Coxsackie, worships at 9:30 a.m. Sunday.

All are welcome. Communion is celebrated the first Sunday of each month. Sunday School is available during the worship service time. Free Food Fridays provide a meal for anyone at 6 p.m. on the third Friday of each month; www. firstreformecoxsackie.com.

SOUP KITCHEN OPEN CATSKILL — The Camp Grace Inc. Soup Kitchen, located at the First Reformed Church of Catskill, 310 Main St., Catskill, is open noon-1 p.m. Tuesday through Friday.

For information, call Director Lamont Taylor at 518-2497009.

EMANUEL LUTHERAN CHURCH STUYVESANT FALLS — Emanuel Lutheran Church is located at the junction of US Route 9 and County Route 46 in Stuyvesant Falls. Church services are at 8:30 a.m. Sunday and all are welcome and invited.

ST. MARK’S SECOND EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH HUDSON — St. Mark’s Second Evangelical Lutheran Church, 8 Storm Ave., Hudson, worships 9:30 a.m.

Sunday. Communion is celebrated on the first Sunday of every month with Pastor Stan Webster. Child care is offered during the service and Sunday

school after the service ends.

For information, call the Church office at 518-828-9514.

ST. JOHN’S LUTHERAN CHURCH STUYVESANT — St. John’s Lutheran Church, 159 Route 26A, Stuyvesant, has in-person and live online worship services at 10:15 a.m. Sunday.

Sunday School is at 9 a.m. for children 3 and older. Face masks and social distancing is required at this time. The live broadcasts are on www.facebook.com/St-Johns-Lutheran.

CHRIST CHURCH EPISCOPAL HUDSON — Christ Church Episcopal, 431 Union St., Hudson, worships at 9 a.m.

Sundays in person and live online. Social distancing and face masks required. Live broadcast at 9 a.m. on facebook.com/ChristChurchEpiscopalHudson or at christchurchepiscopalhudson.org.

Midweek Eucharist is held at 12:15 p.m. Wednesdays in the church. For information, call 518-828-1329 or email christchurch1802@gmail.com.

SAINT PAUL’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH KINDERHOOK — St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 8 Sylvester St., Kinderhook, Holy Communion in person at 8 and 10 a.m. Sundays. Face masks and distancing required regardless of vaccination status. For information and news, www. saintpaulskinderhook.org/ or follow us on Facebook.

Subscribe to our newsletter: http://eepurl.com/cG4YSv; 518-758-6271 or saintpaulskinderhook@gmail.com.

Office open 1:30-4:30 p.m.

Tuesday-Thursday and by appointment.

KINDERHOOK REFORMED CHURCH KINDERHOOK — The Kinderhook Reformed Church, 21 Broad St., Kinderhook, will have in person and live online Sunday worship include Sunday 8:45 a.m. prayer group 1;

9:30 a.m. worship and youth Sunday school; 10:30 a.m. coffee hour; and 11 a.m. prayer group 2. Weekly Bible studies available. Live broadcast on http://www.youtube. com/channel/UCCTUNikeMHshkf-mqhM-NxCw or www.facebook.com/KinderhookReformedChurch. For information, call 518-7586401 or kinderhookreformedchurch.com.

CLAVERACK REFORMED DUTCH CHURCH CLAVERACK — The Reformed Dutch Church, 88 Route 9H, Claverack, worships at 9:30 a.m. Sundays in the sanctuary. For information, call 518-851-3811.

GHENT REFORMED CHURCH WEST GHENT — The Ghent Reformed Church, 1039 County Route 22, West Ghent, worships at 9 a.m. Sundays. Sunday School begins at 10:15 a.m. Sunday for pre-school to middle school aged children.

In accordance with the New York state mandate, masks will be required. Cleaning is as diligent as always. Coffee time follows worship.

REFORMED CHURCH OF GERMANTOWN/MT. PLEASANT REFORMED CHURCH GERMANTOWN — The congregations of the Reformed Church of Germantown, 20 Church Ave., Germantown and the Mt. Pleasant Reformed Church, 33 Church Road, Hudson, will observe morning worship services for the second Sunday of Lent.

The Germantown congregation meets at 9 a.m. and the service at Mt. Pleasant begins at 10:30 a.m. A weekly Bible Study on the book of Revelation meets at the Germantown Church Office at 7 p.m.

Wednesdays.

TRI COUNTY LUTHERAN PARISH VALATIE — The following is the worship schedule for

the Tri County Lutheran Parish. Visit TCLParish.org website for weekly Zoom worship schedule and link.

Columbia County: Emanual Lutheran Church, 506 County Road 46, Stuyvesant Falls, worships at 8:30 a.m.

Sunday. St. Luke’s Lutheran Church, 1010 Kinderhook St., Valatie, worships at 10:30 a.m.

Sunday with Sunday School also at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday.

Emanuel/St. John’s Lutheran Church, 20 South Sixth St., Hudson, worships at 11 a.m.

Sunday.

Greene County: Zion Lutheran Church, 102 North Washington St., Athens, worships at 9 a.m. Sunday. St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, State Route 81, Oak Hill, worships at 11 a.m. Sunday.

Rensselaer County: Trinity Lutheran Church, 68 Green Ave., Castleton, worships at 9 a.m. Sunday. St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church, 751 County Route 7, East Schodack, worships at 11 a.m. Sunday.

GRACE BIBLE FELLOWSHIP CHURCH RHINEBECK — Grace Bible Fellowship Church, 6959 Route 9, Rhinebeck, worships at 10:45 a.m. and 6 p.m. Sunday. Sunday School for all ages meets at 9:30 a.m. Women’s bible study and Grace Bible Institute meets at 7 p.m. Mondays. Mid-week prayer meeting is at 7 p.m. Wednesdays.

For information, call 845-8766923 or cdfcirone@aol.com.

LUTHERAN PARISH OF SOUTHERN COLUMBIA COUNTY GERMANTOWN — Lutheran Parish of Southern Columbia County has updated its worship schedule. In person worship at St. Thomas’ Church in Churchtown has resumed and will be at 11 a.m. Sunday.

Christ Church folks will join folks at St. John’s Church in Manorton (Elizaville) at 9 a.m. this month.

THE PUBLIC NEEDS THE TRUTH; NOT SOCIAL MEDIA HEADLINES & FAKE NEWS. #SupportRealNews

House of Worship

News & Services Catholic Community of Saint Patrick

New Baltimore Reformed Church

Church of Saint Patrick 21 Main Street, Ravena, NY 12143 • (518) 756-3145 https://churchofsaintpatrick.wixsite.com/church-ravena

24 North Washington Street, Athens 12015 · 943-3150 66 William Street, Catskill 12414 · 943-3150

518 756 8764 • Rt. 144 and Church St. NBRChurch@aol.com • www.nbrchurch.org

Rev. Rick L. Behan, Pastor

Fr. Joseph O’Brien, Parochial Vicar

Sunday Worship - 9:30 AM Communion First Sunday every month Fellowship before and after worship Thursday - Choir Rehearsal 4:45 PM Tuesday - Bible Study 10:00 AM 2nd Sunday - Helping Hands 10:30 AM

Weekend Masses: Saturday Vigil 4:30 p.m. Sunday 9:30 a.m. (also St. Patrick’s YouTube channel or Mid-Hudson 901) Weekday Mass: Tuesday 8:30 a.m.

Also Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament 8:30-9 a.m. Wed, Thurs Food Pantry Hours: Tues & Fri 10–11 a.m. and Wed 6–7 p.m.

Thrift Shop Hours: Thurs 1 – 3 p.m. Sat from 9 a.m. – Noon

Come to the Church in the Hamlet! Working together since 1833

You Are Welcome Here!

Janine O’Leary, Parish Life Coordinator Fr. Michael Melanson, Parochial Vicar Saturday* 4:00 p.m. *1st / 3rd Athens and 2nd / 4th Catskill Sunday 8:45 a.m. Catskill / 10:45 a.m. Athens

All Are Welcome!

St. Mary’s Church 80 Mansion Street, Coxsackie, NY 12051 (518) 731-8800 • stmaryscoxsackie.com

Fr. Joseph O’Brien, Parochial Vicar Weekend Masses: Sunday 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m.

11:30 a.m. Mass is livestreamed at St. Mary’s YouTube Channel Weekday Mass: Wednesday 8 a.m.

Also Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament 8-8:30 a.m. Mon & Tues

You Are Welcome Here!

To list your Church Services please call Patricia Bulich at (518) 828-1616 x2413

COLUMBIA-GREENE MEDIA • THE DAILY MAIL

A8 - Saturday - Sunday, March 12-13, 2022

Suspect From A1

simply going through the discovery process and working with his attorney.” White is also being housed in the Greene County Jail.

Probe From A1

compile or release their findings and suggestions.

Contento is a 1989 Chatham High School graduate who formerly worked as a police officer in the Philmont and Chatham police departments, and as a part-time correction officer with the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office through the 1990s. He transferred to the Coeymans Police Department as a sergeant in July 2000.

Schwebke, a Catskill native, graduated from Catskill High School in 2002.

In 2010, Schwebke, who then worked as a correction officer at Coxsackie Correctional Facility, faced a felony charge after illegally collecting $34,000 worker’s compensation benefits after an ankle injury while working part-time as a Cairo Police Department officer.

He was ultimately convicted of disorderly conduct, a violation, and paid the state $3,000 in restitution.

The state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision terminated Schwebke as a correction officer after the case concluded through arbitration.

The Cairo Town Board did not reappoint Schwebke in 2012 because of the incident.

Schwebke also worked as an officer in the Athens Police Department and as a communications specialist for the Catskill Police Department in the early 2000s.

A YEAR OF FALSIFIED RECORDS Officials in the state Division of Criminal Justice Services do not evaluate the daily reports for each police recruit unless specifically requested.

An anonymous email tip sent to the attorney general’s confidential inbox from the Coeymans Police Department in January 2019 changed that.

The person, whose identity is sealed by investigators, alleged Schwebke knowingly reported he supervised field training for Coeymans 2018 police recruits for shifts he was not present.

“The certified training officer has completed all [Field Training Officer] paperwork, however, he has not been working the shifts he has claimed to be as an FTO,” according to the email.

The confidential email was read as evidence during Schwebke’s hearing with the DCJS-supported Municipal Police Training Council about his instructor certifications.

Schwebke admitted during the Sept. 4, 2019 hearing he signed off on supervised field training hours for shifts he did not personally observe, including completing observation records about recruits’ appearance and behavior he did not witness — a direct violation of state standards.

“We supervised their field training, but we did not ride with them, no,” Schwebke said at the hearing. “I did not directly observe them.”

Coeymans, which sponsors officers at Zone 5 Regional Law Enforcement Training Academy, had two classes of two officers each in 2018 to certify Michael Case, Kelly Arnold, Alexander Hazelton and Robert Stark III. In records sent to DCJS, Schwebke signed 38 daily reports for Arnold and Case, or 304 hours of supervised eighthour shifts over a 25-day period between June 8 and July 4, 2018.

Schwebke also claimed to be the supervising field training officer for 24, eight-hour shifts in the 27-day period from Dec. 5 through Dec. 31, 2018, for Stark and Hazelton.

“In my opinion, it seemed excessive and wanted me to cause me to look into it further,” David Mahany, a DCJS associate training technician, said as a witness for the department

Greene County Judge Terry A. Wilhelm ruled that a second arraignment for Field would be required in Greene County Court.

During the hearing, the prosecution argued Field should not be granted bail, while defense attorney Tom Melanson of Melanson Law Office in Kingston argued that due to Field’s

lifelong connection to the Greene County community that he was not a flight risk.

Wilhelm then ruled that due to the severity of the charges that Field would be remanded to the custody of the Greene County Sheriff’s Office without bail. Field was taken back to the Greene County Jail in Coxsackie.

The prosecution also petitioned the court Friday to collect a swab from the inside of Field’s cheek to obtain a DNA sample.

Greene County Chief Assistant District Attorney David Costanzo told the judge that after Field fled after the alleged murder, state police had executed a search warrant at a

campsite where he allegedly sought refuge.

Costanzo said the officers recovered items at the campsite that might contain Field’s DNA, necessitating that the court collect a DNA sample from Field.

Melanson objected to the sample collection, noting that nothing was more private than

a person’s DNA, but Wilhelm ruled in favor of the prosecution, noting that probable cause had been established, and ordered the DNA collection to take place immediately following the court hearing.

Wilhelm did not schedule another court hearing in the Field case.

during the 2019 hearing.

Schwebke attested to separately supervising officer Case for 20 shifts, or 160 hours; Arnold for 18 shifts, or 144 hours; Hazelton for 10 shifts or 80 hours; and recruit Stark for 14 shifts, or 112 hours.

Schwebke maintained innocence throughout his DCJS hearing, saying he completed the training and signed the corresponding reports as the department’s training supervisor at the behest of then-acting chief Contento.

Attorney André Dalbec, who represented Schwebke, said Contento created monthly work schedules for the department, and scheduled Case, Arnold, Hazelton and Stark to ride with officers who did not have the legally required certification to supervise recruits or sign off on their training.

Recruits were scheduled to ride with officers on the job for six months in some instances.

“This was driven by the chief,” said Dalbec, who works as counsel for law enforcement union Council 82. “...Chief Contento created the schedule to have FTOs and non-FTOs ride with the recruit officers.”

Schwebke told DCJS officials he did not have control over the schedule and signed off on the training records per the chief’s orders.

New York law enforcement officers are permitted to refuse immoral or illegal orders from a supervisor, per state law.

“I respectfully accepted who they assigned them to be with,” Schwebke said during his hearing. “I was under the understanding it was a viable option and accepted process and I had no knowledge that it was incorrect. I was not concerned.

I assumed many agencies were operating under the same understanding.”

Dalbec’s witness Peter J. “PJ” McKenna, Coeymans police chief from October 2014 until February 2018, testified the department’s hands-off training schedule to have officers without field training certification supervise rookie officers was his idea to help with department understaffing and a lack of personnel with required certification.

McKenna did not contact DCJS about the department’s interpretation of the state field training officer program standards or changing its procedure, he said during the hearing.

McKenna testified he spoke with one person at the Academy Zone 5 about the department’s plans, but told DCJS he could not remember the name of the person. Contento was named acting chief a short time later.

conflicting dates the district cannot confirm.

“As an SRO, Officer Schwebke was an active policing presence in our district buildings, built relationships with students and staff and assisted as a liaison between the school and outside agencies when needed,” RCS Superintendent Bailey said. “I have no knowledge of his work beyond the school district.

The district has exclusively partnered with the Albany County Sheriff’s Office since 2020.

The council and DCJS agreed to revoke Schwebke’s certifications at the end of 2019.

“The agency involved here violated the spirit of the FTO purpose and program,” councilmembers read from a joint statement at the end of the September 2019 hearing. “It is regrettable the only sanction is against this Officer Schwebke.”

The state invalidated Arnold and Case’s state-mandated Basic Course Police Officer training. Completion certificates were not yet issued for Stark or Hazelton.

The Coeymans Police Department successfully retrained the four recruits.

Arnold remains the town’s sole full-time police officer in the town department, which has nine total officers, one secretary and Police Chief Marc Tryon, who started in the role Monday.

Hazelton serves in the Bethlehem Police Department.

practices.

Braden and Edmund J. Seney, both part-time Coeymans officers, resigned March 4. Their exodus comes on the heels of former Police Chief Doug Keyer, who abruptly resigned without notice or official reason Feb. 11.

Ongoing tensions between town officials over recent changes within the police department have continued since McHugh and the town board added an Albany County Sheriff’s substation on Route 144 after taking office in 2020 — a move that shifted resources from the local department, but increased townwide police patrols to nine per day up from five.

“Since taking office in 2020, the town board has nearly doubled public safety efforts for the town,” McHugh said. “We have also ensured that all Coeymans police officers are properly trained and certified.”

The supervisor is confident Case, Arnold, Hazelton and Stark were retrained properly, he said.

Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple, a Coeymans native, said proper police training continues to be an issue for smaller departments. The sheriff’s office extended presence and support in Coeymans since 2020, and have plans to increase patrols in other rural towns including Westerlo and Rensselaerville on the Greene County border.

“It’s a small police department, we just offer any assistance that we can,” said Apple, who worked with Marc Tryon, the new chief, for many years, adding he is eager for the agencies to work together.

“The town is in a better place than they were prior to us coming to do policing — the

residents will see a lot of the shenanigans have stopped, people doing crime and everything else,” the sheriff said.

Crime has significantly decreased, with police receiving fewer calls from Coeymans residents since the creation of the sheriff’s substation, the sheriff said.

“My officers are professionally trained, full-time police officers — we monitor, we train them, we’re constantly training them and have zero tolerance for misbehavior and I think that helps,” Apple said.

Apple stressed the sheriff’s office’s resources, and the importance of sharing them with small or poorer municipalities strapped to pay emergency personnel a livable wage, which often forces them to work multiple jobs, leaving them exhausted or stressed when on the clock.

in the town of Coeymans having one of the lowest crime rates of any town or village in Albany County,” McHugh said. “And as long as I am supervisor, we will continue to invest the resources needed to support and sustain our Coeymans Police Department while continuing to work together with other law enforcement agencies such as the sheriff’s department and the state police to ensure the protection and safety of all town of Coeymans residents.”

DCJS has revoked instructor certifications of multiple officers in upstate police departments in recent years for not complying with field training observation, including the revocation of Fort Edward Police Department Chief Justin Derway and Sgt. Dean Watkins in April 2020, and three officers’ certifications from the Galway Police Department in 2018.

A Buffalo man pleaded guilty to falsifying firearms training course documents for security guard and peace officer recruits in 2020 after an investigation by the state attorney general’s office.

The regulations that allowed DCJS and the MPTC to revoke certification took effect March 30, 2018.

Schwebke’s was the department’s sole hearing to suspend an officer’s certification since.

No state rule prevents an officer who had their instructor certification revoked to retake an instructor course and become recertified to teach.

