Daily Republic: Monday, May 15, 2023

TsusAn HilAnd SHILAND@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

FAIRFIELD — Gabriella Diaz, an Angelo Rodriguez High School senior has spent the better part of this year working on a portfolio of her art to show to prospective colleges next year.

The 18-year-old will be graduating in a little over a month and her final project is a creation that is unique and stunning in shiny, black vinyl.

Diaz has created a grand dress completely made from vinyl records. Along with the dress are several other pieces all done with records.

“At the beginning of the year the teacher brought in all these

May Fair celebrates mothers with roses A3

End of the dynasty? Let’s remember it as it was B1

records,” she said. “I looked at them and wondered what I could do with them.”

She knew off the top of her head that she wanted to create something with the records that was related to fashion.

“I think for all the pieces I have used 100 total records,” she said.

It has not been easy figure how to sew records together and make an item of clothing that was bendable and flexible enough to move around in.

The project assignment was create something for a 3D project. She needed to create four pieces for a fashion show with fully developed looks.

professional artist — but, interestingly enough, not a fashion designer.

“It has gotten stressful,” she said.

After spending months on planning and finishing her first dress, she examined it and found that it didn’t move in the way she wanted it to.

“I took it all apart, all of it,” she said. “It needed to be full-length, black and strapless. It needed to be easier to get on.”

She changed up the base of the skirt so it was fabric, and the top was still a sleeveless corset. From there she created panels made of records stretching to the floor; about 12, all told.

Tribune ConTenT AgenCy

Survivors of the racially motivated mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket continue to feel the effects of the tragedy a year later.

Rose Wysocki, who was a produce manager at the Tops Friendly Market where the shooting occurred, experienced symptoms including anxiety attacks and nightmares after returning to work there, she told the Buffalo News in an article published Sunday.

During therapy, she

She hopes these pieces impress colleges as she is set on becoming a

learned she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety and was told she would “never be able to heal” if she kept working at the store. She still goes to that supermarket to visit friends and pick up prescriptions but has since started working at a different Tops location.

“I can’t stand when people say to you: ‘Just move on.’ You don’t understand until you go through it,” Wysocki told the Buffalo News. “It’s not that easy to just move

“It is heavy,” she said. See

See Student, Page A7

bloomberg

The number of migrants seeking to cross the southern U.S. border has been “markedly down” despite an expected surge following the expiration of pandemic-era border restrictions, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said.

Speaking on CNN’s State of the Union, Mayorkas said over the past two days, the U.S. Border Patrol “has experienced a 50% drop in the number of encounters versus what we were experiencing earlier in the week,” before the border limits, known as Title 42, were lifted.

While Mayorkas said it was too soon to say whether the surge has peaked, border agents reported about 6,300 encounters on Friday and 4,200 on Saturday. Authorities said early last week the number stood at an all-time high of 10,000 daily.

An unprecedented surge of migrants crossing the U.S. southern border over recent months has been a political albatross for President Joe Biden, with Republicans and some fellow Democrats questioning if the White House was prepared to handle the influx.

Republicans have repeatedly said that the sunsetting of Title 42, a public health measure that restricted migrants during the heights of the Covid-19 pandemic, would lead to a fresh surge in attempted crossings. Mayorkas told ABC’s This Week that he believes the dropping numbers show the administration’s policies are working.

“We have been preparing for this transition for months and months, and we’ve been executing on our plan accordingly,” Mayorkas said on ABC. “Our plan is very straightforward, there is a safe, lawful and orderly way to reach the United States.”

See Border, Page A7

Border crossings fell 50% since Covid rule ended, Mayorkas says Erdogan vote margin narrows as rivals claim lead in

Turkish elections

bloomberg news

Turkish President

Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s reported lead over his key rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu has narrowed rapidly as the number of ballots counted increases in Turkey’s most pivotal elections in a generation.

With 41.8% of ballot boxes opened, Erdogan won 52.7% of the vote and Kilicdaroglu 41.4%, according to state broadcaster TRT. The opposition said its parallel count shows Kilicdaroglu ahead, without saying by how much.

Earlier in the night, Erdogan’s share of the vote was reported at 59.5%.

Erdogan, Turkey’s longest-serving leader, has molded the NATO member into a regional power that plays a growing role from Ukraine to Syria. But increasingly erratic economic policies have left

the 69-year-old incumbent vulnerable to voter resentment after an inflation crisis last year gutted household budgets.

Kilicdaroglu, 74, has the backing of the nation’s broadest-ever grouping of opposition parties. He is running on a promise to restore the rule of law, mend strained ties with the West and return to economic orthodoxy.

The world’s money managers are waiting for the election’s outcome to decide whether Turkey becomes a “buy” again. Foreign money flooded Turkey’s equity and debt markets during Erdogan’s first decade in power, but investors exited in recent years as Erdogan’s growth-at-allcosts policies debased the nation’s currency.

Ankara’s Mayor Mansur Yavas, a member

See

Authors, an accident, yogurt gnomes and a rockin’ white rat

It’s been a number of weeks since I have used this space for what it was intended for, my The Last Laugh column. Sometimes I get a bunch of items for Back in the Day that crowd it out. But today I return you to your regularly scheduled humor column already in progress.

Local Authors Showcase

The Local Authors Showcase that was held May 5 and 6 at the Vacaville Town Square Library was an absolute blast. There were close to 30 local authors who participated who write in numerous genres including science, fiction, fantasy, crime drama, historical romance, photography, children’s books, memoirs and much more.

There were panel discussions that took deep dives into the creative processes of the authors and spelled out how to avoid pitfalls when it comes to getting published. There was a little section carved out in the library for authors to read a portion of their books aloud for 15 minutes as well. In addition to selections from my first two books I also read a portion from my upcoming one “Armijo High School: Fairfield, California” about the history of the now defunct Indian mascot.

Now, authors could sell their books there, but it turns out that selling books in the very place where folks can get them for free kinda puts a damper on sales. I get it though, because I’m the same way. Instead of coughin’ up cash I either checked out or put holds on books by several of the people I met there including Betty Lucke (“Circle of Power : A Circle Sleuth Mystery”), Sherree Brose (“Under the Stardust”), Grant Perryman (“Ama’s Dream”), Lauren Marie Filarsky (“Emma and Starfire: A Story of the Star Horses”), June Gillam (“Nest of White Crows: A Hillary Broome Novel”) and Diana Corbitt

CORRECTION POLICY

(“Ghosters”).

Now I just need more hours in the day to read them all.

Car hit

When I was 17, I hit a parked car when I “Driving Miss Daiseyed” my mom’s Vista Cruiser Station Wagon –accidentally hitting the gas and not the brakes. I left a note on the windshield with my contact information as no one was there to witness it.

That’s a li’l thing we call doing the right thing.

Doing the wrong thing is hitting my blue Jeep Renegade while I was in the Local Authors event on May 5, breaking my driver’s side mirror, scuffing the right quarterpanel and then leaving.

Doing the right thing was the person who witnessed the accident and left a note with a description of the vehicle, the driver and the license plate number. I am very grateful.

Rockin’ in Español

I sometimes listen to community playlists on YouTube music and discover new artists among genres that I like including smooth jazz, yacht rock, old school funk, and hard rock/ metal among many others. I recently came across a group I really enjoy called Rata Blanca which is Spanish for White Rat.

There’s something about them that hits the sweet spot in my rockin’ sensibilities even though they are from Argentina and the overwhelming majority of their songs are in Spanish which I do not speak. Well, besides some cuss words I keep handy.

The attraction is mainly because of their guitarist Walter Giardino whose aggressive, melodic style is obviously influenced by one of my favorite axemen, Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple.

Now there is precedence for me loving music whose lyrics I don’t understand, most notably numerous Santana

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songs sung in Spanish. But there ones that, I assume, were sung in English too that fit that bill. Off the top of my head, Soul Brother Number One James Brown and Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant have lyrics in some of their tunes that, decades after their release, have yet to be deciphered by some of the world’s top linguists let alone me.

The Game Receipts

I was doing some high dusting last week because that’s something that I do every sixteen years whether it needs it or not. In addition to layers of caked-on dust that rivaled what one might reasonably be expected to find in a sealed Egyptian pyramid, I found an interesting piece of paper. On closer inspection I started to laugh when I realized what it was.

Way back in the 1980s when me and my mom would team up against my dad and my brother Ken playing dominoes, it was a gloat-fest whenever either side won. Sometimes when me and my mom came out on top, my dad would point out that the last time we played he and Ken had won handily. Pretty soon I started saying “There’s no proof

The WashingTon PosT

Johanna Carrington has said goodbye to numerous pets over the years, but the loss of her dog Rocky last year - when she was 100 years old - was particularly painful.

“I missed him so much, especially because he liked to sit on my lap,” said Carrington, now 101, who lives in Moss Beach in the San Francisco Peninsula, where she has a live-in caregiver.

“The house seemed really empty after Rocky was gone, and I was quite sad,” she said.

When Carrington’s daughter, Debbie Carrington, noticed that her mom seemed depressed in the weeks after Rocky’s death, she decided to look into adopting a new dog for her.

“My mom was 100 at the time, and we weren’t sure whether it would even be possible for her to have a dog at her age,” said Debbie Carrington, 65, who lives nearby in Half Moon Bay.

“I honestly wondered if anyone would allow it,” she said.

Then Debbie’s friend, Christine Falletti, told her about Muttville Senior Dog Rescue, a San Francisco nonprofit that rescues senior shelter dogs and matches them with new owners, regardless of age.

“As long as my mom had a strong support team - and she does - we learned that she could adopt another dog,” she said. “My mom had rescued dogs her whole life, and we knew it would make a huge difference for her to have another one, even at 100.”

Eight months on, her mother is proof that dogs enhance the lives of seniors, Debbie Carrington said.

Since Gucci, an 11-year-old Chihuahua mixed breed, was rescued from an animal hoarding situation and sent to live

of that” when he tried that tack. When he tried to pull the same thing on me, it would backfire as I would then produce the signed and dated score sheet from the last time we’d won. I had the receipts.

Well, I carried that tradition on with my own family and the dust-caked piece of paper I found was a score sheet from December 20, 2009. It wasn’t for Scrabble though. No, it was much better. It was for a game called Nertz, which I suck at. It’s a card game which is basically like a bunch of people playing solitaire all together and super fast. The first person to successfully play all their cards yells “Nertz!” and get the points from the others who have whatever points left in their hands deducted from their score.

My wife Beth learned it in college and she smashes it. Our daughter Kaci was awesome at it too. The score sheet shows that Beth was keeping score so there is no chance I cheated during the game (I have priors). It was so rare for me to win at Nertz that I may have it framed.

The Newspaper Birthday Party Beat

I was doing some research

using microfilm at the Civic Center library and came across an article in a 1953 local newspaper about a birthday party for then 7-year-old Jackie Ambrose. What I loved the most about it, besides the fact they they even used to cover those for the paper, is the detail included:

The young guests arrived at 3 p.m. to find a festive twolayer cake decorated with pink and yellow roses topped with pale blue candles. Surrounding the cake were tall, thick blue candles which cast a soft light over the punch bowl and highlighted the Neapolitan ice cream.”

There was no mention in subsequent articles if it had been considered for a Pulitzer.

Magic Yogurt

Like me, Beth is a wholefood, plant-strong eater and she makes soy-milk yogurt as the store-bought ones ain’t cheap. She has a yogurt maker and I have seen her perform the laborious tasks of mixing soy milk and nut milk and putting it in the machine and then hours later taking it out and straining it through cloth to get that thick Greek yogurt texture.

I don’t go through all that hassle. All I do is open the fridge and VOILA! magically there’s a container of soy milk yogurt in there!

To show my appreciation, I got some doll-sized jackets from Amazon for the hardworking invisible refrigerator gnomes who must craft it for me. Fairfield freelance humor columnist and accidental local historian Tony Wade writes two weekly columns – “ The Last Laugh” on Mondays and “Back in the Day” on Fridays. Wade is also the author of The History Press books “Growing Up In Fairfield, California,” “Lost Restaurants of Fairfield, California,” the upcoming book “Armijo High School: Fairfield, California” and hosts the Channel 26 government access TV show “Local Legends.”

“I believe that’s my secret to longevity,” she said. “That and having dogs.”

A study published in 2021 by Frontiers in Public Health found that seniors with pets weren’t as lonely during the covid-19 pandemic and felt more socially connected.

Seniors like Carrington who can’t walk dogs on their own still benefit from pet ownership, provided that they have someone who can assist with caring for their pets, said Sherri Franklin, the founder of Muttville Senior Dog Rescue.

with Carrington in September 2022, her daughter said she has noticed a marked difference in her mother’s demeanor.

“She’s a lot happier, and she and Gucci have become best friends,” she said. “Gucci is very gentle with her and follows her everywhere. He waits for her in the bathroom when she gets ready for bed at night, then follows her to bed and snuggles in.”

“Everyone can see there’s an incredible bond there,” Debbie Carrington said.

Johanna Carrington said Gucci is the perfect companion and that he learned his way around the house as soon as he moved in.

“When they first brought him over, he ran straight up the stairs and found me like he’d been here before,” she said. “When I asked him his name, he licked my face to tell me, ‘I love you already.’”

“Having him here with me is like a dream,” she added.

Johanna grew up in Germany and said she was sent to live in an orphanage during World War II in her late teens while her parents went away to work during the war.

“I wanted a dog, but it wasn’t possible to have one,” she said. “As a girl, I never had that chance.”

It wasn’t until 1950, when she married Herbert Carrington, an American soldier who was stationed in Germany, that Johanna was able to adopt pets.

