Daily Republic: Monday, January 30, 2023

Easy ways to start a new life on a meatless journey B2

Eagles bring tough end to 49ers’ incredible season B1

Mystery surrounds LA shooting that leaves 3 dead

Los A ngeLes Times

LOS ANGELES —

When Rachel David arrived at her Benedict Canyon home early Saturday morning after a night out, she thought the rows of flashing police cars were part of a film shoot, which is fairly common in the area.

11 people in a mass shooting in Monterey Park last weekend, and two days later, another assailant fatally shot seven people at two farms near Half Moon Bay.

Courtesy photo

Students from Vanden High School ponder a question during the Academic Decathlon at Solano Community College in Rockville, Saturday. Vanden won the competition and earned a berth in the state competition.

Vanden takes first at Academic Decathlon, now heads to state

susAn HiLAnd SHILAND@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

FAIRFIELD — Vanden

High School took first place Saturday overall in the North Bay Region Academic Decathlon.

The team is invited to go on to compete and represent Solano County at the state competition.

Also going to the state competition is Campolindo High School, whose team took second overall. They will represent Contra Costa County at state. Third place was awarded to Basis Independent Silicon Valley Charter from Santa Clara County.

The North Bay Region Academic Decathlon registered 285 students from 17 schools to the

all day event Saturday at the Solano Community College in rural Fairfield.

Solano County Office of Education hosted the event again this year with eight Bay Area counties

represented including Solano, Contra Costa, Lake, Mendocino, Napa, Santa Clara, Sonoma and Yolo, according to a press release.

“I’m thrilled to see

more than 280 students challenge themselves to further their learning, knowledge and public speaking skills,” Solano Superintendent of Schools Lisette EstrellaHenderson said in the press release. The Solano County Office of Education hosts Academic Decathlon “to inspire students to foster a spirit of inquiry and lifelong learning, and the performances we saw today leave no doubt that these students are going to achieve lifelong success,” Estrella-Henderson said.

The event has been held since 1981, when Solano County Office of Education began sponsoring the Academic

She soon found out it wasn’t a movie set. Police said three people were shot to death inside a car and four wounded outside during a gathering in the 2700 block of Ellison Drive, a quiet cul-de-sac tucked away in a secluded neighborhood north of Beverly Hills. Authorities on Sunday identified the victims as Nenah Davis, 29, of Bolingbrook, Illinois; Destiny Sims, 26, of Buckeye, Arizona; and Iyana Hutton, 33, of Chicago.

The shooting capped a deadly week in California. A gunman killed

“I wait for my Ubers right at that corner,” David said Saturday morning, pointing at the intersection of Ellison and Arby drives, where there was a slash of yellow police tape. “Not anymore.”

Investigators on Saturday afternoon were still searching for a suspect or suspects, and gave little information about what happened or who was involved other than to say the attack — during which more than 30 shots were fired – was not random. Authorities towed from the scene a white Porsche SUV, and a black Mazda SUV that had bullet holes on both

Israel considers strict standards to end violence

m ArissA newm An BLOOMBERG NEWS

McCarthy, Biden planning to meet Wednesday about debt limit talks

Tony CzuCzk A

BLOOMBERG NEWS

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden have agreed to meet Wednesday to discuss raising the U.S. debt ceiling, reducing government spending and avoiding a sovereign default.

“We’re going to meet this Wednesday,” McCarthy said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “I want to find a reasonable and a responsible way that we can lift the debt ceiling” and “take control of this runaway spending.”

Israel may penalize the families of Palestinian attackers by revoking identity cards and residency if they support the violence, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, after a deadly shooting near a synagogue escalated some of the bloodiest inter-communal violence in years.

and speeding up the licensing of weapons to thousands of Israeli citizens, also including the rescue services, he said, expanding on plans announced overnight.

This would include ZAKA, the Jerusalembased paramedics and search and rescue group, which has 3,000 volunteers, he said.

WASHINGTON —

The planned meeting, which was confirmed by a White House official, will pit McCarthy’s call for spending cuts as a condition of any deal against Biden’s refusal to treat the federal debt ceiling as a bargaining chip.

“Now I know his staff tries to say something different, but I think the president is going to be willing to make an agreement together,” McCarthy said. “I’m hopeful.”

In a statement on Jan. 20 looking ahead to a meeting with McCarthy, White House press secretary

Karine Jean-Pierre emphasized Biden’s stance that “the debt ceiling

is not a negotiation” but “an obligation of this country and its leaders to avoid economic chaos.” Biden expects Congress to “do their duty” and raise the ceiling, she said.

McCarthy said that while reductions in Social Security and Medicare should be “off the table,” all discretionary spending, including the U.S. defense budget, should be reviewed for waste. The California Republican declined to speculate on the chances of a short-term extension of the federal debt ceiling, a stopgap that House

The rising violence comes ahead of a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken this week. He’ll meet Netanyahu, members of his new right-wing Israeli government and Palestinian leaders who have severed security cooperation over a military raid on the West Bank city of Jenin in which nine Palestinians were killed last week.

The government will debate the proposed new measures, Netanyahu told a weekly Cabinet meeting, as well as expanding

“Imagine that they, and others, will be armed. This of course significantly increases the ability to respond,” he said.

In the weekend attack, a 21-year-old Palestinian from East Jerusalem shot dead seven Israelis near a synagogue. In separate violence, a 13-year-old shot a man and his son headed toward the Western Wall in the Old City. It has been one of the bloodiest months in Israel and the occupied West Bank in years.

If the government

INDEX Arts xx | Business B3 | Classifieds B7 | Comics A5, B5 | Crossword A4, B4 Food B2 | Obituaries A3 | Opinion A6 | Sports B1 | TV Daily A5, B5 WEATHER 51 | 34 Sun, breeze. Forecast on B8 WANT TO SUBSCRIBE? Call 707-427-6989.

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See Dr. David P. Simon, MD, FACS. Eye Physician & Surgeon, Col. (Ret.), USAF Now Accepting New Patients! 3260 Beard Rd #5 Napa • 707-681-2020 simoneyesmd.com

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A card is raised by the Vanden High School Academic Decathlon team at Solano Community College in Rockville, Saturday.

Some things that should not be

Isometimes just pick a writing prompt and riff around it, and today I thought it would be cool to pick a song title and do that. It had to be one that would spark some ideas just from its very title.

Here’s some of the tunes that were on my short list:

Why chocolate is so delicious

ACCORDING TO SCIENCE

The WashingTon PosT

Chocolate is delicious –that’s a fact backed up by research. The question, really, is why a bite into its scrumptious goodness is enough to send a person into an utter state of bliss.

Enter science.

After conducting a study that included four types of dark chocolate and a 3D-printed tongue, a team of researchers in the United Kingdom found that it all comes down to chocolate’s slick outer layer – a.k.a. its fat.

“Our main finding out of this is that fat matters a lot,” Anwesha Sarkar, a professor of colloids and surfaces at the University of Leeds, told The Washington Post.

The research paper, published this month in the American Chemical Society’s Applied Materials and Interfaces journal, details how the team of scientists analyzed chocolate’s journey from aluminum wrapper to a tongue’s papillae – replicating each step with a humanlike model of the organ, which they used instead of an actual human tester to eliminate as many variables as possible.

The process of eating chocolate begins with what Sarkar called the “licking phase,” or when chocolate first comes in contact with the tongue. This is when the smooth “chocolate sensation” is set into motion, Sarkar said. Then, as it starts melting and saliva enters

the mix, solid cocoa particles in the chocolate are released, along with a rush of happiness-boosting endorphins.

After conducting the experiment, the scientists concluded that chocolate’s much-cherished silky sensation is a product of its fat droplets making cocoa’s otherwise gritty particles go down smoothly inside the mouth. But does this mean chocolate has to be high in fat to be enjoyed?

Not quite, Sarkar said. If the chocolate is coated in fat, it doesn’t necessarily matter whether the chocolate itself contains much fat.

“In the licking phase, fat is absolutely important for the sensation that lubrication creates,” she said. “But as you go down into the chocolate’s inner contents and its core, and this all starts mixing with saliva, the amount of fat doesn’t matter. So, you should have enough fat to coat the cocoa particles initially, but you don’t need too much fat after.”

In other words, the researchers found that the amount of fat isn’t nearly as important as its location – a discovery that could pave the way for a new generation of chocolates that aren’t only tasty but also healthier and more sustainable, Sarkar said.

“The biggest bottleneck in designing food is the taste and texture,” she

said. “If we understand the mechanics of why something is delicious, it’s easier to re-create more healthy and sus-

After conducting a study that included four types of dark chocolate and a 3D-printed tongue, a team of researchers in the United Kingdom found that it all comes down to chocolate’s slick outer layer – a.k.a. its fat.

tainable versions. We can also better design food for vulnerable populations, people who have swallowing disorders or who need energy-dense products.”

“I mean, imagine if we could make broccoli taste as good as chocolate,” added Sarkar, a selfdescribed chocolate lover. “Or, at least make something like a zero-calorie chocolate have the same creaminess and silkiness of a normal one.”

Sarkar said her team’s findings could apply to other beloved foods, like cheese. The goal, she said, is to have a better understanding of how food texture plays a role in people’s tasting experience.

“Our inclinations and aversion to food really come from its texture, not the taste,” she said. “So, for example, many things people love contain sugar; but, you know, an orange isn’t the same as a piece of chocolate. So it’s not the sweetness, it’s

the texture.”

When it comes to food, other studies suggest that texture and deliciousness are tied together. According to one published in 2015, people’s texture preferences fall into four groups: chewers, who love chewy food; crunchers, who like crispiness; suckers, who prefer items that dissolve; and smooshers, who want nothing more than food to spread around in their mouths.

“Texture can be a major reason for rejection of foods,” said Melissa Jeltema, who co-authored the study with Jacqueline Beckley and Jennifer Vahalik from U&I Collaboration, a strategic business development and products research technology firm. “Individuals have a preferred way of eating foods, so foods that most easily align with that preferred way of eating will be preferred – assuming taste is also liked.”

Jeltema said chocolate is an example of a food item that’s able to bend texture preferences – it can be enjoyed by anyone who likes its taste. For chewers, there are brownies and chocolate-covered raisins; for crunchers, chocolates with nuts; for suckers, hard chocolate candies; and for smooshers, something like a Nutella spread or chocolate ice cream.

That’s the magic of chocolate – according to science.

“Be-Bop-a-Lula” by Gene Vincent, “Ob-LaDi, Ob-La-Da” by The Beatles, “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm” by Crash Test Dummies, “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da” by The Police and “Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um” by Major Lance.

After staring at a blank page for several hours, I scrapped all those and picked instead a Metallica song I like called “The Thing That Should Not Be” from the 1986 album, “Master of Puppets.”

Now, the crunchy, foreboding song is about some Lovecraftian monster or something, but the following are just things I feel should not be.

It should not be that when I watch a commercial on television I have to question its authenticity. Take for example a recent Geico ad where their spokesreptile, the gecko, brings some homemade biscuits (made using his mum’s secret recipe) to some new neighbors. Now, I am willing to forgive a lot of things. For example, I don’t know, maybe there are talking geckos somewhere who inexplicably talk with a Cockney accent. I can even forgive the British for insisting on using the wrong words for everyday stuff like calling cookies “biscuits” and french fries “chips” and chips “crisps.” I can even forgive the fact that in the commercial the little gecko is not even subtle about the fact that his real mission there is not to welcome his neighbors, but to try to sell them homeowners insurance (evidently Geico has special rates for talking British lizards who bake). But what I cannot forgive and what should not be is a commercial that wants me to believe that a 5-inch gecko standing on a welcome mat holding a plate of cookies (or biscuits if you must) can somehow ring the doorbell because that’s what happens at the beginning of the ad! I feel insulted.

It should not be that “Go Ask Alice” is still seen as an authentic diary. I read “Unmask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the World’s Most Notorious Diaries” by Rick Emerson and had my mind blown. I wish I had read it before writing my column about “Go Ask Alice” a couple of weeks ago. While I knew that it was actually written by Beatrice Sparks and said so, I had no idea of the extent of the fraud she perpetrated, especially with the follow up “Jay’s Journal.” With that one,

snowball effects and was all bogus. It was enlightening and showed just how easy it was for her to pull it off because no one did even the slightest bit of fact checking. It should not be that on old TV shows they don’t have a disclaimer when a cast member is replaced by another actor. I mean, Darrin Stephens was played by Dick York on “Bewitched” from 1964 to 1969. Then, all of a sudden, Dick Sergeant took over in 1969. Just like that! He comes home from work and kisses Samantha like for all the world he was the same person! As a kid, this messed me up. I mean, yes, the two did resemble each other, but they weren’t twins! I could tell the difference! And are you telling me that busybody Gladys Kravitz (Lenny’s mom) across the street couldn’t tell the difference? She probably had a handmade chart with photos taken surreptitiously and a chart of just how she was sure there had been a switcheroo.