“That being said, no officer whose instructor certification has been revoked, including Mr. Schwebke, has sought to be recertified,” state Division of Criminal Justice Services spokeswoman Janine Kava said in a statement.

CERTIFICATIONS DISMANTLED Schwebke attended and completed the state’s four-day course to become a certified field training officer in 2015.

Each person who takes the course is given a guide outlining the expectations for field training officers.

Former Cheektowaga Police Department Chief David Zack, then an MPTC member, had completed the state’s multi-day Field Training Officer course.

“I’ve been to that training — when they teach you to do a DOR, to me, it was always clear that that activity would have to be supervised personally,” said Zack, who became the police chief in Asheville, North Carolina, in 2020.

At the hearing, DCJS associate attorney Natasha M. Harvin-Locklear questioned Schwebke about six shifts he supposedly supervised Coeymans police recruit training that reportedly conflict with his past work assignment as the full-time RCS school resource officer.

“The evidence speaks for itself,” Harvin-Locklear said.

Department counsel named June 16, June 28, June 29, Dec. 11, Dec. 14, Dec. 18, 2018, as the

A NEW HOME IN MENANDS The Coeymans Town Board refused to reappoint Schwebke to the Coeymans Police Department at the end of 2020 over a lack of worked shifts, according to town documents.

Schwebke moved over to the Menands Police Department, where he has worked part-time since 2018, and was promoted to full-time detective last June.

He is one of several officers with a history of criminal charges or misconduct, or involvement in turmoil within the Coeymans department, to land at the village agency.

Case and Stark, two of the affected Coeymans recruits, work as a police officer in Menands full-time and part-time, respectively.

Part-time Coeymans Police Sgt. Daniel Braden was hired as a full-time officer at Menands last June, and previously worked at the agency part-time since 2018.

Braden’s last day with Coeymans police is March 18.

Braden resigned from the Greene County Sheriff’s Office and was dismissed by Cairo police after pleading guilty to official misconduct by a public servant, a class A misdemeanor; in 2016.

“While in his official Greene County Sheriff’s Office uniform he possessed and uttered an altered police report to the CVS Pharmacy in an attempt to receive a prescription for Oxycodone,” according to the complaint signed by state police Investigator Don Bailey.

Braden also worked as the RCS school resource officer for a portion of the 2018-19 academic year, but was removed after a public outcry about his past drug-related conviction.

Contento, then-acting chief, defended Braden at the time, arguing his police certificate was not revoked for his past actions, and it is not uncommon for police officers to have misdemeanor charges, such as a DUI. Schwebke took Braden’s place as the district’s resource officer.

Braden served as Schwebke’s supervisor when they both worked at the Cairo Police Department.

Menands Police Chief Ryan St. Gelais did not respond to multiple requests for comment about the agency’s hiring

Apple stressed Albany sheriff’s deputies are committed to the town and keeping all people safe.

“When we get asked to come into an area, some people don’t like the way we police, but my job is to keep people safe,” Apple said. “We will arrest for certain things where others won’t, we will go after you. ... We have a role and we came in and we fulfill that role. If we can partner with others, we will. If we can’t, we will sill move forward.”

McHugh touted his administration’s actions to support Coeymans police, including increasing its budget by 4.5% last year, increasing the police chief salary by more than 20% to $80,000 this year, purchasing three new law enforcement vehicles in the last two years and renovations to the police station.

“These efforts have resulted

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Sports

SECTION

Nets roll

COLUMBIA-GREENE MEDIA

& Classifieds

B

Nets dominate 76ers, shut down ex-teammate James Harden. Sports, B2

Saturday - Sunday, March 12-13, 2022 - B1

Tim Martin, Sports Editor: 1-518-828-1616 ext. 2538 / sports@registerstar.com or tmartin@registerstar.com

How the newest CBA impacts the Mets on luxury tax

BOYS BASKETBALL:

Deesha Thosar New York Daily News

Mets fans can breathe a sigh of relief, because the new competitive balance tax seems like the best-case scenario for the Amazin’s billionaire owner.

According to multiple reports, the new CBT, or luxury tax, thresholds are as follows: $230 million in 2022, $233 million in 2023, $237 million in 2024, $241

million in 2025, and $244 million in 2026. The initial $230 million threshold for this season is up from $210 million in 2021.

MLB and the players union also agreed to a new, fourth CBT tax level — known as the Steve Cohen Tax among industry officials — which will be at $60 million above the base threshold, according See METS B5

BRAD PENNER/USA TODAY

Syracuse Orange head coach Jim Boeheim watches the action as the Orange play the Duke Blue Devils at Barclays Center on Thursday.

Why Jim Boeheim’s first losing season at Syracuse was also his favorite

Riders look to continue postseason journey

Barry Svrluga The Washington Post

TIM MARTIN/COLUMBIA-GREENE MEDIA

Ichabod Crane’s Alex Schmidt (5) puts up a shot during a game against Hoosic Valley earlier this season. The Riders will play Section VII champion Plattsburgh in a boys basketball Class B state regional final on Sunday at 5:30 p.m. at Clinton Community College in Plattsburgh. The winner advances to the state Final Four in Glens Falls on March 19-20.

NEW YORK — The blood looked like it had run out of Jim Boeheim’s face. To his immediate left at a dais underneath the stands at Barclays Center sat his oldest son, Jimmy, who bowed his

head and stared at the floor.

To Jimmy’s left was his kid brother, Buddy, who was trying his best to reminisce about four years playing for his father on the same Carrier Dome floor he used to mop See SYRACUSE B5

MLB, players union reach deal on new CBA, clearing way for spring training and 162-game regular season Chelsea Janes The Washington Post

NEW YORK — And just like that, after five years of posturing, 99 agonizing days of an owner-imposed lockout and three months of intermittent negotiations that left many wondering whether anyone really wanted to get a deal done at all, Major League Baseball is back. The owners

and players reached a new collective bargaining agreement Thursday afternoon in New York.

The broad concepts of the deal, after all the back and forth, were built on compromise, with neither side getting everything they wanted.

The salary threshold at which team spending will incur tax penalties known as the competitive balance

tax - will be higher than ever. The postseason will expand to include 12 teams. MLB revenue will fund a new bonus pool to be distributed among high-achieving young players with less than three years of service time.

Minimum salaries will rise, and the amateur draft format will include a lottery for the first pick.

Opening Day is expected for April

7, with spring training camps opening Friday and a mandatory report date of Sunday.

Most importantly, at least to the logistics of the day, the deal will not include the creation of an international amateur draft - at least not yet. Disagreement over that issue halted negotiations briefly Wednesday night when the owners gave the union an

ultimatum: Agree to an international draft to replace the current signing free-for-fall or deal with the existing system in which teams that sign top free agents lose draft picks in the process.

“The international draft has been a bargaining objective of the clubs See MLB B3

Fans welcome Ben Simmons back to Philly for Sixers-Nets Ellie Rushing The Philaddelphia Inquirer

PHILADELPHIA — The Wells Fargo Center was filled to the brim Thursday night with Philadelphia 76ers fans seething in anticipation of facing disgraced former player Ben Simmons for the first time since last summer’s heartbreaking playoff loss.

But it wasn’t the arena-shaking moment Sixers fans had long been anticipating. Simmons, who was traded to the Brooklyn Nets exactly one month ago, avoided a big entrance at his former home court, and snuck out during the introduction of the Sixers players. When the lights of the arena came on, there was Simmons, huddled with his teammates.

Once Philadelphians saw him, they erupted in boos and periodically broke out into expletive chants.

It was the first time Simmons stepped in front of Philadelphia fans since last June, when the team blew a 26-point lead to lose to the Atlanta Hawks in Game 7 of the NBA Eastern Conference semifinals. Simmons played particularly poorly in the series, refusing to dunk in the final minutes of the season-ending game, and not taking a single fourth-quarter shot in the final four games of the series. He performed so badly at the free-throw line that opponents intentionally fouled him knowing he likely wouldn’t make the shot.

ELIZABETH ROBERTSON/PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

A Sixers fan dressed as a baby greets Brooklyn Nets player and former Sixer Ben Simmons (in foreground) during warmups before the Nets played the 76ers at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia on Thursday. It was the first meeting of the teams since former Sixers Simmons, Seth Curry and Andre Drummond were traded for James Harden and Paul Millsap.

And although the losses were not solely Simmons’ fault, it was the way he interacted with the

franchise afterward that cemented the animosity within the fan base.

He refused to play for the Sixers, citing his mental health, and didn’t show up for practices or games, racking up millions of dollars in fines.

“He quit on the city,” said Fatieem Grady, 35.

Grady bought two tickets for $450 each to witness Simmons’ return Thursday. He purchased them amid the frenzy following the Feb. 10 trade.

Outside the arena, people sold the usual mix of crude T-shirts - Simmons sucking a pacifier, dressed like a clown, and his head on an ice cream cone calling him “Mister Softee.”

Father and son Mike and Jeremy DeLia dedicated their outfits to Simmons. Jeremy wore a red clown wig, and taped over his Simmons jersey with the words “coward” and “baby.” Mike wore a plastic turkey head mask in Simmons’ honor.

Mike DeLia has been a season ticket holder for 22 years, he said, and his son has attended every home game this season. Anticipation leading up to the night was immense, they said.

The heckling began before Simmons even stepped foot on the court, with videos circulating on social media of fans booing and yelling obscenities at him as he exited the Four Seasons Hotel Thursday morning clutching a cup of coffee.

Jason Castaldo almost sold his tickets to the game.

But he couldn’t, he said.

“I had to come and boo him myself,” he said. “It feels like a playoff game.”

COLUMBIA-GREENE MEDIA

B2 - Saturday - Sunday, March 12-13, 2022

Pro hockey NHL Eastern Conference Atlantic Division GP W L OT SO Pts Florida 58 40 13 2 3 85 Tampa Bay 56 37 13 2 4 80 Toronto 58 37 16 4 1 79 Boston 58 35 18 3 2 75 Detroit 58 24 27 5 2 55 Ottawa 57 21 31 4 1 47 Buffalo 59 19 32 7 1 46 Montreal 57 15 35 7 0 37 Metropolitan Division GP W L OT SO Pts Carolina 57 40 12 5 0 85 Pittsburgh 58 34 15 4 5 77 N.Y. Rangers 58 36 17 3 2 77 Washington 59 31 18 8 2 72 Columbus 58 28 27 1 2 59 N.Y. Islanders 54 22 24 3 5 52 New Jersey 58 21 32 1 4 47 Philadelphia 57 18 29 6 4 46 Western Conference Central Division GP W L OT SO Pts Colorado 59 41 13 4 1 87 St. Louis 57 33 17 5 2 73 Minnesota 56 34 19 0 3 71 Nashville 57 33 20 2 2 70 Dallas 56 32 21 1 2 67 Winnipeg 58 26 22 6 4 62 Chicago 59 21 30 6 2 50 Arizona 57 18 35 0 4 40 Pacific Division GP W L OT SO Pts Calgary 56 34 15 7 0 75 Los Angeles 58 32 19 5 2 71 Vegas 59 32 23 3 1 68 Edmonton 58 31 23 4 0 66 Vancouver 58 29 23 3 3 64 Anaheim 60 27 24 5 4 63 San Jose 56 24 25 5 2 55 Seattle 60 17 37 5 1 40 Wednesday’s games Edmonton 4, Washington 3, OT Vancouver 5, Montreal 3 Thursday’s games Boston 4, Chicago 3 Buffalo 3, Vegas 1 Arizona 5, Toronto 4, OT Ottawa 4, Seattle 3, OT Minnesota 6, Detroit 5, SO Florida 6, Philadelphia 3 Winnipeg 2, New Jersey 1 Carolina 2, Colorado 0 N.Y. Islanders 6, Columbus 0 St. Louis 6, N.Y. Rangers 2 Nashville 4, Anaheim 1 Tampa Bay at Calgary, 9 p.m.

San Jose at Los Angeles, 10:30 p.m.

Friday’s games Vegas at Pittsburgh, 7 p.m.

Minnesota at Columbus, 7 p.m.

Winnipeg at N.Y. Islanders, 7:30 p.m.

Washington at Vancouver, 10 p.m.

GF GA 243 170 196 162 217 176 177 158 170 218 151 183 157 210 140 217 GF GA 193 134 188 156 173 150 193 166 190 216 143 152 177 207 144 199 GF GA 230 170 201 157 214 184 180 157 166 162 176 179 155 205 146 207 GF GA 197 139 172 162 186 172 189 186 169 168 176 191 145 179 155 217

Pro basketball NBA Eastern Conference Atlantic W L Pct Philadelphia 40 25 .615 Boston 40 27 .597 Toronto 35 30 .538 Brooklyn 34 33 .507 New York 28 38 .424 Central W L Pct Milwaukee 42 25 .627 Chicago 40 26 .606 Cleveland 38 27 .585 Indiana 22 45 .328 Detroit 18 48 .273 Southeast W L Pct Miami 44 23 .657 Charlotte 32 35 .478 Atlanta 31 34 .477 Washington 29 35 .453 Orlando 17 50 .254 Western Conference Northwest W L Pct Utah 41 24 .631 Denver 40 26 .606 Minnesota 38 29 .567 Portland 25 40 .385 Oklahoma City 20 46 .303 Pacific W L Pct Phoenix 53 13 .803 Golden State 44 22 .667 L.A. Clippers 35 33 .515 L.A. Lakers 28 37 .431 Sacramento 24 44 .353 Southwest W L Pct Memphis 45 22 .672 Dallas 40 26 .606 New Orleans 27 39 .409 San Antonio 25 41 .379 Houston 17 49 .258 Wednesday’s games Boston 115, Charlotte 101 Chicago 114, Detroit 108 Phoenix 111, Miami 90 Milwaukee 124, Atlanta 115 Houston 139, L.A. Lakers 130, OT Minnesota 132, Oklahoma City 102 Orlando 108, New Orleans 102 New York 107, Dallas 77 Toronto 119, San Antonio 104 Utah 123, Portland 85 Denver 106, Sacramento 100 L.A. Clippers 115, Washington 109 Thursday’s games Brooklyn 129, Philadelphia 100 Golden State at Denver, 10 p.m.

Friday’s games Minnesota at Orlando, 7 p.m.

L.A. Clippers at Atlanta, 7:30 p.m.

Detroit at Boston, 7:30 p.m.

Cleveland at Miami, 8 p.m.

Dallas at Houston, 8 p.m.

New York at Memphis, 8 p.m.

Charlotte at New Orleans, 8 p.m.

Utah at San Antonio, 8:30 p.m.

Toronto at Phoenix, 9 p.m.

Washington at L.A. Lakers, 10:30 p.m.

GB — 1.0 5.0 7.0 12.5 GB — 1.5 3.0 20.0 23.5 GB — 12.0 12.0 13.5 27.0 GB — 1.5 4.0 16.0 21.5 GB — 9.0 19.0 24.5 30.0 GB — 4.5 17.5 19.5 27.5

College basketball THURSDAY’S SCORES EAST Fordham 54, George Mason 49 Massachusetts 99, George Washington 88 Morgan St. 80, South Carolina State 77 Providence 65, Butler 61 SOUTH Duke 88, Syracuse 79 Grambling State 60, Southern 58 Louisiana State 76, Missouri 68 Miami-Florida 71, Boston College 69, OT Mississippi State 73, South Carolina 51 North Carolina 63, Virginia 43 Texas A&M 83, Florida 80, OT Texas A&M-CC 75, Houston Baptist 60 Texas Christian 65, Texas 60 MIDWEST Akron 70, Buffalo 68 Cincinnati 74, East Carolina 63 Creighton 74, Marquette 63 Indiana 74, Michigan 69 Iowa 112, Northwestern 76 Kansas 87, West Virginia 63 Kent St. 85, Miami (OH) 75 Saint Louis 71, La Salle 51 Toledo 72, Central Michigan 71 Tulsa 73, Wichita St. 67 WEST Arizona 84, Stanford 80 Boise St. 71, Nevada 69 Colorado 80, Oregon 69 Long Beach St. 72, CSU Bakersfield 61 Montana St. 83, Sacramento State 61 UC Santa Barbara 78, UC Irvine 69 Weber St. 68, Montana 56 Wyoming 59, UNLV 56

ACC TOURNAMENT At Barclays Center Brooklyn First Round Tuesday Boston College 66, Pittsburgh 46 Clemson 70,NC State 64 Louisville 84, Georgia Tech 74 Second Round Wednesday Syracuse 96, Florida State 57 Boston College 82, Wake Forest 77, OT Virginia Tech 76, Clemson 75, OT Virginia 51, Louisville 50 Quarterfinals Thursday Duke 88, Syracuse 79 Miami 71, Boston College 69, OT Virginia Tech 87, Notre Dame 80 North Carolina 63, Virginia 43 Semifinals Today Duke vs. Miami, 7 p.m.

Virginia Tech vs. North Carolina, 9:30 p.m.

Final Saturday Semifinal winners, 8:30 p.m.

NHL roundup: Johnny Gaudreau’s hat trick leads Flames past Lightning Field Level Media

Johnny Gaudreau produced his first hat trick in three years and Jacob Markstrom made 30 saves as the Calgary Flames added another impressive victory to their collection, defeating the visiting Tampa Bay Lightning 4-1 on Thursday.

Mikael Backlund added a goal and Rasmus Andersson had two assists as the Flames improved to 15-2-1 since Jan. 29.

Calgary rebounded from a rare defeat Tuesday against the Washington Capitals and added a victory over the two-time defending champion Lightning to one over the league-leading Colorado Avalanche on Saturday.

Alex Killorn scored for the Lightning and goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy made 28 saves as Tampa Bay lost its second consecutive game. It is the first time the Lightning have dropped back-to-back games since a three-game losing streak Dec. 30-Jan. 2.

Blues 6, Rangers 2 Robert Thomas scored twice and Ville Husso made 27 saves as host St. Louis ended a four-game winless streak by routing New York.