After the couple moved to the United States, Johanna said she took in as many dogs as she could while raising two children.

“My favorite dogs were Pekingese - I once had eight at one time,” she said. “Dogs have always brought such joy that I never wanted to be without one.”

She was elated when she learned that Muttville Senior Dog Rescue had found a match for her last fall, she said, noting that her caregiver, Eddie Martinez, immediately agreed to take Gucci out for walks every day and assist with his care.

Carrington uses a walker to get around and needs supplemental oxygen, but she said she otherwise feels healthy, noting that she has never smoked cigarettes or consumed alcohol.

“There is nothing like having the consistent and nonjudgmental love of a dog,” said Franklin, 66. “Pets give our senior population a reason to want to stick around, stay healthy and get up in the morning.”

The same applies to senior dogs who are adopted into loving homes, she said, adding that her rescue group focuses on finding homes for dogs age 7 and up, with many of them adopted to elderly people through the nonprofit’s Senior for Seniors program.

If the dog owner dies or is found incapable of caring for the pet, Franklin said that Muttville will find a new home for the animal, often with another family member.

The Muttville rescue also offers a cuddle club for seniors who aren’t able to have dogs but would still love to spend time playing with them, she said.

“We’re always trying to get the word out about how wonderful senior dogs are,” she said. “They still have a lot to offer, and they’re the perfect fit for seniors who can’t care for younger, more energetic pets.”

“An older dog can change the life of someone who suffers from isolation and feels lonely,” Franklin added. “I know that it’s definitely changed Johanna’s.”

Tony Wade The last laugh

Tony Wade courtesy photo

Tony Wade posing with books from local authors that are in the Solano County Library’s system.

Her dog died when she was 100. At 101, she has adopted a senior pooch.

Debbie Carrington courtesy photo

Johanna Carrington with Gucci at her home in Moss Beach. She was 100 when she adopted the dog from San Francisco’s Muttville Senior Dog Rescue last year.

May Fair celebrates mothers with roses

SuSAn HilAnD SHILAND@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

DIXON — Angie Balderas has been celebrating Mother’s Day at the Dixon May Fair since 2000 and helping to bring smiles to the faces of visitors every year.

Balderas is the General Manager for the Spanishlanguage radio station La Tricolor 99.9 FM/La Suavecita 104.3 FM, and they have been helping to bring a little celebration of mom’s to the fair for 23 years.

Balderas orders the flowers from a local florist, Strelitzia Flower Company in Dixon.

“He actually gave me the idea for this,” she said.

This year they ordered 500 roses, which is down from years in the past.

“The prices have gone way up,” she said. “He gives us a great deal at wholesale prices.”

Along with flowers is a mariachi band; this year it was Mariachi America who greeted visitors at the main gate at noon.

Balderas is the mother of three with two grandchildren. They all understand that her time on Sunday at the fair is dedicated to making other moms happy and have

adjusted Mother’s Day for her to a later meal in the evening or an early morning celebration.

“I just want everyone to have a good time,” she said.

Along with the flowers come the volunteers who present the flowers to the mothers – Dulce Cigneres, 12, and her brother Amelio Cigneres, 16 –have been giving roses out for the last two years.

“Originally, I just wanted to spend time with my mom,” Dulce said. “But I really started enjoying seeing the smiles on peoples faces and that is why I love coming back

each year to do it.”

Her mom, Maria Juarez, works for the radio station.

“I wasn’t convinced the first time I did it that I would like it,” Dulce said.

Even though it was Mother’s Day on Sunday, not all moms got a break from working. Carol Castro is the owner of Pika Dulce 707 out of Dixon, who brought her 3-month old baby, Raphael, with her, because he is tiny and needs his mommy at this point in life.

Her family was at home, waiting to relieve her of duty later in the afternoon, when she

will retreat for a little while to rest.

She sells gummy candies coated in Tajin and Chamay Rim Dips and more. It is something she really loves doing and was glad to be able to do it with her son on Sunday.

“I get to celebrate today with my beautiful son,” she said.

Sitting beneath a tree on a bench in the shade was Gloria Estrata from Dixon, who was just enjoying people-watching while she held her red rose. Her daughters sat on a picnic bench a few feet away while she talked with friends.

“This is just a day to relax for me. No thinking. No worrying. No work!” she said. She celebrates two Mother’s Day events one here in America and one on May 30 in Mexico.

“Here it is earlier,” she said.

She remembers when she was a child and bringing flowers to her mother and having a big dinner at home.

On Sunday, the family planned to stay all day and enjoy the rides and eat out.

“I just love it because I can just watch the people, no worries,” she said.

Waterfront offered plenty to see, do and sip on Mother’s Day

SuSAn HilAnD SHILAND@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

SUISUN CITY — Whole families came out for a day to celebrate mothers Sunday at the 12th annual Mother’s Day Artisan Fair.

Organizers were expecting between 3,000 and 5,000 people according to Laura Cole-Rowe, president of the Suisun City Historic Waterfront Business District.

“We really haven’t changed anything this year,” she said.

Although they did have 70 vendors with additional food venders. They filled the waterfront with booths the wafting smell of food mixed with the scent of candles for a lovely afternoon.

“Today is the largest event downtown for the local restaurants they are packed today,” she said.

One of the goals of the event is to bring in people to the waterfront who maybe have never visited or always wanted to try an eatery but never did. This was the chance to make that happen.

Attendees could sip a little mimosa in a commemorative glass

Workshop on Vacaville choice energy options on Tuesday

DAily r epubliC STAff DRNEWS@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

VACAVILLE — Vacaville residents and businesses are invited to upcoming workshops regarding community choice energy and how it will impact those who opt in.

The next workshop will be at 10:30 a.m. to noon Tuesday at the Vacaville Senior Center, 91 Town Square Place.

The City Council received a presentation Feb. 28 from Marin Clean Energy, a community choice energy company, about the potential for Vacaville to join their program.

Before considering enrolling in the program, tentatively in June, the City Council wants the community to have their questions answered, including how to opt out if the program moves forward.

For more information, visit cityof vacaville.gov/mce.

Solano Fire Safe Council meets Monday

and everyone get to interact with each other.”

“The vendors all have such quality products,” she noted. “There are some really nice things today.”

The Mother’s Day Artisan Fair has become a tradition for many families. Amanda Swearengin of Fairfield along with mom Tonya Swearengin and Brandi Cupples of Vacaville have been coming for years.

“This is a tradition now,” said Amanda. “We sip mimosas and enjoy being with Mom.”

will provide residents with information about compost uses and other horticultural tips.

A self-serve event, residents need to bring their own containers. Each household is limited to 30 gallons of compost, which comes from Northern Compost of Yolo County, and is listed by the Organic Materials Review Institute for use in organic production. It is approved as an Organic Input Fertilizing Material by the California Department of Food and Agriculture, and is certified with the United States Composting Council’s Seal of Testing Assurance.

The compost is made from recycled green material, food waste and woody material collected from residential organic carts.

The center is located at 3351 Hillridge Drive.

while they strolled and shopped.

“We want people to relax and enjoy the waterfront,”

Cole-Rowe said.

Organizer Brenda Moss planned the return of the Artisan Fair for months and said she was happy to see so many people come out and enjoy the day.

“It is one attraction families can get inspired by and enjoy the restaurants,” she said. “Everyone is just so happy to be out again. Families

Joan Hall has five children, eight grandchildren and was enjoying sharing her day with her friend, Jean Waterdown both of whom were from England.

“I did not come special from England for this event!” Waterdown joked.

She is a mother of three kids with two grandchildren.

“We came down to have a nice brunch with friends,” said Hall.

Later they planned to have dinner with her grandson who cooked barbeque chicken for all of them on Mother’s Day.

FAIRFIELD — The Solano Fire Safe Council will hold its next online meeting at 5:30 p.m. Monday.

The Zoom link is https://zoom.us/j/930300 06222?pwd=aVZ2NkhuW Hk3MTBvbzlMQk1tQ1h

OQT09. The Meeting ID is 930 3000 6222. The passcode is 760928.

For more information, contact Karin Young at karin.young@solanorcd.org or at oes@ solanocounty.com.

City offers free compost on Saturday

The city and Republic Services will offer a free organic compost giveaway from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday at Dunnell Nature Park and Education Center.

The event is for Fairfield residents, and proof of residency is required.

Master Gardeners from the the UC Cooperative Extension Solano

text

Tribune ConTenT AgenCy

ANTIOCH —

When Kathryn Wade moved to Antioch in 2007, she thought she’d finally get her little slice of the American dream. Better schools. Safer neighborhoods. Room to breathe. A town where Friday nights are for high school football, an appropriate suburban ending to weekdays spent on hourslong commutes under tunnels and across bridges.

Just 45 miles from her native San Francisco, Wade saw it as the perfect place to build a life away from the poverty, crime and violence of the city, and keep her teenage sons out of trouble.

“I was looking for calmness,” said Wade, who is Black. “I wanted a place where the neighbors greet you, they look out for you –like country people.”

But Wade’s dreams quickly soured. She said her family endured years of trauma, including the beating of her son Malad Baldwin by Antioch police in 2014, and his premature death six years later.

So when she saw the racist messages sent

by Antioch officers –including texts mocking Baldwin and the injuries he suffered after police beat him with heavy flashlights in 2014 – Wade was horrified.

“Reading it, it was like he died all over again,” she said. “(The messages) confirm everything that I’ve said about this community for years. We live in fear. So I feel like whatever was in the dark came to the light.”

The racist texts – and the broader law enforcement investigation of police misconduct from which they emerged – have mired the Antioch Police Department in scandal.

But more profoundly for many residents, the news has exposed deep racial fault lines – and the rapid demographic changes – in this bedroom community of winding tree-lined streets and strip malls surrounding a pre-war downtown core that is now only a shadow of itself.

Today’s Antioch, a city of 115,000, is an uneasy mix of longtime residents and newcomers, each with their own ideas of what the community is – and where

it’s heading.

The numbers tell a large part of the story. Antioch’s Black population has roughly doubled in the last two decades, rising from fewer than 10,000 people to nearly 20,000, while the White proportion of the population has plummeted to just over one-third.

Meanwhile, Antioch’s police force remains overwhelmingly white, with just five Black officers, including a chief who has been in his job less than

a year. A total of 44 officers – or about half of the department – received the racist, homophobic and sexist texts.

“The demographics have changed, but the white hold on local institutions has not,” said Lamont Francies, senior pastor at Antioch’s Delta Bay Church of Christ. “So there’s always been a culture of coverup and camouflaging racism. … The text messages are now our collective validation

to say these things have always taken place.”

“The city of Antioch was a sundown town,” he said, using a term historically applied to all-white enclaves in the South where it was said Black people had to leave by sundown. “It was no secret African-Americans were not wanted.”

A Delta ‘sundown’ town

For 21st-cenAntioch, change has come rapidly, driven by economic and societal forces that have reshaped large swaths of the Bay Area.

As rising home prices and gentrification drove tens of thousands of lowand middle-income people out of urban centers, the region saw much of its Black population resettle in its outer suburbs.

From 2000 to 2014, Oakland lost 43,000 Black residents, Richmond lost 12,000, East Palo Alto lost 3,000 and San Francisco lost 18,000.

On the receiving end were towns like San Leandro and Tracy, but for Antioch, the shifts

For more information, contact the Fairfield Public Works Department, Solid Waste Division, at 707-428-7528.

CAP Solano hosting Native American forum Wednesday

A conversational workshop on Native Americans of Solano County and their history is scheduled for Wednesday. The online event is hosted by CAP Solano and the state Department of Housing and Community Development. It will run from 1 to 3 p.m.

The topic is cultural competency and tribal engagement. Register at https:// fairfieldca.zoom.us/ meeting/register/tZwv dO2rrjgsG9zP0bM fKt3AYscSwvd3K3pi#/ registration. The Zoom link is 882 3430 3618. Additional workshops will be announced.

were singularly dramatic. The Delta town, located on the eastern edge of Contra Costa County, had long been majority-white – with a reputation for wanting to keep it that way. In 1990, Black people accounted for just 2.7% of the population in Antioch; whites, meanwhile made up more than 85%.

Today, the city’s residents are 35% white, 35% Hispanic and about 20% Black, one of the Bay Area’s most diverse suburban populations.

“Antioch was, by a factor of four, receiving more Black residents than any other cities in the Bay Area,” said Chris Schildt, director of housing justice for Urban Habitat, who has studied the region’s suburban demographic changes.

The change came in part because of the city’s aggressive home-building in the 1990s and the precipitous drop in home prices following the 2008 financial crisis. But it was a “tragically ironic” shift, given Antioch’s history of segregation and racism, said Schildt.

“It feels like an even

‘They’re showing us who they are’: Racist

messages expose deep divides, ethnic tension in Antioch

Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group Kathryn Wade, of Antioch, sheds a tear as she holds a graduation photograph of her son Malad Baldwin while at her home on Thursday, May 4. Malad graduated from Antioch High School in 2012.

Susan Hiland/Daily Republic

The Dixon May Fair has celebrated Mother’s Day for over 20 years by giving out roses to mom’s at the front gate. This year Spanish-language radio station La Tricolor 99.9 FM/La Suavecita 104.3 FM gave out the flowers.

Susan Hiland/Daily Republic Jon Hall and Jean Waterdown, from England, enjoy a little shopping at the 12th annual Mother’s Day Artisan Fair, Sunday.