A worse example is Lionel on “The Jeffersons.” He was played by Mike Evans from 1971 to 1975 and replaced by Damon Evans (no relation) from 1975 to 1978. It woulda been bad enough that nobody –including George, Weezy, Tom and Helen Willis, Florence or even Mr. Bentley – noticed that Lionel was a completely different dude, but then, in 1979, Mike Evans returned! What the?

Because of these inconsistencies, I lived in constant fear that one day I would come home from school and see that a new Tony was there drinking Tang out of my favorite Grape Ape jelly glass, eating a tuna fish sandwich and reading my Richie Rich comic books.

It should not be that I have to discover extremely important information on my own. I mean, I had fractions and algebra and other nonessential info crammed into my nugget over the years when I was in school, but not a single teacher ever told me that the character of Batman’s nemesis the Joker originally came from a 1928 German expressionist film “The Man Who Laughs.” I had to stumble upon it myself when I was meme hunting.

It should not be that it took three years to have someone recommend the awesome 2020 book “The Midnight Library” by Matt Haig to me. I am only half done with it and can already visualize it being an awesome Netflix series. I just hope they don’t switch the actors mid-series just to mess with me.

Fairfield freelance humor columnist and accidental local historian Tony Wade writes two weekly columns: “The Last Laugh” on Mondays and

Tony Wade The last laugh

Salwan Georges/The Washington Post file (2019)

A variety of chocolates on display inside Pierre Marcolini, a luxury chocolate shop in Brussels, in 2019.

Tuskegee Airmen topic of Vacaville Museum talk by Aubrey Matthews

VACAVILLE — The Vacaville Museum this week will host Aubrey Matthews, an expert on the history of the Tuskegee Airmen.

Matthews is the second speaker in the museum’s “Aviation Forum,” a speaker series that is running in conjunction with their exhibit “Solano Skies: A History of Aviation in Solano County.”

Matthews, a Vietnam veteran, was born in Boulder, Colorado, before relocating to California and graduating from Vallejo High School in 1966.

His interest in the Tuskegee Airmen began through his own military career, where he fostered a love for not only aviation but history. Working as an airframe technician, Matthews served in the U.S. Air Force from January 1967 until his honorable discharge in January 1971. He continued his career and passion of aircraft while working in places such as Mare Island, Travis Air Force Base and in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Matthews is a former president, historian and Young Eagles coordinator of Lee A. Archer Jr. Chapter, Tuskegee Airmen Inc. at Travis Air Force Base as well as the former president and Young Eagles coordinator of the Experimental Aircraft Association, Chapter 1230, at the Nut Tree Airport. He has spent years traveling to exhibits and meeting Tuskegee Airmen in order to collect information and knowledge about their legacy.

To celebrate Black History Month, and acknowledge the contribution that the Tuskegee Airmen made in the fight for equality in the military, as well as honor their service to our country, Matthews will discuss the formation of the unit as well as how it affected the Air Force and U.S. history.

The talk will begin at 3 p.m. Saturday at 213 Buck Ave.

The Vacaville Museum is a nonprofit, membership supported organization that is dedicated to collecting, preserving and interpreting Solano County history. For more information, call the museum at 707-447-4513. For more information on future speakers, visit the museum on Instagram @ TheVacavilleMuseum.

Bus fares return to City Coach in Vacaville

VACAVILLE — Vacaville City Coach will resume fare collection after nearly three years without due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Riders starting Wednesday will be required to pay the standard fare when they board City Coach buses, use paratransit or ride City Coach Direct.

“This fare will assist in covering the cost of maintaining the fleet, providing a safe and comfortable ride, and offering service in areas where other transportation options are limited,” the agency said in a statement announcing the fare schedule.

An adult single ride fare is $1.50. A day pass is $3.25. Bus passes with the year 2020 or older will not be accepted. Only 2023 passes and passes without a specified year will be accepted.

Passes may be purchased from the Finance Department at Vacaville City Hall, 650 Merchant St., at the Ulatis Community Center, 1000 Ulatis Drive, the McBride Senior Center, 91 Town Square Place, and Lucky’s Supermarket, 1979 Peabody Road. More sites are expected to be added.

Time to register for RPEA meeting

VALLEJO — The deadline to register for the Retired Public Employees Association of California Solano County Chapter 035 quarterly meeting is Wednesday.

The meeting will begin at noon Feb. 8 at the Vallejo Moose Lodge, 337 Nebraska St. Plans include a presentation for seniors on smartphone basics. The RPEA president will be at the meeting.

All those now working under the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, and those who have retired from this system and their guests, are welcome to attend.

The cost of the luncheon is $10. Lunch is free for all new members attending their first meeting. Reservations are required and

may be made by calling 707-552-6458.

Marina Lounge hosts Black History event

Daily Republic Staff DRNEWS@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

FAIRFIELD — Officials with the Fairfield-Suisun School District last week released information about field trips for students the same day an elected trustee challenged the district in a published opinion piece to do more to support such outings.

The governing board each year approves a School Plan for Student Achievement for each school in the district, the district reports in a press release issued Wednesday. The development and execution of these plans "include the input, feedback, approval and monitoring of educational partners such as parents, teachers and classified staff."

Those taking part in the process "determine how their state and federal taxpayer dollars will be spent to support students at their schools."

Benicia

site of Wine & Chocolate Walk

BENICIA — A Wine & Chocolate Walk has been scheduled Saturday in Benicia.

Marketed as a “Sweethearts Day Out,” the event runs from 1 to 5 p.m. in the downtown area.

“Various fine wines will be poured at participating downtown shops, providing an enjoyable sweethearts day out to ‘sip, walk and shop’ with the added bonus of chocolate tastings,” Benicia Main Street organizers said.

Tickets are $35 in advance and $65 in advance for a pair of tickets. Event day prices are $40 for a single ticket. Each ticket buys 15 tastes.

Participants must be 21 or older. Check-in starts at 12:30 p.m. at Benicia Main Street, 90 First St. Tasting locations and wristband will be provided at check-in.

Tickets are limited and are available at the Benicia Main Street office or at www.beniciamainstreet.org.

For more information, contact Benicia Main Street at 707-745-9791 or info@ beniciamainstreeet.org.

Lions set to host Surf & Turf Dinner

FAIRFIELD — The Fairfield Host Lions Community Service Foundation will have its 54th annual Surf & Turf Dinner on Saturday at the Fairfield Community Center.

Fresh crab and tri-tip prepared on site will be served, along with New England clam chowder, salad and garlic bread. Complimentary Starbucks coffee, popcorn and two no-host bars will also be available. There will be prize drawings, a dessert auction and 50/50 drawing.

Tickets are $65 for adults and $30 for children 6 to 12. Tickets for children 5 and younger are free. Profits go back into serving the local community.

For tickets, call 707-427-6927 or send an email to fairfieldhostlions@gmail.com.

The Fairfield Host Lions Club has been serving the local community since 1924. Its foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit community service organization.

SUISUN CITY — The Marina Lounge in Suisun City will host a Black History Month celebration Saturday. “The purpose of the event is to never forget your roots, never forget where you came from, and to never forget the shoes of those who walked ahead of us. We should always have a vision of where we want to go as a people and where we need to go,” Bonita Knuckles, event chairwoman, said in a statement.

The event is scheduled for 1 to 5 p.m. The lounge is located at 700 Main St., Suite 106. The celebration is free to the public. Register at marinaloungesuisun.com.

For more information, contact Knuckles at 707-971-5024 or bonita. knuckles@yahoo.com.

4 government meetings this week

FAIRFIELD — A handful of government meetings take place this week. They are all open to the public.

The meetings include:

n Vacaville Parks and Recreation Commission, 6 p.m. Wednesday, City Council chamber, 650 Merchant St. Info: www. ci.vacaville.ca.us/government/city-commissions.

n Solano Community College Governing Board, 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Solano Community College Administration Building, Denis Honeychurch Boardroom 626, 4000 Suisun Valley Road, Fairfield. Info: www. solano.edu/governing_ board/meetings.php.

n Vacaville School District Board of Trustees, 6:30 p.m. Thursday, boardroom, Educational Services Center, 401 Nut Tree Road. Info: https:// go.boarddocs.com/ca/ vusdca/Board.nsf/ vpublic?open.

n Suisun City/Fairfield-Suisun School District Joint Committee, 11 a.m. Thursday, Suisun City Hall, Civic Center Drive. Info: www.fsusd. org.

n The Suisun City Recreation, Parks and Marina and Arts Commission meeting scheduled for Wednesday and the Solano County Planning Commission meeting scheduled for Thursday have been canceled.

Fairfield-Suisun School District defends funding student field trips

Field trips and other type of experiential learning "are essential to students’ growth and development," the district said in the press release. These experiences are often budgeted and included in the School Plans for Student Achievement.

"To date, the district has expended $269,413 on field trips and transportation.

In total, over $1 million ($1,075,000) is designated in the 2022-2023 school year for field trips, camps and other out-of-the-classroom activities," according to the press release. "These exciting experiences range from trips to the San Francisco Exploratorium to attending the Folsom Jazz Festival."

The district has also purchased vehicles for Career Technical Education classes that are used for local field trips related to the various CTE programs offered throughout the district. These vehicles

Rolling Hills students try to spread kindness

Daily Republic Staff

DRNEWS@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

FAIRFIELD — Chil-

dren at Rolling Hills

Elementary School this week took part in The Great Kindness Challenge, the 11th year for one of the first schools in Northern California to bring the challenge to its students.

“We take great pride in the fact that we are one of the founding schools of the Great Kindness Challenge,” Principal Danny Gentry said in a press release. “Over the years, we have hosted VIPs from around the country and around the world who come to see our program and experience the kindness that makes Rolling Hills such a special place for students and adults alike.”

The Great Kindness Challenge is a proactive and positive bullying prevention program that

aims to improve school climate and increase student engagement. Students during the weeklong challenge are encouraged to perform as many acts of kindness as possible. Students are provided with a “kindness checklist.” This checklist contains kind acts for the students to complete such as “smile at 25 people,” “make a new friend,” “draw a picture and give it to someone,” and “slip a nice note in your friend’s backpack.”

"The Great Kindness Challenge is definitely the highlight of our school year. Kindness is something that we promote all year long with our 3Bs of Be Safe, Be Kind and Be Responsible,” Gentry said in the press release. “Our students have a lot of fun during this week, but the thing they enjoy the most is seeing the power of doing even small acts of kindness.”

Rare green comet making pass by Earth this week

K ellie Hwang SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

A unique green comet passing by for the first time since the Stone Age is making its closest approach to Earth this week, even visible to the naked eye for some viewers. And those curious to see it should grab the chance, because it won’t return in our lifetime – or perhaps ever, Bay Area astronomers say.

Known as C/2022 E3 (ZTF), the comet was discovered last March by the Zwicky Transient Facility in Southern California, according to Geoff Mathews, an astronomy instructor at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills.

and field trips are above and beyond what is outlined in the various plans at each school, the district reports.

"Parent clubs and booster clubs also see the value in providing students with additional experiences," according to the press release. "These clubs and organizations often prioritize their funding efforts to support additional field trips for students."

Trustee Ana Petero's opinion piece was pub-

lished Wednesday in the Daily Republic. In it, she challenged the district to do more to support such outings and recommended that that district consider spending some of its budget reserves to allow for more field trips and education outings for students.

Community members and parents may contact a local school site administrator for more information about funding for student field trips.

Frankl in Lee

Data has confirmed that the comet originated in the Oort Cloud, “a collection of icy bodies orbiting the Sun at the outer fringe of the solar system” – a common source for the cosmic ice balls, said Gerald McKeegan, an adjunct astronomer at the Chabot

Space & Science Center in Oakland.

“It is therefore likely that this comet is in a closed orbit and previously passed through the inner solar system about 52,000 years ago,” he said.

While a comet on such a closed elliptical orbit could be expected to return again tens of thousands of years in the future, its path could be interrupted by gravitational pull from other heavenly bodies, and by its own evaporation. The comet could then change or extend its orbit by millions of years, or even end up in a hyperbolic orbit –meaning it gains enough speed to escape the sun’s gravity entirely and exit the solar system.

This comet is “right on the edge,” Mathews said.

C/2022 E3 (ZTF) rounded the sun in mid-January, and its brightest and closest approach to Earth will take place Wednesday, Feb. 1. Experts say it will be visible for several days before and after that date.

Smith Frank a resident of LaPlace, L A, passed away

Courtesy photo

Rolling Hills Elementary School students are shown at an assembly to launch The Great Kindness Challenge, Jan. 23

Columns&Games

Scout troop introduces young adults to a variety of careers, hobbies

Dear Annie: I found the letter concerning college students who decided on careers too early to be very interesting. I have spent 40-plus years working with a Scout troop as an adult and have watched as many young men, and now young ladies, pursue interests in many areas through the merit badges they earned or dabbled in.