Ivan Barbashev, Ryan O’Reilly, David Perron and Jake Walman also scored for the Blues and Jordan Kyrou had two assists.

Ryan Strome and K’Andre Miller scored for the Rangers and Adam Fox had two assists. Goaltender Igor Shesterkin allowed four goals on 17 shots before Alexandar Georgiev replaced him 15 seconds in the second period.

Sabres 3, Golden Knights 1 Craig Anderson made 30 saves to become the sixth American goaltender to win 300 NHL games and also helped to spoil Jack Eichel’s much-anticipated return to Buffalo in the win over Vegas.

Anderson also became the 39th goalie in NHL history to hit the 300-win mark.

Peyton Krebs and Alex Tuch, both obtained from Vegas in the trade for Eichel on Nov. 4, each scored a goal, and Victor Olofsson scored what proved to be the game-winner on a power play with 3:44 remaining.

Ben Hutton scored a goal, and Laurent Brossoit stopped 21 of 23 shots for the sputtering Golden Knights, who suffered their second straight loss. Vegas has just 24 goals over its past 12 games, including just four in its past three games.

Sharks 4, Kings 3 (OT) Tomas Hertl’s wraparound goal in overtime gave San Jose a comeback victory over host Los Angeles.

Hertl ended his five-game point drought with a goal and an assist. Alexander Barabanov and Brent Burns also had a goal and an assist apiece. Nick Bonino scored the Sharks’ other goal. Defenseman Erik Karlsson tallied two assists in his return to the ice, having missed the previous 15 games due to left forearm surgery. Rookie goalie Zach Sawchenko saved 33 of 36 shots for his first NHL win.

Trevor Moore had a goal and two assists for the Kings.

Phillip Danault and Andreas Athanasiou each had a goal and an assist. Jonathan Quick finished with 26 saves.

Panthers 6, Flyers 3 Sam Reinhart scored three goals and Carter Verhaeghe tallied twice as Florida defeated Philadelphia in Sunrise, Fla. The Panthers got four assists each from Jonathan Huberdeau and Aaron Ekblad as Florida won its fifth straight

game. Huberdeau leads the NHL with 64 assists, a Panthers record. Anthony Duclair also scored for the Panthers.

Sergei Bobrovsky made 34 saves.

Philadelphia, which had its two-game win streak broken, got goals from James van Riemsdyk, Cam Atkinson and Travis Konecny. Carter Hart made 31 saves.

Senators 4, Kraken 3 (OT) Josh Norris scored twice, including a power-play goal at 2:34 of overtime, as Ottawa defeated visiting Seattle.

Brady Tkachuk had a goal and an assist and Parker Kelly also scored for the Senators, who won their second in a row following a five-game skid. Goaltender Anton Forsberg made 30 saves.

Jared McCann, Ryan Donato and Mason Appleton scored for the Kraken, who rallied from a three-goal deficit in the final 11 minutes of regulation. Chris Driedger stopped 23 of 27 shots for Seattle, which suffered its fourth consecutive defeat and dropped to 1-9-2 in its past 12 games.

Bruins 4, Blackhawks 3 David Pastrnak’s second goal and third point of the game with 17.2 seconds left in regulation lifted Boston over visiting Chicago.

Taylor Hall slid the puck from the corner through traffic to set up Pastrnak in the slot for the game-winner. It was his team-leading 33rd goal of the season. The Bruins also got goals from Charlie Coyle and Jack Ahcan as they improved to 8-1-1 in their past 10 games. Jeremy Swayman made 22 saves to win his seventh consecutive start.

Brandon Hagel scored twice for Chicago, and Alex DeBrincat extended his goalscoring streak to five games.

In just his third start since returning from injury, Kevin Lankinen made 32 saves.

Wild 6, Red Wings 5 (SO) Matt Boldy scored two goals, and visiting Minnesota pulled out the shootout victory over Detroit.

Mats Zuccarello and Kevin Fiala scored during the shootout for the Wild, who earned their second consecutive win.

Zuccarello also had a regulation goal.

Jakub Vrana scored two goals in his second game back from shoulder surgery for the Red Wings, who have lost four straight.

Coyotes 5, Maple Leafs 4 (OT) Jakob Chychrun scored his second goal of the game at 2:17 of overtime as Arizona won in Toronto.

The Maple Leads scored three straight goals in the first 8:17 of the third period to tie the game at 4 and force overtime. In OT, Chychrun scored his seventh goal of the season, from the left circle on a pass from Matias Maccelli.

Alex Galchenyuk recorded a goal and an assist for the Coyotes, who have won four straight. Travis Boyd and Christian Fischer also scored for Arizona. Maccelli added two assists. Alexander Kerfoot tallied a goal and two assists for Toronto. Pierre Engvall, Auston Matthews and William Nylander also scored for the Leafs, Matthews netting his league-leading 44th goal.

Jets 2, Devils 1 Kyle Connor scored the goahead goal on a breakaway late in the second period to lift the Winnipeg over the New Jersey in Newark, N.J. Defenseman Brenden Dillon also scored a goal as the Jets won their second consecutive game and fourth in their past six.

ERIC HARTLINE/USA TODAY

Philadelphia 76ers guard James Harden (1) drives to the basket against Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving (11) during the first quarter at Wells Fargo Center on Thursday.

Nets dominate 76ers, shut down Harden Barbara Barker Newsday

PHILADELPHIA — So life goes on after James Harden.

That, in essence, is what the Nets showed Thursday night in Philadelphia as they shut down their former teammate and posted a stunning 129-100 win over what had been a surging 76ers team.

Exactly a month after forcing his way out of Brooklyn, Harden forced up a bunch of terrible shots as Kyrie Irving set the tone with some flypaper defense in the first quarter.

Harden had his worst game with the 76ers scoring just 11 points and shooting 3-for-17.

The Nets never trailed, led by as many as 35 points and turned the home crowd against the home team as 76ers fans who showed up to boo Ben Simmons wound up booing their own team.

The loss was the 76ers’ first with Harden on the floor.

Heading into Thursday’s game, Harden had been nothing short of spectacular since forcing his way out of Brooklyn. The second-place 76ers were 5-0 in their first five games with Harden on the floor and he was averaging 24.6 points and 12.4 assists.

The Nets were led by Kevin Durant’s 25 points and seven assists. Irving scored 22 and former 76er Seth Curry added 24 points and shot 10-for-14.

Harden missed 11 of his first

12 shots. The one shot he did make - a 26-footer in the middle of the first quarter - pushed him past Reggie Miller for No. 3 on the all-time three-pointers made list with 2,561. That, however, would be the only history worthy moment for Harden or the 76ers.

MVP candidate Joel Embiid led the Sixers with 27 points.

He shot just 5-for-17, though, as the 76ers shot just 32.6% against a team that is not exactly known for its defense.

The much-hyped matchup was played on the one-month anniversary of the blockbuster deal that sent Harden to the 76ers for Simmons, Andre Drummond and Curry.

The city of brotherly love was quick to embrace Harden, whom they hope can team up with Embiid to push the team to a championship.

Just off the freeway a mile from the arena, a large billboard flashes “Thanks Ben For Bringing Us Harden. According to the Philadelphia Business Journal, Harden’s 76ers jersey is the top seller in the NBA since the trade. A restaurant in Center City had a drink called the “Harden High Ball” on special Wednesday night.

It’s no surprise then that all the stops were pulled out Thursday night as Harden and the Sixers faced the Nets, his former team. Sixer royalty Allen Iverson and Julius Irving sat baseline and the team even had Dr. J ring the bell before

the start of the game.

Both teams expected to be contenders at the start of the season, but the Nets have struggled because Irving’s unvaccinated has kept him from playing home games and a knee injury that caused Durant to miss a month and a half.

While the Nets are in eighth place in the East and appear headed for a play-in spot, the Sixer with Joel Embiid playing at a MVP level have the secondbest record in the conference.

The Nets were the Vegas favorite to win it all at the start of the season as the combination of Harden, Irving and Durant was seen as one of the most talented in the history of the game. The Big 3 were special when they played together, posting a 16-3 record in parts of two seasons. Yet, Durant made it clear before Thursday night’s game that he holds no ill will against Harden for breaking up the Big 3.

“When you look at it from his perspective, Ky’s not playing and then I’m injured,” Durant said after the Net win in Charlotte. “He hasn’t won a championship before. So he’s looking at it that he’s 32 years old. He’s3/8 looking at himself, wanting to make a decision to get on a team that can get him to that - contending, being one of the last team’s standing. So you look at his perspective, you just say it is what it is.”

Or maybe, it isn’t.

Islanders, Ilya Sorokin shut out Blue Jackets Andrew Gross Newsday

ELMONT — It’s been almost two months since the Islanders have had a winning streak.

That hard-to-believe fact becomes even more head scratching when they show they’re capable of dominating team efforts such as the Thursday night’s 6-0 win over the overmatched Blue Jackets at UBS Arena, their largest margin of victory this season while matching their most goals for a game.

Captain Anders Lee completed his first career hat trick with a power-play goal with 0.4 seconds to go in regulation and now has five goals in his last two games.

The Islanders (22-24-8) are still 20 points behind the Capitals for a playoff spot and continue their six-game homestand against the Jets on Friday. They will be looking to win consecutive games in regulation for the first time since Nov. 4-6. Their last winning streak was a three-game spurt from Jan. 17-21.

Ilya Sorokin made 25 saves for his sixth shutout of the season while the Islanders’ penalty kill went 5 for 5 with a shorthanded goal, and the power play was 2 for 3.

“The way the season has gone, ups and downs, expectations from the group, from

outside, I think everybody is aware of all that,” said Brock Nelson, who opened the scoring with a five-on-three goal.

“Maybe it adds a little bit of emotion and pressure. But that’s just part of the job and you have to find a way to kind of fight through that and just worry about playing hockey.

I think our group has done a pretty good job of that.

“I don’t think that means that we’re content with where we are. I think everybody is upset and wants to turn it and get better and get on a roll.”

The Jets will also be playing on back-to-back nights after beating the host Devils, 2-1, on Thursday.

The Capitals’ 4-3 overtime loss in Edmonton on Wednesday night showed why it would take a major miracle for the Islanders to reach the playoffs even if they started stringing together wins. T.J. Oshie sent the game to overtime with just 1.8 seconds left in regulation, salvaging a point for the Capitals.

Josh Bailey gave the Islanders a 2-0 lead at 6:08 of the second period, connecting on a forehand as he skated to the crease after Kyle Palmieri won a battle along the right wall and fed him the puck. It was just Bailey’s fourth goal of the season as he snapped a 19-game drought.

Lee pushed the lead to 3-0 at

13:49 of the second period after defenseman Adam Pelech dropped him the puck in the left circle.

That became 4-0 at 17:44 on Jean-Gabriel Pageau’s shorthanded one-timer from the left circle off defenseman Ryan Pulock’s set up as the Blue Jackets skated four-on-three. It was the Islanders’ third shorthanded goal of the season.

Lee’s goal made it 5-0 at 11:57 of the third as he knocked in his own rebound at the crease.

Nelson, with his teamleading 22nd goal as he tries to reach 30 for the first time in his career, made it 1-0 at 10:32 of the first period with the Islanders’ first five-on-three power-play tally of the season.

Of course, it was only the Islanders’ second five-on-three advantage of the season.

Nelson took a feed from Bailey in the slot and was skating backwards before being able to adjust course and connect on the forehand.

Sorokin had stopped Boone Jenner’s short-handed breakaway less than a minute earlier. Sorokin also turned aside Gustav Nyquist’s breakaway at 15:53 of the second period with the Islanders ahead 3-0.

Joonas Korpisalo stopped 27 shots for the Blue Jackets (28-27-3), who have lost four straight.

Saturday - Sunday, March 12-13, 2022 - B3

COLUMBIA-GREENE MEDIA

MLB From B1

for multiple rounds. We think a draft is the only way to really get at signings, particularly in the Dominican Republic, for years. And we want to get after those problems,” MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred told The Washington Post on Thursday. “This is not a new thing from our perspective. It got highlighted in the negotiation because it was one of those things that got packaged with other issues. When it became clearer that the MLBPA didn’t want to proceed with it, it undid a lot of progress that had been made.”

By Thursday morning the sides had agreed to a rare compromise, setting a July 25 deadline by which the union will agree to the draft and enjoy free agency without draft pick compensation or maintain the international signing system that exists and endure free agency with it.

Once they worked around that roadblock, the owners made the MLB Players Association another proposal and indicated that if it agreed by 3 p.m., they could ratify the deal Thursday night in time to save a full 162-game season that would start a week late, according to a person familiar with the talks.

Thursday’s agreement was less a triumph than a relief, something that stopped self-inflicted wounds from threatening the sport.

“Our union endured the second-longest work stoppage in its history to achieve significant progress in key areas that will improve not just current players’ rights and benefits, but those of generations to come,” Tony Clark, the MLBPA’s executive director, said in a written statement. “Players remained engaged and unified from beginning to end, and in the process re-energized our fraternity.”

Scars probably will linger, particularly when it comes to the perception of the owners as self-interested and that their whims take precedence over the health of the sport for Manfred and his staff. After declaring a lockout when the collective bargaining agreement expired in early December, under the guise of creating “urgency” in the negotiations, MLB did not contact the players union to talk until 43 days later, in mid-January - an inexplicable delay that Manfred said could be explained, in part, by the fact that the union didn’t reach out, either.

But even when talks did begin in mid-January, they weren’t regular negotiating sessions until spring training games already were canceled. Ten straight days of talks at Roger Dean

WIRE PHOTO

Fans will get a full slate of games at Yankee Stadium this year with the ratification Thursday of a new collective bargaining agreement.

Stadium in Jupiter, Fla., in late February didn’t lead to a deal. And a Tuesday deadline this week stretched into Wednesday, which led Manfred to tentatively cancel another week of games Wednesday night.

Yet when the sides cleared the international draft hurdle midmorning, MLB’s negotiating team told the union that a deal by 3 p.m. could still save the season. The union voted on the MLB’s proposal around that time, and it was no sure thing: The MLBPA’s eight-man executive subcommittee voted unanimously against the proposal, according to a person familiar with the vote. Five of the eight players on that committee, including pitchers Max Scherzer and Gerrit Cole, are clients of Scott Boras, the super agent who has always pushed for more spending on player salaries and made his name on hard-line negotiating tactics. But while the leaders of the union pushed for more, the union merely needed a simple majority to approve the deal, and 26 team player representatives voted in favor. The owners ratified the deal unanimously a few hours later.

“Looking back at it, I think we used deadlines effectively to move the process when it needed to move,” Manfred said. “Who outflanked who?

In my view, there’s only one win, and that’s an agreement.”

That agreement fostered a split in the union, creating some gains for the players but not as many as they hoped. The MLBPA entered these CBA negotiations hoping for wholesale changes to a system they believed favored the owners by allowing them to increase revenue without

a proportional increase in spending. By negotiating a higher competitive balance tax, the players did loosen up some room for teams to spend more on free agents before having to pay overage charges for doing so.

As for the goals the union outlined at the beginning of the process, results were mixed. The players argued that as an increasing reliance on data led teams to an increasing reliance on cheap, young players, the new CBA needed to ensure those players were compensated in a way commensurate with their production. The new deal includes a raise to minimum salaries, as well as that pre-arbitration bonus pool to funnel more money to the best young players.

The players argued that too many teams were not committed to competing, that many owners were content to sit back and pocket revenue-sharing money without reinvesting in player salaries. The new deal includes a draft lottery to prevent teams from losing their way to a No. 1 pick, a lottery that also includes limits on how many times a team can qualify for it in consecutive years.

And the players were frustrated with servicetime manipulation, the process by which teams keep young stars in the minors to delay their free agency. The new agreement includes what many involved in the talks agree is an imperfect solution to that problem, one that rewards teams with draft picks for calling up players who go on to excel.

The owners, meanwhile, got the expanded postseason they were hoping for - though not quite as expansive as they wanted. The

final deal includes a 12-team playoff format the players favored instead of the 14-team format the owners coveted for the television revenue it would generate. They also maintained the ability to limit all but 22% of players with two years of service time to reach arbitration - a process that involves a third party determining a player’s salary - and maintained the structure that awards free agency to players after six seasons when the players had originally sought five.

The players had targeted these talks as an opportunity to extract major systemic change. Ultimately, their progress was more incremental.

Manfred, who had avoided work stoppages in his previous CBA negotiations as commissioner, said he talked to U.S. Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh about the challenges he and his team faced in these negotiations that it hadn’t before - namely, the prominence of social media.

“Social media has completely changed the interaction between rank-and-file and union leadership. It allows for a lot more active participation. That can have plusses and minuses to it,” he said, echoing concerns expressed by baseball officials privately over the past few weeks about the way players’ minds changed about various facets of proposals once they saw public reaction to them.

But in terms of public reaction, the biggest win for both sides is undoubtedly the fact that they agreed in time to play a full 162-game season, even though some clever scheduling and a few doubleheaders will be necessary to do it.

The bargaining was heated and public, at times petty and tone deaf, and resulted in the first work stoppage baseball had experienced in three decades. Manfred said he hoped the concessions MLB made to address player concerns will act as “an olive branch” to help mend the relationship between players and owners in the future - a relationship he admits he has failed to strengthen.

But spring training still will happen, though in an abbreviated form. And the freeze that halted a flurry of transactions in November will lift, setting off a free agent frenzy that could see stars such as Carlos Correa and Freddie Freeman finding new homes in the next few days.

For months, baseball was immersed in a fiery chaos, the kind that plays out in public and leaves no one unscathed, the kind that led Manfred to admit his failings, to call Clark late Thursday and declare a renewed commitment to working together in the years to come. What those years will bring feels far away to everyone involved now. Because for the next few days, baseball will find itself immersed in a joyous chaos, the kind the sport needs to help everyone forget the ugliness of the past few months.