Teaching from 3,000 miles away: San Jose school’s response to state’s teacher shortage

Tribune ConTenT AgenCy

On a Wednesday morning in May, a dozen students streamed into their geometry class at the Cindy Avitia High School. But instead of looking toward the blackboard, the 10th-graders opened up their laptops –and got ready to connect with a teacher nearly 3,000 miles away.

Their class is one of 11 taught by a virtual teacher at the charter school, which is pulling in educatorsfromAlaska,Maryland and Texas to address California’s teacher shortage.

“I know it’s not ideal for our students – we all know that,” said Shara Hedge, the CEO of Alpha Public Schools, a charter network with four schools in San Jose. “But until we really, radically change the education profession here in the United States, we’re going to be looking at solutions like this.”

The geometry class –and all the virtual classes at Cindy Avitia – operate through Coursemojo, an educational technology company that brings hybrid teaching to classrooms across the country.

It is an idea spun from the pandemic, and months of thinking about what went wrong – and right – with virtual teaching during a crisis.

Though the company was initially designed to expand elective offer-

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worse irony and even worse tragedy that you’re confronted with this incredibly violent police force when parents were specifically looking for a way to escape police and community violence,” Schildt said.

When Cheryll Newberry, 68, was in high school in the 1970s, Antioch was a small Delta town of about 20,000 people. Everybody knew everybody – and nearly everybody looked just like her. The first Black person she ever saw was a student who moved to the area when she was a senior in high school.

Segregation was also clearly defined. Black people didn’t go east of O Street into Antioch. Newberry remembers police officers would “hassle the Blacks if they came into town.” She admitted she was a “little afraid of Blacks,” a sentiment shared by the city’s landlords:

“Absolutely nobody would rent to a colored person,” she said.

Asked if racism still exists in Antioch, Newberry said yes. But, she added, “there’s also a lot of reverse racism.”

“It doesn’t have to be just whites not liking or saying bad things about Blacks. There are a lot of Blacks that hate whites. And then there are different cultures that don’t particularly care for Americans.”

A history of harassment

You don’t have to go all the way back to Jim Crow to find instances of racism against Black people in Antioch. Police in the early 2000s harassed and profiled Black families with apparent impunity, many residents say.

When Wade and her six children walked furniture and boxes back and forth from their U-Haul truck into their first home in Antioch, out of the corner of her eye she saw “the welcoming committee”: Antioch Police officers in a cruiser

Vallejo police investigating fatal downtown shooting

Tribune ConTenT AgenCy

Vallejo Police are investigating after a man was fatally shot in downtown Vallejo Saturday night, the department announced Sunday.

The shooting occurred on Main Street at 8:53 p.m., just a few blocks from the bars and restaurants in Vallejo’s commercial core. When officers responded to reports of the shooting, they found one man shot and seriously injured. The man was transferred to a hos-

pital, where he was later pronounced dead.

Vallejo PD has not announced the identity of the victim, pending notification of next of kin, and it’s currently unclear what led to the shooting. As of Sunday morning, no arrests had been announced.

Vallejo Police are asking anyone with information about the shooting to contact Detective Brian Murphy at (707) 648-5430 or Detective Ken Jackson at (707) 648-4280.

ings like cybersecurity and animation, almost immediately its founders saw how it could fill gaps in common core subjects like geometry, algebra and physics. Today, there are 11 credentialed Coursemojo educators teaching classes at three charter school networks in California, the majority of whom are teaching math and science. There are 50 Coursemojo teachers at work across the country, including in Colorado, Indiana, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas and Washington, D.C.

Great teachers have

asking about a parolee.

“They said, ‘There’s somebody on parole at this address,’ and I said, ‘Hey, ain’t nobody on parole here, we just moving in, you could come in take a look,’ and my dumb self let them look. They then did it three more times when I moved into different houses in Antioch. I didn’t know they were targeting people like me.”

Wade didn’t know it at the time, but she was just one of many Black residents visited by the city’s Community Action Team, according to a class-action lawsuit filed against the city.

In the mid2000s, Antioch Police Department’s CAT, according to a class action suit, harassed and intimidated Black residents renting homes through a federal housing assistance program known as Section 8. The suit – which was settled in 2011 – said that police called residents on the phone, frightened them with guns and used “Jim Crow tactics” to pressure local landlords to evict them.

It wasn’t just the cops. After moving into her first house, Wade said she was paid a visit by a couple from next door. “They told me, ‘We built this community, and we’re not going to let you come here and destroy it,’” Wade said. “I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ And they said, ‘We’re not going to let you or your sons ruin this community.’”

Those incidents were a harbinger of wider harassment she said her family faced over the next decade and a half – including the police beating of her son in 2014.

Confrontations with police continued over the next six years, driven by APD officers’ suspicions that Baldwin was involved in several felony robberies and assaults, according to court records.

When she went to a city council meeting in 2020, she told council members, “They’re going to kill my son.”

The same week Malad was dead, of what authorities said was an apparent suicide. Others also ran afoul of Antioch police.

never been equitably distributed, especially to the kids who need them most,” said Dacia Toll, who founded Coursemojo after operating a charter school network in the Northeast.

“For me, the mental door opened when I saw what some of our most effective teachers were doing online (during Covid-19).”

Even before the pandemic, 80% of California’s school districts were experiencing a shortage of teachers, according to data from the Learning Policy Institute, a nonprofit research organization that focuses on education policy. Covid-19 aggra-

In March 2007, seven young Black men were arrested during an altercation in front of a gas station, amid a crackdown spurred by resident complaints about roving bands of unruly teenagers. Now known as the Gas City Seven, the boys were all expelled from Deer Valley High School. Antioch city leaders set up curfews, police patrolled the strip mall heavily and soon it became a no-go zone for young Black men.

The effects linger to this day, said Chelise Ellis, whose nephew DeArmand Ellis was one of those arrested and expelled.

“They stole his future from him,” Ellis said. “And all we ever wanted for him was to live in a safe, good community.”

Blowback

On a breezy morning outside an Antioch Starbucks on Bluerock Drive in late April, about two dozen people – the majority of them older, white residents – gathered on half-moon benches for Coffee with the Cops.

The questions and comments to police underscored how distant some members of the community remain from the racism scandal. Those who showed up, including former Mayor Wade Harper, were most concerned about police staffing levels, policing high-crime beats and what to do about the mental health of officers during this “difficult time” of intense scrutiny. Few questions were asked about the horrifying text messages.

In a recent interview, Antioch Police Chief Steven Ford didn’t try to deflect the troubles for his department – currently under investigation by the FBI and the Contra Costa County District Attorney – but insisted “this entire set of circumstances is new to the entire Antioch ecosystem.”

“I don’t think anyone who’s alive today could deny there’s clearly some structural issue within the profession, ” he said. “We can see people have made bad choices and poor decisions, but there are

vated that trend, with the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing reporting there were more than 10,000 teacher vacancies across the state during the 2021-22 school year. And for schools like Cindy Avitia, which serve mostly low-income students whose parents are immigrants, the impacts of those teacher shortages are particularly severe.

Hope Evans, a former principal of an Alpha charter middle school who now works for Coursemojo to support partner schools, said she used to juggle

See Teacher, Page A8

processes in place to deal with that.”

While over a dozen officers are on leave in connection with the racist texts, Ford said the messages are “not indicative of everyone” in the department.

Still, in light of the police force’s abuses, longtime activists and reform leaders question whether the department can be salvaged.

Already the blowback from the racist text message scandal has led to an unprecedented review that could result in mass dismissals of cases in criminal court, a shakeup to the local justice system on a scale never before seen in California history. There are still more revelations to come as the California Attorney General’s office on Wednesday announced it would open a major civil rights investigation.

“The pro-police (people) thought I was a crazy liberal, they said I was Antifa and called me a domestic terrorist because I spoke up about the abuses of this police department,” said police reform activist Shagoofa Khan, who is referred to with a crude sexual term in the racist text messages. “But they were blind for supporting the cops, just because they had a badge and gun and they’re ‘law enforcement.’ And now look: they’re showing who they are.”

Mayor Lamar Thorpe –who is also mentioned in the texts, by an officer offering a prime rib dinner to anyone who would use a .40 mm, non-lethal launcher against the city leader – said he is done with the narrative that “all we need to do is build up the police department and all our problems will be solved.”

That’s “just the way it’s always been here in Antioch,” Thorpe said. But now, the city has leaders who are willing to question the status quo.

“City government did change with the times, but it has come with some resistance,” Thorpe said. “We today have an absolute responsibility to the people to continue the good fight. It would be reckless and irresponsible not to.”

Washington

Los A ngeLes Times

As she approaches retirement age, Democrat Donna Perkins understands reluctance about telling Sen. Dianne Feinstein what to do as she winds down her career.

After all, California’s senior senator has already announced that she would not seek another term – and some argue that the calls for her to step down earlier are rooted in misogyny and ageism.

But after seeing news coverage of Feinstein’s return to the nation’s capital last week, in a wheelchair and still weak after a nearly three-month absence from Washington as she recovered from shingles, Perkins is more concerned than ever about the 89-year-old senator’s ability to represent 39 million Californians.

“I don’t want to be like that, right? I’m getting ready to turn 65. I want somebody to say, ‘Hey, Donna, you know what? It’s time to pass the torch.’ It’s sad, but it’s not fair either,” said Perkins, 64.

Perkins was among about a dozen Democrats who gathered at the Highland Park branch of a Los Angeles library Thursday evening to watch a livestreamed U.S. Senate candidate forum featuring two of the top Democrats running to replace Feinstein in 2024, Reps. Barbara Lee of Oakland and Katie Porter of Irvine. The event was sponsored by the progressive California Working Families Party. Rep. Adam B. Schiff of Burbank was invited to participate but declined.

Questions about Feinstein’s future have been swirling for quite some time over concerns about declining mental and physical capabilities. Concerns grew after she was briefly hospitalized earlier this year and, while recuperating

at home in San Francisco, missed votes that resulted in a holdup for confirming some of President Biden’s judicial nominees. Feinstein is a member of the Senate’s powerful Judiciary Committee, which was deadlocked because of her absence, resulting in Democrats delaying votes on nominees that could not win support from Republican senators.

Feinstein flew back to Washington on Wednesday, though she has been advised by doctors to take on a lighter workload. She cast critical votes Thursday to advance judicial nominees who lacked Republican support. And yet, among some California Democrats, Feinstein’s return did little to quell concern about her likely effectiveness in the Senate, heightened further by the Democrats’ razorthin majority.

“Everybody is so diplomatic. I think she needs to take care of herself, and you can’t take care of yourself with that intense responsibility. Something comes first – either taking care of yourself or taking care of your constituents,” said Susie Tompkins Buell, a major Democratic fundraiser based in San Francisco. “I know she likes being there, I know she’s a fighter. But I feel like for the bigger picture, for a better future for all of us, I think she should resign. It’s an act of honor to do that.”

Tompkins Buell has helped raise campaign money for Feinstein in the past and her husband once worked for the senator.

Others expressed similar concerns about representation, while declining to weigh in on what Feinstein should do.

“I’m not a doctor. I certainly haven’t seen Sen. Feinstein in

See Return, Page A8

Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group

Cindy Avitia High School students Lizeth Garcia, 16, and Andrew Hernandez, 15, study geometry as their math teacher teaches the online class remotely from Maryland on May 3, 2023, in San Jose. Standing behind them is Rene Silva, a learning coach at the school.

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Paul Walker’s daughter Meadow to make cameo in ‘Fast X’

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Paul Walker’s daughter is taking on a new role within the “Fast & Furious” franchise.

Meadow Walker Thornton-Allan announced Thursday that she makes a cameo in “Fast X,” the latest installment to the carand-crime movie series her late father starred in for more than a decade.

“Thanks to my dad, I was born into the Fast family,” Walker Thornton-Allan wrote on Instagram. “I can’t believe now I get to be up there too. With those who have been around to see me grow up.”

Walker ThorntonAllan, 24, didn’t disclose any details about her cameo but shared an image of her character standing in the aisle

of a crowded plane. She recalled growing up on the sets of the previous films and watching her dad and co-stars, including Vin Diesel and Jordana Brewster, at work.

Paul Walker, who played cop-turnedally Brian O’Conner in six “Fast & Furious” films, died in 2013 as a passenger in a single-car crash. Walker ThorntonAllan was his only child.

“I am so blessed to be able to honor my father’s legacy and share this with him forever,” the fashion model concluded Thursday’s post. “I love you all so much.”

“Fast X” zooms into theaters May 19. It returns Diesel as Dom Toretto and Brewster as Mia Toretto, who has two kids with Paul Walker’s character.

Pickles Brian Crane

Zits Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman

Pearls Before Swine Stephan Pastis

Candorville Darrin Bell

Baby Blues Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott

Baldo Hector Cantú

Columns&Games

Loss of daughter makes me uncomfortable around babies

Dear Annie: Eleven years ago, I lost my 19-year-old daughter suddenly. Up until that point, I loved cuddling with babies. I loved everything about them, including their smell, their soft skin, their innocent eyes, etc. If a friend or family member had a baby, I wanted to hold the sweet thing and cuddle.

Since my daughter passed away, however, I no longer am comfortable with babies. I feel very nervous and anxious around them.

Recently, a woman I knew just briefly had a sweet little baby girl. When she introduced her new baby to me, she asked me if I wanted to hold her and she pushed the baby in my direction. I politely said, “No, thank you,” but she was persistent. Then the people in the group we were with were acting like I was being rude by not wanting to hold the baby.

I want people to know, first, that their baby is not a toy for others to play with. Second, not everyone wants or feels comfortable with a baby, for

ARIES (March 21-April 19).