With well over 100 different topics, they were introduced to many occupations or hobbies they could explore further on their own. Of course, the merit badge program is only a part of the Scouting picture, and the Scouts also see many different occupations and interests as they do volunteer work out in their communities.

Even deeper exposure to occupations and areas of interest happens if they go on to the Explorer program, which emphasizes a single area of interest, such as geology, law enforcement, firefighting, etc. I don’t work with Explorer troops so am not as familiar with that part of the Scouting program.

I encourage parents and young people to look into the Scouting program as a means to not only serve the community but also to help youth dis-

ARIES (March 21-April 19).

Your comfort level with sharing emotion will change according to where you are, who you are with and the situation at hand. You never know until you’re in it. It’s interesting and even surprising what today highlights in you.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20).

Once you wondered what was possible; now an ambitious churning takes hold. No more acting out of need. This has turned into something more akin to desire, determination and purpose.

GEMINI (May 21-June 21).

When you feel like you’re in a box or walking a line, remind yourself of the circular nature of this existence. There are no isolated points. Everything connects. You may not see the connection, but you can trust it’s there.

CANCER (June 22-July 22).

You’ll work better in small groups. Energy is diffused in a crowd. Can you break out into a group of five or less? More will be accomplished where accountability is easily tracked between a few people.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22).

Though you are the sign known for lionheartedness, that’s not to say you don’t experience moments in which your heart, placed precariously in the hands of another, feels seethrough and papery as vellum.

Daily Cryptoquotes

cover what they might want to pursue as an occupation, and also to discover what they want to get as far away from as they can! —

Advice

From Vancouver Dear Vancouver:

Thank you for sharing your experience as a Scout leader. The issue of deciding on one’s chosen career is complex, and the experiences your Scouts have had seem to be an excellent way to have exposure to many possibilities. The next letter is from an accountant who has an interesting perspective about college. Dear Annie: I agree with the suggestion that all high school students consult with a guidance counselor and take an aptitude test before choosing a college and a major. It is incredibly important to choose the correct college for the field you wish to enter.

Ignoring the cost of education in this discussion is reckless. In my long career as a certified public accountant, I have seen far too many of my clients’ children exit college rudderless with a huge debt load. If money is no object, by all means let the student experiment, but for most it’s important to understand the potential return on their investment. It is not wise to invest

Today’s birthday

You shine as you streamline, define yourself, become more signal, less noise. People understand what you’re about and give you what you want, which is often to elevate everyone in the group. Highlights include informal training to hone soft skills, being paid well and getting to appreciate shows and sports close-up. Scorpio and Sagittarius adore you.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22).

Strong feelings are apt to distort your point of view, especially if they are uncomfortably trapped inside you. Don’t try to fix anything from that place. Do something else for a while. Come back after feelings have dissipated.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23).

Everyone wants something today. You stick to your own priorities so that your life reflects the person you want to be. That might mean doing what they want because your role in the group is a cornerstone of your character.

SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 21).

The practical advice you get will serve you well, even though in the end, you’ll do what you care to do. Only you

large sums in the stock market without performing due diligence, and part of that due diligence is understanding the potential outcomes.

I reject the notion that individuals who are 18 years old are too young to make such decisions. They are legally able to enter into contracts, including marrying and enlisting in the military, two decisions of far greater consequence than choosing a major. If they are old enough to burden themselves with all this debt, they are old enough to consider the implications on their future. The consequences of borrowing all that money should be clearly explained to each and every one of them.

Also, there is no shame in bypassing college altogether and beginning a trade. In fact, those who do gain an early financial edge. — From a CPA

Dear CPA: Thank you for your perspective, which focuses mainly on the shortterm financial return on an investment in higher education. At the same time, there is much to be said for a liberal arts education, but as you point out, it is not for everyone.

Send your questions for Annie Lane to dearannie@ creators.com.

know what you’re willing to commit to. Only you know the risks that seem worth it to you.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22Dec. 21). You didn’t set out to try to play the rebel, but you can’t help but notice what needs to change. It only takes one person to start the ball rolling. You’ll be the one to see things differently and to speak up.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22Jan. 19). People who feel exposed or are worried about being judged are not likely to show their true selves. It’s one of the reasons you go out of your way to build trust and comfort. It brings you closer to the truth.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20Feb. 18). The same story can be used as a weapon, a vehicle, a seduction or an identity. It’s your story to play around with. Repeat until you find the way to tell it that feels good and plays up the aspects that communicate best.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20). You respect your problems as teachers. A shoulder tap or clap on the back is a common gesture of acknowledgement delivered just before parting. You’ll do the equivalent with an issue you are now ready to move on from.

Write Holiday Mathis at HolidayMathis.com.

Word Sleuth

Bridge

Crossword by Phillip Alder

and go down. Declarer must take the second trick with dummy’s spade ace, ruff a diamond (perhaps after discarding a heart on the diamond king), ruff a heart, take the heart pitch if still available and trump another diamond, which establishes dummy’s last diamond as a winner.

South plays a club to the board and discards his club loser on the last diamond. He loses only one diamond and two spades.

2. Propose an auction with West the dealer.

North would like better suit qualities for his Unusual Two NoTrump, showing at least 5-5 in the minors, but immediately telling partner about your hand distribution has obvious advantages.

THE COMPETITION ANSWERS PART ONE

Here are the answers to the first two questions in my Christmas Competition.

1. South is in four spades. West leads the diamond jack: queen, ace, four. East shifts to the spade three: jack, six. How should South continue? This is easier to work out when looking at all 52 cards. Most players would win trick two in hand

Over two no-trump, East should bid four hearts, showing the values for a limit raise. (Three hearts is the equivalent of a single raise, and a three-club cue-bid shows at least game-forcing values in hearts. You overbid by one trick because you will play more accurately, knowing so much about the deal.) Over three hearts, South will presumably settle for three spades, but North might well raise. His hand could be a lot less suitable. Over four hearts, South will feel pushed into four spades, and he buys a good dummy.

COPYRIGHT: 2023, UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE

Sudoku by Wayne Gould

1/30/23

Fill in the grid so that every row, every column and every 3x3 grid contains the digits 1 through 9, with no repeats. That means that no number is repeated in any row, column or box. Solution, tips and computer program at www.sudoku.com

Difficulty level: BRONZE

Solution to 1/28/23:

Horoscopes by Holiday Mathis

Annie Lane Dear Annie

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‘The Last of Us’ star Pascal to host ‘SNL’

Los A ngeLes Times

Pedro Pascal will bring his TV takeover to NBC’s Studio 8H where he’s set to make his “Saturday Night Live” hosting debut next month.

NBC announced Thursday that the actor will host the sketch-comedy series on Feb. 4. He will be joined by musical guest Coldplay, which will return for its seventh “SNL” appearance.

Pascal’s debut comes weeks after his latest series, “The Last of Us,” debuted on HBO on Jan. 15.

“The Last of Us,” based on the popular 2013 PlayStation video game of the same name, is set in a post-apocalyptic world where a parasitic fungus has turned humans into flesh-eating zombies. Pascal stars as Joel, a hardened survivor tasked with smuggling

an infection-immune teenager named Ellie (Bella Ramsey) across the country. Together, they face the undead and dangerous human survivors to reach the cure-searching organization known as the Fireflies.

Pascal’s “SNL” gig also comes a month before he’s set to return as the titular character in Season 3 of Disney+’s “The Mandalorian” on March 1.

The actor, also known for “Game of Thrones” and “Kingsman: The Golden Circle,” is well aware that his recent roles have been father figures. And so are his Twitter fans, many of whom have celebrated the actor as “daddy” – and not in the paternal way.

Pascal has also come to embrace the term of endearment.

High-impact measures headed for 2024 ballot

The secretary of state’s office last week announced that a referendum aimed at overturning California’s landmark law to regulate wages and working conditions for fast food restaurants had qualified for the November 2024 ballot.

While it’s the first measure to qualify for an election more than 15 months hence, it won’t be the last. At least a half-dozen initiatives and referenda appear headed for the ballot, all with potentially heavy economic effects that will generate multimillion-dollar campaigns for and against.

Dan Walters

Chief among them, in terms of impact inside and outside the state, is the fast food industry referendum to abort a unique regulatory system that, if upheld by voters, could expand to other states and other consumer sectors.

Contending that low-wage fast food workers are exploited and otherwise powerless, unions and other advocates crafted Assembly Bill 257, which would create a 10-member Fast Food Council to set wages and working conditions, only four of whose members would represent franchisees and franchisors.

A coalition of fast food corporations and other business groups, dubbed Save Local Restaurants, immediately launched a drive to collect enough signatures on petitions to place the issue on the ballot.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration attempted to form the council and begin operations as the signatures were being tallied but the industry quickly persuaded a judge to block the move. The law will be suspended until voters have spoken.

It’s evident the industry will spend what it believes is needed to invalidate AB 257, not only because of its immediate effects in California, but because it could effectively undermine the franchise system in fast foods and other consumer businesses.

The fast food referendum is also indicative of another trend – business increasingly using the ballot to undo efforts by left-leaning legislators to impose more regulation.

Another referendum is another example –an oil industry drive to overturn last year’s Senate Bill 1137, which bans drilling or upgrading oil wells within 3,200 feet of a “sensitive receptor,” such as a school or hospital.

Advocates say the buffer zone is needed to protect health and safety of people in those facilities, but the industry sees it as part of an effort by Newsom and other Democratic politicians to force the industry out of California.

The other four measures likely to make the 2024 ballot are initiatives, to wit:

n Another effort by business groups to undo legislation they deem harmful, in this case a 2016 law called the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA). It allows employees to file lawsuits against employers alleging violations of state laws governing wages and working conditions, bypassing the Department of Industrial Relations. Business is also waging a battle in the courts over the law.

n A proposed surtax on personal incomes over $5 million to finance pandemic preparedness, sponsored by some high technology executives. It could have appeared on the 2022 ballot but was postponed due to the presence of another income tax hike, Proposition 30, that failed.

n An effort by anti-tax groups to overturn a 2020 state Supreme Court decision that relaxed the vote requirement for local special purpose taxes placed on the ballot via initiative. It also required new state taxes to gain voter approval and reclassified some state fees as taxes.

n A long-pending measure to increase the state’s minimum wage and automatically adjust it to inflation in the future. The measure is opposed by many business groups that are also engaged in the fast food duel and the battle over PAGA.

There are several other measures that that could make it to the 2024 ballot but these are the virtual certainties.

CalMatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California’s state Capitol works and why it matters. For more columns by Dan Walters, go to Commentary.

Letters to the editor

Letters must be 325 words or less and are subject to editing for length and clarity. All letters must include the author’s name, address and phone number. Send letters to Letters to the Editor, the Daily Republic, P.O. Box 47, Fairfield, CA 94533, email to gfaison@dailyrepublic.net or drop them off at our office, 1250 Texas St. in Fairfield.

THE RIGHT STUFF

Poor choices, tomfoolery, corruption

Two years ago, under Donald Trump, the economy was sound. Inflation was 1.4%. Gasoline and other petroleum products were at record lows. Unemployment for minorities and women were at all-time lows. Our foreign policy was sound. Afghanistan was being properly handled; there were no new wars.

Jim McCully

NATO was starting to live up to its financial commitments for the first time ever. American military power was feared and respected. Five additional peace treaties were signed with Israel. The main enemies of America – China, Russia and Iran – were contained. Manufacturing was being encouraged to return to America from overseas. Our Southern border wall approached completion and the border itself was under control.

The Covid-19 pandemic was receding despite debatable actions and recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Dr. Anthony Fauci. The stock market was trending up.

All this despite the most insidious and pernicious undermining of a presidency in history. Shockingly we discovered the main culprits were from Congress, our Department of Justice and the FBI. Frankly, the information coming out from whistleblowers and Twitter records, thanks to Elon Musk, is not only tragic, it’s treason.

Now, despite the accomplishments, the voters decided to change from a successful business leader to a career swamp dweller, Joe Biden, and keep a Democrat Socialist Progressive Peoples Party majority in the House of Representatives with a tie in the Senate. We have had twoplus years of their rule. Let’s examine the results. Corruption returned. High paying union jobs lost by the tens of thousands in the energy industry alone. Our Southern boarder wide open with untold millions of undocumented immigrants let through and scattered throughout America. Our foreign policy dubious. Our military now concerned with “woke” nonsense I define as “a state of mind achieved only by those dumb enough to find injustice in everything save their own behavior.”

Billions of dollars’ worth of equipment left in Afghanistan, 13 military lives unnecessarily sacrificed upon retreat on the altar of the Democratic Party’s misguided ambition. The sight of President Biden being ignored while he flies around the world begging allies, he previously alienated, to pump more oil while America floats on an ocean of it. President Biden and the Democratic Party took actions resulting in massive inflation (6.3% for 2022), inflation which is hurting everyone, especially those on low or fixed incomes, forcing choices among food, shelter, medication, further straining family relationships.