Top-seeded Duke survives close game with Syracuse Steve Wiseman The News & Observer

NEW YORK — On the verge of a short ACC tournament stay thanks to gutsy play by short-handed Syracuse, No. 7 Duke finally found its stride in the final minutes to escape on Thursday.

No. 9 seed Syracuse played without the ACC’s leading scorer but led by a point with 3:32 to play before Duke scored the game’s final 10 points to post an 88-79 win the tournament quarterfinals.

The top-seeded Blue Devils (27-5) advance to play either Miami or Boston College in Friday night’s semifinals at 7 p.m.

Wendell Moore led Duke with 26 points while Jeremy Roach scored 19 points off the bench as Duke placed five players in double figures.

Buddy Boeheim, the ACC’s leading scorer, sat out the game serving a one-game suspension the ACC implemented after he punched Florida State’s Wyatt Wilkes during the Orange’s 96-57 win on Wednesday.

Having defeated Syracuse 79-59 and 97-72 in the regular season, the Blue Devils had trouble containing Jimmy Boeheim (28 points) and Joe Girard (23) in this game.

The Orange (16-17) led 7978 when Boeheim tipped in a

Girard miss. Moore gave Duke the lead with two free throws before Paolo Banchero scored through contact for an 8279 Duke lead. After Williams swatted away a Boeheim shot, Roach’s 3-pointer with 1:05 to play put the Blue Devils in control with an 85-79 lead.

The Orange, after trailing by 11 points early, led 40-36 at halftime, giving Duke just its third halftime deficit of the season. Syracuse immediately pushed its lead to seven points and led 52-45 with 16:33 to play when Boeheim banked in a runner.

Duke trailed 55-49 when it took advantage of Cole Swider’s foul trouble.

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The 6-9 senior picked up his fourth foul with 15:00 to play and left the game. Duke immediately scored on the next two possessions and, even after Syracuse rushed Swider back into the game, extended the run to 8-0 and led 57-55 after Moore hit two free throws at 13:29 With the teams tied at 60, Williams scored baskets inside on consecutive Duke possessions. A Roach 3-pointer from the corner in front of the Duke bench with 8:02 left gave the Blue Devils a 72-67 lead.

But Syracuse battled back again, even after Duke led 7671 with 5:08 left.

Three-pointers by Boeheim

and Girard cut Duke’s lead to 78-77. When Boeheim tipped in a Girard miss with 3:32 left, the Orange led 79-78.

Duke started hot from beyond the 3-point arc, hitting six 3-pointers in the first nine minutes to build a 24-13 lead.

But just when it looked like the Blue Devils were on their way to a third lopsided win over Syracuse this season, the Orange struck back behind Girard.

The senior guard scored the game’s next 10 points, hitting a 3-pointer and a jumper then drawing fouls on two consecutive 3-point attempts. His hitting five of six free throws left Duke up 24-23.

The Blue Devils pushed back, with Trevor Keels driving to hit a bank shot and AJ Griffin hitting a jumper to give Duke a 30-25 lead.

But consecutive 3-pointers by Boeheim followed by a Symir Torrence layup put the Orange up 33-30 with 6:46 to play in the half.

Syracuse went nine consecutive possessions without scoring but Duke only scored three times in that stretch to take a 36-33 lead.

But the Orange scored the half’s final seven points, including Girard’s 3-pointer at the buzzer, to take a 40-36 halftime lead.

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Saturday - Sunday, March 12-13, 2022 - B5

COLUMBIA-GREENE MEDIA

The low-profile, high-powered race to free WNBA star Brittney Griner from Russian custody Dave Sheinin The Washington Post

Less than 11 months ago, American basketball star Brittney Griner towered over her UMMC Ekaterinburg teammates as the Russian franchise celebrated its third consecutive EuroLeague Women’s championship. In one picture from the joyous aftermath, Griner, her gold medal around her neck, smiles mischievously from the floor as she makes snow angels in the confetti raining down from the rafters.

The most recent public picture of Griner, however, shows a starkly different scene: In a mug shot released by Russian state media over the weekend, Griner, 31, is standing expressionless against a wall in a building and a locale that both remain unknown. Her 6-foot-8 frame tops out above the height chart over her left shoulder. In her hands, she holds an 8 12-by-11-inch piece of paper with her name on it.

Little more is known now about Griner’s whereabouts and safety, at least publicly, than when news first broke last week of her arrest and detainment by Russian authorities, which occurred after customs officials allegedly found cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage at an airport outside Moscow.

In a telephone interview Thursday, U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, D-Tex., said Griner’s arrest occurred Feb. 17, a week before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which means she has been in Russian custody for more than three weeks. She’s accused of illegal crossing of a border with illegal narcotics, which in Russia can carry a prison sentence of up to 10 years. Allred said she has not been allowed visits from U.S. Embassy personnel.

“The fact we’ve requested consular access and it has not been granted is very unusual and extremely concerning,” Allred said, accusing Russia of “violating international norms.”

Griner’s family, her agents, officials from the WNBA and the Phoenix Mercury and top U.S. government officials have been mostly silent about her situation - a stance that, according to experts on Russian-American relations and people familiar with the case, is a strategic one, likely being dictated by a crisis communications firm.

A high-profile media campaign for her release, the thinking goes, would only make her situation worse by adding value to her in the eyes of the Russian authorities.

Griner’s representatives “should consider whether maintaining a low profile and just trying to fight the case through the legal system might be the best option,” said Tom Firestone, a partner at Stroock Stroock & Lavan and former resident legal adviser at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.

But this much is obvious: With U.S.-Russian relations at their most strained since the Cold War, in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

Mets From B1

to a source, to address runaway spending. Everything else in the CBT will be status quo from the previous collective bargaining agreement.

Teams will continue to pay a percentage of every dollar their payroll exceeds the base threshold.

First-time offenders will pay

Syracuse From B1

up as a kid.

Syracuse had finished its last game not an hour before, concluding the first losing season in the 46 Jim Boeheim has coached at his alma mater.

Jim Boeheim’s assessment of that campaign: “It’s the best season I’ve ever had coaching.

That says it all.”

The ACC men’s basketball tournament is so frequently populated by the characters who have helped define college basketball, not least the man whose program ended the Boeheims’ season Thursday afternoon: Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski, the retiring legend whose team closed out an 88-79 victory in the quarterfinals by scoring the game’s final 10 points. David Thompson and Tim Duncan.

Dean Smith and Jim Valvano.

Michael Jordan and Len Bias.

There’s no end to the list.

Sure, the games are normally in Greensboro or Charlotte where it is a crown jewel - and not Brooklyn, where it can get lost. But there’s always something about the event that helps the sport’s most luminous, important figures shine

ROBERT GAUTHIER/LOS ANGELES TIMES

The United States’ Brittney Griner (15) shoots over Japan’s Maki Takada (8) during the Tokyo 2020 Olympics Women’s Basketball Final at Saitama Super Arena on Aug. 8, 2021, in Saitama, Japan.

and the subsequent sanctions imposed by the United States and its NATO allies on Russia, it is a very dangerous time to be an American, particularly one with as high a profile as Griner, trapped in Russia.

“This case should not be political. It should be handled on a legal basis, and we’re hoping to keep it in that realm,” said Allred, who played football for Baylor University, where Griner was a national champion and Associated Press player of the year in 2012. “Of course, this is taking place against the backdrop of extremely strained relations when Russia is extremely isolated from the rest of the world.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday that U.S. officials are “doing everything we can” to help Griner.

“There’s only so much I can say given the privacy considerations at this point,” Blinken said.

Asked for further clarity on Griner’s situation on Wednesday, a State Department spokesperson referred back to Blinken’s comments.

At the heart of Griner’s situation is the question of whether she actually tried to smuggle hashish oil into Russia - where she has played for UMMC Ekaterinburg the past six seasons or whether, as some American experts suggest,

she could have been targeted and framed for the crime because of her highly visible public profile as a Black, gay American who is also an outspoken activist on racial and LGBTQ+ issues.

“I can’t say definitively she didn’t [do the crime], but the first thought I had when I read about [the arrest] is this sounds like [the Russians] taking an American hostage,” said Daniel Fried, the Weiser Family Distinguished Fellow at the Atlantic Council and formerly the U.S. ambassador to Poland under President Bill Clinton and assistant secretary of state for Europe under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

“It wouldn’t surprise me at all if they would do that - plant drugs and grab her. The American embassy and the U.S. government has been aware of the possibility of the Russians using Americans in Moscow . . . as bargaining chips. It would be just like the Russians to do this - pick somebody, make a case. Unless there is actual evidence [implicating Griner], which would frankly surprise me, I would regard this as a political case, and I feel badly for this person who is caught up in it.”

Asked about Griner’s culpability and the possibility she was framed, Allred said, “I really don’t know. I think the Russian criminal system is very

different than ours and is very opaque. We’ve seen trumped up charges against other Americans . . . So if it were to occur, it wouldn’t be the first time in history.”

Griner’s case has also opened an uncomfortable window into the economics of elite women’s basketball in the United States. From an American-centric viewpoint, Griner’s tenure for UMMC Ekaterinburg - named for the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company, the owners of which also own the team, and the central Russian city where it is located - is typically described as the overseas side-gig that occupies her during her offseason for the WNBA’s Mercury.

But for Griner and other top Americans in the WNBA, the converse is more accurate. By most objective measures, UMMC Ekaterinburg - which has a longer season and pays Griner as much as five times in salary what the Mercury pays her - is her main employer, and the WNBA an offseason side-gig. About half of all WNBA players head overseas at the conclusion of each WNBA season, in many cases earning more than the WNBA maximum salary of $228,094. (By comparison, the highest-paid player in the NBA, Golden State’s Stephen Curry, is earning $45.78 million this season, according to basketball-reference.com.)

Even by the standards of European basketball, UMMC Ekaterinburg, controlled by Russian billionaire owner Iskander Makhmudov and CEO Andrei Kozitsyn, is a deep-pocketed powerhouse. In 2015, it persuaded superstar Diana Taurasi to skip the WNBA season to rest and stay fresh for its own season, and its 2021-22 roster included five WNBA all-stars in Griner, Courtney Vandersloot, Allie Quigley, Breanna Stewart and Jonquel Jones.

“The year-round nature of women’s basketball takes it toll,” Taurasi wrote in an open letter to WNBA fans in 2015 about her decision to skip that WNBA season, “and the financial opportunity with my team in Russia would have been irresponsible to turn down. They offered to pay me to rest and I’ve decided to take them up on it. I want to be able to take of myself and my family when I am done playing.”

The influence of team owners Makhmudov and Kozitsyn, often described as oligarchs, could be among Griner’s biggest assets during this ordeal, and could also help explain the relative silence from her family and representatives.

“She’s not a tourist there. She’s working and living in Russia and probably paying Russian taxes. She has a network there that needs to be mobilized, including the oligarchs who pay her salary and probably know her personally at some level,” said David Szakonyi, an assistant Professor of Political Science at George Washington University and an expert on corruption in Russia.

“That may be why her camp is staying quiet and working those backchannels.”

a fee of 20% on the dollar, second-time offenders will pay 30% on the dollar, and third or subsequent time offenders will pay 50% on the dollar. In the new CBA, there will be CBT levels at $20 million above the threshold, $40 million above the threshold and now $60 million above the threshold.

There are no new draft-pick penalties for going over the CBT, per a source.

So, how can a fourth CBT tax level — specifically aimed at Cohen -- be good news for

the Mets?

The best-case scenario for Cohen and the Mets was always going to be strictly tax penalties — not newer, harsher draft-pick penalties — for going over the CBT. For the richest owner in MLB, richer than the next three richest owners combined, the fourth CBT tax level should be no issue for Cohen. The only thing it will cost him is money.

For now, the Mets current projected payroll for 2022 is $263 million, or $33 million

over the CBT threshold. GM Billy Eppler worked hard and fast to acquire Max Scherzer, Starling Marte, Mark Canha and Eduardo Escobar just before the lockout was enacted.

The spending spree led to an exciting free agency period for the Mets, setting them up advantageously before the lockout’s transaction freeze, which lasted 99 days.

But the Mets still aren’t done. They have holes to fill in the bullpen, decisions to make at third base, and depth

to acquire in the rotation. After all is said and done, it’s possible the Mets will blow past a $300 million payroll, which would represent the highest in the franchise’s history.

At least a portion of MLB’s 30 owners were keen to address Cohen’s runaway spending because he is setting the bar for the rest of the league. Now, the Mets can certainly work to get under the base threshold in future seasons and reset their penalty levels to avoid becoming

repeat offenders and paying higher overages.

But that will be up to Steve Cohen, who according to Forbes currently sports a net worth of $15.9 billion. This offseason, Cohen’s spending spree led to the unimaginable — Scherzer in a Mets uniform — and there is little reason to believe he will stop until the Amazin’s put their 36-year championship drought to rest and become World Series winners again.

and thrive.

Strip away all that history.

What remained was a dad and his two kids sharing a bench, a locker room, a floor for the last time.

“I was playing for this kid today,” Jimmy Boeheim said, nodding at his little brother.

“Just wanted to do everything I could to get him one more and to get our team one more.”

There are no more. Buddy Boeheim’s four seasons at Syracuse ended with him both as the ACC’s leading scorer and wearing Syracuse sweats to cheer on his teammates - his family - because he was suspended for a punch he threw at a Florida State player a day earlier. Jimmy Boeheim’s lone season as a graduate student at Syracuse, where he transferred after three successful years at Cornell, ended with an inspiring performance in which he and guard Joseph Girard III almost willed the ninth-seeded Orange past the top-seeded Blue Devils.

Jimmy Boeheim entered Thursday’s game having made 1 of his previous 12 threepoint attempts. Two weeks ago, in a blowout loss home loss to Duke, he missed the only three shots he took and didn’t score a point. With the Orange at 16-16 and needing

a win to move above .500 and be eligible for even the NIT, he scored a season-high 28 points Thursday by hitting 6 of 9 three-point shots.

He wanted one more game.

“He played like a big-time player today,” Krzyzewski said. “And he is a big-time player. He had a sensational performance. Not a good one.

A sensational performance.”

Krzyzewski knows the Boeheim family business so well that his oldest grandsons are best friends with Jimmy and Buddy. Krzyewski’s wife, Mickie, regularly texts and calls Boeheim’s wife, Juli.

When Krzyzewski was hired to run USA Basketball’s Olympic team some 15 years ago, he made Boeheim one of his assistants. They won gold together in Beijing, London and Rio de Janeiro.

“I don’t know if there’s anybody in coaching that could be better friends with another coach in his profession,” Krzyzewski said.

So he knew what the Boeheims would have in store for his Blue Devils on Thursday because he knew what Buddy had done the day before - and how the ACC had reacted.

“I knew Jimmy would pick up for Buddy,” Krzyzewski

said.

What anyone who had followed Jim Boeheim’s career knew, too: He would have thoughts about the suspension that ended his son’s career.

The preamble was this: In Wednesday’s second-round game, Buddy Boeheim was tangling with Florida State’s Wyatt Wilks under the basket when the Orange made a three-pointer. As he began to head back up the floor, Boeheim swung his right hand into Wilks’s midsection. The Seminoles senior ended up doubled over on the floor. The officials called nothing.

FSU Coach Leonard Hamilton said after the game: “There’s not a better kid in the ACC than Buddy Boeheim.”

On his YouTube channel, Wilks said later: “I don’t think he should be suspended.”

After Thursday’s loss to Duke, Buddy Boeheim said: “I’ve been thinking about the play for the last 24 hours, to tell you the truth. Over and over again, why I did it. I think it was just the heat of the moment. . . . It was just an honest mistake on my part. I have to live with that. I have to own up to that. I’m not here to argue whether or not I should have played or I should have been

suspended.”

His father interjected.

“I’ll take care of that,” Jim Boeheim said.

Krzyzewski is 75, and he is retiring. This is his last March.

Boeheim is 77, and he is going to keep going for who knows how long? They have combined for 93 seasons, 3,088 games, 2,296 wins. They used to coach in suits and now stomp the sidelines in quarterzips and sneakers.

And they are two of a dwindling number of coaches whose words - on any topic - matter. Jim Boeheim has a reputation for crankily assessing just about anything, whether it’s the site of the ACC tournament (he decidedly prefers nontraditional New York) or the NCAA’s transfer portal (not a fan). If his own kid is suspended from the conference tournament - and a chance to extend his career?

“I’ve got a couple things to say,” Jim Boeheim said.

Start with this: If the referees had determined that Buddy Boeheim’s punch was a “flagrant-two” foul - meaning he would have been ejected - then the matter would have ended during Syracuse’s blowout win. But the officials never reviewed the play.

“They’ve looked at the

video every single time this year,” Boeheim said. “The kid was laying on the floor. Wyatt was laying. On. The. Floor. . . . They’re punishing this guy right here because they didn’t do their job.”

Normally, nothing says March like Jim Boeheim griping about the injustice of officiating. But this had an edge.

This was about blood.

“These two guys didn’t have that much talent,” Boeheim said of his kids. “They got not much from me, and they got size from their mother. But they worked with it, and they made themselves into really, really good basketball players. . . . I’m really proud of how they got here, not that they’re good.”

They were good. And now their careers are over. As he tried to assess it all, Buddy Boeheim said, “I truly gave it everything I had every day,” and he couldn’t hold back the tears.

“All right,” Jim Boeheim said. “Thanks, Buddy.”

He was a coach thanking his player. He was also a father thanking his son. Syracuse’s season is over before March really gets going, but it was clear right then and there why Jim Boeheim has never had a better one.

COLUMBIA-GREENE MEDIA

B6 - Saturday - Sunday, March 12-13, 2022

Marcus Hayes: Ain’t that American: Baseball finally returns Marcus Hayes The Philadelphia Inquirer

Come Sunday, mitts will be poppin’.

Hallelujah.

Major League Baseball owners ended their 99-day lockout Thursday when they acceded to a host of concessions to players who spent the last five seasons toiling under the yoke of an onerous collective bargaining agreement. It was the second-longest work stoppage in the game’s history, and it was the last thing the country needed.