When you meet with resistance, don’t fight. Instead roll with what’s coming your way. Be alert to how you might divert the energy. Listen more carefully. Efficient energy use allows you to make positive change happen.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20).

Do you need to conform? No. Impress? Well, it would be nice if they liked you very much for who you already are, and they will, but you do need to get their attention first.

GEMINI (May 21-June 21).

Society seems determined to point out to you how old or young you are. You can go far beyond the limits usually imposed on people your age; it’s just a number. Really.

CANCER (June 22-July 22).

A project lumbers on. Change your strategy so you can break the finish line faster. Also, being exclusively in control of the thing gets tiresome. Accept input from as many other people as possible.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22). You have a way of bringing people down to earth in a good way. Dreams and ambitions are fun to talk about, but nothing comes to fruition without old-fashioned hard work.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22).

Maybe you don’t yet believe in your ability to accomplish a task, but this will not impede your success. Your willingness to try even though you may be

Daily Cryptoquotes

personal reasons. This is nothing against them or the baby necessarily.

A baby is a trigger to many people who have lost one. — Loves

Babies from a Distance

Dear Loves Babies

from a Distance: Thank you very much for your letter. It really highlights the theme of not judging someone’s actions when you don’t know their full story. When the woman thrust her baby on you, she didn’t respect your wishes and was not being very compassionate. At the same time, she might have been exhausted and just needed someone to hold her baby (but still not your job).

I am so very sorry for the loss of your daughter. There is life before and life after you endure a tragedy of such magnitude. If a baby is a trigger for you, you have every right to not want to hold a baby. Thank you for sharing your letter, and I pray that you have a wonderful grief support system in place. Dear Annie: You answered a letter from “Friends in Retirement,” a lady whose husband is now retired and blind. You

Today’s birthday

Your deals this year are based in love, especially the love of people. Though you’ll hit certain goals, the numbers matter less than the growth, help and connection that happens through collaborative work. More highlights: a series of magical dates, a winning proposal greenlit and a move. Gemini and Virgo adore you.

Your lucky numbers are: 9, 3, 20, 4 and 7.

bad at something will attract support and luck.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23).

When you get the feeling someone needs help, you offer it. You don’t need to be asked because you’re paying attention. This is the difference between you and everyone you’re around today.

SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 21).

Will you look back at this and laugh? Not if you’re not laughing now. If you’re displeased, instead of enduring it in the hope that the future will bring another perspective, be assertive. Make the change.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22Dec. 21). Something is conveyed in a believable way, but that does not, in and of itself, make it true. What it indicates is that the source believes it wants you to agree. You’re not so easily convinced.

suggested he open his own bakeshop or work at one. May I offer other suggestions, since he needs someone to talk WITH not just TO? There is an organization called National Federation of the Blind and another called Council of the Blind. Both of these organizations have chapters in every state and possibly Canada. They could look in the government pages of a phone book or look up blind organizations on their phone. There may be a school for the blind in the near vicinity who could offer assistance. In our area there is even a local blind group. These organizations offer meetings, activities, assistance with blindness skills and friendship. Many of the members are retired. Good luck. My husband has been blind his entire life, so it is something we are used to. — Social Worker Dear Social Worker: Thank you for your suggestions. Send your questions for Annie Lane to dearannie@ creators.com.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22Jan. 19). You don’t expect anyone to fully understand where you’re coming from because you’re dealing with a different set of problems and resources than they are. It will take too long to explain things. Demonstrate instead.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20Feb. 18). Your eyes may be bigger than your wallet. As the 19th-century humorist Artemus Ward said, “Let us all be happy and live within our means, even if we have to borrow the money to do it with.”

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20). When you think of your relationships, part of you is happy and grateful – part discontented and longing for something more. Malcontent will drive you to get out and meet new people.

CELEBRITY PROFILES: Widely regarded as one of the greatest linebackers in NFL history, Ray Lewis is also famous for his signature “squirrel dance” celebration –a fan favorite. “With all the things I’ve been through, the number one thing I’ve learned is that we’re supposed to help people through this world.” Lewis was born under a wellrounded balance of astral influences including a hardworking Taurus Sun and an adventurous, passionate Sagittarius Moon.

Contact Holiday Mathis at HolidayMathis.com.

Word Sleuth

Crossword by

Bridge

Phillip Alder

In a bridge deal, sometimes you must take risks; other times you should play as safely as possible. How would you handle today’s five-diamond contract? West leads the heart three. East wins with the ace and switches to the spade two. The auction was sensible, North’s three-diamond raise promising extra values. If the trumps are splitting favorably and the clubs are running for five tricks, you can collect an overtrick. But if the minors lie badly, your communications are tenuous.

With this layout, there is only one way home. Win trick two with the spade ace, play a club to West’s sneaky jack and dummy’s queen, and cash the club king, discarding your spade loser. (If West had a singleton club, you had no chance.)

NO OVERRUFF, NO DISASTER

A baseball executive pointed out that you cannot reach second base while keeping one foot on first base. In other words, you must occasionally take risks. But how often have you seen a runner thrown out trying to steal second, when only a moment later the batter gets a walk? One must balance profit and loss, gain and risk.

Now play on crossruff lines. Trump a spade low in hand, a heart in the dummy, a spade low in hand and a heart in the dummy. Needing to get back to hand safely, you ruff the spade jack with your diamond ace. Then you ruff your last heart in the dummy, West being forced to underruff. That is 10 tricks played and nine won. In hand you have left the 10-9-8 of diamonds. Graciously, you concede a trump trick, being delighted to find that they were 4-0 all along.

COPYRIGHT: 2023, UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE

Sudoku by Wayne

Gould

5/15/23

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 5/13/23:

Horoscopes by Holiday Mathis

Annie Lane Dear Annie

From

As Title 42 expired, 1,000 more asylum officers were sent to Border Patrol facilities to process asylum requests along with 1,500 U.S. military personnel to help with logistical tasks. Roughly 1,400 medical staff and 1,100 processing coordinators were also sent to the southwest border.

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green, a Tennessee Republican, took issue with Mayorkas’s account of border crossings. He told CNN’s State of the Union that border crossings last week were at a record high.

“Yes, there was some anticipation, so people

higher numbers, in fact record breaking-numbers in the first part of the week. But in the latter part of the week a judge ruled they can’t do their plan of just releasing without a court date,” he said.

A federal judge in Florida on Thursday temporarily blocked the Biden administration from allowing certain migrants to enter the U.S. for a limited time while they await immigration proceedings, derailing one of the administration’s tactics to alleviate overcrowding in border facilities.

“The problem is the way Mayorkas and those guys have done it, with catch and release and you know, not deporting people, and all the things they’ve done to encourage people to come into the country is basically making the problem of

NATO races to bridge divisions over Ukraine membership

The WashingTon PosT

NATO nations are locked in negotiations to determine next steps in Ukraine’s path toward joining the Western alliance, as member states scramble to bridge divisions over how quickly Kyiv should be brought under the transatlantic security shield at a time of acute hostility with Russia.

The discussions have intensified in the weeks before President Biden and other NATO leaders are due to gather in Vilnius, Lithuania, to cement plans for strengthening defenses against Russia, which upended decades of relative stability in Europe with its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

to Russia’s security.

it seeks to rebut Putin’s claim that NATO acts as an aggressor.

Despite the differing views, officials have stressed the importance of projecting cohesion as Ukraine attempts to put itself in the strongest position possible for potential negotiations with Russia.

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on. I wish I could.”

Sunday marked the one-year anniversary of the shooting, which killed 10 people, all of them Black. In February, gunman Payton Gendron was sentenced to life in prison, months after pleading guilty to more than 20 state charges, including murder and hate-motivated domestic terrorism.

Julie Harwell, a customer inside Tops when the shooting occurred, is also dealing with PTSD and now feels triggered

working in cramped spaces at her job as a chef, she told the newspaper.

“Knowing that we were basically hunted down like rabid dogs was like insane to me,” said Harwell, whose daughter Londin and the child’s father, Lamont Thomas, also survived.

“It was ... it’s still surreal. How can somebody have that much hatred in their whole being? Like, how did you get that instilled in you? How? I don’t know.”

Buffalo recognized the anniversary Sunday with a remembrance outside the Tops supermarket, which Gov. Hochul and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer attended.

Officials from NATO nations, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to detail sensitive diplomatic discussions, said there is consensus among the alliance’s 31 members that, despite advocacy from Kyiv, NATO will not issue Ukraine a formal invitation to join at the But Eastern European nations are pushing for concrete steps toward that goal, including potential commitment to a timeline for Ukraine’s accession, even as the United States and some Western European nations advocate smaller steps that could include a bureaucratic upgrade to a NATO-Ukraine body or a decision to further expand NATO’s technical support to Ukraine’s defense sector.

“The Vilnius summit will not be historic,” said Ambassador Nataliia Galibarenko, the head of Ukraine’s mission to NATO, “without the decision on Ukraine’s future in the alliance.”

Despite the difficulties involved with admitting a country in the midst of a major war, Ukraine believes that NATO “should define a path for our membership, and set the algorithm of Ukraine’s movement towards accession to NATO, instead of another repetition of the statement about ‘open doors’ policy,” Galibarenko said. “This is not enough.”

Tuuli Duneton, a senior official in Estonia’s Defense Ministry, said the Vilnius summit offers a chance to send a strong message to Ukraine: “That after all the suffering they have endured, their place belongs [in] NATO, and they are more than welcome to join.”

Officials in Baltic nations have proposed that NATO - beyond reiterating the 2008 formula that Ukraine would gain entry on an undetermined timeline - issue Ukraine a formal membership invitation in Vilnius, or launch a process to set a time frame and specific conditions for Ukraine’s accession, even if it is a lengthier one because of the war.

Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky of the Czech Republic, in Central Europe, said his “wish list” for Vilnius includes “providing a relevant path” for Ukraine into NATO. What is being discussed ahead of the summit, he said, is “the level of political will” about how quickly to proceed.

Countries that support faster action argue that making membership conditional on Ukraine’s ability to repel Russia’s full-scale invasion effectively gives Putin a veto - not the message NATO wants to send.

U.S. officials say the Biden administration prefers that NATO nations prioritize providing Ukraine with continued battlefield support as it prepares for a longawaited counteroffensive. They see membership and potential security guarantees as matters that should be addressed as part of an eventual settlement to the war.

“The focus at this point has to be on practical support, and how do we best sustain the security assistance that we are providing Ukraine,” a senior U.S. official told reporters in Brussels last month. “That is the overriding political objective right now,” the official added, contending that the broader political relationship post-conflict between NATO and Ukraine would be “somewhat moot if we don’t absolutely guarantee that we’re able to sustain the security assistance.”

Countries with stronger reservations point out that admitting Ukraine while it is at war with Russia could automatically trigger Article V, NATO’s mutual defense clause, which would thrust the alliance into a major conflict with the world’s biggest nuclear power. Rapid steps toward accession might also cause Putin to escalate his campaign in Ukraine.

“The objective between now and Vilnius is getting to an agreement that displays unity and tangible support to Ukraine, maintains the open-door policy and shows progress toward membership, while respecting the concerns of some member countries,” a British diplomat said.

Duneton, from Estonia, noted that the alliance’s ability to remain united “is very closely watched by the Kremlin as well.”

An area of agreement among most NATO nations is the importance of finalizing Sweden’s entry as its 32nd member after months of delay by member states Turkey and Hungary. Diplomats expect Turkey, which has cited what it says is Sweden’s lax treatment of Kurdish emigres Ankara labels terrorists, to sign off on Sweden’s candidacy after elections this month.

Beyond a road map, Ukraine is pushing for more practical cooperation. Galibarenko said its priorities include the creation of a modern NATO-compatible air and missile defense architecture, the establishment of a system for medical rehabilitation of wounded service members, and the development of a national system for humanitarian demining. Ultimately, she argued, membership would be in the interest of the alliance.

From Page One

of the main opposition party CHP, said Kilicdaroglu is leading the race for president with almost a quarter of all ballots counted. Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, also an opposition heavyweight, said state news agency Anadolu is cherry-picking results to show Erdogan ahead.

Kilicdaroglu tweeted:

“We’re leading.”

After a volatile week for Turkish assets, attention on Monday will turn to the tightly controlled lira, with strategists and investors surveyed by Bloomberg expecting the currency to depreciate regardless of the outcome

of Sunday’s vote. Turkey’s electoral board said it will comply with rules in determining whether to declare ballots valid or invalid during counting, after complaints by some parties that ink stains were detected on ballots in some provinces.

Polling officials were required to stamp the back of each ballot paper to verify its authenticity and in some cases the ink leaked into the front of the ballot, the board said in a statement.

Turks headed to the polls across the nation to elect a new president and members of the country’s 600-seat parliament. Among the 64 million people eligible to vote, around 5 million will be casting ballots for the first time.

The disconnect among NATO members - 15 years after the United States spearheaded a push to declare that Ukraine would eventually join the alliance - highlights the risks such steps could entail at a fraught moment in the West’s standoff with Russia. It also underscores the potential for longer-term challenges within NATO despite the cohesion that has characterized the alliance’s response to the war.

President Vladimir Putin has long cited NATO’s inclusion of former Soviet states, which has occurred incrementally since the end of the Cold War, as a threat

They say history shows that only membership, not the promise of it, can deter Russia’s use of force. Months after NATO’s 2008 declaration of eventual accession for Ukraine and Georgia, another former Soviet republic, Putin sent Russian forces into Georgia to seize territory. Ukraine’s slow steps toward NATO accession likewise did not deter Putin’s illegal seizure of Crimea in 2014 or its fullscale invasion last year.