Now, after getting us to an astronomical $31 trillion-plus debt, President Biden and the Democratic Party, in 2023, gifted us with the following tax hikes: $6.5 billion on natural gas, $12 billion on crude oil, $1.2 billion on coal, $74 billion on stock, $220 billion in corporate tax (customers pay taxes).

Also, President Biden’s desire to hire 87.000 new IRS employees to generate new revenue for more things we neither want or need. Instead, let us take seven IRS criminal fraud special agents, a special counsel and a grand jury all outside DC. Then assign each special agent to examine the following: Joe and Hunter Biden, Nancy Pelosi. Chuck Schumer, Barak Obama, Hillary Clinton, Mitch McConnell. Then every current member of Congress who became a millionaire in office. This will not be easy; it will require a clarity of purpose and civil courage.

President Harry S. Truman famously said: “Show me a man that gets rich by being a politician and I’ll show you a crook.” Well, let’s update this to “man or woman.” Meanwhile, Socrates said: “I cannot teach anyone anything, I can only make them think.”

Are you thinking yet?

Jim McCully is a former chairman of the Solano County Republican Central Committee and former regional vice chairman of the California Republican Party.

Putin embraces Stalin’s way of war

‘When we kill five out of 10 of their soldiers at once, they are replenished again over the course of several hours,” a Ukrainian officer said recently of the Russian troops that for weeks have besieged the town of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine. The Russians, he added, stormed the defenders’ positions “five, six, seven times” a day.

In the unprecedented ferocity and relentlessness of the Russian assault, Bakhmut might signal the emergence of a new Kremlin warfighting doctrine.

The Russians started this war as a relatively high-tech blitzkrieg. But after the retreat from Kyiv and the Kharkiv region, and the loss of Kherson, their conduct of operations is rapidly reverting to the way Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union fought the Great Patriotic War (as the Russians almost always refer to World War II): a maniacal slog over the corpses of Russian soldiers. The dismissal earlier this month of Gen. Sergei Surovikin, the former commander of the Russian troops in Ukraine who organized a more or less orderly withdrawal from Kherson, reiterated the message: Saving soldiers’ lives is of no importance; pushing forward at any cost is.

The advent of Stalin’s way of war has been prepared by re-stalinization inside Vladimir Putin’s Russia: the steadily heightened repression; the anti-Western hysteria of Putin’s speeches, the vulgarity of which would put to shame any post-Stalin Soviet leader; and militarized patriotism as the de facto official ideology.

In 2020, after years of pro-military propaganda, Russians rated the army as the most trusted national institution. Russian soldiers can now be worshiped in the recently built Cathedral of the Armed Forces.

The West’s allegedly perennial threat to Russia’s sovereignty has become the dominant propaganda theme, and Putin’s defense of the motherland from the West’s depredations is the mainstay of his support and his regime’s legitimacy. The Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic War has been declared the most

significant event in Russia’s history and the apotheosis of national glory. Victory Day on May 9 has become the most important holiday, complete with infants in World War II uniforms, prams shaped like tanks, and kindergartners lined up in mock military parades.

“The military-patriotic hysteria brings to mind the USSR of the 1930s, the era of parades of athletes, tank mock-ups and dirigibles, and shaved napes,” wrote opposition essayist Sergei Medvedev. “Today, the people again joyfully dress in Red Army uniforms, take pictures of themselves on tanks and await war.” In the endless victory liturgy, Medvedev continued, Putin has forged a nation of war that has “battened the hatches and views the world through the lookout slit of a tank.”

Stalin’s wartime triumph has absolved him of all his monstrous crimes. A 2021 poll revealed 60% of Russians viewed Stalin positively –the culmination of a years-long trend that showed the Soviet dictator elbowing Peter the Great and Alexander Pushkin from first place among the most outstanding figures in world history. In 2012, on Putin’s 60th birthday, his favorite television talk show host, the rabid propagandist Dmitry Kiselyov, concluded his tribute by telling viewers that of all Russian and Soviet leaders of the 20th century, Putin was comparable only to Stalin. Soon thereafter, Putin appropriated the title that Stalin awarded himself at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War: “Supreme Commanderin-Chief.” Although the Communist Party general secretaries who followed Stalin were ex officio supreme commanders in chief, no Soviet leader since him had been so publicly addressed. Putin’s defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, led the way in November 2015, when reporting on Russia’s successes in Syria. Since then, the title has been repeated at every military or paramilitary function Putin attended, whether a meeting at the headquarters of the Russian police or a naval parade. In last year’s Victory Day parade, Putin was identified as “President – Supreme Commander-

in-Chief” in the official transcript. For the first time in Putin’s 22 years in power “Supreme Commanderin-Chief” was added to “President.” Putin, wrote the political philosopher Alexandr Tsypko, was trying to “to grab onto Stalin’s military overcoat and to slip into his jackboots.”

Bakhmut has shown that it’s not just for the rank that Putin looked to Stalin. Stalin’s infamous 1942 Order No. 227, known as “Not a step back,” created penal battalions, or shtrafbats. Staffed with officers and soldiers “guilty of the breach of discipline,” the shtrafbats were sent on kamikaze “human waves” attacks to “redeem by blood their crimes against the motherland.” Those lucky enough to be wounded but not killed were returned to regular units.

Reinforced with criminals plucked out of jails and promised pardon after six months in Ukraine, Putin’s de facto private mercenary army, the Wagner Group, looks more and more like a shtrafbat: Its soldiers have reportedly been sent on suicide missions or summarily executed for “cowardice.” The Wagner Group has already surpassed Stalin’s secret police in cruelty. Those executioners shot “traitors,” but their successors smash heads with a sledgehammer. It might not be long before we see another iteration of Order No. 227 –“blocking units” – positioned behind the advancing soldiers to shoot anyone retreating or merely hesitant.

“We drowned the enemy in our blood; we buried him under our corpses,” a war veteran and writer, Viktor Astafiev, recalled in 1988 of his experience in the Great Patriotic War.

The current defense minister, Shoigu, has proposed raising the number of combat personnel in the armed forces from 1.15 million to 1.5 million. Putin is readying for such a war. Ukraine and its Western supporters ought to be steeled for it as well.

Leon Aron is the author of “Roads to the Temple: Truth, Memory, Ideas, and Ideals in the Making of the Russian Revolution, 1987-1991.” He is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and has just completed a book about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and beyond.

Leon Aron

Santos scandal consumes Congress, chafes lawmakers from both parties

Tim Balk NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Trailed constantly by shouting reporters, Rep. George Santos has become one of the most watched first-term congressmen in history.

The New York Republican's every word is parsed. His preppy sartorial selections are analyzed. Even the treats his staff leaves for journalists outside his office have carried news cycles.

Three weeks after Santos, a 34-year-old serial liar, was sworn into Congress to represent a section of Long Island and a sliver of eastern Queens, the circus around him has hardly diminished.

And bipartisan frustration is growing among many of Santos’ colleagues, who see him as an embarrassing distraction at best, and a danger to their institution at worst.

“Quite frankly, we’re sick and tired of being asked about him,” Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, a Staten Island Republican, said in a statement, adding that “the focus should be on tackling inflation, securing our border and addressing crime.”

Malliotakis said Santos “does not have the trust of his colleagues.”

A majority of New York’s GOP delegation in the House has called on Santos to resign. But the congressman, whose fabrications first came under broad public scrutiny late last month, says he will not step down.

Republican leadership seems disinclined to push Santos out, given their party’s slim majority in the House and the risk that Democrats could flip his swing district in a hypothetical special election.

Vanden

From Page One

Decathlon for local public and private high school.

The Academic Decathlon is a competitive event modeled after the Olympics to stimulate academic achievement and honor “athletes of the mind.”

The competition provides students the opportunity to participate in an educational forum that fosters a deep respect for knowledge, cooperation and self-esteem. The decathlon includes tests in art, music, language and literature, mathematics, economics, science, and

Talks

From Page One

Republican leaders are considering proposing.

“We’re not going to default,” he said.

The White House took aim at McCarthy’s comment on CBS that “strengthening” Medicare and Social Security is a Republican policy goal, though he said he wasn’t calling for lifting the U.S. retirement age.

It’s “the latest giveaway” that House Republicans want to cut both programs, White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement.

Without congressional action, the Social Security trust funds will be insolvent by 2035 and the Medicare hospital fund will reach that point by 2028. Democrats have proposed raising the payroll tax cap for Social Security, a measure most Republicans have rejected.

After a hard-fought

social science. In addition, there are communication tests that include writing an essay, delivering a prepared and an impromptu speech, and an interview.

This is not the first time Vanden High School has represented Solano County at the state level. Two members of the Vanden team medaled in 2021 and the team as a whole took second at the 2021 Bay Regional Academic Decathlon.

Travis Credit Union sponsored the event and provided checks to the winning teams to help cover the costs associated with traveling to the state competition.

battle to win the House speakership, McCarthy is under pressure from his caucus to win spending cuts. And a group of two dozen Republican senators warned Biden last week they won’t support a debt ceiling increase without “structural” changes to U.S. spending. The U.S. can’t “continue just to spend more money and leverage the debt and the future of America,” McCarthy said Sunday.

“We’ve got to get to a balanced budget.”

By law, the federal government’s debt cannot exceed $31.4 trillion, a cap that was reached on Jan. 19. The U.S. Treasury has said it can hold out at least through early June by using special accounting maneuvers, but may default on payment obligations any time after that if the limit isn’t raised.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a Bloomberg interview last week that failing to raise the ceiling would be “a calamity.”

GOP leaders gave Santos seats on two House committees – the Small Business Committee and the Science, Space and Technology

Mystery

From Page One

sides of the car and in the passenger-side window.

Sgt. Bruce Borihanh from the Los Angeles Police Department said the home was used for short-term rentals. Neighbors said the area in recent years has seen an influx of occupants. Several homes are listed on Airbnb and Vrbo, ranging from $600 to $7,500 a night.

“We called it a gathering, until we can interview some of the people that were here to determine exactly what kind of gathering it was,” Borihanh told reporters at the scene.

Capt. Jonathan Tippet, head of LAPD’s RobberyHomicide Division, said witnesses to the shooting and people who were at the home had left before police arrived. Neighbors reported seeing several cars driving away from the scene within minutes of the gunfire.

Many neighbors woke up to the sound of police helicopters circling overhead.

“Now you know why moms worry about their children when they’re out late,” said David’s mother, who declined to give her name.

“I just feel terrible,” she added, gesturing with her coffee mug toward the blocked-off street where the three victims’ bodies were still in the car.

She and David live around the corner from the crime scene with David’s grandmother, who has lived in the house as its original owner since the 1960s. For decades, it was a quiet neighborhood of longtime residents. In the

Israel

From Page One

goes ahead with the identity card policy, it would apply to Palestinians in east Jerusalem, who — unlike West Bank Palestinians – have permanent Israeli residency granting them

Committee – a signal that they do not intend to excise him.

Early this month, Santos helped get Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California over the hump in his nail-biting, five-day bid to become House speaker.

“The operating principle of House Republican leadership is not ethics. It’s politics,” Rep. Ritchie Torres, a Bronx Democrat, said in an interview. “Kevin McCarthy needs every vote he can get. And he needs George Santos to remain in power.”

But Santos, Torres said, cannot be trusted with many responsibilities bestowed upon him, including access to classified records as a House member, and oversight of fraud in the sprawling Paycheck Protection Program as a member of the Small Business Committee.

“Can a fraud like George Santos be trusted to oversee fraud?” Torres asked dryly.

Two powerful New York Democrats, Reps. Gregory Meeks and

Joe Morelle, sent a letter to McCarthy on Wednesday asking him to prevent Santos from receiving classified information.

Meeks, ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, and Morelle, ranking member of the Administration Committee, said in their letter that they sought to prevent Santos from “abusing his position and endangering our nation.”

In an interview, Morelle said Santos’ wholesale falsehoods indicate he cannot be trusted with confidential government material.

“Once you have access to it, you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube,” said Morelle, of Rochester. “Right at the outset, let’s take preventative action.”

Santos is under a legal cloud in the U.S., where prosecutors in several New York offices have launched probes into him, and in Brazil, where a prosecutor’s office has moved to revive a 2008 theft charge against him.

air – some residents rode horses through the streets when Gilman moved in – the neighborhood has been transformed by investors building 10,000-square-foot homes to sell or rent, he said.

Gilman said he saw a listing for a home on the street where the shooting occurred whose rent was $100,000 a month.

He heard nothing Friday night, neither the sounds of a party or gunfire. Had there been a party, the sound would have been amplified through the canyon, Gilman said.

last five years, as many of the original owners have died, many of the homes have been converted into rental properties, the women said.

“Literally, I don’t even lock my car at night, it’s so safe,” David said. “Even people trying to find our house can’t find it.”

An Ellison Drive resident who declined to give her name said she also woke up to the police helicopters and assumed they were looking for suspects involving a lesser crime, perhaps a robbery. Then her phone pinged a few hours later.