Nothing heals America like its national pastime, and, after nearly seven years of division, of protest, of pandemic, insurrection, and, now, war, America needs healing like seldom before.

Most Americans under 55, and that’s about 80 percent of Americans, have no solid memories of the country in trauma other than the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Baseball helped to heal us then; in a career of golden moments, it was the finest hour of the late Harry Kalas.

It helped in the healing process of 400 years of discrimination and oppression, when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier; with four series already canceled by commissioner Rob Manfred (they’ve now been reinstated), the 75th anniversary of that day, April 15, was in peril of being lost.

It helped heal then. It will help heal us now.

Baseball’s American story The last two years weren’t the same. Baseball’s truncated 60-game season as COVID-19 raged through the country, and its socially distanced, social-justice adjusted season in 2021, served more of a reminder of our challenges and our differences than of our bonds. But, as COVID cases diminish and as we strive to better understand each other, this summer promises to be a better story. Not a perfect tale, but, again, this is America.

At any rate, the game is back, and it’s going to be better than ever. An immediate flurry of offseason acquisitions and player movement will frame the opening of spring training on Sunday, which sets up an opening-day date of April 7 that will begin a full, 162-game season.

Whew.

Don’t be too angry at the actors who cost us

VINCENT CARCHIETTA/USA TODAY

New York Mets fans celebrate during the seventh inning of the game between the New York Yankees and the Mets at Yankee Stadium on July 4, 2021.

a month of spring training. The arrogance and the hubris of the 30 billionaire owners cannot be overstated. They are the unworthy stewards of a lovely, dying game -- a game whose very bones contradict the trend of attention-span shrinkage, cable-cutting, and wealth disparity in the United States. But billionaires cannot help acting with arrogance and hubris. It’s the American way.

As thrilling as the weekly holiday the NFL gives major cities, and as interesting as basketball can become when its supernovas collide, America remains tethered to a ridiculous venture: a timeless, clock-less game that cannot be played in precipitation. A game made ever more unappealing by Ivy League accountants in caps who have so distilled the game to an unnatural calculus problem that analytics have literally been litigated out of the game.

By 2023, shifts will be modified, pitch clocks started, and bases enlarged. All of these improvements might even make a universal designated hitter bearable (but I doubt it). The

Bears agree to trade Khalil Mack to Chargers for two draft picks Brad Biggs Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO — The Chicago Bears went all-in on pursuing a Super Bowl championship when they traded for Khalil Mack four years ago. Now, in new general manager Ryan Poles’ first big move, they are shipping out the edge rusher in the hopes of laying a foundation for the future.

The Bears have agreed to trade Mack, a six-time Pro Bowl selection, to the Los Angeles Chargers in exchange for a secondround draft pick this year and a sixth-rounder in 2023. The deal is contingent on Mack, who underwent left foot surgery after he was placed in injured reserve last season, passing a physical.

Poles has mentioned multiple times that the Bears are short on draft picks as they pay off the remainder of the trade with the New York Giants to move up and draft quarterback Justin Fields last year. He called it the “hand we were dealt” last week at the scouting combine in Indianapolis, where multiple sources hinted the Bears could be looking to move one of the few assets on the roster that could bring a quality return.

Adding the Chargers’ second-round pick (No. 48 overall) gives the Bears three picks in the top 100 of what is considered a deep draft. It’s not good for quarterbacks, and there are more questions than answers for the how the top 10 will shake out, but plenty of good prospects will be available on Day 2 (Rounds 2 and 3) and entering Day 3. The other Bears picks in the top 100 are at No. 39 in

Round 2 and No. 71 in Round 3.

Mack, 31, had six sacks through seven games last season before the Bears rested him with the foot injury. When the situation didn’t improve, he was shut down for the season. Although he played in all 16 games in 2020, he battled a variety of injuries that limited him to nine sacks.

Now, Mack will be paired with Joey Bosa playing for Chargers coach Brandon Staley, who was the Bears outside linebackers coach in 2018.

The Bears still have Robert Quinn, who is coming off an 18 1/2-sack season, and this potentially could create a larger role for Trevis Gipson, who had seven sacks last year in his second season.

The trade, which cannot become official until the first day of the new league year March 16, saddles the Bears with $24 million in dead cap space for this season. He would have counted for more than $30 million against the cap if he were on the roster.

If Poles doesn’t believe the Bears roster is positioned for a playoff run right away — and it certainly doesn’t look as if it is — the time to trade Mack was now. Paying a player entering his ninth season near the top of scale for pass rushers wouldn’t make a lot of sense for a team entering a transitionary phase.

The Denver Broncos received second- and thirdround picks from the Rams for pass rusher Von Miller during the middle of last season. Denver paid down the remainder of Miller’s contract by $9 million.

changes are, generally, brilliant. The players used the proposed changes as leverage, which was as clever as it was disingenuous, since the changes are the only hope for baseball’s future.

The average nine-inning, regular-season game in the major leagues last year was played in an all-time high of 3 hours and 10 minutes, three minutes longer than the previous year and 19 minutes longer than in 2011. The changes should both speed the game along and produce more action than the all-or-nothing proposition it has become, in which batters either hit a home run, walk, strike out, or smack a ball at one of the seven players positioned to the pitcher’s left or right.

Minimum wages will increase, and so will median wages, and, therefore, so will the quality of the game. This will resonate loudly, because the owners and their soulless Ivy lieutenants had figured out how to suppress the most powerful labor market in sports by devaluing the average player. This strategy produced a game played by unprepared youths and/

or underpaid veterans who were desperate to clobber homers to ensure one more season of not having to go play in Japan. MLB viewers strike back You did this. You let the owners know this was not acceptable.

Viewership was down 12% overall in 2021.

You’d grown ever less satisfied with a poor product that featured indifferent stars employed by indifferent oligarchs who employ dinosaur executives largely stuck in the 1980s mindset that baseball still reigns supreme.

Baseball might be the most American of sports, but these executives clearly have never heard of Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady, and LeBron James.

This latest testament to greed is that owners made ever more money until the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted that steady growth, grossing a record $10.7 billion in 2019 (a 2020 partial shutdown and limited attendance protocols the last two years skewed those receipts).

Further, according to forbes.com, they have seen the valuation of their franchises balloon by more than 600% since 2004, to an average of $1.9 billion in 2021, led by the Yankees, at $5.25 billion. The Phillies were worth about 2.05 billion.

Meanwhile, payrolls have fallen, by about 5% since 2016, when the players agreed to a catastrophically bad deal, which left them with no choice but to try and claw back losses this winter.

The new deal eases the pain of baseball’s younger players, who suffer an indentured servitude unlike that of any other major sport. It provides hope for less grotesque corruption in the wild-west process of acquiring international players, discourages the rampant tanking for top picks, and generally pulls baseball closer to a 21st Century template of employee treatment.

But, more than anything, the game on the field will be better.

It was an infuriating and saddening and worrisome 99 days; entirely unnecessary, completely overdramatic, and, in the end, typically American.

Hallelujah.

Shepard agrees to return to Giants on restructured, one-year deal Pat Leonard New York Daily News

Shep is back for year seven.

Wide receiver Sterling Shepard is returning to the Giants on a restructured, oneyear contract, a source confirmed to the Daily News early Thursday evening.

Shepard’s existing contract ran through 2023. He is making financial concessions as he returns from a torn left Achilles in exchange for hitting free agency a year earlier.

The financial terms of the new deal were not immediately disclosed.

The Giants would have had to eat $7.9 million in dead money this season if they’d cut Shepard outright and would have saved only $4.5 million against the salary cap.

The restructure will lower Shepard’s $8.475 million scheduled salary to an undisclosed number, lower his scheduled $12.4 million salary cap hit, and wipe out next season’s scheduled $13.4 million cap hit altogether.

Shepard’s cap hits for the 2022 and 2023 seasons were so high because the Giants restructured his contract in September. The team was badly cap-strapped throughout the 2021 season, which resulted in several player restructures just to stay afloat.

They converted $5.9 million of his base salary into a signing bonus in September and, in the process, added $1.9 million to his 2022 and 2023 cap hits.

Now, Shepard, 29, the longest-tenured Giant, will return for a seventh season with the team that drafted him in the 2016 second round out of Oklahoma.

His contract restructure is one of several moves GM Joe Schoen is making to try to

HARRY HOW/GETTY IMAGES

New York Giants wide receiver Sterling Shepard during warm-ups before a game against the Los Angeles Chargers at SoFi Stadium on Dec. 12 in Inglewood, California.

clean up the Giants’ salary cap. And Thursday’s agreement will likely kick off a flurry of activity in the next few days before the 2022 league year opens next Wednesday.

Corner James Bradberry is a trade or release candidate. Linebacker Blake Martinez (torn ACL) may take a pay cut or end up being released. And safety Logan Ryan is in jeopardy, even though cutting him wouldn’t save meaningful money.

The News first reported in late February

that there are people in the Giants’ front office who want to move on from Ryan.

Schoen also has left the door open to trading Saquon Barkley at the right price, and recent reports oddly have connected the Giants to Bills free agent quarterback Mitchell Trubisky as possible training camp competition for Daniel Jones.

In the coming days, Schoen’s actions will say more than any words he has spoken in press conferences to date.

With MLB back in business, the free-agent frenzy is about to begin Mike DiGiovanna Los Angeles Times

MESA, Ariz. — The flame under baseball’s hot stove, extinguished by an owner-imposed lockout of players on Dec. 2, could roar back to life like a bonfire in the wake of a new collective bargaining agreement between the sides.

The only question is whether this March Madness will rival the fever pitch of last Nov. 28-Dec. 1, when 11 players -led by Corey Seager, Marcus Semien, Javier Baez and Max Scherzer -- signed $1.3 billion worth of contracts in a fourday span.

“When this deal is done, it’s gonna be the craziest

free-agent frenzy we’ve witnessed,” former Dodgers slugger Joc Pederson wrote on Twitter last week. “Popcorn up, sports fans.”

Pederson, who won World Series rings with the Dodgers in 2020 and the Atlanta Braves in 2021, is one of 250 or so free agents who will be balling for dollars. A flurry of trades could also contribute to a head-spinning number of transactions between now and the start of the season.

Headlining the free-agent class are Carlos Correa, the slick-fielding, power-hitting shortstop who could command a deal of at least $300 million, and Freddie Freeman,

the 32-year-old first baseman who capped his 12th season with the Braves by leading them to a World Series title.

Correa, 27, is coming off a strong season in which he hit .279 with an .850 on-base-plusslugging percentage, a careerhigh 26 home runs, 92 RBIs, 116 strikeouts and 75 walks and won a Gold Glove Award for the Houston Astros. He has a .272 average, .840 OPS, 18 homers and 59 RBIs in 79 career postseason games.

Freeman, a former Orange El Modena High star, hit .300 with an .896 OPS, 31 homers, 83 RBIs, a National League-leading 120 runs, 107 strikeouts and 87 walks last season, and he’s a

proven performer under pressure, with a .290 average, .916 OPS, nine homers and 20 RBIs in 42 playoff games.

An Atlanta institution for a decade, Freeman was unable to strike a pre-lockout deal with the Braves, who could now face stiff competition from the New York Yankees, Toronto Blue Jays, Tampa Bay Rays and possibly the Dodgers to sign the franchise player.

Among the other marquee position-playing attractions are outfielders Nick Castellanos, Kyle Schwarber, Jorge Soler, Eddie Rosario and Michael Conforto, shortstop Trevor Story and utility man Kris Bryant.

Saturday - Sunday, March 12-13, 2022 - B7

COLUMBIA-GREENE MEDIA

Relative’s well-wishes have become burdensome Dear Abby, I am blessed to have a wonderfully supportive family, which includes my and my husband’s siblings. I was recently scheduled for major abdominal surgery. For the weeks leading up to it, I quietly went about preparing the house and putting DEAR ABBY systems in place so I could be absent, but otherwise tried not to dwell on the upcoming unpleasantness.

Most of my support people checked in occasionally to see how I was doing or if I needed anything.

One sister-in-law, however, has been overthe-top. She sends cards, texts, flowers and calls. I appreciate her support, but it’s too much. The cards always say the same thing — “heal gently” and “these are the good old days of medicine.” In the weeks leading up to surgery and afterward, I have received nearly a dozen cards, plus her texts, etc.

Is there a nice way to let her know it is too much and I’m tired? My body reminds me every day that I’m healing, but slowly. I don’t want the attention and the reminder that I’m not yet where I’d like to be. Please let me know if there’s a polite, graceful way to make it STOP! Progressing In California

JEANNE PHILLIPS

A “nice” way to phrase it might be to say, “Honey, I am grateful for all the support you’ve been giving me, but the surgery is behind me now, and I am slowly regaining my strength. Please don’t send me any more getwell cards — the dozen you have sent have already worked their magic.”

Dear Abby, I am writing because I’m concerned about my husband’s drinking. We have been married 35 years and we love each other very much. We are both retired. He drinks at least a six-pack a day. Although

he doesn’t appear to be intoxicated, I know this has to mean he is an alcoholic. Because he doesn’t drink and drive, he thinks this is fine. Besides being unhealthy and giving him a huge beer gut, it’s expensive. Your thoughts, please.

Concerned Wife In Georgia Schedule your and your husband’s “annual medical checkups,” regardless of how long they may have been delayed. Before you go in, the doctor should be informed that your beloved hubby imbibes a six-pack per day — at the very least. Whether this will motivate the doctor to encourage him to quit or cut back is anybody’s guess, but I am hopeful.

You could benefit from attending some Al-Anon meetings. Al-Anon is an offshoot of Alcoholics Anonymous that helps the families and friends of individuals who have an alcohol problem. I am sure if you do, you will not only find it enlightening, but also beneficial for the practical advice and emotional support it offers. Go to al-anon.org/info for more information.

Dear Readers: This is my annual reminder for all of you who live where daylight saving time is observed: Don’t forget to turn your clocks FORWARD one hour tonight at bedtime. Daylight saving time begins at 2 a.m. tomorrow. I love this ritual because it signals the coming of spring and with it longer, brighter days and warmer weather. For me, it’s a mood elevator and an energizer. May spring bring good things your way! — Love, Abby Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Contact Dear Abby at www.DearAbby.com or P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.

Horoscope

By Stella Wilder Born today, you are certainly no quitter, and yet while this means you will almost certainly taste your fair share of victory in your life, the fact is that you must get your palate used to disappointment as well, for sometimes the tenacity of which you are so proud may work against you as you cling to a possibility which is, in fact, no possibility at all. You don’t always see the options that lie before you, so committed are you to the road that you have chosen.

What you stand for is clear to everyone who knows you, as you aren’t the kind to hide your beliefs or principles from others. Indeed, you are so proud of them that you are more than willing to share them with those around you — even announce them to the world at large. They come from your very core, and are part of the “real you.”

Also born on this date are: James Taylor, singer-songwriter; Liza Minnelli, actress and singer; Myrna Fahey, actress; Aaron Eckhart, actor; Jack Kerouac, author; Jaimie Alexander, actress; Edward Albee, playwright.

To see what is in store for you tomorrow, find your birthday and read the corresponding paragraph. Let your birthday star be your daily guide.

SUNDAY, MARCH 13 PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) — You’re feeling the need to reconnect with someone who went in a different direction some time ago. It’s not hard to do — simply reach out!

ARIES (March 21-April 19) — You’re ready to dispense with a responsibility you only recently took on, but today’s not the day. Someone else will tell you when.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20) — The more specific you can be about your needs and desires,

Pickles

Pearls Before Swine

Classic Peanuts

Garfield

Zits Dark Side of the Horse

the closer you will find them — but take care to keep mere fantasies to yourself!

GEMINI (May 21-June 20) — Despite the doubts you may be harboring, you can engage in a certain endeavor with others without risking your reputation. You can do well!

CANCER (June 21-July 22) — Is it success that you’re afraid of? Give a new opportunity a try, because you’re likely to find that the odds in your favor have increased.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) — You may be afraid of what you’ll find if you look closely within yourself for the answers to tough questions today — but it’s a requirement!

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) — You can put your own unusual tastes and talents on display today if you choose — but take care you’re not wasting them on the “unworthy.”

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) — Something you see as a potential difficulty is really nothing of the kind, as you’ll discover if you put your fears away and get moving.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) — What comes to you today is meant for you, regardless of its source. You may have to investigate closely to learn who to thank for this boon.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) — You’ll have little choice today when it comes to methods, as only one will serve truly the motives that are currently driving you.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) — You may sense that someone wants more from you than mere information, but this is no time for guesswork. Wait until the request is made.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) — You’ll have the chance to hone your skills a little further before putting them and your own future on the line. A teacher throws you a curve.

Daily Maze

COPYRIGHT 2022 UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC.

Goren bridge WITH BOB JONES

As dealer, what call would you make?

©2020 Tribune Content Agency, LLC

WEEKLY BRIDGE QUIZ Q 1 - Neither vulnerable, as South, you hold:

Q 5 - North-South vulnerable, as South, you hold:

♠ J 4 ♥ K 4 ♦ 10 9 8 5 3 ♣ Q 10 9 5

♠ K J 10 9 6 ♥ 7 ♦ 3 ♣ A K Q 7 6 3

Partner opens 1H and right-hand opponent bids 1S. What call would you make?

SOUTH 1♣ ?

Q 2 - North-South vulnerable, as South, you hold: ♠ A Q 10 4 ♥ K 9 5 3 ♦ A 8 2 ♣ 9 4

Right-hand opponent opens 3D. What call would you make?

♠ 10 3 ♥ K 6 3 ♦ J 5 3 ♣ A K Q 5 3

Partner opens 2S and right-hand opponent passes. What call would you make?

Q 4 - Both vulnerable, as South, you hold: ♠ 10 7 6 4 ♥ A Q 2 ♦ Void ♣ A 8 7 6 4 2

NORTH 1♦

EAST 2♥

What call would you make?