In a recent essay for Foreign Affairs, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called for swift action and said Ukraine had proved its readiness over the past 18 months. “It is time for the alliance to stop making excuses and start the process that leads to Ukraine’s eventual accession, showing Putin that he has already failed,” he wrote.

But unlike 2008, it is the United States, along with other powerful allies in Western Europe, that prefers a slower, more cautious approach.

One official from Eastern Europe said there is “something of a pingpong between Germany, France and the U.S.,” in which each country indicates that the others are the ones with the most significant reservations. The French and German governments declined to provide comment for this article.

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has frequently cited NATO’s support for Ukrainian membership but has offered no specifics on when or how that might happen. Last month, he urged alliance nations to concentrate on continued assistance, “because without a sovereign, independent Ukraine, there is no meaning in discussing membership.”

While NATO nations, led by the United States, have funneled billions of dollars’ worth of weaponry to Kyiv since the invasion, the alliance itself has not done so as

“Without Ukraine, it is impossible to ensure the strength of NATO’s eastern flank,” she said. “Just as Finland and Sweden will strengthen NATO’s northern flank, Ukraine will ensure the security of Eastern Europe and the Black Sea region.”

William Taylor served as U.S. ambassador in Kyiv in 2008 when NATO made its pronouncement about Ukraine and Georgia. As a sign of U.S. support, President George W. Bush stopped in Kyiv on his way to the NATO summit in Bucharest. Unlike now, only a minority of Ukrainians supported joining NATO at that time.

Even though more than a decade has passed, Taylor said the war and Ukraine’s strong showing against Russia make its long-deferred transformation into a NATO member more likely than ever.

“I’ve always thought it would happen,” he said. “The question was going to be when.”

From Page One

But she is happy with the result; a skirt that folds like an accordion for storage.

Gabby will be presenting her Solo Vintage Vinyl Fashions Show on May 30, in the Rodriguez High School black box theater from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

“Afterwards, I think I will give some of the designs to the models, because they were created for them to model in,” she said.

Her mother has suggested that the largest piece – the dress – be put on the wall as a display.

Courtesy photo

Gabriella Diaz, an Angelo Rodriguez High School senior, created several outfits from vinyl records for her senior art project.

Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post

Migrants waiting in Matamoros, Mexico, in hopes of getting interviews for asylum in the United States, Saturday.

Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/The Washington Post Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the U.S. Capitol on Dec. 21, 2022.

Teacher

From Page A4

her administrative duties with picking up classes after teachers quit and couldn’t be replaced.

“At one point, I was teaching math classes and my assistant principal was teaching English,” said Evans. “That puts a significant strain on a school, and a significant strain on the teachers, principals and administrators who have to cover classes. And when you’re doing that, that means something else doesn’t get done, and the school doesn’t function as it should.”

Monica Campo Vazquez, a 16-year-old at Cindy Avitia, said she experienced something similar last year.

Throughout ninth-grade, Vazquez had a series of rotating subs in her English class – including the school’s assistant principal.

“I’m now learning what I should have learned in ninth grade on top of what I need to learn in 10th,” Vazquez said. “(The subs) helped as much as they could, but it didn’t feel like a real teacher.”

This year, Vazquez is in the virtual geometry class. It’s the first year the model has been implemented at Cindy Avitia, which is among 12 charter schools authorized by the East Side Union High School District. The district conducts compliance visits to Cindy Avitia to ensure it stays on track, Hedge said.

Every day, Vazquez and her classmates share their screens with Sushma Vishnubhotla, a math teacher based in Maryland, while Rene Silva – their “learning coach” – stands by in person. Vazquez said that to her surprise, it’s actually her favorite class, especially because she can privately message Vishnubhotla if she has questions about the lessons.

While Vishnubhotla is responsible for the actual teaching, Silva is there as a learning coach to keep the students engaged, answering questions in person as they come up. Although Silva has a teaching credential, learn-

ing coaches are only required to have a long-term substitute teacher permit, making hiring for that position easier than finding a credentialed STEM teacher.

“What is the area of the square?” asked Vishnubhotla, her voice ringing through her students’ earphones.

“Area of the square, area of the square!” Silva echoed. “You’ve got this, guys.”

Silva’s involvement in the classroom is essential, teachers and students say. Through shared screens and digital whiteboards, Vishnubhotla can see everything her students are – or are not – doing.

But it’s Silva who can get them back on track.

At one point, he sits down next to a student who seems to be losing interest.

“Everything okay?”

Silva asks.

The student shrugs her shoulders, nods and sits up a little straighter, refocusing her eyes on her computer screen. Throughout the course of the class, Silva keeps his eyes on the student, revisiting her desk to ask questions and keep her engaged.

“The class will live and die based on that person,” said Evans of the learning coach. “The reality is that some kids struggle online, and you need to be able to have someone who can keep the kids engaged and excited.”

With one educator, one learning coach, and one virtual teacher’s assistant – along with ongoing support provided by Evans – the model isn’t cheap. It costs about double the amount of a typical teacher, Hedge said, but at this point, the program isn’t about cost-saving. It’s about giving students access to core subjects and responding to a teacher shortage that’s crippled schools across the state.

“Teaching is a hard job right now, and people who often get degrees in STEM have a lot of opportunities,” Hedge said. “By necessity, we’re being innovative.”

Oakland teachers, union agree on 4 items, mark progress in strike

Tribune ConTenT AgenCy

In an announcement on Instagram Saturday, the Oakland Education Association said it had come to an agreement with district officials on four common good items, marking the most significant movement since the start of the strike by district teachers on May 4. According to the OEA, the teachers and district negotiators have reached agreement on issues involving reparations for Black students, resources for unhoused students, school closures and shared governance. Although the notice is a move in the right direction, the strike remains in effect until a tentative agreement is reached on all issues.

“OUSD appreciates the

Return

From Page A4

person. I don’t feel like the best person to make that judgment call,” said former San Francisco Board of Supervisors member Jane Kim, who is now the executive director of the Working Families Party and moderated the Senate candidate forum.

“I think it’s important we have a U.S. senator to be able to fulfill their duties every day in the U.S. Senate because we have a tied vote,” Kim said Friday.

“It is critical for our party and our movement that we’re able to move forward on decisions around judicial nominees in particular and keep business moving in Washington.”

Eddie Isaacs, 42, said after seeing the images out of Washington, he was concerned about her health but wants to see how Feinstein’s recovery progresses.

“I think we should see how she does in the next few weeks and make a decision at that point,” he said. “Frankly, I didn’t realize it was deteriorating as bad as it had been the last three months.”

The environmental planner, who lives in Little Tokyo, said that while he was hopeful Feinstein would continue to recover, if she continues to decline – as he has seen elderly relatives do in

collaborative nature of the discussions and the effort of the OEA members involved to reach these agreements,” district representatives said in an email.

Representatives from the teachers union did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The strike has caused uncer-

his family – she ought to retire.

Gov. Gavin Newsom was more supportive. During a news conference about the state budget Friday, Newsom said he was happy his longtime ally appeared to be on the mend.

“That’s personal, I’m glad she’s recovering,” he said. “I’m glad she’s back.”

On a political level, Newsom added, he’s pleased Feinstein is well enough to return to casting votes to confirm federal judges.

Newsom sidestepped a question about whether he was concerned about her ability to represent Californians given her frail health, saying: “I look forward to her continued recovery. It was wonderful to see her in Washington, D.C.”

The Democrats running for Feinstein’s seat were even more sanguine.

“She’s a friend, so I’m always going to be concerned about her health, and I hope she has a continued speedy recovery because we need to confirm judges, among other things, and she is a powerhouse appropriator that I’ve worked with for years to deliver for California,” Schiff said in an interview in his congressional office Friday.

He added that he thought that if her seat were to become vacant and Newsom were to appoint someone to serve the remainder of her term, Republicans would block anyone from replac-

tainty across the district, especially for this year’s senior class. Due to graduate in less than three weeks, these students are wondering whether their final year is already over before final exams, various festivities and the last days with friends and classmates before graduation day.

ing her on the judiciary panel. Republicans prevented another Democrat from being temporarily assigned to fill her seat on the committee while she was recovering.

Porter and a spokeswoman for Lee both said they were glad that the senator was feeling better and wished her well.

It’s a careful dance for elected California Democrats to weigh in on the future of a trailblazing woman who has held elected office for nearly all of the last 53 years. But frustration with Feinstein began growing years ago over whether she was distanced from modern progressive priorities.

Bill Przylucki, 38, recalls protesting outside of a Feinstein fundraiser in Hancock Park during her last reelection campaign in 2018 and feeling as if she was out of touch on issues such as housing and climate change.

“Even back then, it was quite clear that when you tried to dig in with any specific issues, we’re not really getting anywhere,” said the Atwater Village resident, who is executive director of Ground Game L.A., an organization focused on electing progressives, helping the homeless and protecting the environment.

“I’ve been frustrated for a long time. I’m eager to see new leadership,” he said.

Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group

Oakland Unified School District teachers, students and parents rally outside La Escuelita Elementary School in Oakland, May 10.

Giants waste Logan Webb’s strong start, lose 2-1 to Arizona

Tribune ConTenT AgenCy

The Giants continued to struggle offensively with Logan Webb on the mound and lost 2-1 Sunday to the Arizona Diamondbacks on Lourdes Gurriel’s run-scoring double in the ninth inning.

The blow came against reliever Tyler Rogers, who walked Christian Walker to lead off the inning. The blow by Gurriel rolled to the fence, Walker built up a head of steam and scored easily with the winning run.

Miguel Castro (2-1) got the win in relief, with Rogers falling to 0-3 with the loss.

The Giants fell to 17-23, losing three out of four games against a division rival they’ll need to beat if they hope to contend in the National League West or be in position for a playoff berth. Arizona, currently running second to the Los Angeles Dodgers, improved to 23-18.

Webb got no decision after failing to capitalize on his one-run allotment, with the Diamondbacks

scoring on a ground RBI double into the right field corner that scored Geraldo Perdomo from first base in the fifth inning.

Arizona didn’t get its first hit until that inning, a grounder up the middle by Gabriel Moreno that Brandon Crawford knocked down on a dive. There was no chance to make a play, however.

The Giants have given Webb one run or fewer in nine of his last 17 starts dating back to last season.

Webb threw 98 pitches, 59 for strikes, having

given up just three hits. He walked three, struck out three and recorded 10 outs on ground balls. He gave way to Rogers in the eighth, who pitched a scoreless inning.

Pfaadt, a rookie making his third start, gave up one run on a solo home run by Conforto in the fourth inning. It was the only hit the Giants had off the right-hander, who walked three, struck out five and threw 86 pitches –55 of them strikes.

After Conforto’s home run, Pfaadt walked J.D.

Davis and Blake Sabol, but recovered to strike out Casey Schmitt and get Crawford on a ground ball to second. It was Crawford’s first game back after missing 13 games with a calf strain.

Conforto twice came up with runners in scoring position with Thairo Estrada having reached on doubles. He hit a comebacker in the sixth against Jose Ruiz for the first out and then grounded to second for the final out of the eighth against Scott McGough.

NOTABLE

— David Villar, who opened the season as the starting third baseman, was optioned to Triple-A Sacramento with Crawford coming off the injured list. Villar was hitting just .148 (13-for-88) with four home runs and 11 RBIs. With Schmitt opening eyes since his call-up and the ability to play third, short and second to go along with Crawford at short or Estrada at second or short, the chances for Villar to work out his troubles were at a minimum.

More injury woes for Brown, Blackburn struggles, Díaz returns, and reliever selected

OAKLAND – A’s outfielder Seth Brown is returning to Oakland to be examined after he felt more discomfort in his bothersome oblique during his first game of a rehab assignment in Triple-A Las Vegas. Brown had to be removed from Saturday’s game after just two at-bats, as he was replaced by Tyler Soderstrom in the fourth inning of the Aviators’ home date with Albuquerque. Brown singled in his first at-bat as he started the game as the team’s designated hitter.

A Grade 2 left oblique injury caused Brown to land on the injured list last month.

Warriors

DieTer KurTenbACh

BAY AREA NEWS GROUP, (TNS)

If this is indeed the end of the Warriors’ dynasty, don’t remember the way it ended.

No, remember all the incredible moments that came before Friday’s loss to the Lakers.

Remember the four titles in eight years, starting with the baby-faced Dubs’ improbable but convincing run to their first title in 2015 and perhaps culminating in Steph Curry’s brilliant NBA Finals last June.

Remember the early games of the 2014-2015 season, when

Steve Kerr’s new offense was taking shape in Oakland. This was basketball being played in its highest form, and it would spoil everyone who regularly watched it for years to come.

Remember Klay Thompson’s incendiary performances – 37 points in a quarter, 60 points on 11 dribbles, 14 made 3-pointers – that turned Oracle Arena into a basketball tent revival.

Remember Draymond Green’s defensive brilliance – a singular and unique force at stopping opposing teams – and his near-cosmic ability to

affect winning. Remember the Blues City Cafe, Andrew Boguton-Tony Allen, and Curry’s three-quarters court heave in Memphis.

Remember David Lee’s great shifts off the bench in the 2015 NBA Finals, or Andre Iguodala joining the starting lineup and shutting down (as much as one could) a prime LeBron James.

Remember 73 wins, every delirious night on the path to the regularseason win record, the Double Bang in the greatest regular-season game

of all time, and Game 6 Klay in OKC.