“My dog walker woke me up at 6:30 and said, ‘Oh my God, are you OK?’” the woman said. “Then I realized it was way more serious than someone getting their jewels stolen.”

She said several houses had recently undergone renovations and appeared to have been converted to short-term rentals.

“There are some party houses up there,” she said. “I’ve always been curious what was gonna happen up the hill.”

Frank Coraci, a film director who has lived

Israeli identification papers and eligibility for social benefits.

Relatives of East Jerusalem-based attackers who express support for violence and terrorism could face this penalty, Netanyahu said. Their homes would also be razed. Netanyahu also said he would approve steps

in the neighborhood for the last 20 years, said he occasionally rents out his home. He’s had a tenant for the last eight months and now lives about 10 minutes away. When he heard of the shooting, he headed right over.

“It freaked us out, three people dead. I could have been walking my dog,” he said. The cul-de-sac has been home to several celebrity occupants, Coraci said. A sleek modern mansion across the street from the murder scene is often rented out for high-end parties, he said. House parties at rented homes were common during the Covid-19 lockdown, he said.

Benedict Canyon is a favorite of celebrities because it feels quiet and secluded despite being just a short drive from the city, said Joel Gilman, a retired advertising executive who bought his house in 1971 for $58,000.

“It’s like you’re a million miles away, except the city and the valley are a five-minute drive,” Gilman said.

While Benedict Canyon once had a rustic

to “strengthen settlement” in the occupied West Bank in response to the violence.

“While we are not seeking escalation, we are prepared for any possibility. Our answer to terrorism is an iron fist and a powerful, swift and precise response,” he said.

Hamas, the militant group that runs the Gaza

He was shocked that the suspect or suspects managed to escape, given the neighborhood’s dead ends and winding roads.

Benedict Canyon has been the scene of several high-profile murders over the years, including the 1969 Manson “family” killings and the 2000 murder of Susan Berman, who was shot in the back of the head by her best friend, real estate scion Robert Durst.

But “it’s really not typical,” said Samantha Anobile, a real estate agent, who lives down the street from the shooting scene.

One woman emerged from her house on Ellison Drive on Saturday afternoon to pick up a food delivery. She said she had just moved into the house a day earlier. She said she did not hear any gunfire and woke up to police swarming the street.

She did not expect a shooting on her block – “I mean, in Beverly Hills?” –but she said she was not particularly concerned.

“I’m from New York,” she said.

Strip called on its supporters to confront a “frenzied campaign” by settlers in the West Bank who Palestinians said were targeting their vehicles and shops. Videos posted on social media showed burning cars in a village near the West Bank city of Nablus. Bloomberg was not immediately able to confirm the footage.

Courtesy photo

The Vanden High School Academic Decathlon team waits to be introduced after their team win at Solano Community College in Rockville, Saturday.

Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times/TNS

A Los Angeles Police Department officer stands on the 2700 block of Ellison Drive in Beverly Hills, California, Saturday. The street is blocked off due to a police investigation after a shooting that left three dead and four others critically wounded.

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images/TNS

Rep. George Santos, R-NY, leaves a GOP caucus meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., Wednesday.

Katie Porter wants Feinstein’s Senate seat. What are her chances?

DaviD Lightman

MCCLATCHY WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, the feisty congresswoman from Orange County, California, is running for Senate. But does anyone north of the Los Angeles area know who she is? Does she have a chance?

And will the incumbent, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, run again?

Porter, 49, last week became the first Democrat to formally enter the race. Feinstein, who will be 91 on Election Day 2024, has had memory problems and decided not to become Senate President Pro Tem, which would have put her third in line for the presidency.

She said after Porter’s entry into the race, “I will make an announcement concerning my plans for 2024 at the appropriate time.”

Right now it’s impossible to know what that could be.

After talking to analysts and consultants here’s how Porter’s current prospects look.

Why Porter can win

n She wins tough races. Porter’s 45th Congressional District is a swing district that’s a frequent Republican target. Porter was elected to Congress in 2018 by defeating twoterm incumbent Mimi Walters, the first time since the district was created in 1953 that a Democrat won.

Last year, Porter was one of the GOP’s big targets, but she beat Republican Scott Baugh with 51% of the vote.

n She can raise a lot of money. Porter raised $25.4

million for her 2022 House campaign, the second biggest haul of any House candidate, behind only current Speaker Kevin McCarthy. She wound up with $7.7 million that she can use for a Senate campaign.

Last week, Porter raised $1.38 million online in the 24 hours after her Jan. 10 announcement.

She took no corporate or political action committee money and has not taken any throughout her career.

n She has a political brand. Porter is known for her whiteboard, which she has routinely used during congressional hearings to make her points easy to understand.

Porter is known for her tough grilling of corporate and administration officials. She was a consumer protection attorney before coming to Congress.

“She’s spent her life and career taking on powerful interests and protecting families,” Porter spokesman Nathan Click said.

Porter was a student of Elizabeth Warren’s at Harvard Law School, and the two have worked together on consumer protection issues. Warren,

now a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, endorsed Porter for the Senate last week.

n She can benefit from a multi-candidate field in a primary. Rep. Barbara Lee, who represents the 12th District, is expected to run. Rep. Ro Khanna of the 17th District is said to be considering the race. Feinstein is the former mayor of San Francisco. While Rep. Adam Schiff, of the 30th District, is also in the mix and announced his candidacy Thursday, Porter could benefit from her Orange County base, since the county is a high-turnout area — often higher than some other Southern California areas. Meanwhile, Lee, Khanna and perhaps Feinstein may end up dividing the Northern California vote.

Why Porter will have trouble

n She’s from Southern California. The north tends to have a higher turnout for Democrats. “That gives candidates from northern California an advantage,” said Grose.

Andrew Harnik/Pool/Getty Images/TNS file (2022)

U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., in June 2022. She has declared her candidacy for a Dianne Feinstein’s California Senate seat.

QB injury woes hit at worst time for 49ers as Eagles win NFC title

PHILADELPHIA — This 49ers’ season was bound to go down in franchise lore for its shuffling of injured quarterbacks and that harrowing theme defined Sunday’s closing act in the NFC Championship Game.

Brock Purdy, the once-unbeaten rookie phenom, injured his throwing elbow on the 49ers’ opening possession of what became a 31-7 disaster, the third-most lopsided defeat in their playoff history. It was so bad that when backup quarterback Josh Johnson exited with a concussion shortly after halftime, Purdy had to re-enter the game, but he was in too much pain to attempt more than two, short passes in a fruitless comeback.

“That opening drive, we lost

our last quarterback,” coach Kyle Shanahan said. “We were inspired watching our defense. We felt, down two scores, we could run and generate enough on offense and maybe get a turnover.”

The 49ers didn’t just run out of quarterbacks. Their defense was off-kilter, allowing four touchdown runs and stacking up penalties in the unfriendly confines of Lincoln Financial Field.

Alas, the 49ers lost in the NFC Championship Game for a second straight season, and unlike last year’s defeat at Los Angeles that came down to a fourth-quarter collapse, this one looked doomed from the start and will cast quite a dark cloud for the offseason.

Purdy will undergo an MRI on Monday to determine what happened to his right forearm, which swelled up and still pained him

Djokovic secures 10th Australian Open crown

Tribune ConTenT AgenCy

MELBOURNE, Australia — Novak Djokovic swept to a 10th Australian Open title and 22nd grand slam to equal Rafael Nadal at the top of the men’s all-time standings on Sunday. A year after seeing Nadal pull ahead while he tried to process the fall-out from his Australian deportation for not being vaccinated against coronavirus, Djokovic has been determined to show that Rod Laver Arena is his stage.

afterward when he met the media.

“My arm just felt like it stretched out, just felt like a lot of shocks all over, from my elbow down to my wrist, front and back. Just pain, really, all over,” Purdy said.

So, now what?

That defense, presuming NFL sack king Nick Bosa signs a record extension, likely will rebound next season under a new coordinator. DeMeco Ryans is expected to leave for a head-coaching gig with the Houston Texans if not the Denver Broncos.

The 49ers’ offense will return with heavy questions at quarterback, an annual storyline as their Lombardi Trophy drought has hit the 28-year mark. Those questions: Will Purdy’s elbow require significant surgery? Will Trey Lance

See 49ers, Page B8

Chiefs headed to Super Bowl after finally getting best of the Bengals

Herbie Teope

THE KANSAS CITY STAR

KANSAS CITY, Mo. —

An untimely penalty and a game-winning 45-yard kick became the difference with less than a minute remaining in the AFC Championship Game. Bengals defensive end Joseph Ossai was flagged for a 15-yard personal foul after hitting quarterback Patrick Mahomes out of bounds with 17 seconds remaining in regulation.

The infraction moved the Chiefs closer to the Bengals’ 27-yard line, where Harrison Butker took care of the rest by drilling a 45-yard field goal to give his team a

23-20 win, which sends the Chiefs to Super Bowl LVII.

The Chiefs and Bengals traded jabs in the

first half of the Sunday’s AFC Championship Game at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium before

exchanging heavy blows in the second half.

But only one team would emerge victorious, and Mahomes made sure it was his team.

Mahomes passed for 326 yards and two touchdowns in the win, which snapped the Bengals’ three-game winning streak over the Chiefs. Defense became an early theme in a game featuring two of the NFL’s top offenses.

The Chiefs opened the second half with a threeand-out and the Bengals made Kansas City pay.

Joe Burrow led an 8-play, 62-yard drive,

See Chiefs, Page B8

He dropped just one set all tournament despite saying he feared a left hamstring problem might force him to withdraw and finished with a 6-3, 7-6 (4), 7-6 (5) victory over first-time Australian Open finalist Stefanos Tsitsipas.

Djokovic also reclaims the world number one ranking from Carlos Alcaraz, and it would be very difficult to argue that he does not justify that position having once again put

the younger generations in their place. His status in Australia, meanwhile, is unmatched, with the 35-year-old winning a 28th consecutive Australian Open match and a 41st in a row in the country as a whole.

There are large Greek and Serbian communities in Melbourne, and the atmosphere was reminiscent of a football match, with fans decked in their country’s colours and umpire Louise Azemar Engzell constantly appealing for quiet during points.

Both men received raucous welcomes, but the reception for Djokovic was just a little bit louder, and his fans soon had plenty to cheer.

For the first time all tournament, there was no heavy strapping on his left thigh, although a couple of strips of tape were a reminder that Djokovic had cruised through to the final while not 100% fit.

See Open, Page B8

Report: Giants add catching depth in Perez

evAn WebeCK

With Joey Bart and Austin Wynns left as the only players in the Giants organization who had caught a game in the major leagues, and just Bart left on the 40-man roster, addressing the depth behind the plate was one of the last items left on Farhan Zaidi’s offseason to-do list.

San Francisco reportedly checked that box Sunday afternoon, agreeing to terms with 34-year-old catcher Roberto Perez, according to Chris Cotillo, the Red Sox beat reporter for MassLive.com. He had first reported that Boston was in talks with the veteran backstop. The club has yet to announce the move.

The terms of the agreement have not yet been reported. Earlier this month, Zaidi said it

was “unlikely” the Giants would add another catcher on a majorleague deal, though Cotillo reported that Boston made an “aggressive” push. Perez signed a $5 million contract with the Pirates before last season but underwent season-ending surgery on his hamstring in May. Before health troubles the past two seasons (a fractured finger and a strained shoulder also cost him time in 2021), Perez was considered one of the top defensive catchers in baseball. He was a back-to-back winner of the Gold Glove and the more analytically inclined Fielding Bible awards in 2019 and 2020. In his best season, with Cleveland in 2019, he hit .239 with 24 home runs in 389 at-bats. However, he has mostly been unable to replicate

See Giants, Page B8

Can Warriors’ Wiggins rediscover his rhythm on road trip?

FRANCISCO —

Andrew Wiggins is hoping to get his season back on track after dealing with yet another impediment last week.

Wiggins had been working his way back to peak form earlier this month after missing substantial time with injuries and sickness. His most recent setback — a brutal head cold that was still giving him troubles Sunday —

didn’t help his cause.

“Being out for this is kind of annoying,” he told reporters after practicing, sniffling between his answers.

Wiggins is expected to be back in the starting lineup Monday night against the Thunder after missing the last two games with a non-Covid illness. He was a full participant in practice Sunday at Chase Center before the team boarded a plane to Oklahoma City, and even “looked great” in a scrimmage, coach

Steve Kerr said. Kerr said Wiggins was probable for Monday’s game, but the Warriors wing wasn’t on the team’s injury report, meaning he should be good to go. Meanwhile, Andre Iguodala remains out with a right hip strain. It’s anyone’s guess when he’ll be back. Kerr referred all lines of questioning to the 39-year-old, who’s played in only three games this season.

It’s been a tough twomonth stretch for Wiggins, a player known for his

durability. He was playing one of his best stretches of basketball before an injury and subsequent illnesses derailed his second career All-Star campaign.