Q 6 - East-West vulnerable, as South, you hold: ♠KQ2♥AK5♦43♣KJ982 SOUTH 1NT ?

WEST Pass

NORTH 4NT

Columbia-Greene EAST Pass

What call would you make?

Look for answers on Tuesday.

(Bob Jones welcomes readers’ responses sent in care of this newspaper or to Tribune Content Agency, LLC., 16650 Westgrove Dr., Suite 175, Addison, TX 75001.)

MEDIA

Q 3 - East-West vulnerable, as South, you hold:

WEST Pass

Sponsor Comics 518-828-1616

COLUMBIA-GREENE MEDIA

B8 - Saturday - Sunday, March 12-13, 2022 Close to Home

Free Range

THAT SCRAMBLED WORD GAME

Level 1

2

3

4

SMYES KULEF KOECOI DSIGNI Solution to Friday’s puzzle

3/12/22 Complete the grid so each row, column and 3-by-3 box (in bold borders) contains every digit, 1 to 9.

For strategies on how to solve Sudoku, visit

Get Fuzzyy

©2022 Tribune Content Agency, LLC All Rights Reserved.

Answer here: Yesterday’s

sudoku.org.uk © 2022 The Mepham Group. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency. All rights reserved.

Heart of the City

Dilbert

B.C.

For Better or For Worse

Wizard of Id

Crossword Puzzle

ACROSS 1 Your, to Shakespeare 4 __ spades; high card 9 “Heidi” setting 13 Housetop 15 “Good job!”

16 Songwriter Porter 17 “Om” chanter’s exercise 18 Crowbar 19 Bit of evidence 20 Sky 22 Bark beetles’ victims 23 Labyrinth 24 Elected official: abbr.

26 Umpire’s cry 29 Artistic 34 Wading bird 35 Fight on horseback 36 Hightailed it 37 Ladder piece 38 Capitol roofs 39 Leave suddenly 40 Do something 41 Raise AKC dogs 42 Trial setting 43 Most irritating 45 Inferior 46 “You can’t judge a book by __ cover” 47 Suffer defeat 48 Croquet setting 51 Wood slivers 56 Was in the red 57 Exhilarate 58 Quarter, for one 60 Banana casing 61 Classic dog’s name 62 Alan of “Gilligan’s Island” 63 Catch sight of 64 TV’s “Dancing with the __” 65 Nickname for Dorothy DOWN 1 Endeavor 2 Dobbin’s foot

Andy Capp

Bound & Gagged

Created by Jacqueline E. Mathews

3 Picnic basket lover of cartoons 4 On fire 5 __ de menthe 6 Wasp nest site 7 Heating chamber 8 Military stronghold 9 Put up with 10 Recline lazily 11 Little Jack Horner’s prize 12 Notices 14 Agriculture 21 Manufacture 25 Break a fast 26 Leftover fragment 27 Peace agreement 28 Makes a scene 29 Sky streaker 30 Had regrets 31 Small appliances 32 Worth 33 Break and __; commit burglary 35 Montana & others

3/12/22

Friday’s Puzzle Solved

Non Sequitur

©2022 Tribune Content Agency, LLC All Rights Reserved.

38 Pieces of furniture 39 Implore 41 Drill tip 42 Life jacket 44 Good-hearted 45 Company shunners 47 Liquid measure

3/12/22

48 Easy stride 49 Flabbergasts 50 Bawl 52 Story line 53 Vesuvius’ outflow 54 “Abbey __”; Beatles album 55 Storage building 59 Hair covering

Rubes

“

Get the free JUST JUMBLE app • Follow us on Twitter @PlayJumble

By David L. Hoyt and Jeff Knurek

Unscramble these Jumbles, one letter to each square, to form four ordinary words.

Now arrange the circled letters to form the surprise answer, as suggested by the above cartoon.

”

AnswersMonday) Tuesday (Answers Jumbles: GOING THYME INDIGO TODDLE Answer: The beagle who escaped to use the neighbor’s pool thought — HOT DIGGITY DOG

COLUMBIA-GREENE MEDIA

Saturday - Sunday, March 12-13, 2022 - C1

Ben Affleck appears as Batman. Warner Bros.

Ranking the on-screen Batmen Who’s the best (and worst) on-screen Batman?

By ADAM GRAHAM Detroit News

This week sees the release of “The Batman,” the latest big screen take on the Dark Knight, the top dog when it comes to our cinematic superheroes.

Sure, others have come along and out-grossed the Caped Crusader at the box office, but it was the original “Batman” movie in 1989 that awakened Hollywood to what big screen superheroes could be, and laid the blueprint for our current all-in comic book franchise landscape.

Over the years, the Batsuit has been passed on from A-list star to A-list star, each of whom has given their own take on the billionaire by day, vigilante by night.

Who’s the best Batman, and who had us paying more attention to the villains? Here’s our ranking of the best big screen Batmen, from worst to first.

7. BEN AFFLECK (from “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” 2016 and “Justice League,” 2017) Ben Affleck always looked miserable in the Batsuit. Not that the Bruce Wayne he was playing was a miserable guy. But Affleck himself looked miserable, like he didn’t want to be there, like he didn’t want to be bulked up in a Batman suit, like he’d rather have been just about anywhere else. It wasn’t so much a dour characterization as it was the work of a guy who just looked unhappy and uncomfortable — he said as much in a recent interview — and that feeling came across on screen in his portrayal. Part of it is it feels like he was never given a chance to become or grow into the character: he arrived, fully formed, as Batman in “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” a film he shared with an already established Superman (Henry Cavill, whom audiences were introduced to in 2013’s “Man of Steel”). Batman — Batman, for crying out loud! — was treated as an afterthought, and Affleck didn’t do anything to make the character his own. He looked like he See BEST C2

Christian Bale starred as Batman in three films: “Batman Begins” in 2005, “The Dark Knight” in 2008 and “The Dark Knight Rises” in 2012. TNS

A FRESH PERSPECTIVE ON THE CAPED CRUSADER Robert Pattinson brings a new take on ‘The Batman’

Batman story: he’s fighting crime in Gotham, facing off with the Riddler and Penguin and tangling with Catwoman. In

By KATIE WALSH practice, it’s Batman by way of “The GodTribune News Service father” and “Zodiac,” a serial killer mysThere’s this kid named Bruce Wayne. tery mashed up with a mobster movie. The Rich. His parents were murdered. He genre-play is a welcome refresher, while lives with his butler in Gotham City. Likes the detective work is an evolution from gadgets, and cars, and abmerely banging up the solutely abhors criminals. clownish petty criminals of He’s got a thing for bats, Gotham.

‘THE BATMAN’ too. Maybe you’ve heard of While chasing The Rid3.5 stars (out of 4) him? dler (Paul Dano), a JigBut this Bruce Wayne, MPAA rating: PG-13 (for saw-like serial murderer strong violent and disturbthe one at the center of leaving the bodies of Going content, drug content, Matt Reeves’ “The Battham’s leaders in his wake, strong language, and man,” isn’t like other Bruce Batman stumbles into the some suggestive material) Waynes — and that’s a deep-rooted corruption Running time: 2:56 good thing. We’ve had of the city, and organized plenty of Batmen, from the crime’s grip on local poliWhere to watch: In thesuave (Michael Keaton) to tics and law enforcement, aters now the campy (George Clootouching even his own stoney), the goofy (Adam ried family history, hitting West) to the gritty (Christian Bale), from uncomfortably close to home. The crimithe glam (Val Kilmer) to the grouchy (Ben nal underbelly of Gotham is populated Affleck). But this Batman, played by Rob- with crooked cops and menacing gangert Pattinson, is our goth Bruce Wayne, sters, specifically a transformed Colin Farmore disaffected youth than playboy bil- rell (recognizable only by the resonance lionaire, and that allows Reeves, as a di- of his voice) as the Penguin. In the allurrector, to play with all kinds of grimy im- ing and street-smart cocktail waitress Seagery, and as a writer, to grapple with the lina, aka Catwoman (Zoe Kravitz), Batman real function of Batman. It’s a necessary finds a guide into this world, and eventuquestioning that offers a revealing spin on ally, an ally, perhaps more, though she’s this familiar character.

See FRESH C2 On paper, “The Batman” is a standard

Jeffrey Wright, right, stars as Lt. James Gordon with Robert Pattinson, left, as Batman. Warner Bros. Pictures/TNS

Zoe Kravitz, left, stars as Catwoman opposite Robert Pattinson in “The Batman.”

Warner Bros.

COLUMBIA-GREENE MEDIA

C2 - Saturday - Sunday, March 12-13, 2022

Did an alligator just eat my phone?

Animals are swallowing human stuff; zoo has a warning

By CARLI TEPROFF Miami Herald

Jeffrey Wright, left, as Lt. James Gordon and Robert Pattinson in “The Batman.” Warner Bros. Pictures

Fresh From C1

way too cool for him, or anyone, frankly.

Working with cinematographer Greig Fraser (Oscarnominated for “Dune”), Reeves brings a unique sense of style to “The Batman,” which is rendered almost entirely in shades of red and black, pops of neon gleaming through the rain that drenches Gotham and covers it in ethereal mist. It’s a completely unique look for a comic book movie, indeed dark and dour, but thrillingly composed and lit, the style working with the story, rather than against it.

Michael Giacchino’s score throbs insistently throughout, and Reeves makes brilliant use of a couple of songs as thematic touch points, a modern choice and a classical piece alternating to signify specific character and story moments.

The film is so melodramatically operatic and over-the-top that it somehow wraps around to become campy again,

Best From C1

just wanted to get the whole thing over with and move on.

6. GEORGE CLOONEY (from “Batman & Robin,” 1997) Poor Georgie. Clooney was still a budding movie star when he got offered the role of Batman in director Joel Schumacher’s second go-round at the Bat helm, and he would have been crazy to turn the offer down. But what he probably didn’t realize at the time was he was signing on to a disaster so misguided it threatened to derail the series entirely. Not that it’s Clooney’s fault, but there’s only so much he could do playing second fiddle to the nipples on his own Bat suit.

Clooney, who was still on “ER” at the time, is adept at playing Bruce Wayne, and Clooney is smooth enough to sell the whole billionaire playboy thing; Clooney is the Bruce Wayne you want at charity galas, even if at the time he was still doing that thing where he acted by putting his chin down and shaking his head back and forth. But as “Batman & Robin” crashes and burns in real time, Clooney doesn’t have much to do except watch it go down

especially because throughout all the heavy, portentous story, Reeves and co-writer Peter Craig sprinkle sly flashes of humor and self-reflection about Batman lore. But the self-reflection goes much deeper for Bruce as a character, and that’s what makes this Batman reboot necessary.

This brooding Bruce isn’t content to merely fund orphanages by day and beat up petty thieves at night. As he comes closer and closer to the Riddler, a terrifyingly methodical villain, Bruce learns that they’re not so different after all: both are just two weird guys in masks, trying to fight crime in Gotham. That confrontation forces him to reckon with the purpose of being Batman, with what function he can serve as a crime-fighting superhero. It’s a reckoning that’s been long overdue for the man in the bat suit, and one that’s beautifully crafted with care by the artisans behind “The Batman.” In its uncompromising vision, it may not be for everyone, but it’s definitely the movie that Batman needed. in flames. Returning to “ER” probably felt like a warm blanket.

5. WILL ARNETT (from “The Lego Batman Movie,” 2017) OK, it was only a voice performance, and Will Arnett has been doing his low-voice grumble thing (hilariously, it should be noted) since he played a villain role on “30 Rock.” But there was levity and vulnerability in Arnett’s portrayal of the Dark Knight, and his comedic sensibilities helped cut through the self-seriousness that by 2017 had come to define and overtake the Bat character. Call him the Light Knight.

4. VAL KILMER (from “Batman Forever,” 1995) In his 2021 documentary “Val,” Val Kilmer described his frustration with playing Batman, mostly in the way that once he put on the suit, he was barely able to move his body.

That stiffness stifled his abilities as an actor, he said, and he was essentially reduced to a pair of lips. As far as lips go, you can do worse than Val’s. But he had other obstacles in his way, including not getting swallowed whole by Jim Carrey’s go-big-or-go-home portrayal of the Riddler or by Joel Schumacher’s over-the-top cartoon

MIAMI — Are you missing your phone? It might be in the digestive tract of an alligator.

Zoo Miami has noticed a disturbing trend. Human visitors are dropping or throwing their belongings — pacifiers, sunglasses, water bottles, coins, hearing aids, pretty much anything else you can think of — to the alligators, komodo dragons, hyenas.

And the animals do what animals do: Eat it.

There’s a price to pay when a zoo animal swallows something that comes from a human. For the animal. And for the keeper.

The keeper has the not-soglamorous job of sifting through piles of poop looking for what’s left of your water bottle that’s causing digestive alarm. And the animal might need emergency surgery to avoid a blockage if the object doesn’t come out in the end.

Just ask Estrella the komodo dragon. She swallowed a blue rubber water bottle with a metal carabiner. Estrella was rushed to the animal hospital in July 2020 for an emergency endoscopy.

But removing it all was difficult because the carabiner was broken. Gwen Myers, Zoo Miami’s chief of animal health, said the sharp edge of the metal ring made removing it through the esophagus tricky.

So the surgical team cut open Estrella and removed the bottle.

It took a month for the giant lizard to recover.

Zoo Miami has a solution to what’s happening.

“Stop throwing things into the animals’ enclosures,” said the zoo’s ambassador, Ron Magill.

And stop dropping your valuables near them, too — and if you do, let a worker know immediately, the zoo says.

The problem of human possessions getting swallowed by animals has become so troubling recently that the West

Kendall attraction is renovating the alligator habitat to add a catch screen, to block your new iPhone 13 from going down a gator’s gullet.

The zoo has also removed all of the rubber mulch that was used throughout the park because it had become a part of the animals’ diet. A handful of mulch was just found inside a hyena named Maxi when the crew gave her a regular exam this month.

Another problem: guests throwing coins into animal pools as if they were wishing fountains. Coins pose the risk of metal toxicity.

“Please come to the zoo to appreciate our animals,” Myers said, “and respect them by being aware of the danger of something being thrown in or falling into the enclosure.”

CELLPHONES,WATER BOTTLES AND MORE So what becomes of all the items swallowed, lodged in or pooped out of animals?

Let’s put it this way: You’re not getting back your phone, not that you would want the smelly thing returned anyway.

The zoo has a growing collection of hundreds of undigested possessions. Sunglasses. Rocks.

And kids’ toys — there are even two plastic alligators retrieved from, you guessed it, alligators.

WHAT DID THE ANIMALS SWALLOW? Strangest item: Toss-up between a hearing aid and a cellphone Largest item: Collapsible water bottle with carabiner Smallest item: Batteries and coins Most difficult surgery: Estrella’s operation in 2020 to remove a water bottle Most common item: Coins and pacifiers

The collection is meant to educate visitors on what happens when animals eat stuff they shouldn’t be eating.

In the collection: a coin with a hole after it went through an alligator’s digestive system.

Then there are the visitors who deliberately throw things into a habitat. Signs that say “Do Not Feed the Animals” don’t only refer to food as we know it. Animals are “indiscriminate feeders” and don’t know the difference between food and a hazard.

Myers said that most people don’t “do it to cause malice,” but animals could suffer if they eat something other than the food provided to them.

Meanwhile, the common

“Do Not Feed” signs will soon be enhanced with digital boards.

“I am so disappointed that people are not reading these signs,” Magill said.

WHAT SHOULD YOU DO IF AN ITEM GOES INTO AN ENCLOSURE? So, you just dropped something into an animal enclosure by accident. What do you do now?

Report it immediately, the zoo says. Sometimes a zookeeper can retrieve your keys or coins by using a grabbing tool or moving an animal to another space.

And if that isn’t possible and the item gets swallowed, medical staff can start monitoring an animal for digestive changes.

“We take the watch-and-see approach,” Myers said. “We are just holding our breath until we see it coming out the other end.”

But keep in mind: If an animal ingests your item, consider it lost, Myers said.

The same goes if you see someone throwing something.

Myers said that intentionally “harassing an animal” could result in criminal charges.

At the least, a person can be asked to leave the zoo, Myers said. “The laws are in place to protect the animals.”

take on the material. With all that being said, Kilmer was fine, even if he was reduced to the third or fourth most interesting thing in his own movie.

He famously walked away from the cape rather than continuing the role, which turned out to be a wise move, even if it tagged him as a “difficult” actor, a label he was never able to shake. Even still, Kilmer’s time as Batman will always feel unfinished.

3. ROBERT PATTINSON (from “The Batman,” 2022) He’s the most brooding Batman yet — he can’t get much darker without going on tour with Bauhaus — as Robert Pattinson plays Batman/ Bruce Wayne like he just arrived in Gotham City after taking a red eye flight from Forks, Wash.

We don’t need to see his parents getting killed in an alley to know that he wears that loss on his soul, and R-Pattz plays his Batman so emo that he probably still has a LiveJournal somewhere in his online archives. It would be nice if Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne was a little better at schmoozing and pressing the flesh at fancy-shmancy charity balls and fundraisers, a pre-requisite for playing the part. But he’s an effective mix of shadow warrior, vengeance seeker and Gotham City savior, and one thing Matt Reeves’ film does well is it gives him ample time to establish the character as his own. He’s a Dark Knight for our dark times.