Remember Bogut’s bone-crushing picks and Shaun Livingston’s lowpost brilliance. David West’s wise-dad energy and Jordan Bell’s love of candles.

Remember Mo Speights’ unmissable 17-foot jumper and Leandro Barbosa’s ability to play the game on fast-forward.

Remember just how far ahead of the league the Warriors were, and how fun it was to watch a revolution happen in real-time, with the Dubs converting

A’s manager Mark Kotsay said Sunday that Brown was returning “to make sure that what he felt yesterday wasn’t anything more than maybe a stretch or if it’s more than that.”

Brown, who led the A’s in home runs (25) and RBIs (73) last season, first landed on the IL on April 10. In eight games this season, Brown was 6-for-30 (.200) with two walks and one home run.

Brent Rooker has become nearly an everyday player in Brown’s absence. Since April 11, Rooker has hit .333 with a Major League-leading 1.156 OPS, as he entered Sunday’s game against the Texas Rangers with 11 home runs and 29 RBI.

BLACKBURN

PITCHES: Righthander Paul Blackburn was roughed up Sunday in a rehab start for Las

Vegas, allowing six hits, including two homers, and four earned runs in two innings.

Blackburn, who has not pitched for the A’s this season as he’s recovered from a right middle fingernail avulsion, threw 41 pitches. Blackburn’s last outing came on April 16 for Las Vegas, as he allowed four earned runs over 2 2/3 innings. Blackburn threw a side session on Thursday and now has a 9.39 ERA in four minor league appearances.

TRANSACTIONS:

The A’s reinstated infielder Aledmys Díaz from the 10-day IL and selected righthanded reliever Garrett Acton from Triple-A. In related moves, Oakland optioned right-hander James Kaprielian and infielder Kevin Smith to Las Vegas.

Díaz had been on the IL since May 2, retroactive to April 30, with a strained left hamstring and started Sunday’s game at third base. Acton, making his MLB debut, was 5-1 with a save and a 4.01 ERA in 16 relief appearances for Las Vegas. Acton, 24, was signed by the A’s as a non-drafted free agent on June 29, 2020, after the pandemic shortened the draft that year to five rounds. Acton said he went to the Aviators store to get his mom a team hat as a small gift for Mother’s Day. Triple-A manager Fran Riordan then asked

A’s prized pitching prospect to meet with doctor who performed Purdy’s surgery

Tribune ConTenT AgenCy

OAKLAND — Oakland

A’s right-hander Mason Miller is meeting with Dr. Keith Meister on Tuesday to help determine the severity of the elbow injury that’s kept him out for the last week.

A’s manager Mark Kotsay said Miller is flying to Dallas on Monday to be examined by Meister, who performed elbow surgery on 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy in March. Purdy’s ulnar collateral ligament needed to be repaired after he was hurt in the NFC Championship game in January.

Miller last pitched on May 7 in Kansas City, and one day later, the A’s later revealed that Miller had experienced tightness in his right elbow during

that outing and was sent home from the trip to be examined in the Bay Area.

Last Tuesday, Kotsay told reporters in New York that the exam revealed “a clean, structural MRI” and there was hope Miller might begin to play catch as soon as the end of this week. Two days later, though, Miller was placed on the 15-day injured list with the A’s saying they were seeking a second opinion on Miller’s elbow. A trip to the IL for elbow tightness can sometimes be the first step before surgery.

It has been an eventful few weeks for Miller, who made his Major League debut on April 19.

On May 2 in a home game against the Seattle Mariners, Miller threw seven

no-hit innings in just his third big league start.

Miller, 24, features a high-90s fastball and wipeout slider. Through four big league starts, Miller struck out 22,

walked seven, and posted a 3.38 ERA in 21 1/3 innings. But Miller has had health issues with his right arm. He missed most of the 2022 season with a shoulder strain. He threw

only 16 innings in Triple-A last year, though he showed up at the Arizona Fall League and impressed while touching 102 mph with his fastball. Miller entered the season ranked as the A’s fourth-best prospect by Baseball America and made just two appearances in the minors – over a total of 8 2/3 innings –before he was called up by the A’s on April 19.

Because of his limited professional experience – Miller made a total of 11 appearances in the minors since being taken in the third round of the 2021 draft – the A’s have slowly allowed Miller to throw more pitches in his starts. His pitch counts with the A’s have been, in order, 86, 81, 100, and 98.

Against the Mariners, Miller left with a no-deci-

sion. Kotsay allowed Miller to pitch into the seventh inning for the first time, resulting in a 1-2-3 inning. The final strike was his 100th pitch of that game.

Miller also finished strong against the Royals, retiring the final five batters he faced, and the A’s shut down Miller as a precautionary move.

“Rather than wait, he’s not scheduled to pitch for four days, we’re going to send him back to Oakland and have him get evaluated tomorrow,” Kotsay told reporters last Monday in New York. “From our end, and just the trainers doing the evaluation, it looks more to be like a flexor muscle as opposed to anything else. But we’re going to go through the process to determine

If this is the end of the

dynasty, remember it for what it was – incredible

Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group/TNS

The Golden State Warriors’ Klay Thompson (11), Draymond Green (23) and Stephen Curry (30) look at a replay during action against the Phoenix Suns at Chase Center on Jan. 10, 2022, in San Francisco.

See W’s, Page B8

Shae Hammond/Bay Area News Group Oakland Athletics starting pitcher Mason Miller (57) warms up before his major league debut against the Chicago Cubs at the Coliseum in Oakland, April 19, 2023.

See A’s, Page B8

OAKLAND A’S

Opinion

The cost of blackmail

The party of blackmail is at it again.

Cut next year’s budget or we default on our national debt.

We’re days away from economic doom but the smart set says that a deal will be made in the last hour or two. Other smart people say that it’s different this time. This time we have Marjorie Taylor Greene on the loose, and she means what she says. We’ll see.

What happens if Marjorie stays her course? Actually, no one knows because the USA has never defaulted in 233 years. But let’s see if we can figure it out for individual bondholders, our government, banks, and corporations.

First, U.S. Treasury bonds in default will drop in price, perhaps drastically. So, dear bondholdersaver, your $10,000 defaulted U.S. Treasury bond is immediately worth, say $7,000. Expletives!

Next, many foreign governments hold U.S. bonds too. They’re furious that what they bought is now worth a lot less because of American political squabbling. Just because of this fear, the Japanese have already announced that they will buy fewer U.S. bonds this year just on the threat.

But wait; there’s more!

Then it’s the banks’ turn. Does everyone know that banks are required to have reserves, enough in the rear vault to survive a bank “run,” like we just saw at Silicon Valley and First Republic banks? Traditionally, banks held gold and silver coins because reserves had to be “good as gold.”

Today, they are required to hold AAArated bonds because their AAA rating makes them “good as gold,” plus, bonds pay interest. Worldwide, the premier such bond is the U.S. Treasury bond. It comes from the government of a rich and dynamic nation that has never defaulted in its history.

Suddenly, those U.S. bonds are rated BBB+ (or worse) and banks around the world must sell them quickly to buy AAA bonds for their reserves. So they buy Japanese, Dutch, or Swiss bonds. World banks are furious that American political fecklessness has hurt them badly.

We’re not done.

Corporations have lines of credit with banks. Let’s say our company has a billion dollar loan from a bank that “rolls over” every two years. The bank just adjusts a new interest rate and issues a new two-year loan to the corporation. It’s done this for 20 years.

But now the bank has to rebuild reserves and accumulate capital. It refuses to issue a new loan; it wants the billion dollars back, a billion dollars that the corporation wasn’t counting on paying and doesn’t have.

The corporation may go bankrupt, or it may not pay its workers or may lay them off or delay payment to its supplies. Then suppliers can’t pay its workers and…and… you get the picture.

We’re looking at a world-wide depression.

Facing a depression, our government borrows more to pay unemployment benefits while receiving less income tax revenue. It begins new projects to keep national demand going. But in our case no one will lend us the money because we had just stiffed them.

Worst still, if we default the world will demand a new “reserve currency’ to replace the dollar like China, Russia and a few others have been calling for. If that happens, another dire catastrophe happens.

We will have to fund our own deficits because few will lend to us. Our annual deficits will have to disappear and we will have to balance our budgets using taxes. 1/3 of what our government buys will have to be cut immediately.

Democrats will demand military cuts.

Republicans will demand social spending cuts. So we will ask the people if they would like to have Social Security and Medicare reduced or we stop being the world’s policeman. You can guess who wins that. We cut our military, say, in half.

Xi in China takes Taiwan and Putin takes Ukraine.

This is what the Republican House is playing with, worst case. News sources also say that Kevin McCarthy and Marjorie Taylor Greene don’t understand business and banking.

But don’t forget, the Democratic Party is a far left, socialist, radical party. Correct? Jack Batson is a former member of the Fairfield City Council. Reach him by email at jsbatson@prodigy.net.

THE RIGHT STUFF

Out

of Africa by way of Greece

Ihave always been a fan of human history. I find looking at the reasons people form into groups, settlements and finally nation-states of one type or another very revealing of our nature as a species. Modern man or homosapiens (wise-men in Latin), so named by the father of modern biological classification Swedish scientist Carolus Linnaeus in 1758, have basic characteristics. Planet-wide DNA research shows we evolved in East Africa approximately 200,000 years ago. Surprise, we are all brothers and sisters and we are all Africans! Perhaps my reference in last week’s column to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech was far more prescient than I ever knew.

Those hunter-gathers are the ancestors of every human being alive today. What characteristics set us apart from those who came before homo-sapiens? There are several, most are obvious: skull size, bi-pedal, tool making, etc. But perhaps, in the final analysis, it is this: Sapiens are myth-makers; we use imagination and language to create thoughts and communicate them into previously unimagined new worlds, alternatives and possibilities. Our ancestors migrated and adapted to the environs they found. So they adopted different lifestyles as needs dictated. Based upon the weather, climate, and nature of these new places their physiques, complexion and even eye color changed,

CALMATTERS COMMENTARY

resulting in the formation of different so-called racial characteristics. These are mainly superficial but nevertheless real and sometimes divisive.

Approximately 8,000 to 10,000 years ago we start to see recorded history. We see the rise of formalized relationships like trade, divine religious beliefs, diplomacy, dynastic marriage, hereditary claims to power, and the basics of civilization all defining groups and status within organized city-states, kingdoms and empires of the ancient world. All this from evolving thoughts, behaviors, attitudes and beliefs of we modern humans. For thousands of years man evolved socially yet governmentally we mostly kept our hierarchical tribal behavior. Then we saw a change in the west with the rise of Greek philosophical thought embodied by Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, which affected how man was governed. The change was driven by homo-sapiens’ greatest gift: using imagination and language, creating thoughts and communicating them in ways that inspired change beyond brute force.

Socrates’ greatest contribution is arguably his logical reasoning method of thought becoming the keystone for western philosophy. The Socratic method engages the thinker in a series of questions exposing contradictions in one’s reasoning, ultimately guiding one to arrive at a solid, tenable conclusion. He taught us how to think.

Plato was Socrates’ pupil. Arguably

his greatest contribution to philosophy is his Theory of Forms. This was created to solve two problems: one of ethics and one of permanence and change. Plato solved this problem by splitting the world into two: the material and mental realms of form. His concepts are on full display in his masterpiece, “The Republic.”

Last is Aristotle, who stands in contrast to Socrates and Plato. The fundamental difference between him and the two others is the concepts of Socratic and Platonic Fatalism versus personal freedom in choice of action embodied in the “Utopian Philosopher-king” form of governance. This contrasts with the so-called “Middle-State Way” embraced by Aristotle, which concluded that a state with a substantial layer of a middle-class would “invariably be best” under normal circumstances. These ideas were studied influencing every western political entity from the Roman Empire to our own United States. Our founding father’s familiarity with these philosophers is apparent throughout our foundational documents, culminating in our Constitution.

In modern America “tribalism,” cancel culture and wokeism are the true existential threats dividing us. We are ultimately one, out of Africa by way of Greece. Our nation is in dire peril, we have lost our way.

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

Who benefits from Amazon’s immense sales taxes?

Twelve years ago, after weeks of public saberrattling and secret negotiations, then-Gov.

Jerry Brown announced a deal to settle a high-stakes feud between online retailing behemoth Amazon and retail stores, particularly Walmart, over taxation.

The retailers had complained that while they had to collect sales taxes from their customers, Amazon didn’t collect such taxes and therefore had an unfair competitive advantage.

The issue came to a head when the Legislature passed and Brown signed a bill requiring Amazon and other online sellers to collect sales taxes. Amazon, which had been planning to build huge fulfillment centers to serve California customers, threatened to abandon the state and spent several million dollars to qualify a referendum that would overturn the new law.

The political duel was averted when Brown brokered a deal under which Amazon would begin collecting sales taxes, but with a one-year delay.

The agreement, which was quickly written into legislation, would, as Brown claimed as he signed the bill, “create tens of thousands of jobs and inject hundreds of millions of dollars back into critical services like education and public safety in future years.”

While widely portrayed as California winning a showdown with Amazon, the agreement was actu-

ally a tactical win for the mega-seller, allowing it to quickly build the first of threedozen distribution centers and become a dominant retail presence in the nation’s most populous state.

After the hoopla of the deal died down, another significant aspect emerged. State tax officials – the Board of Equalization at the time – initially declared that Amazon would collect taxes on items that it packaged and delivered for independent sellers. But then the board just as quickly reversed itself and in a letter said Amazon did not have to collect those taxes.

In theory, the buyers of those items are obligated to pay “use taxes” in lieu of sales taxes on their purchases, but as a practical matter very few use taxes are voluntarily paid by consumers.