A strained thigh muscle in early December sidelined him for 11 games. Wiggins returned to practice and was on his way to getting back into the lineup, then trouble stuck again. He got sick – not once, but twice.

When Wiggins was finally cleared, he was out for a total of 15 consecutive

games, by far the most he’s missed in his career, and he hasn’t looked the same since returning.

Before his monthlong absence, Wiggins was shooting 51.1% from the floor and 45% from deep, while averaging three 3-pointers and 19.1 points per game. After sinking a career-tying eight 3s en route to scoring 36 points in early December, Wiggins said he felt like he was floating and shared his goal of trying to maintain an above 40% 3-point shooting clip.

But it’s been a bumpy transition back. Wiggins previously admitted he felt like he was a step slow in his return and that his 3-point shot hasn’t felt as fluid as it did before.

Wiggins also hasn’t attacked the rim as aggressively as the Warriors need him to, and his defense has waned, at times, as he tries to get his conditioning back to game speed against opponents already in midseason form.

“It’s been a little tough,” Wiggins previously said.

Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group/TNS

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Josh Johnson (17) fumbles in the second quarter of the NFC Championship

Game against the Philadelphia Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, Sunday.

David Eulitt/Getty Images/TNS

Travis Kelce (87) and Patrick Mahomes (15) of the Kansas City Chiefs celebrate after defeating the Cincinnati Bengals 23-20 in the AFC Championship game at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium, Sunday.

Subtle swaps in familiar dishes can be an

to start your MEATLESS JOURNEY

Nicole HvidsteN STAR TRIBUNE

Unsure where to start?

These 8 tips can help pave the way to meatless eating.

Choosing to go meatless can be a challenge at any time of year. But winters can provide an extra hurdle, since overflowing baskets of garden-fresh produce are a distant memory.

But winter is also a time when things tend to slow down, both in life and in the kitchen. We can be more thoughtful about meal choices and shopping habits, eager to eat better and save money after a season of excess.

No matter what time of year you’re making this lifestyle change, there’s a tsunami of information. It can quickly get overwhelming. We’ve waded through experts’ tips, cautionary tales and recipes to help you chart your own meatless course, whether you’re aiming to remove meat entirely or just wanting to cut back.

Start with familiar territory. You probably have meals in your rotation that are already meatless (pasta primavera) or can easily become so. Make chili with extra beans and skip the meat. Craft a burrito bowl with roasted vegetables. Instead of a hamburger, sub a portobello mushroom or blackbean burger. Stir-fries or soups chock-full of vegetables are just as delicious as those with meat.

Go slow. It’s best not to go cold turkey, so to speak. Several experts recommend a phased approach to meet your meatless goals. Hop aboard the Meatless Monday bandwagon and choose one meal or day a week to commit to being meatfree. From there, increase the frequency at a pace that’s comfortable. Another tip: Start by eliminating red meat first, followed by pork, poultry and finally seafood.

Replace what you remove. The protein and calorie count is higher in meat than plants, so you’ll need to make sure you’re filling the nutritional gaps. Incorporate meatless forms of filling protein into your menus, such as sweet potatoes, legumes, nuts, seeds, quinoa, soy and dairy products (unless you’re adapting a vegan diet). Be sure to read labels, too; foods you may think are plantbased might not be (Caesar salad dressing) and some plant-based foods are highly processed, negating the positive health effects of going meatless. Make a plan. Menu planning will be worth your while. Plan not only dinners, but also breakfasts, lunches and snacks to make shopping easier and keep food waste down. Eating out? No problem. Most restaurants have meatless options or dishes that can be tailored to your needs, and the number of vegetable-forward and vegan restaurants in the Twin Cities is growing.

Try new foods. A meatless diet doesn’t mean you’re destined to a life of leafy greens. While salads are great, it’s a big

my enthusiasm never wavers. There’s a wealth of recipes out there, and the cookbook section of a bookstore is a great place to start. Think about the approach and cuisine that works for you, and there’s probably a cookbook for it. You can find vegetarian and vegan-friendly cookbooks, as well as titles dedicated to vegetables and meatless cooking in multicookers and air fryers.

The internet has endless recipes, but it can be overwhelming. Winnowing searches by ingredient or types of cuisine will help you pinpoint recipes to your liking. There also are several sites that have menus already planned or that will deliver meatless recipes to your inbox, including Meatless Monday (mondaycampaigns. org/meatless-monday) and chef and author Robin Asbell (robinasbell.com).

Use this as a learning opportunity. Sure, you’ll brush up on the nutritional value of foods, ensuring that your meatless diet is rich in protein, calcium, iron and other vitamins and minerals. But it’s also a chance to explore different cooking methods, spices and flavor combinations. It’s like getting a bunch of new toys in your culinary sandbox.

Keep your doctor in the loop.

processor, but you can easily chop the walnuts and vegetables if you don’t have one. Freeze leftover sauce for up to three months.

1 pound cremini (baby bella) mushrooms, wiped clean and quartered

1 teaspoon kosher salt, divided

1 cup (4 ounces) walnut halves

1 medium onion, cut into eighths

3 medium carrots, peeled and cut into eighths

2 medium celery stalks, quartered

3 cloves garlic

2 tbsp. olive oil

¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes, plus more for serving

1 teaspoon kosher salt, divided

2 tablespoons tomato paste

3 teaspoons Italian seasoning

1 cup dry red wine, such as merlot or pinot noir

2 (28-ounce) cans whole tomatoes

1 ½ tablespoons soy sauce

Freshly ground black pepper

1 pound dry pasta, such as rigatoni or tagliatelle, cooked according to package directions

Fresh basil, chopped, for serving Parmesan cheese, for serving

Place

1 3 of the mushrooms in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the blade attachment. Pulse until coarsely chopped, about 5 to 7 quick bursts. Transfer to a medium bowl and repeat with the remaining mushrooms; set aside. Do not wash the food processor.

occasionally, until they release their moisture, are deeply browned, and their volume is reduced by twothirds, about 15 minutes.

Add the chopped vegetable mixture and remaining ½ teaspoon salt. Cook the vegetables until softened and the onions are translucent but not browned, about 5 minutes. Stir in the tomato paste and cook until it is completely incorporated with the mushrooms and deepens in color, 30 seconds to 1 minute.

Add the bay leaf and Italian seasoning, then pour in the wine and scrape up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Simmer until the wine evaporates, about 2 minutes. Stir in the tomatoes and their juices (crush the tomatoes with your hands before you add them to the pot), soy sauce and ground walnuts. Reduce the heat and continue to simmer. Cook, stirring occasionally and continuing to break up the tomatoes, for 20 minutes. Add ground pepper and additional salt to taste.

Serve over cooked pasta with fresh basil, Parmesan and a sprinkle of red pepper flakes.

BLACK BEAN ENCHILADAS Serves 4.

Note: Stuffed with vegetables and spices, use this recipe as a base and create your own flavors. We used broccoli, but cauliflower, sweet potatoes or squash would be equally tasty. This would also be a great vehicle for leftover roasted vegetables, our vegetable-prepara

1 ½ cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese, divided ½ teaspoon salt, to taste Freshly ground black pepper, to taste 8 tortillas (about 8 inches in diameter) Cilantro, for optional garnish Avocado, for optional garnish Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Lightly grease a 9- by 13-inch baking pan with olive oil or cooking spray.

In a large skillet over medium heat, warm the olive oil until it’s shimmering. Add the onions and a pinch of salt. Cook, stirring often, until the onions are tender and translucent, about 5 to 7 minutes. Add the broccoli and bell pepper, stir and reduce heat to mediumlow. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 8 to 9 minutes, or until the broccoli is bright green. Add the cumin and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the spinach, a handful at a time, stirring until it has reduced in size. Repeat until all the spinach is added and wilted.

Transfer vegetables to a medium bowl. Add the beans, corn, ¼ cup of cheese and a drizzle of enchilada sauce, enough to moisten. Season with ½ teaspoon of salt and pepper, to taste.

To assemble the enchiladas, pour ¼ cup of enchilada sauce into the prepared pan and swirl until the bottom is evenly covered. Spread ½ cup of filling down the middle of a tortilla, then fold the left side (and then the right) to make a wrap. Place it seam-side down against the edge of the pan. Repeat with Drizzle remaining sauce over theered, and sprinkle the remaining shredded cheese evenly over the Bake, uncovered, on the middle rack for 20 minutes, or until golden and bubbly. Remove from oven and let rest for 10 minutes. Beforetro. Serve with sliced avocados, as

easy way

Nicole Hvidsten/Minneapolis Star Tribune/TNS

Mushroom walnut bolognese sauce is hearty even without the meat.

Holiday spending hangover

7 tips to pay off debt, increase your savings

K aren Bennett BANKRATE.COM

If you spent a pretty penny on holiday-related shopping and activities in recent months, you’re not alone.

Winter holiday sales for 2022 were expected to reach up to $960 billion, which would reflect an 8 percent increase over 2021, according to the National Retail Federation (NRF).

If you’re entering the new year with increased debt and decreased savings, chances are you have goals of paying off credit cards and building up your bank account. These are common financial resolutions in 2023, as decades-high inflation looms and Americans look to strengthen their finances.

Fortunately, some simple steps can help you get on the right financial track and sleep better at night.

1. Make a spending and saving plan

The key to money management is knowing how much comes in and goes out every month. Using a spreadsheet, pen and paper, or a budgeting app, list your monthly income and expenses. Identify ways you can reduce spending, such as dining out less frequently, canceling subscriptions you don’t use or shopping around for more affordable car insurance. Dollars that can be removed from spending categories can be moved into

buckets devoted to saving money or debt repayment.

A budgeting app can help simplify the process of listing out your income and expenses. Apps like You Need a Budget, Mint and Goodbudget contain userfriendly features for tracking spending and increasing savings.

2. Find a savings account with the best rate

A savings account provides easy access to cash when you need it, making it a good place for an emergency fund. Not all savings accounts are equal, however, since rates can vary a great deal among banks. Many big banks pay rock-bottom annual percentage yields (APYs), while some online banks and credit unions pay yields that are well above the national average.

“Shopping around and putting your money in a highyield savings account can put hundreds of dollars in additional interest earnings in your pocket,” says Greg McBride, CFA, Bankrate chief financial analyst. “Additional return without sacrificing access to the money when needed or the protection of federal deposit insurance – it is the only free lunch in finance.”

3. Separate your savings according to goals

Some banks and credit

unions can help you save money by allowing you to devote portions of your funds to different goals. To avoid going into debt when the next holiday season arrives, you might use this strategy to set up a dedicated holiday shopping fund.

Alliant Credit Union allows its members to open supplemental savings accounts, each of which can be used to fund a specific goal.

“One supplemental savings account could be for a vacation, while others can be for things like holiday spending or a down payment on a new car or a new house,” says Chris Moore, director of deposit and payments product strategy at Alliant. Up to 19 such accounts can be opened by a member, and recurring transfers can be set up from other accounts, Moore says.

4. Create a credit card repayment plan

Whether due to holiday shopping or other expenses, you may have accumulated balances on multiple credit cards. The various strategies on how to pay off such debt include the avalanche method, which consists of paying off the credit card with the highest interest rate first and continuing with the strategy until all your debts are gone. A benefit of this strategy is you’re removing the debts that are costing you the most money in interest first.

Another strategy is the snowball method, which involves

paying off your credit card balances in order from the smallest to the largest. “An example of this is if you have one with $500 and one with $5,000, you are best to start with the smallest card first no matter the interest,” says Keith Heritage, investment advisor representative and founder of Heritage Financial Services in Newberry, Florida. “This allows you to gain momentum and helps with the process.”

5. Do a credit card balance transfer

Consumers can help pay down credit card debt through a balance transfer to a card with a low interest rate or a zeropercent rate, Heritage says. Transferring your balance to a card with a zero-percent introductory period allows you to pay down a balance without incurring additional interest.

Such balance transfers can be useful for anyone with highinterest debt who needs more time to pay it off. Those with good or excellent credit scores often qualify for top-rated balance transfer credit cards with longer low-interest or interest-free introductory periods.

credit cards. You can avoid being hit with hefty interest fees by not charging more than you can pay off completely when the bill arrives. One way to reduce your credit card bill is by canceling subscriptions, memberships or other services you’re charged for every month that you don’t use. Reducing your monthly credit card charges frees up money in your budget that can be used to pay down the balance faster.

7. Put windfalls to work

It can be tempting to book a vacation or go on a shopping spree when you receive a financial windfall such as a tax refund, work bonus or inheritance. Rather, consider putting some or all of the money toward savings or debt repayment.

One way to use a financial windfall is to set it aside for holiday-related expenses you’ll have next winter. This can help you avoid generating credit card debt when you’re ready to start spending money on things like gifts, parties or trips during the holidays. You’ll thank yourself the following January when the big credit card bills don’t arrive.

Bottom line

6.