2. CHRISTIAN BALE

George Clooney, left, as Batman and Chris O’Donnell as Robin in the 1997 movie, “Batman & Robin.” Warner Brothers

Chief of Animal Health Gwen Myers points to items such as legos, pacifiers and sunglasses found inside the stomachs of multiple animals housed at the facility like alligators, hyenas and a komodo dragon at Zoo Miami in Miami on Feb. 15. Daniel A. Varela/Miami Herald/TNS

(from “Batman Begins,” 2005, “The Dark Knight,” 2008 and “The Dark Knight Rises,” 2012) He rescued Bats from oblivion (i.e. “Batman & Robin”) and rebuilt him from the ground up, and he became the most successful Batman and the most-tenured actor in the Batsuit. He was equally

Michael Keaton stars in “Batman.” Warner Bros/DC Comics/Album/Zuma Press

Robert Pattinson stars in “The Batman.” TNS

nimble in the Bruce Wayne and Batman roles, whether he was fighting off bad dudes or toasting Gotham’s high society. Under Bale, we saw a different Batman than we had seen on the big screen before, one who studied to be a ninja in a prison in Bhutan, because one does not just become Batman, see. (Bale, known for his commitment to his craft, seems like the type who would insist on such measures.) For an entire generation, Bale is Batman, and rightfully so.

There’s just one teeny, tiny, little note: his growled Batvoice was never a good idea, it should have been stopped the first time he used it, and it somehow became a mainstay of his character for three entire movies. Otherwise, peachy.

But that voice? Oof.

1. MICHAEL KEATON (from “Batman,” 1989 and “Batman Returns,” 1992) He’s the smoothest, he’s the coolest, he’s the original, he’s the best. Michael Keaton

didn’t entirely make sense when he was first cast in the role of Batman, but he made the role his own, bringing his livewire energy to the role (“wanna get nuts? C’mon, let’s get nuts!”) and tempering it with the moodiness afforded by the Bat cape and helmet.

(He had a working relationship with director Tim Burton after “Beetlejuice,” and the trust they have in each other shows.) Because he pioneered the role — no disrespect to Adam West on the 1960s TV series — he was able to define what it meant to be Batman, and every actor that put the suit on after him owes him a debt. No wonder he’s due to play the role again, both in the upcoming “The Flash” and on HBO Max’s “Batgirl.”

And if there’s ever a “SpiderMan: No Way Home” situation where all the actors who have played Batman are rounded up in one room, it won’t be a party until Keaton shows up.

He’s our Bat, man.

Saturday - Sunday, March 12-13, 2022 - C3

COLUMBIA-GREENE MEDIA

Food

Friday’s fish strain budgets There’s plenty of fish this Lenten season, but experts say it will cost more

By GRETCHEN MCKAY Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

PITTSBURGH — Joanne Fibbi knows her way in, out and around a Lenten fish fry.

As Resurrection Parish’s event and development coordinator, she’s helped organize more than a few of the beloved Friday night dinners for St. John Capistran and St. Thomas More churches in the South Hills during the six weeks leading up to Easter.

Yet even with thousands of fried and baked fish dinners under her belt, nothing has prepared the Upper St. Clair resident for the many headaches parishes across the region are facing this year because of the double-whammy of inflation and COVID-19.

Supply chain issues, production costs and increased demand have sent the price for fish skyrocketing to record levels, and it keeps going up, says Fibbi, with no certain end in sight. According to the Labor Department, per a Feb. 10 news release, the Consumer Price Index rose 7.5% from a year ago. Food costs increased 0.9% in January alone.

Pre-pandemic, sourcing would have been set in stone by mid-February, she says, often with fish prices negotiated for the entire six weeks of Lent. “But there’s so much uncertainty this year,” with their purveyor unable to guarantee all the fish the parish needs each week at a set price. Delivery dates are also up in the air, which, if you don’t have a ton of cold or other storage, can prove quite an issue.

Adding to everyone’s pain is that all the incidentals are more expensive this year as well, including paper products, takeout containers and utensils. Organizers are also digging deeper into their pocketbooks for condiments and everyday staples such as cheddar for their mac and cheese.

“Even green beans and rice prices are up,” says Anne Ayoob, Lenten meal coordinator at Our Lady of Victory Maronite Catholic Church in

We’re all caught in the same bind. We don’t want to disappoint anyone with smaller meals, but we also want to be affordable.”

Try roast sausages over cabbage and sauerkraut

A hearty, tangy sheet-pan meal

JOANNE FIBBI Event and development coordinator for Resurrection Parish in Pittsburgh

Beechview, which draws congregants from Pittsburgh’s Lebanese community. Both are essential ingredients in the best-selling Eastern Mediterranean sides they offer in the church’s social hall.

As a result, for both Resurrection and OLOV, as well as just about every other organization holding Lenten fish fries, the big question this year is: Do we offer the same size portions as last year with a price hike, or do we make them smaller and keep prices the same?

“We’re all caught in the same bind,” says Fibbi, with a sigh. “We don’t want to disappoint anyone with smaller meals, but we also want to be affordable.”

While OLOV hasn’t had any trouble securing everyone’s favorite fish for their upcoming fries from purveyor Aldo’s Foodservice in Aliquippa — Western Pennsylvanians are particularly keen on North Atlantic cod — the parish is paying $5 more a case for a 10-pound box of lightly breaded cod tails. As a result, customers will pay $1 more for a sandwich or meal this year.

“We didn’t want to (raise prices) but it was a given we had to,” says Ayoob. “Otherwise, overhead would be too high.”

In addition to providing fellowship along with a good meal, fish fries are often one of a church’s biggest fundraisers See FISH C8

Sheet-Pan Sausages With Sauerkraut and Mustard. Rey Lopez/Washington Post

By G. DANIELA GALARZA Washington Post

I

t can take a cabbage anywhere from 40 to 150 days to grow to full size. Smaller cabbages, like bok choy, mature rather quickly. But larger ones, such as quintal d’alsace, the massive green and white cabbages that thrive in Alsace in Northeastern France, spend many months in the ground. They grow so large that a human baby can nestle comfortably in their sturdy, blossomed leaves.

No matter what Xavier Roberts’s Cabbage Patch Kids suggests, babies are not born from cabbages. But these massive plants can become a hearty meal: Choucroute garnie is a traditional spread from the region, a feast of sauerkraut — sûrkrût in Alsatian, which means sour herb — potatoes, mustard and a frankly unholy pile of pork: knuckles, jowls, shoulders, bellies and feet, pickled or cured or turned into sausages.

But choucroute garnie isn’t really from France, according to Françoise Branget, author of “French Country Cooking: Authentic Recipes from Every Region, and a former politician. “It arrived in France

before the Revolution with the Swiss Guard of the ancien regime,” Branget writes. “At that time the dish merely consisted of cabbage. By the nineteenth century, potatoes were added. When various meats and charcuterie appeared with it, it became choucroute garnie.”

Subgenres of the dish exist in pockets throughout the region: Choucroute strasbourgeoise features Strasbourg sausages, which have a characteristic snap. Choucroute paysanne is a more casual, country-style version with bacon. Traditional recipes are scented with juniper berries, peppercorns, garlic, bay leaves and wine, generally riesling from the region.

When made with champagne, it’s called choucroute royale.

It’s a wintertime dish, hearty and filling. But it can be severely labor-intensive. This recipe, for sausages roasted atop shredded cabbage, onions and jarred sauerkraut, is inspired by the flavors of the Alsatian classic. Serve it with tiny boiled potatoes, crusty See MEAL C8

Battered fish with fries is a popular menu item at Friday night fish fries during Lent. Dreamstime/TNS

How to cook chicken thighs and quarters White meat gets the praise, but these dark meats are the best poultry cuts you can buy

By AARON HUTCHERSON Washington Post

While developing an upcoming recipe for smothered chicken, I put out a call on Twitter to get a sense of how various people prepare it in their own kitchens. I asked about things such as what vegetables they include and which cut of chicken they prefer to use.

To the latter, food blogger Marta Rivera Diaz replied: “Dark meat because I actually love myself.” And never have I agreed more.

America has an obsession with white meat, particularly boneless, skinless chicken breasts, favoring them for the

ease and efficiency with which they can be cooked and consumed. Additionally, the lack of skin and bones helps people dissociate from the fact that the food they’re consuming was once a living, breathing animal, supporting their cognitive dissonance around wanting to consume meat with as little involvement as possible in the process.

Well, America, it’s time to escape the chicken breast chokehold and embrace more flavorful and forgiving cuts of fowl: chicken quarters and thighs.

(While much of the following applies to drumsticks as well, their stringy tendons and high bone-to-meat ratio make them less versatile as the sole cut of chicken in recipes.)

For starters, dark meat simply has more flavor thanks to its higher fat content — and in my kitchen, flavor

Dark meat has an abundant amount of connective tissue, which dissolves into gelatin as the meat cooks, rendering it juicy and tender. The longer it cooks, the more that connective tissue breaks down.”

MARI LEVINE America’s Test Kitchen

reigns supreme. (If you are concerned about your fat intake, you can trim or completely remove the skin.) If speed is what you’re after, anything boneless, skinless chicken breasts can do, boneless, skinless chicken thighs can do better. The two are interchangeable in recipes, allowing you to enjoy the same efficiency you’re used to with breasts.

See CHICKEN C8

Hostess perks up with caffeinated Donettes

By KARU F. DANIELS New York Daily News

To some, coffee and donuts are the perfect breakfast combination — now, the two are forever intertwined.

Hostess on Tuesday announced the latest addition to its Donettes line: caffeinated doughnuts in two flavors, chocolate mocha and caramel macchiato.

Introduced in 1940, Donettes are the snack brand’s version of miniature donuts.

The Lenexa, Kan.-headquartered company announced that each Boost Jumbo Donette, made with coffee bean extract and contains almost as much caffeine as a cup of coffee.

Each doughnut is three times larger than a regular-sized Donette.

Hostess Boost Jumbo Donettes.

Hostess/TNS

“For adults who are increasingly looking for alternative sources of caffeine, our new Hostess Boost Jumbo Donettes offer a tasty, energy-boosting, graband-go way to jumpstart the day,” Hostess Brands general manager said Christopher Balach.

Both varieties come in a 2.5-ounce single-serve package at a suggested retail price of $2.49.

C4 - Saturday - Sunday, March 12-13, 2022

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Saturday - Sunday, March 12-13, 2022 - C5

Puzzles

Last week’s puzzle answers

Horoscope

By Stella Wilder Born Sunday, you have a knack for appearing, seemingly, out of nowhere to take the world — or your own corner of it — by storm. The truth, however, is that you are never an “overnight success” but rather one who has worked tirelessly for all that you have, and who has planned for the future in a manner that is creative, thorough and certainly memorable to those who work with you to achieve your desired ends. You may, now and then, be conflicted about what it is you should be doing with yourself, personally or professionally.

Though you may not be fully understood by most people you encounter in your daily life, those few who know you best understand that you are always to be taken at your word — for nothing is more valuable to you than that, and the reputation you build with it.

Also born on this date are: Dana Delany, actress; Neil Sedaka, composer and songwriter; Emile Hirsch, actor; William H. Macy, actor; Rachel Renee Russell, author; Will Clark, baseball player; Glenne Headly, actress.

To see what is in store for you Monday,

find your birthday and read the corresponding paragraph. Let your birthday star be your daily guide.

MONDAY, MARCH 14 PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) — Instructions are available to you today, but you may be more in the mood to improvise — which can be quite successful, albeit much slower.

ARIES (March 21-April 19) — A situation you never thought would develop “on your watch” does just that today — but quick action on your part can avert disaster, surely.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20) — You’ve been caught between two negative influences for long enough, and today is the day to declare your independence from both of them!

GEMINI (May 21-June 20) — “Yes” and “no” may be the answers you’re looking for today, but the questions you’re asking are far more complicated than that. Be ready.

CANCER (June 21-July 22) — You’ll be impressed with how someone you look up to handles a tricky situation, and before the day is over, you may be able to do much the same.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) — Now is not the time to put off any part of your plan; now that you’ve started, you’re going to want to

stick to the schedule you’ve built.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) — You may want to keep your distance from another today, despite any affection or other ties between you, but your reason is more than acceptable.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) — Your success is a friend’s success today — and vice versa.

It’s time to acknowledge that there is more here than just a casual interaction.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) — You may be suspected of doing something that is so far from something you’d do that it is laughable — but the charges must be taken seriously.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) — You may get an earlier start today than you had planned, which will leave you with more time later on to deal with an unexpected development.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) — You may be the one called upon today to arbitrate an issue that has been at play between two conflicting parties for a very long time.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) — The ramifications of what you do today will be felt by others tomorrow and long after that — but that is your intention, is it not?

Answers on C8

COPYRIGHT 2022 UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC.

Answers on C8

Answers Next Week

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C6 - Saturday - Sunday, March 12-13, 2022

Books & authors

The novel results of a treaty for literary availability How a treaty signed in Marrakesh made the Library of Congress more accessible

By DANNY FREEDMAN Washington Post

Braille and specially formatted audiobooks in Portuguese for a fifth-grader? The “Outlander” series in Braille?

Various works by Nietzsche in Spanish audio? Books in Finnish for someone in hospice care?

Such requests are not unusual for the Library of Congress’s National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled. What’s dramatically changed for the library service and its 310,000 patrons is how those requests are answered. A year and a half ago “we would’ve had to just say, ‘Sorry, there’s no way we can get this,’” says Kelsey CorlettRivera, the NLS’s foreign language librarian. “And now we can.”

The surge of content in this admittedly niche realm is the result of a treaty signed in 2013 in Morocco, which only began bearing fruit in the United States in late 2020 after years of legislative work. Under the pact, known in short as the Marrakesh treaty, more than 100 nations so far have agreed to amend copyright laws to more easily allow for the creation — and the sharing across borders — of audio and electronic Braille versions of published works for people who are blind, have impaired vision or any disability that prevents their use of printed media. That includes disorders such as dyslexia and physical conditions that, say, inhibit someone from holding a book.

Treaty nations can swap directly or through an online central clearinghouse. In late January, that catalogue listed about 730,000 items in more than 80 languages.

The same improved access is also now true for Braille music. Oft-requested musical

Jason Lyon/Washington Post

scores that the Library of Congress never could seem to get permission to reproduce in Braille, such as Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” suddenly are on the shelf. So are a growing list of tunes — including works by Adele and Billy Strayhorn and Bach — that each would have taken the library weeks to transcribe into Braille. “It’s like leapfrogging over months and months of work,” says Mary Dell Jenkins, an NLS music librarian.

While the National Library Service is no stranger to change — at 90 years old, it has traveled technology’s evolution from phonograph discs to downloads — this shift leads Corlett-Rivera to refer to the past as “the Before Times.”

U.S. law already allowed the NLS and authorized nonprofits to create accessible books without permission from the copyright holder. But the treaty extends that to music and scripts, and creates the crucial ability to pool resources with the world. For the NLS to produce its own version of a Nietzsche book in Spanish might’ve taken six months to professionally narrate, edit and build in the descriptive and navigational features that differentiate accessible audio from commercial audiobooks and those made with text-tospeech software. Instead, Corlett-Rivera was able to pluck a recording from a participating library in Spain.

The NLS is now stocking its

digital shelves to broaden its reach, the potential for which may be wider than ever. About 22% of the U.S. population age 5 and older speaks a language other than English at home, and the number of adults 40 and over with vision loss has been predicted to double by 2050, to 25 million. Separate from the treaty, the NLS also changed who can certify a person’s eligibility for its services, previously only physicians but now also teachers, reading specialists, librarians and others. In less than a year, that change led to a 43% increase in the number of reading patrons on the NLS roster, up to roughly 19,200.

“It really is a shopping spree every day,” Corlett-Rivera told

me. By late January, the service had added nearly 1,200 audiobooks, 370 in electronic Braille and 410 music instruction books or scores. More than a thousand other books were in the queue, awaiting delivery or undergoing the process of reformatting and cataloguing needed to join the NLS system.

The highest demand is for materials in Spanish, and those books will continue to be about 70% of the foreign language collection. But since November 2020, when NLS added its first books via the treaty, it has also bolstered its offerings in Arabic, including Ahmed Saadawi’s prizewinning book “Frankenstein in Baghdad”; in French, with books such as

George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Fire and Ice” series; plus books in Polish, Italian, German and beyond.

As queries have bubbled up from the NLS’s nationwide network of affiliated libraries, which are patrons’ primary points of contact, CorlettRivera has also sought titles in Gujarati, Haitian Creole, Korean, Somali, Hmong and Albanian, among others — including English. Some of the service’s most popular English audiobooks are Amish romances imported from Canada. “We have a lot of patrons that are into that good, clean, happy reading,” she says, “and Amish romance really checks all the boxes.”

In turn, the NLS is sharing more than 100,000 of its own items through the treaty that are finding audiences around the world. The effort here, though, is still in its infancy.

I asked Tiffany Anderson, a 30-year-old in Clayton, N.C., who is blind and seeking work as a Spanish interpreter or tutor, about the new resource, but it was the first she had heard of it. Anderson had been searching, with little luck, for middle-grade Spanish Braille books to read alongside the audio, to keep up her pronunciation and spelling. She was excited, though, about the potential soon to more readily “have that option, like everyone else.”

Success for now, CorlettRivera says, is still measured by collecting, rather than usage, which is a slender fraction of the 21.5 million items the NLS circulated last fiscal year.

But she expects that to change in the year ahead, and so do some network libraries.

“It’s still a little newish for us,” says Sarah Jacobson, director of the Texas Talking Book Program in Austin. She expects interest will gather steam as more Spanish materials become available, and possibly a tool for patrons to search the global index themselves.

What happened to Agatha Christie in 1926?

A new novel explores her curious disappearance

By MAUREEN CORRIGAN Washington Post

By Nina De Gramont St. Martin’s. 320 pp. $27.99 There’s only one “cold case” story in the entire Agatha Christie canon, and it’s the one Christie herself lived, not wrote. The mystery of Christie’s 11-day disappearance in 1926 is rivaled only by the mystery of Jimmy Hoffa’s far-more-permanent disappearance in 1975 as the most famous “cold case” in modern times.