Critics see that as a loophole that costs state and local governments untold billions of dollars and gives online sellers an advantage over stores selling the same items. One critic, Fresno camera store owner Stanley Grosz, filed a lawsuit in 2019 aimed at forcing Amazon to collect taxes on sales from their independent affiliates. So far Grosz has failed to persuade the courts that state tax officials – now in the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration – have failed to do their duty. A Superior Court judge blocked the suit, agreeing with

the department that designating who qualifies as a tax-collecting retailer is something the agency can decide however it wishes.

Rebuffed at that level, Grosz took his case to the state Courts of Appeal, which in January issued a decision upholding the trial court’s ruling. Grosz, however, has not given up. He’s petitioning the state Supreme Court to take up the case.

Grosz is not the only one unhappy with how Amazon’s sales are taxed –or rather who benefits from its taxes. Many local government officials complain that the share of sales taxes meant to go to their coffers are instead given to jurisdictions that have fulfillment centers or made back-scratching deals with Amazon. The cities and counties that make such deals agree to kick back a chunk of those taxes to the seller. Four years ago, the Legislature passed a bill to end such kickbacks, but Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed it, declaring that rebates are “an important local tool that captures additional economic activity, particularly in rural and inland California cities that continue to face significant economic challenges like high unemployment rates.”

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

Dan Walters

Jim McCully

Jack Batson

This lemony pasta with smoked salmon a low-lift, 30-minute recipe

A nn M Aloney

THE WASHINGTON POST

In her third cookbook, Pip Payne, a.k.a. the Slimming Foodie, writes that one of the biggest obstacles to eating healthy foods that you make at home is time.

It’s so true. In an effort to stop myself from going on autopilot and ordering out when I’m tired and hungry, I deleted food ordering apps from my phone so that I have to go to the app store and download them again. That extra step makes me stop and think about cooking something like this lovely, lemony pasta dish that is just right for spring but adaptable to any season – and it can use up leftovers and perishable odds and ends of produce.

In “The Slimming Foodie in Minutes,” Payne’s recipes – all of which she claims come in at fewer than 600 calories – for the most part are excellent examples of how to streamline your cooking to make it work for you on a weeknight, especially on those days when you’re too harried to fuss over dinner.

For this pasta dish, Payne advises that the first step is to put a pot of water on to boil for

the spaghetti. While the water comes to a boil and while you boil the pasta, you zest and juice your lemon, grate your parmesan cheese and cut smoked salmon into strips.

A few minutes before the spaghetti is ready, you drop frozen peas into the pasta pot to warm them up. Then you drain both together, reserving a little of that pasta water.

You return the pasta and peas to the same pot; add in the lemon juice, crème fraîche, parmesan, salmon, salt, pepper and a bit of that reserved pasta water; and stir it all up until everything has a bit of a sheen.

Dish the mixture out and sprinkle it with the lemon zest, fresh parsley if you have it handy and maybe a little more black pepper and you’ll have a scrumptious dish in less than 30 minutes.

Payne uses smoked salmon rather than fresh, which saves time and delivers great flavor, but if you have leftover grilled or pan-seared salmon, use that.

If asparagus is in season, she suggests greening the dish up with fresh spears, which you can cut into pieces and throw into the boiling pot along with the peas.

With short ingredient lists and efficient instructions, Payne’s recipes encourage home cooking by offering easy paths to getting dinner on the table, but they may inspire you, too.

With the format that this recipe provided, I’ve created a similar dish with a different flavor profile. While the pasta boiled, I cut up leftover roasted chicken. I tossed a half bag of frozen mixed vegetables in with the pasta. To the drained pasta and vegetables, I added the chicken chunks, crumbled feta and a dollop of Greek yogurt, and right at the end I tossed in a handful of wilting spinach. To finish, I sprinkled the dish with fresh dill.

I felt thrifty and virtuous making good use of leftovers, and the dish was delicious, too.

Cutting waste is something Payne promotes as well. In the back of her cookbook, she lists which recipes use what ingredients. So if you buy a big bunch of kale and don’t use it all in one recipe, you can look for another one that calls for it. She also offers tips for freezing and heating.

It’s just another example of her smart approach to

cooking at home.

SPAGHETTI WITH SMOKED

SALMON, LEMON AND PEAS

The original recipe called for 1 lemon, but we suggest increasing that to 2 for brighter flavor.

Storage: This dish is best eaten the day it is made but can be refrigerated for up to 4 days.

NOTE: This dish is best with crème fraîche, but you can substitute an equal amount of mascarpone or, in a pinch, Greek yogurt. The sauce will be thinner if made with yogurt.

1 8 teaspoon fine salt, plus more to taste and for the pasta water

12 ounces spaghetti 9 ounces fresh or frozen peas (if frozen, no need to defrost)

6 ounces smoked salmon, cut into 1-inch strips

4 tablespoons crème fraîche (see NOTE)

Finely grated zest and juice of 2 lemons (see headnote)

Generous 1 tablespoon (½ ounce) finely grated parmesan cheese, plus more for serving

Freshly cracked black pepper (optional)

Handful of fresh flatleaf parsley leaves, for serving (optional) 1 lemon, quartered, for

serving (optional)

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over medium-high heat. Add the spaghetti and cook for about 7 minutes. Add the peas and cook until the pasta is al dente, another 2 to 3 minutes. Reserve 1 cup of the pasta water and drain. Return the spaghetti and peas to the pot and add the smoked salmon, crème fraîche, lemon juice, parmesan, salt and 2 tablespoons of the reserved pasta water. Stir everything together thoroughly until the spaghetti strands are coated and the salmon is well distributed, adding more pasta water as needed.

Divide among four warmed plates or bowls, and scatter the lemon zest, pepper and parsley, if using, over the pasta. Serve with lemon wedges, if using, and more parmesan on the side.

Nutrition per serving (1 cup) |

Calories: 493; Total Fat: 10 g; Saturated Fat: 5 g; Cholesterol: 32 mg; Sodium: 478 mg; Carbohydrates: 76 g; Dietary Fiber: 6 g; Sugar: 7 g; Protein: 24 g

This analysis is an estimate based on available ingredients and this preparation. It should not substitute for a dietitian’s or nutritionist’s advice.

Adapted from “The Slimming Foodie in Minutes” by Pip Payne (Aster, 2023).

Lemon posset is the no-fuss pudding you need in your life

THE WASHINGTON POST

Lush but light, lemon posset is a creamy dessert that sidesteps all of the usual requirements of a custard. It contains no eggs nor starch nor gelatin. It takes mere minutes to mix up on a stovetop, and then sets into a silky, spoonable pudding after a spell in the fridge. I learned about the British recipe while working as a pastry cook in Paris. The first time I was tasked with making it, I was almost sure someone was playing a trick on me. All I had to do was boil cream and sugar, mix in some lemon juice, pour it into glasses and put those in the refrigerator? I tried to question the chef, but he waved me away. Nervously, I made the recipe as instructed. I went back to check on the possets a few hours later. To my surprise, they were no longer liquid and had taken on the texture of a baked custard.

Later, I learned more about this chemical magic trick. Anyone who has made cheese knows that when you add acid

to dairy, it starts to clump. The fat in heavy cream prevents the casein proteins in the dairy from forming curds, so it simply thickens. Sugar, dissolved into the cream before the acid is added, encourages the cream to thicken evenly.

Posset recipes don’t vary much, because too much sugar will throw the ratio of acid to dairy off. Adding too much sugar makes an overly sweet posset, but if you don’t add enough it will taste like cream that’s gone sour. You might think more lemon juice would help the posset set faster, but lemon juice contains a lot of water, and that will actually impede thickening.

Today’s posset bares only a passing resemblance to those made in their heyday in the 16th century. Back then, possets were warm, boozy drinks. “A well-made posset separated into three layers: a frothy cream called the ‘grace’ floated on top, a smooth custard occupied the middle tier and warm ale or spirits lay below,” writes Jeri Quinzio in “Dessert: A Tale of Happy Endings.” Potters even made special posset cups, which

featured a drinking spout so that a diner could sip the liquid at the bottom while spooning out the cream and custard from above.

In this recipe, adapted from one I used when I worked in restaurants, I suggest you add a little crème fraîche in with the heavy cream and sugar. It’s not necessary, but I like the density it gives the finished puddings. The longer you let the posset sit in the fridge, the firmer it get. Lots of recipes suggest serving it with cookies, but I like my posset with fresh, macerated or jammy berries on top.

LEMON POSSET

Servings: 6

2 cups (480 milliliters) heavy cream

½ cup (112 grams) crème fraîche (may substitute additional cream)

2⁄

rhubarb, for serving

3 cup (134 grams) granulated sugar

1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest (from

1⁄

2 large lemons)

3 cup (100 milliliters) fresh lemon juice (from 2 to

3 large lemons)

Fresh or cooked fruit, such as berries or

In a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, combine the heavy cream, crème fraîche, sugar and lemon zest. Bring mixture to a gentle boil and boil for 1 minute, stirring occasionally.

Maintain a steady simmer, adjusting the heat as needed, and cook, letting the cream reduce slightly for another 2 minutes.

Remove from the heat and stir in the lemon juice. Strain through a fine-mesh strainer into a large measuring cup with a spout.

Pour the mixture into six (1-cup/240-milliliter) ramekins or glasses/tea cups. Refrigerate, uncovered, for 2 to 3 hours, and up to overnight, before serving plain, or with fresh or cooked fruit on top.

Nutrition

Calories: 440; Carbohydrates: 27 g; Cholesterol: 136 mg; Fat: 37 g; Fiber: 0 g; Protein: 2 g; Saturated Fat: 23 g; Sodium: 38 mg; Sugar: 24 g

|

This analysis is an estimate based on available ingredients and this preparation. It should not substitute for a dietitian’s or nutritionist’s advice.

G. DAnielA GAlArzA

Scott Suchman/The Washington Post

The longer you let lemon posset sit in the fridge, the firmer it will get.

Peggy Cormary/The Washington Post

Spaghetti with smoked salmon, lemon and peas.

Tribune ConTenT AgenCy

Headphones for $10. A garlic chopper for $4.90. A smartwatch for $12.

With Temu you can “shop like a billionaire,” an ad promises.

U.S. lawmakers meanwhile are suspicious of the Chinese e-commerce company – it went from unknown to the most downloaded app in the country in a matter of months.

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission released a report last month singling out Temu and Shein, the popular fast-fashion retailer, as two Chinese companies of concern over issues related to exploitation of trade loopholes, product safety, forced labor, violations of intellectual property rights and more.

Shein, which was founded in 2008, has grown to be ubiquitous online as the place to find cheap clothing and accessories, often of dubious quality. Its revenue reached $22.7 billion last year, and consumers don’t seem to care about the controversies that surround the platform.

Temu seems to be trying to follow in its footsteps.

“Shein has really set a model for how a Chinese based e-commerce player can take off in the U.S. and gain traction, and most of that is based on price,” said Sky Canaves, a senior analyst for retail and e-commerce at Insider Intelligence.

Temu is owned by publicly traded company Pinduoduo, a Chinese online retailer that focuses on the agriculture industry and is based in Shanghai. Temu itself is based in Boston.

Offering a wide range of items including electronics and clothing, Temu has seen exponential growth since it launched last September – from 5.1 million to 70.1 million U.S. unique visitors in February 2023, according to Insider Intelligence.

For years, Chinese manufacturers have reached U.S. consumers through Amazon. But as the cost of selling on the fast-delivery platform grows and Amazon cracks down on Chinese sellers for fraudulent reviews,

more companies are trying to break into the American market on their own.

“[Chinese sellers like Temu] are kind of like middlemen that aim to cut out the middleman –helping consumers save money, while at the same time offering some of the trust that a platform can offer,” Canaves said.

How Temu works

Temu takes a shock-and-awe approach to reeling in firsttime visitors. There’s no way to enter the website until you spin a wheel that offers $20, $50, and $100 coupons. Then a countdown timer starts, giving you one hour to claim it by scanning a QR code and downloading the Temu app.

Once you enter the site, a timer in the upper-left hand corner counts down the seconds until “free shipping on all orders” is no longer available. A row of lightning deals offers a random assortment of products for 73% off or 50% off. There’s Mother’s Day: up to 90% off. Prom 2023: up to 90% off. Beach Mode-On: down to $0.49. Appliances: up to 96% off.

Mimi Lan, a pop-up dinner curator and personal chef based in Jacksonville, Fla., said Temu has been immensely helpful in buying catering supplies to run her business.

“It’s really hard when you’re in the business that I do, as a chef, to do private dinners, and culinary productions. Presentation is important. Kitchen tools are important,” Lan said. “You constantly have to buy all these things in order to do your event.”

Although a generic fryer basket costs $5.45 each on Amazon, it’s only $1.48 on Temu. The difference can add up when buying in bulk, Lan pointed out.

Lan is constantly in need of things such as garnishing tools, dumpling boxes, steamer liners, parchment paper and quality disposable plates. She used to get her supplies from AliExpress – another Chinese retailer owned by Alibaba Group – but now swears by Temu.

“It comes a lot faster than AliExpress,” Lan said. “It’s cheaper, it’s packaged better, it’s

got [a] better warranty.”

By warranty, Lan refers to being able to get refunds for items that she’s had issues with. Lan said she would never buy items like clothing or electronics from Temu due to their poor quality, but she swears by their household goods.

Leezan Da, a financial advisor in Vancouver, Wash., also primarily buys kitchen-related items such as stove liners, tea bags and vegetable cutters. She doesn’t mind the quality.