Curb your credit card spending

Whether you’re paying down a credit card balance or determined to keep out of debt, reevaluate how you use your

Many consumers find it easy to fall into debt around the holidays. But putting these practical strategies to work can help you bring down your credit card balance and build up your savings.

A huge chunk of land in Bel-Air going up for auction

triBune Content agenCy

Thanks to its impressive list of celebrity residents and impressive collection of record-setting mega-mansions, the Los Angeles Westside neighborhood Bel-Air has developed a reputation as one of the ritziest enclaves in the country.

A 260-acre property that spans 6% of the famed neighborhood is being auctioned off to the highest bidder.

The auction is a last-ditch effort to sell the massive spread known as Senderos Canyon, which is one of the largest and most valuable pieces of undeveloped land left in the L.A. area but failed to find a buyer since hitting the market a decade ago.

At 260 acres, it's three times the size of Disneyland and easily dwarfs the 157-acre Mountain in Beverly Hills, which is widely considered the finest undeveloped parcel left in L.A. It's by far the biggest piece of land cur-

rently on the market in L.A.; second place belongs to a 53-acre spread in Granada Hills asking $1.2 million.

Despite its colossal scale, potential buyers have been sparse because of the extensive cost and time it would take to develop the property into something profitable.

Made up of three contiguous parcels, the trophy property first surfaced for sale at $125 million in 2013. No takers.

In 2019, the price was trimmed to $75 million, then $60 million. Still nothing. Now, it's being auctioned with bids starting at $39 million, representing a discount of nearly 70%.

There have been plenty of ideas for the property over the years. The land is unentitled, so it's not yet designated for a specific use, but prospective shoppers have pitched just about everything: a goat farm, a retirement community, a luxury wellness retreat or even an outdoor campus for a school.

"Everyone has grand ideas," said listing agent Scott Tamkin of Compass. Renderings showcase potential uses for the prized acreage. One shows a golf course. Another depicts a horse ranch surrounded by a man-made lake.

A more realistic vision for the land could be a handful of luxury homes, and Tamkin estimates Senderos Canyon could fit roughly 17. There are 15 to

20 acres at the top of the property that would be the easiest to develop, but building deeper into the canyon would be more difficult, requiring significantly more infrastructure and grading.

The auction is being held by Paramount Realty USA, which has handled more than $2 billion worth of real estate auctions. Misha Haghani, the company's owner, called the property "unique and irreplaceable."

The bidding opened on Jan. 24 and goes until March 15 –a strategic date for the owner. Roughly two weeks later, Measure ULA goes into effect, adding a 5.5% transfer tax to the deal, assuming it sells for more than $10 million.

If it sells for $39 million, the seller – a limited liability company called Giro Properties – would owe $2.145 million under the tax. To help speed things along, the seller is offering a $2-million credit if the buyer closes before the measure kicks

in on April 1.

It's the latest example of luxury property owners eyeing ways of avoiding the tax. Some are simply trying to sell off real estate before April, while others are getting more creative by looking into splitting up properties to cut their value to below $5 million – the price point at which a 4% tax is triggered.

Auctions are typically viewed as a last resort for selling a home and usually only happen once a property has languished on the market for multiple years.

In 2021, the Hearst estate in Beverly Hills was auctioned off for $63.1 million after originally listing for $195 million. Last year, a 105,000-square-foot mega-mansion known as the One sold to the highest bidder for $141 million – an all-time record for a home at auction, but a far cry from the initial asking price of $295 million.

Sarinya Pinngam/Dreamstime/TNS

If you’re entering the new year with increased debt and decreased savings, chances are you have goals of paying off credit cards and building up your bank account.

Dreamstime/TNS

An aerial view of Highway 405 with heavy traffic, with the hills of a Bel-Air neighborhood in the background.

If not for Murphy, this meet-the-parents

Michael PhilliPs CHICAGO TRIBUNE

Already there’s a huge range of reactions to “You People,” which debuted on Netflix Friday after a week in a few theaters for appearance’s sake. Hilarious? Riotous? Hackneyed? Annoying? Are comic sensibilities really so various that nobody can agree whether the laughs and the heart are there with this thing, or not?

Well, no. We can’t agree. Comedy, like everything else in movies, has a tendency to divide, not unite. Surely most of us know the feeling of being the one not laughing in a laughing crowd, the Buster Keaton surrounded by hyenas.

Already raved up in early reviews, “You People” offers a few choice bits and throwaway lines served up by a first-rate cast – especially Eddie Murphy and Julia Louis-Dreyfus – way, way out ahead of their material. For millions of eyeballs, they’ll be enough.

“Black-ish” creator Kenya Barris directed and co-wrote the Los Angeles-set “You People.” His co-writer, Jonah Hill, stars as Ezra, a 35-yearold stockbroker tired of his job and eager to develop his side hustle – a brash podcast on Black culture, which he hosts with his friend Mo (Sam Jay). She calls Ezra “my favorite Jew with nuthin’ to do”; he’s so devoted to their mutual love for the podcast’s subject, he’s like the brother Quentin Tarantino never had.

The topic their podcast hits on in every episode, inevitably, is simple: Can Black and white people in America today ever truly know each other? When lonely Ezra meets aspiring costume designer Amira

(Lauren London), the question shifts from macro to micro. She’s the daughter of Muslim parents Akbar (Murphy) and Fatima (Nia Long), who do not love the idea of their only girl getting serious with a white man.

Ezra’s parents, meantime, are more receptive but also more embarrassing, especially Shelley (Louis-Dreyfus), married to podiatrist Arnold (David Duchovny, very much sidelined and near-silent in the final cut). In the first big fat awkward meetup with her future in-laws, Shelley broadcasts her sympathy with and understanding of the Black experience in ways that scream “Wake up! I’m woke!” “You know the national anthem?” she asks, as she’s being pushed out of the living room by her aghast son. “I think everybody should kneel!”

“You People” contrives obstacle after obstacle for Ezra and Amira, with the expected arrival of serious relational conflict around the two-thirds point. A rom-com’s predictability rarely dents a streaming audience’s enjoyment of anything. Predictable is comfortable. Still, without Murphy’s deadpan, steely reactions to the latest affront, “You People” would be all strain and little gain.

On the page and as acted, Hill settles for familiar readings of lines that should be

fresher. Ezra’s a chronic liar, largely out of desperation to please or get along with his perpetually side-eyeing in-laws. Some of the bits work, usually in dubious taste; one deals with Ezra concocting a story about the modest engagement ring he buys for Amira being an heirloom from his grandmother, “from the Holocaust.”

The movie gives us dueling bachelor/ette parties in Palm Springs and Las Vegas, and eventually Akbar sees past his initial harsh judgment of Ezra.

The crises come and go, but my heart periodically sank watching “You People” squander its on-screen pros. In an early Yom Kippur sequence, set at L.A.’s Skirball Cultural Center, you get Hal Linden, Elliott Gould and Richard Benjamin in cameos, only to be saddled with a relay joke about Ezra’s genitals.

I’m spoiling nothing by saying the central couple just might stay coupled in the end.

“Mr. and Mrs. Mohammed Cohen,” Murphy says, smiling, approvingly, to Louis-Dreyfus, his partner in movie-saving.

“Ain’t that a bitch?” A century ago, the massive Broadway hit “Abie’s Irish Rose” satisfied audiences with a tale of an Irish lass, a Jewish boy and their meddling, tradition-minded parents. With a smooth overlay of L.A. sights and sounds, and a side of blueprints stolen from “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” and “Meet the Fockers,” “You People” ends up a lot less insightfully funny than “Black-ish.” At heart it’s a disappointing 21st-century answer to “Abie’s Irish Rose.”

Crossword by Phillip Alder

Bridge

Partner opens one heart. What would be your bidding plan? You should respond two no-trump, the Jacoby Forcing Raise.

4b. Partner opens one no-trump (15-17). What would be your bidding plan? Respond two diamonds, a transfer to hearts, and if partner rebids two hearts (does not superaccept), settle for three no-trump. You are unlikely to have a good slam.

5a. Look only at the North hand. West opens one no-trump (15-17). What would you do? Bid two no-trump, showing at least 5-5 in the minors.

5b. East raises to three no-trump. What would you lead? The diamond three. Hope you can collect three diamonds and two aces.

6a. Look only at the East hand. Partner opens one heart. What would you respond? Three hearts, a gameinvitational limit raise.

THE COMPETITION ANSWERS PART TWO

Here are my answers to the supplementary questions in my Christmas Competition.

THE COMPETITION ANSWERS PART TWO Here are my answers to the supplementary questions in my Christmas Competition. 3. What more successful opening leads did West have? West defeats four spades by starting with his low trump Bridge Here’s how to work it: WORD SLEUTH ANSWER Word Sleuth Daily Cryptoquotes B4 Monday, January 30, 2023 — DAILY REPUBLIC

3. What more successful opening leads did West have? West defeats four spades by starting with his low trump or either club.

4a. Look only at the West hand, ignoring the other three given hands.

6b. North opens one spade. What would you do? Pass. You are not quite strong enough for a takeout double, especially as the opponents seem to own the spade suit.

7a. Look only at the South hand. What would you open as dealer? Two spades is the modern answer! Would the vulnerability make a difference? Probably not, though some might bid three spades at favorable. 7b will be in tomorrow’s column.

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Jonah

Lauren London in “You People.”

Friends take a trip to the Super Bowl

FAIRFIELD — A few films are coming to local theaters this week.

Four aged friends decide to take a trip to see Tom Brady at the 2017 Super Bowl LI in “80 for Brady.”

Also showing is a horror film by M. Night Shyamalan and a cartoon about a cat that scams people until he finally meets his match.

Opening nationwide are:

“80 for Brady,” a film inspired by a true story that tells the tale of four best friends who decide to take a trip to the 2017 Super Bowl LI to see their hero Tom Brady play. The film stars Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, Rita Moreno and Sally Field, with seven-time Super Bowl Champion and producer Tom Brady. The film is rated PG-13.

“Knock at the Cabin,” a M. Night Shyamalan film about a family vacationing at a remote cabin who are taken hostage by four armed strangers who demand the family make an unthinkable choice to avert the apocalypse. The film is rated R.

“The Amazing Maurice,” a cartoon about a streetwise cat, Maurice, who runs scams on dumb humans who fall for his act. But the scam he tries to pull on a little boy who plays a pipe and has hundreds of rat friends does not go as planned. The film is rated PG.

Opening in limited release are:

“The Quiet Girl,” a film set in 1981 rural Ireland about 9-year-old Cait, who is sent away from her overcrowded, dysfunctional family to live with foster parents for the summer. The child, who was easily lost in the rush of a crowded home life, finds herself blossoming in the care of foster parents. But in this house where there are meant to be no secrets, she discovers one painful truth. The film is rated PG-13.

“Unexpected,” in which music critic Bob, who is struggling with a demotion, is addicted to Zoloft and trying to wrangle the menagerie of animals his wife Amy has accumulated, finds himself at a crossroads. The film is not rated.

“In the Morning,” the story of Sami (Alex Bakri), a Palestinian-born Israeli citizen living in Jerusalem who receives an invitation to his brother’s wedding, forcing

him to return to the Arab village where he grew up.

After the wedding, with no explanation, Sami’s hometown is put under a military blockade lockdown by Israeli soldiers. When chaos erupts overnight among the villagers stuck behind the wall due to the blockade, Sami is cut off from the outside world and trapped in an unexpected situation. As he deals with questions about his own identity and hidden secrets are revealed, Sami watches everything he holds dear begin to fall apart. The film is rated PG.

“She is Love,” in which a divorced couple accidentally rents the same home. After being estranged for more than a decade, Idris and Patricia opt to revisit the past and traverse that treacherous path together, emerging open to new beginnings. The film is not rated.

“The Locksmith,” in which an ex-con (Ryan Phillippe) is pulled back into a world of crooked cops and small-town gangsters, despite the future he hoped to build with his ex-girlfriend (Kate Bosworth), a detective, and their daughter after he leaves prison. The film is not rated.

“Who Invited Charlie?” in which a surprise visit from an old college friend, Charlie, tosses his old pal, Phil Schreiber’s, life upside down at the start of the quarantine. Schreiber has hidden a lot from his wife, Rosie. They have ended up in the Hamptons during lockdown and as the weeks go by, Charlie worms his way into the hearts of Phil’s wife and son. As Charlie makes himself at home, secrets are revealed that threaten to do more harm than good. The film is rated PG-13.

For information on Edwards Cinemas in Fairfield, visit www. regmovies.com/the atres/regal-edwards-fair field-imax. For Vacaville showtimes, visit www. brendentheatres.com. For Vallejo showtimes, check www.cinemark. com/theatres/ca-vallejo.