Here’s a quick rundown of the details: On the winter evening of Dec. 3, 1926, Christie got into her car — a little green Morris Cowley that she’d bought with earnings from her early novels — and drove off from her house in the suburbs near London. She left behind her sleeping 7-yearold daughter, Rosalind, in the care of the maid. She also left her beloved little terrier, Peter, who habitually laid down beside her as she wrote. Christie

was wearing a fur coat and hat and carried only an attache case. She may or may not have made a stop at the nearby village of Godalming to peer into the ground-floor windows of the house where her husband, Archie Christie, was a guest for the weekend. That morning, Archie had told Agatha that he wanted a divorce to marry his mistress, Nancy Neele, who was also a weekend guest at that house.

At 8 a.m. the next morning, Christie’s car was discovered nose down in a ditch near a body of water ominously called “the Silent Pool.” Her fur coat was in the car. For over a week until she was discovered, ensconced in the Swan Hydropathic Hotel in Harrogate, Yorkshire, on Dec. 13, Agatha Christie, the “Lady Novelist” as some newspapers referred to her, was the object of one of the biggest missingperson searches in British history: police, bloodhounds, an army of volunteer searchers, fellow mystery novelists Dorothy L. Sayers and Arthur Conan Doyle, and even Archie Christie and the intrepid little Peter all joined in the search.

Because the mystery of

Here are the bestsellers for the week that ended Saturday, Feb. 19, compiled from data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide, powered by NPD BookScan

HARDCOVER FICTION 1. House of Sky and Breath. Sarah J. Maas.

Bloomsbury 2. Diablo Mesa. Preston/Child. Grand Central 3. Abandoned in Death. J.D. Robb. St. Martin’s 4. Gwendy’s Final Task. King/Chizmar. Cemetery Dance 5. Sierra Six. Mark Greaney. Berkley 6. Dawnshard. Brandon Sanderson. Tor 7. The Last Thing He Told Me. Laura Dave. Simon

Christie’s disappearance has never been solved (Dame Agatha died in 1976 and never said a word, not even in her autobiography about that painful episode in her life), generations of amateur sleuths — critics, biographers, filmmakers and novelists — have tried to crack the case.

Motives for Christie’s disappearance range from the cynical (she was a publicity hound who wanted to boost sales of her books) to the medical (she was in a “fugue state” caused by a concussion when her car crashed) to the compassionate (Christie was suicidal over the end of her marriage, especially since that blow followed quickly after the death of her cherished mother).

Personally, I favor the theory offered by Christie biographer Gillian Gill. In her slim and penetrating 1990 biography simply titled “Agatha Christie,” Gill observes that Christie registered at that Harrogate spa under the alias “Teresa Neele.” In so doing, Gill says, Christie cleverly found a way to publicize the last name of her husband’s mistress at a time when discretion dictated that her existence be kept

private. A shy person, Christie, like her novels, was easy to underestimate. That was always a mistake.

In “The Christie Affair,” an ingenious new psychological suspense novel that concocts an elaborate backstory behind Christie’s disappearance, Nina de Gramont reminds readers of “the other woman” in the story and suggests that it also would be a mistake to underestimate her. This Nancy Neele — here called “Nan O’Dea” — is powered by rage and grief and matches wits with the Queen of Crime herself, not only to possess Archie, but to achieve a greater end that few readers will anticipate. And, here’s the neatest narrative trick of all: As Christie characteristically did, de Gramont hides the solution to the mystery of “The Christie Affair” in plain sight.

Nan is our chief narrator, and in de Gramont’s novel she shucks off the role as Archie’s passive mistress. Instead, this Nan revels in her own agency, coolly confessing that she staked out Archie for a long time and engineered the affair.

The novel is structured in sections that alternate between

the days and hours leading up to Agatha’s disappearance and Nan’s early life in London and Ireland. As the tale gets underway, an omniscient narrator also enters to describe Agatha’s adventures during that fateful night of Dec. 3 and the days that follow.

The opening scene — dated Dec. 2, 1926 — alerts readers to the fact that, although this novel features Agatha Christie as a character, we’re not in classic Christie-land. Here’s Nan describing how she and Archie were almost caught in the act of canoodling in his office minutes before Agatha walks in: “Archie kissed me. He tasted like pipe smoke. ... Tonight he would be going home to his wife. If the course I’d planned so carefully was to continue, it was best to send him to her thinking of me. A sponge soaked in quinine sulfate — procured by my married younger sister — stood guard inside me, protecting against pregnancy.”

Whoa! While passion fueled many a murder in Christie’s universe, sex itself was never mentioned. But, in “The Christie Affair,” both Nan and,

Publisher’s Weekly best-sellers & Schuster 8. The Judge’s List. John Grisham. Doubleday 9. The Lincoln Highway. Amor Towles. Viking 10. The Horsewoman. Patterson/Lupica. Little, Brown

HARDCOVER NONFICTION 1. Life Force. Tony Robbins et al. Simon & Schuster 2. PlantYou. Carleigh Bodrug. Hachette Go 3. Good Enough. Bowler/Richie. Convergent 4. Atlas of the Heart. Brene Brown. Random House

5. The 1619 Project. Nikole Hannah-Jones. One World 6. Red-Handed. Peter Schweizer. Harper 7. The Art of Star Wars: The Mandalorian (Season Two). Phil Szostak. Abrams 8. Competing in the New World of Work. Ferrazzi/ Gohar/Weyrich. Harvard Business Review 9. The Way of Integrity. Martha Beck. Open Field 10. The Real Anthony Fauci. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Skyhorse

MASS MARKET 1. Finding Ashley. Danielle Steel. Dell

2. Highland Wolf. Lynsay Sands. Avon 3. Reacher: Killing Floor (TV tie-in). Lee Child.

Berkley 4. The Affair. Danielle Steel. Dell 5. The Palm Beach Murders. James Patterson.

Grand Central 6. Dark Sky. C.J. Box. Putnam 7. Book of Dreams. Nora Roberts. Silhouette 8. Springtime Sunshine. Debbie Macomber.

Mira 9. Prairie Fire. Johnstone/Johnstone. Pinnacle 10. Forgotten in Death. J.D. Robb. St. Martin’s

eventually, Agatha herself avail themselves of the new erotic freedoms of the 1920s.

That’s just one of the many ways in which de Gramont fleshes out the scant official history of that time in Christie’s life. “The Christie Affair” is richly imagined; inventive and, occasionally, poignant; and about as true-to-life as Christie’s own tales of quaint villages with their staggering murder rates. But when fabrications are this marvelous, why demand realism?

Maureen Corrigan is the author/narrator of the 2021 Audible Original book “The Mysterious Case of Agatha Christie” and the book critic for the NPR program “Fresh Air.”

TRADE PAPERBACK 1. Verity. Colleen Hoover. Grand Central 2. Reminders of Him. Colleen Hoover. Montlake 3. Heaven Official’s Blessing, Vol. 2. Mo Xiang Tong Xiu. Seven Seas 4. The Love Hypothesis. Ali Hazelwood. Berkley 5. Steal. Patterson/Roughan. Grand Central 6. People We Meet on Vacation. Emily Henry.

Berkley 7. The Spanish Love Deception. Elena Armas.

Atria 8. Where the Crawdads Sing. Delia Owens. Putnam 9. The Overnight Guest. Heather Gudenkauf. Park Row 10. The Silent Patient. Alex Michaelides. Celadon

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Saturday - Sunday, March 12-13, 2022 - C7

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C8 - Saturday - Sunday, March 12-13, 2022

Weddings are coming back in full force for 2022

By DARCEL ROCKETT Chicago Tribune

It’s been two years and counting of living in a pandemic world. And two years ago, wedding trends were pointing more toward sustainability, second dresses, power suits, couples coats and honeymoons closer to home.

Also over the course of the two years, wedding experts offered tips to keep your day special, as well as on the calendar.

This year, some things have changed while others have remained constant, according to the The Knot’s 2021 Real Weddings study, in which more than 15,000 U.S. couples who married last year weighed in on

Fish From C3

of the year. Resurrection, for instance, typically raises around $15,000 by serving upwards of 600 meals each Friday during Lent. OLOV netted $6,500 last year, but in years past has raised as much as $12,000.

At least one volunteer fire department and one church in the Pittsburgh area have canceled their fish fries because of supply chain and pricing issues: Holy Angels Church in Hays and the Mount Oliver Volunteer Fire Department.

Angelo Napoleone, co-owner of Nappies Food Service in Coraopolis, Pa., estimates the company provides more than 200,000 pounds of cod to local restaurants and parishes over the Lenten season, along with packaging and forks and knives. He agrees fish prices are at a record high, with some paying five or six times as much as in previous years to get product here. The culprit is not a lack of fish — while other species can be hard to find, cod landings are good — but rather other factors such as labor shortages and transportation.

“And food is on the front end of inflation,” he notes .

Will every organization have all the ingredients they need?

There will be some misses, he says. But thanks to careful preparation over the past six months, “we have a fair amount of product, so there will be something for everyone.

There’s no need to panic.”

In fact, Nappies is anticipating record sales because “in our opinion, the pandemic is over,” says Napoleone. “We’re just in a time where everything is costing more.”

Kate Westerman, fish fry

things like preferred wedding dates, top entertainment features and which vendors couples focused their budget on.

“If I was talking to a couple getting married, the two things I would emphasize is that it’s going to be a banner year for weddings,” said Lauren Kay, The Knot’s executive editor. “We’re ready to help 2.6 million weddings happen this year, which is wild, but so exciting. And with that comes a little bit of understanding, empathy and support for both the people you’re hiring and the challenges they might face. And the ability to pivot or change your plans as needed and know that you’re still going to have an incredible chairman at the nonprofit Oakmont Elks 1668 in Oakmont, Pa., says costs are up 118% for clamshell packaging — no small deal for a group that’s doing takeout only this year. That, along with rising food costs, has caused them to raise the price of their 10-ounce, hand-cut cod fish sandwiches about 18%, from $11 to $13.

“It’s not that much, but it’s not as little as it used to be either,” she says. Even so, they expect they’ll match last year’s volume of 400 dinners a week because people love to support their local parishes.

In a preemptive strike against shortages, organizers at Resurrection Parish will alternate between three baked fish offerings — cod loin, salmon and haddock — instead of offering them each week on the menu. “Hopefully that will help with the supply issue,” Fibbi says.

Also new this year: large, shareable sides that will give families a price break over ordering individual portions, and smaller “junior meals” for patrons with smaller budgets or appetites.

“We’re trying to have more options in case we can’t get something at all or enough of an item,” she says. But even that can create headaches, because then you have to worry about kitchen capacity issues.

The goal is to keep all dinners under $15, and hopefully even less, says Fibbi, while retaining the same quality and portion sizes.

“A lot of us are concerned about people’s expectations,” she says. “We hope people realize no matter what you go to buy today, you’re paying more for it.

“A prayer is what’s going to help,” she adds, with a laugh.

“Maybe a lot of prayers!”

wedding and an amazing memory. That flexibility has been something we’ve seen year over year as a result of COVID and I don’t think that’s going away anywhere yet.”

The Chicago Tribune talked with Kay about the study to see how this year’s wedding plans will shape up. Her insights have been condensed and edited for clarity.

depends on the pro but we do see a disclosure of that somewhere on their website in a pretty prominent place so that couples who are looking for that or who are prioritizing that will know that, “Hey, this is a vendor who’s like-minded and shares my value for sustainability.”

ON SUSTAINABILITY:

We’ve seen people shuck oysters on the go, a hot pretzel table. We’ve seen people have food trucks, especially for cocktail hour. ... We’ve seen ice cream carts. We’ve seen grazing tables with sushi. We’ve seen people doing live-action

Sustainability is a big hot topic for Gen Z, who are just starting to get married. We have seen the wedding industry as a whole step up. A florist might say we compost all of our florals after the event. It ...

ON INTERACTIVE FOOD EXPERIENCES:

pasta tossing. We’ve seen people make mozzarella. There’s been taco bars where you’re serving yourself, but it’s so much more elaborate than just ordering a taco.

just shifted. We are experiencing a huge wedding boom right now. There’s a labor shortage.

We’re also seeing those inflation prices and the cost of goods going up.

ON HONEYMOONS:

ON UNPRECEDENTED WEDDING NUMBERS:

What we have seen is a lot of couples being really thoughtful around planning. Honeymoon registries are huge for couples.

Many are planning experiences and they’re thinking more about the destination and less about the timing.

ON THE COST OF VENDORS: While many weddings in 2020 were postponed, very few were canceled altogether. They

Sheet-Pan Sausages With Sauerkraut and Mustard. Rey Lopez/Washington Post

Meal From C3

bread, a green salad, a glass of riesling and a lot of mustard.

SHEET-PAN SAUSAGES WITH SAUERKRAUT AND MUSTARD Active time: 10 minutes | Total time: 40 minutes 4 servings This sheet-pan dinner is loosely based on the Alsatian choucroute garnie, a dish of sauerkraut and various cuts of pork, including sausages.

Here, sauerkraut, shredded cabbage and onions are seasoned with mustard. Then, pork sausages are nestled into the vegetables, and the whole thing gets a generous glug of cider before it goes in the oven.

Storage Notes: Leftovers

can be refrigerated in a covered container for up to 4 days.

To make this vegan, use large, cooked or canned and drained, white beans or vegan sausages instead of the pork sausages.

To reduce the sodium content, use low-sodium sausage, rinse the sauerkraut, or omit the kraut and use 5 cups shredded cabbage instead.

If you prefer a less acidic dish, use more fresh cabbage than sauerkraut.

Dislike onion? Slice up a potato instead.

No apple cider? White wine, beer (alcoholic or not) or vegetable broth will work here, too.

Canola or olive oil, for greasing 3 cups (20 ounces) sauerkraut with its liquid 2 cups (6 ounces) shredded cabbage (any kind)

1 small red onion (about 5 ounces), sliced 1 tablespoon mustard, preferably whole grain, plus more for serving 1 pound pork sausage, such as Polish or sweet or hot Italian (about 5; may substitute veggie sausage) 1 cup hard or fresh apple cider Sprigs of fresh thyme, for garnish (optional) Crusty bread, sandwich rolls, or roasted or mashed potatoes, for serving (optional) Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 400 degrees.

Grease a large, rimmed baking sheet with oil and add the sauerkraut, cabbage, onion and mustard. Using tongs or your hands, mix until the mustard is evenly distributed and then flatten into an even layer.

Nestle the sausages atop

Chicken From C3

Fish prices are at a record high due to labor shortages and transportation. Metro Creative Graphics

We do know that 2022 is being keyed up to see the most weddings in recent history at a number of 2.6 million. On average, we usually see around 2.1 million weddings. We are attributing this increase to the postponement of 2020 weddings. I don’t know that it’s so many couples paired up as there was an overflow of weddings that didn’t happen.

And in addition to quick-cooking dishes, thighs and quarters have the versatility to stand up to longer cooking methods, such as braising, meaning you can do more with these cuts.

Chicken quarters and thighs also have a significant price advantage. A U.S. Agriculture Department report released earlier this month listed the average price of a regular pack (less than 2.5 pounds) of thighs at $1.01 per pound and of bagged quarters at $0.73 per pound. Meanwhile, a regular pack of boneless skinless chicken breasts came in at a whopping $2.64 per pound.

As food prices continue to rise, chicken quarters and thighs are an affordable alternative

Chicken quarter. Scott Suchman/Washington Post

for people on a budget.

It’s also easier to cook dark meat so that it remains tender and juicy. The USDA’s guidance for the minimum internal temperature — 165 degrees, at which point harmful bacteria is killed instantaneously — already surpasses the level at which professional and highly experienced home cooks prefer for white meat.

Chef and cookbook author J. Kenji López-Alt prefers chicken breasts cooked to 145 degrees, but acknowledges the texture isn’t for everyone. “As long as chicken stays at 150°F or higher for at least 2.7 minutes, it is as safe to eat as chicken that has been cooked to

165°F,” he wrote in “The Food Lab” cookbook. The team at Cook’s Illustrated prefers 155 degrees — “the test kitchen’s favorite temperature for juiciness and tenderness,” per the “Cook’s Science” cookbook — where it needs to be held for only about 50 seconds to kill salmonella and be safe to consume.

“Despite government warnings to be sure to cook chicken to 165°F, in reality, about 150°F or so, muscle fibers have become almost completely squeezed dry,” López-Alt wrote.

“Congratulations, your dinner is now officially cardboard.”

But the story for dark meat is a cook’s dream. Although

the vegetables and pour the cider over everything. Roast for 15 minutes, then rotate the pan front to back and roast for another 15 minutes, or until the sausages are cooked through and the cabbage and onions are tender. Add the thyme sprigs, if using, before serving family-style with additional crusty bread, sandwich rolls or potatoes and mustard, if using.

Nutrition information per serving (1 1/4 sausage and 1 1/2 cups vegetables) | Calories: 292; Total Fat: 19 g; Saturated Fat: 6 g; Cholesterol: 81 mg; Sodium: 1612 mg; Carbohydrates: 9 g; Dietary Fiber: 5 g; Sugars: 3 g; Protein: 21 g.

This analysis is an estimate based on available ingredients and this preparation. It should not substitute for a dietitian’s or nutritionist’s advice.

the USDA’s recommended temperature at which it’s safe to consume is the same, dark meat’s texture is actually better at higher temperatures. “Unlike chicken breasts, chicken thighs and drumsticks actually become more tender the longer they cook,” Mari Levine of America’s Test Kitchen explains. “Dark meat has an abundant amount of connective tissue, which dissolves into gelatin as the meat cooks, rendering it juicy and tender. The longer it cooks, the more that connective tissue breaks down.

This means that chicken thighs are good at an internal temp of 175 degrees Fahrenheit, but they’re even better at 195.”

However, there is an upper limit. Once dark meat chicken hits 210 degrees, the flavor and texture start to deteriorate.

So while you can get chicken thighs that are safe to eat in as little as 30 or 40 minutes in the oven (depending on the temperature), a quick experiment at home showed that it took over an hour for it to reach 210 degrees (at which point the thighs were still edible, but definitely a little stringy).

That’s at least 20 minutes of wiggle room! In a world full of distractions, ingredients with flexibility built in are priceless.