Zits Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman

Pearls Before Swine Stephan Pastis

Dilbert Scott Adams

Baby Blues Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott

Baldo Hector Cantú and Carlos Castellanos

Ex-Georgia QB gets arrested for public intoxication

rosana hughes

THE ATLANTA JOURNALCONSTITUTION

Stetson Bennett, the quarterback of the University of Georgia’s back-to-back national championship teams, was arrested on charges of public intoxication in Dallas, Texas, on Sunday morning, according to police.

Police in Old East Dallas were called to the 1600 block of Tribeca Way about 6 a.m. after getting reports of a man banging on doors in the area. When they got there, they found 25-year-old Bennett and determined he was intoxicated, Dallas police said in a statement.

Detention center officials would not confirm with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution whether Bennett had been released, but Dallas TV station WFAA reported he was released from the facility about 10:45 a.m.

Central time wearing a black hoodie and being escorted into a black SUV by law enforcement.

Scoreboard

Sharks captain Logan Couture perseveres through tough stretch

Curtis Pashelka BAY AREA NEWS GROUP

The University of Georgia athletic department did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment Sunday. The AJC also attempted to reach Bennett’s agent for comment.

Bennett is in Texas training for the 2023 NFL draft after completing one of the most accomplished careers in Georgia football history. He finished fourth in voting for the 2022 Heisman Trophy — presented annually to the top player in college football – while passing for 4,127 yards and 27 touchdowns during the Bulldogs’ 15-0 season.

In the 65-7 championship victory over TCU, Bennett had arguably the best game of his career with six touchdowns (four passing and two rushing). In 2021, he passed for nearly 3,000 yards and 29 touchdowns in leading Georgia to the national title – the first for the program in 41 years.

Bennett’s arrest is the third recent off-the-field tragedy/incident involving a player.

SAN JOSE — This hasn’t been an easy season for any member of the San Jose Sharks, who are careening toward a fourth straight spring without a chance to compete in the NHL playoffs.

But for Logan Couture, perhaps the most clutch playoff performer in Sharks history and one of the few remaining connections left to the franchise’s most successful era, it’s been especially difficult.

“It’s not an easy situation for him,” Sharks coach David Quinn said of Couture. “Certainly, the season hasn’t gone the way any of us thought it would. He’s voiced his frustration to me on a couple of occasions.”

That, of course, doesn’t mean Couture hasn’t stopped competing. Few players love the Sharks organization or care more about the team than Couture.

“I’ve only known him a short period of time but I’ve got so much respect for him,” Quinn said of Couture, now in his fourth season as the team’s captain. “He’s a true professional, he’s

humble, he comes to the rink and works his ass off every day.”

Couture scored the game-winning goal and had the first five-point game of his NHL career Saturday as the Sharks survived a frantic final few minutes to earn a 6-4 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins. The victory snapped the Sharks’ four-game losing streak and allowed them to head into a 10-day break on a positive note.

“He really made sure that we weren’t going to lose tonight,” Quinn said.

Couture also had the primary assists on goals

by Mikey Eyssimont,

Alexander Barabanov, and Noah Gregor. He now has 42 points in 51 games, a .82 point per game average that’s his highest since the 2018-19 season when he had 70 points in 81 games.

That was also the last year the Sharks made the postseason, the time of year when Couture has usually taken his game to another level. In 101 playoff games from 2011 to 2019, Couture had 97 points, a total surpassed in that time by only one other player – Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby.

For now, Couture can only help control how the

Sharks do in the regular season, and his performance Saturday was one to remember.

On Couture’s first goal, he received a pass from Barabanov and put a shot on Penguins goalie Casey DeSmith. But Penguins forward Rickard Rakell, trailing the play, crashed into DeSmith and took the puck with him across the goal line.

“It’s nice to see the puck going in,” Couture said. “Pucks just found the back of the net for us tonight. We’ve lost a lot of heartbreakers this year, so it’s good to see one go our way.”

Couture pumped his fist after the puck crossed the line, as the Sharks bounced back from a crushing 5-4 overtime loss to the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday night.

“I’m not going to lie, it was tough going to sleep because you get (into Pittsburgh) late and you’re up for a few hours thinking about how that one (in Carolina) ended,” Couture said. “To the guys’ credit, we forgot about that one pretty quickly and rebounded well.”

Couture is also now on pace for his fourth career 30-goal season.

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Serbia’s Novak Djokovic hits a return against Greece’s Stefanos Tsitsipas during the men’s singles final at the Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne, Sunday.

Open

From Page B8

If the 35-year-old has been vulnerable in slam finals over the past couple of years, it has tended to be early on, with Djokovic losing the first set on four consecutive occasions, including against Tsitsipas in the Greek’s only previous final at the French Open in 2021.

There Djokovic went two sets down but still came back to win. He was in no mood for a repeat here, though, looking supremely sharp from the start, forcing Tsitsipas to save two break points in his opening service game and then breaking to lead 3-1.

The 24-year-old barely landed a glove on his opponent during Djokovic’s service games, with the first set whizzing by, but Tsitsipas, who has carried himself with an air of great confidence all fortnight, got a foothold in the match early in the second set.

He was serving with more authority and finding greater depth and penetration on his groundstrokes, although he was still reluctant to

Chiefs

From Page B8

which included a quarterback draw play, resulting in a Burrow 11-yard run, and a well-placed 27-yard pass to wide receiver Tee Higgins, who got behind Chiefs rookie cornerback Jaylen Watson in the end zone. The touchdown tied the game at 13-13.

The Chiefs answered on the next drive. Mahomes drove the offense 77 yards on 11 plays and finished the drive with a 19-yard dart to wide receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling to give the Chiefs a 20-13 lead.

Mahomes connected with Valdes-Scantling three times on the drive on gains

Wiggins

From Page B8

“Just finding my groove, finding my rhythm, just trying to get back in stride.”

In his last seven games, Wiggins averaged 12.4 points while shooting 34% from the field and 22.7% from outside.

But with Golden State trying to make up ground in the Western Conference standings, the team needs

Giants

From Page B8

that offensive success, with four seasons of sub.200 batting averages and a career batting line of .207/.298/.360 (a .658 OPS) in nine MLB seasons.

Selected by Cleveland 33rd overall in the 2008 amateur draft, Perez spent his entire professional career in the same organization before signing with the Pirates last season. He now joins

venture to the net.

Djokovic no longer looked quite so sure of himself, gesticulating frequently to his box, which was again without father Srdjan, who opted to stay away from Melbourne Park for another match after being filmed with pro-Russia activists last week – inadvertently, the family insisted.

The Serbian took a heavy tumble in the seventh game, and at 4-5 he missed a routine backhand to give Tsitsipas a set point.

The Greek was unable to seize his opportunity, though, and soon he was two sets down after an error-strewn tie-break.

Chances will always be at a premium against Djokovic and taking them is paramount but Tsitsipas was again too charitable at the start of the third set, finally breaking serve only to hand the advantage straight back.

He was at least able to repel Djokovic’s pressure to force a second tiebreak only to find himself 5-0 down. He battled back with some of his best tennis of the match but a forehand that just caught the line was enough for Djokovic to clinch his second match point.

of 6, 19 and 25 yards.

Valdes-Scantling finished the game with a team-high 116 yards receiving and a touchdown on six catches.

Mahomes showed little signs of the high-ankle injury suffered in the AFC Divisional Round, but he fumbled late in the third quarter with the Chiefs leading 20-13. The turnover gave the Bengals possession at the Chiefs’ 45-yard line.

Burrow marched the Bengals to paydirt in six plays, which included a 35-yard completion to wide receiver J’Marr Chase on a fourth-and-6 situation.

Running back Samaje Perine finished the drive with a 2-yard touchdown run to tie the game, 20-20.

Wiggins to step up.

Kerr has been trying to stagger Kevon Looney and Draymond Green’s minutes as much as possible since the team’s frontcourt depth has not been as reliant as the Warriors had hoped. That means deploying their small-ball lineup. While that group plays an up-tempo pace and has ample offensive firepower, it’s also prone to some defensive lapses. When Wiggins is playing at his best, he can make it a more effective lineup on

a San Francisco catching group that includes Bart, Wynns and Blake Sabol competing for two or three spots on the 26-man Opening Day roster.

While Wynns served as Bart’s primary backup after San Francisco dealt Curt Casali to Seattle at the trade deadline, he was designated for assignment earlier this offseason to clear a spot on the 40-man roster. Casali, a clubhouse favorite who spent 2021 and the first half of ’22 with the Giants, was

49ers

From Page B8

fully recover from two procedures on his right ankle? Will Jimmy Garoppolo indeed seek asylum elsewhere or are those aforementioned health issues enough to merit yet another encore?

Well, to quickly recap a season that featured 15 wins and a fatal fifth loss:

*Lance, the 49ers’ 2021 top draft pick, broke his right ankle in the home opener, and he had follow-up surgery only a month ago.

*Garoppolo, banished to a side field during his training camp limbo, revived his just-win-baby stock, until a Dec. 4 fracture to his left foot.

*Purdy, the 262nd and final pick as the draft’s “Mr. Irrelevant,” produced eight wins and needed just one more to become the first rookie to make the Super Bowl.

*Johnson, 36, looked every bit the veteran journeyman as he struggled in emergency duty before

The excitement level in the game ratcheted up in the second half after the two teams seemed to feel each other out on the first half.

Cincinnati’s first possession of the game didn’t generate too much, but the Chiefs lost cornerback L’Jarius Sneed on the fourth play of the game to a concussion. Chiefs defensive end Frank Clark ended the Bengals’ possession with a sack on Burrow. The Bengals punted after a five-play, 9-yard drive.

On the Chiefs opening possession, Mahomes completed 3 of 4 passes for 35 yards and would’ve had a 25-yard touchdown pass if wide receiver Kadarius Toney was able to haul in the ball.

both ends of the floor.

After Monday, the Warriors will head to Minnesota to play the Timberwolves on Wednesday before traveling to Denver Thursday to play the Nuggets, who are No. 1 in the West. This threegame road trip will present Wiggins with an opportunity to find his flow and do all of the above.

“It’s been a little tough but I’ve been working hard in practice,” he said. “Hopefully one of these games coming up I’ll be back.”

a free agent but opted to return to Cincinnati. Wynns accepted his outright assignment and will compete for a job in the spring.

Sabol, 25, was acquired from the Reds in the Rule 5 draft and must spent the entire season on the active roster or be offered back. However, the Giants are unlikely to enter the season with him as Bart’s only backup; he has played 25 games above Double-A, and evaluators aren’t sold on his glove.

getting concussed by a Ndamukong Suh hit, only 2 ½ minutes after halftime.

That’s when the 49ers found themselves down 14 points and four quarterbacks, at least until Purdy was thrust back into the game in what everyone expected would be a comeback attempt built around run attempts and short throws.

“He didn’t lobby much (to return) because he kept throwing (on the sideline) and realized he couldn’t,” Shanahan said.

During the replay review that ruled a fumble rather than an incompletion on his fateful play, Purdy asked for a football to throw on the sideline, to which he said: “Even on those couple of throws, I was, ‘Man, this is not right.’ … I told (Shanahan) right there: ‘If we run a play, I can’t throw deep. For this play, it was hurting really bad, and if we were going to get a completion, it had to be something short, if that’s alright.’ ”

The vociferous crowd was not as much a deciding factor as Eagles’ sack leader Hasson Reddick. On Purdy’s sixth snap, his

arm was bent by Reddick while attempting a pass from midfield. Riddick had beaten Tyler Kroft’s block and blown up a play in which Purdy tried hitting Brandon Aiyuk for a big gain.

Purdy was charged with his first career fumble, but losing the ball was secondary to the 49ers losing their hot-shot quarterback to an injury.

“It definitely puts a damper on things,” Bosa said. “But we’ve been through it multiple times this year and had a lot of hope and prevailed (in the past). … It was tough, definitely not how you draw it up.”

With five minutes to go, the 49ers deployed running back Christian McCaffrey at quarterback for a trick play that resulted in a harmless incompletion with no 49ers in the vicinity and encapsulated the struggles of the day.

The Eagles built a 21-7 halftime lead with a trio of touchdown runs, giving them the type of cushion that paved their way to an 8-0 start to the season and eventually the NFC’s No. 1 seed with

home-field advantage.

Coincidentally, the only other time these teams met in the playoffs, the 49ers’ starting quarterback got hurt to torpedo their championship aspirations. That was Steve Young, who broke his ribs in a 14-0 wild-card win over the visiting Eagles in 1996. The injury forced Young to make a quick exit in their ensuing loss at Green Bay.

Before Johnson was sent off with a concussion, his relief appearance wasn’t pretty. It included three delay-of-game calls, two sacks, and a fumbled shotgun snap, the latter coming between two Eagles touchdowns in the final 96 seconds before halftime that broke open a tied game. He was 7-of-13 for 74 yards, in only his third appearance this season, having played 22 snaps in mop-up appearances against Tampa Bay and Arizona.

“I don’t think we were numb,” Shanahan said. “Guys were up to the challenge. We thought Josh would go in, execute our plan and give us a chance.”