“What you get is what you pay (for),” Da said. “Don’t pay much, that’s what you get. I don’t complain about it.”

Da avoids electronics after trying out a small, portable washing machine that didn’t work, but she’d still recommend Temu to friends for other items.

Temu has a 2.35 out of 5-star rating with Better Business Bureau, which has received 274 complaints in the last year as of April 2023 citing lowquality items, slow shipping and missing items.

Some analysts attribute Temu’s early success to its heavy spend on marketing and push for app downloads. The company twice ran a 30-second ad in Super Bowl LVII, which would have cost about $14 million, according to Statista. Temu saw a 45% surge in downloads, and daily active users jumped by about 20% on the day of the Super Bowl, compared with the previous day, according to Sensor Tower data. The company has also run thousands of ads across Meta’s platforms.

“There’s absolutely no way Temu runs a profitable retail business,” said Juozas Kaziukenas, founder of e-commerce research company Marketplace Pulse. “They are effectively buying market share and hoping in the years to come that market share will stick.”

The true cost of a deal

A good deal on items for consumers often comes at a higher

cost in other respects, and much remains unknown about Temu.

“Like Shein, Temu’s success raises flags about its business practices,” policy analyst Nicholas Kaufman writes in the U.S.-China commission report. “Temu’s lack of affiliation with established brands has brought concerns of product quality as well as accusations of copyright infringement.”

Temu did not respond to a

credit card and other personal information after a cyberattack in 2018, the report mentions. The breach exposed the user data of 39 million accounts. With concern over Chinese companies on the rise, Temu probably will face more scrutiny as its popularity grows. Last month, a bipartisan commission on China wrote a letter asking the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to look into whether Chinese e-commerce companies such as Shein and Temu were violating a law that banned all imports from China’s Xinjiang region with the assumption that they were produced using forced labor.

request for comment.

There are also two main concerns from a U.S. regulatory perspective: companies with ties to China having access to vast amounts of consumer data, and broader consumer privacy and data security issues, Canaves said.

The question is “whether that data could then be accessed by Chinese authorities or used somehow to harm U.S. interests,” Canaves said.

Although Temu has not been accused of doing either, the U.S.China commission report cites a recent investigation by CNN of Pinduoduo’s app for Google Android devices. The investigation found malware enabling the app to bypass security permissions to view activity on other apps, access private messages, change settings and make the app difficult to uninstall.

Shein’s owner, Hong Kongbased company Zoetop, which also owns clothing retailer Romwe, was slapped with a $1.9million fine by the state of New York in 2022 for mishandling

In March, the Treasury Department reportedly gave TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, an ultimatum: Sell TikTok or face a ban in the U.S. TikTok Chief Executive Shou Zi Chew was grilled by lawmakers over just how much influence China had over the platform.

More than two dozen states have banned TikTok on government-issued devices, and Montana legislators approved a bill last month to block TikTok in the state, the first ban of its kind. However, whether a national ban is on the horizon remains unclear. In March, the House Foreign Affairs Committee voted to approve a bill that would give President Biden the authority to ban the platform directly, and a similar bill introduced in the Senate has bipartisan support. Neither of these bills have progressed.

Meanwhile, Temu is already setting its sights beyond U.S. shores. It launched in several European countries last month after launching in Australia, Canada and New Zealand at the beginning of March.

“We’ve really seen a meteoric rise of Temu that to me, looks pretty unprecedented in adoption of a consumer retail app, and usage,” Canaves said. “The big question is how sustainable that is?”

$12 smartwatches?

This app promises you can ‘shop like a billionaire,’ but is there a catch?

Dreamstime/TNS

Chinese shopping app Temu, which launched in Nov. 2022, is now the most downloaded app in the United States.

‘Like Shein, Temu’s success raises flags about its business practices. Temu’s lack of affiliation with established brands has brought concerns of product quality as well as accusations of copyright infringement.’

— Nicholas Kaufman, policy analyst

6 TV shows we’re most excited for this summer

Los A ngeLes Times

Thanks in part to streaming services, we’re no longer confined to a bunch of reruns during the summer, and this year is no different, with several new series and new seasons set to air. However, TV audiences will also have to bid adieu to some beloved shows, not long after seeing a string of series – “Succession,” “Barry” and “Ted Lasso” – air their final episodes. If the writers strike does in fact go on through the summer, viewers might not notice much of a disruption in what they can watch, for now anyway, because of the glut of shows produced beforehand. We’re hoping that at least the current roster of shows we’re looking forward to watching – especially as the temperatures rise – stay on schedule.

‘High Desert’ (Apple TV+, May 17)

A brilliant Patricia Arquette dives headfirst into a comedy thriller as Peggy, a somewhat recovering drug addict and convicted felon attempting in a determined if scattershot way to improve her life in a California desert town. As an optimistic hot mess, misunderstood and too well understood, the actress gets an unusual wealth of attitudes to play, from wildly comic to subtly heartbreaking, anchoring this antic series with naturalism. The series stars Rupert Friend as an anchorman-turned-guru, Brad Garrett as the down-athis-heels private eye into whose flailing business Peggy inserts herself, Bernadette Peters as her mother (and her mother’s doppelganger) and a goofball Matt Dillon as her ex-con ex-husband. – Robert Lloyd

really hits home when Wilson opens up about his own depression and anxiety disorder and meets with Icelandic teens who discuss their troubles. – Ed

Stockly

‘XO, Kitty’ (Netflix, May 18)

Solanki/Netflix/TNS

Lara

beginning to enter, believe it or not, so it’s likely to resonate for that cohort. It’s also set in Los Angeles, and you’ll see plenty of recognizable neighborhoods and issues – gentrification, overpriced homes and abandoned scooters, anyone?

– Maira Garcia

‘The Idol’ (HBO, June 4)

‘Rainn

Wilson

and the Geography of Bliss’ (Peacock, May 18)

Rainn Wilson (“The Office”) travels the globe on a quest to learn the secret of happiness in “Rainn Wilson and the Geography of Bliss,” a five-episode series premiering May 18 on Peacock. If you imagine Wilson in the classic comic trope as the weary hiker who has scaled a mountain to reach the remote grotto of some mysterious guru where he seeks enlightenment, you wouldn’t be far off. The series, inspired by Eric Weiner’s bestseller “The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World,” opens in Iceland, which is high on the list of the happiest places on Earth (for contrast, the second episode visits Bulgaria, which is near the bottom of that list). While most (but not all) of Wilson’s antics and jokes work, the series

Daily Cryptoquotes

Get ready for another obsessive summer of romance, courtesy of bestselling author Jenny Han, who’s set to return to streaming with the second season of her highly addictive Prime Video series “The Summer I Turned Pretty.” But first, we’ll get “XO, Kitty,” the series spinoff from Han’s other smash-hit romance franchise, “To All the Boys.” This time it’s self-anointed romance expert Kitty (Anna Cathcart) whose time it is to shine when the youngest Song-Covey sister impulsively transfers to a Seoul boarding school for her junior year, anchoring a K-dramainspired ensemble of inclusive new characters all navigating first loves, family dramas, friendship and young adulthood. Cathcart carries Kitty’s journey of self-discovery with unsinkable charm, making for a breezy binge-worthy watch that feels as comforting as snuggling up with your fave YA novel. – Jen

Yamato

‘Platonic’ (Apple TV+, May 24)

If you are a fan of Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne in the “Neighbors” movies, “Platonic” is going to be right up your alley. The pair are teaming up again, this time as best friends who reconnect after a falling out. Sylvia (Byrne) is a former lawyer and stay-at-home mother of three, who reaches out to Will (Rogen) after she learns he recently divorced. Their lives couldn’t be at more different stages, but despite that, they find that their friendship and banter still comes easily. It’s a look at midlife – which millennials are

On occasion, a film or TV series comes down the pike that piques my interest not for the story depicted onscreen, but for the story behind it. And boy, does “The Idol” fit the bill. The series, set to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival this month, has reportedly been plagued by problems: the departure of original director Amy Seimetz; rewrites and reshoots led by co-creator and controversial “Euphoria” auteur Sam Levinson; and allegations in Rolling Stone that the project devolved into a “s–show” and rape fantasy. And lurid curiosity about the backstage drama will have to sustain us. At this point, it’s not even clear what the series –featuring Lily-Rose Depp as a pop star and co-creator the Weeknd as her culty new ... guru? love interest? tormentor? all of the above? – will be, except talked about, that is. –Matt

Brennan

‘Never Have I Ever’ (Netflix, June 8)

It’s senior year at Sherman Oaks High School and sadly, it means our time with Devi Vishwakumar (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) and her best friends, Eleanor (Ramona Young) and Fabiola (Lee Rodriguez), is coming to a close. Netflix announced last year that the fourth season of the coming-of-age comedy would be its last. As an elder millennial, a show about Gen Z has never made me feel older. But as someone who, like Devi,

See Shows, Page B6

Word Sleuth

Crossword by Phillip Alder

Bridge

played the three before the two, or vice versa. It may make the difference between defeating a contract and letting it make.

Today’s deal is a relatively simple example.

North should open one club when 3-3 in the minors, despite the disparity in the suit qualities. South’s jump to four spades was slightly aggressive, but he liked his apparent double fit in the black suits. A more scientific bid would have been a game-try of three clubs, which North would have rapidly declined by signing off in three spades.

West leads the heart ace, East dropping the three. What does West know about the heart situation? East could have a singleton, but it is unlikely. If East had two hearts, he would have dropped the higher card, starting an echo. So East has three or four hearts.

WATCH THE CARDS, ESPECIALLY PARTNER’S

What makes a good defender at the bridge table? He builds up pictures of the unseen hands, so that he can judge how best to try to defeat the contract. He does that not only by analyzing the declarer’s line of play, but also –and this is much more important – by watching his partner’s signals. It is vital to notice that your partner

If East holds three hearts, cashing the second top heart immediately will establish dummy’s queen, giving South a discard for his diamond loser. As there is nowhere for declarer to dump his second heart loser, it is correct for West to switch to the diamond king at trick two.

This play establishes four tricks for the defense: two hearts, one diamond and one club. Inspect and interpret your partner’s cards.

COPYRIGHT: 2023, UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE

Sudoku by Wayne Gould

Bridge

5/16/23 WATCH THE CARDS, ESPECIALLY PARTNER’S

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

What makes a good defender at the bridge table? He builds up pictures of the unseen hands, so that he can judge how best to try to defeat the contract. He does that not only by analyzing the declarer’s line of play, but also –

© 2023 Janric Enterprises Dist. by creators.com

Difficulty level: SILVER

Yesterday’s solution:

From left, Ramona Young, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan and Lee Rodriguez in “Never Have I Ever.”

Jackie Goldschneider goes to an Irish Prohibition party on “The Real Housewives of New Jersey.”

Vin Diesel returns for final Fast and Furious

SuSan Hiland SHILAND@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

FAIRFIELD — Local theaters will be showing the latest Vin Diesel vehicle thrill ride, Fast X.

The 10th film in the Fast and Furious franchise looks to be the last one. It is still filled with all that fans have come to love and expect.

Opening nationwide are:

“Fast X,” in this film, Dom Toretto and his family have outsmarted and outdriven every foe in their path. Now, they must confront the most lethal opponent they’ve ever faced. Fueled by revenge, a terrifying threat emerges from the shadows of the past to shatter Dom’s world and destroy everything his beloved family. This film is rated PG-13.

Opening in limited release are:

“Come Out Fighting,” in this film, set during WWII, in this military adventure, a small, specialized squad of U.S. Army African American soldiers are sent on an unofficial rescue mission behind enemy lines to locate their missing commanding officer. The squad – upon battling their way through the German defenses – encounters more than they bargained for when they locate a downed U.S. Army pilot. With the help of their friends from the 761st tank battalion, the squad must find a way to survive and make it back in one piece. This film is not rated.

“Dark Nature,” in this movie, Joy joins her friend’s therapy group on an isolated mountainous retreat while recovering from an abusive relationship. Led by a doctor with experimental methods, the group is soon forced to confront a monstrous entity. This film is not rated.

“On Our Way,” in this movie, Henry contemplates suicide while writing the end to his newest script - a retelling of his past with his lost love, Rosemary. As a dark

From Page B5

was an ambitious nerd whose dating life was nominal in high school, I connected with the character. It would have been such a confidence

voice pushes him to the brink, Rosemary fights to make him believe in himself before it is too late. This film is not rated.

“Outpost,” in this film, after a violent assault, a woman named Kate (Beth Dover) asks her best friend for her help escaping an abusive ex. She’s given a volunteer job as a fire lookout in the mountains of northern Idaho, hoping the peaceful solitude will help heal her trauma. But the PTSD and isolation have other plans, and it quickly becomes a fight to save herself – and the nearby town. This film is not rated.

“Sanctuary,” in this movie, a dominatrix (Margaret Qualley) and her wealthy client (Christopher Abbott) engage in a battle of wills inside a luxury hotel suite after he tries to end their relationship. Over the course of one emotionally fraught night, the balance of power swings back and forth as each seeks to gain the upper hand. Is he hopelessly overmatched? Or is her wildly unpredictable behavior all part of an elaborate game? This film is rated R.

“Master Gardener,” in this film, a meticulous horticulturist is devoted to tending the grounds of a beautiful estate and pandering to his employer, the wealthy dowager. When she demands that he take on her great niece, it unlocks dark secrets from a buried violent past. This film is rated R. For information on Edwards Cinemas in Fairfield, visit www. regmovies.com/ theatres/regal-edwardsfairfield-imax. For Vacaville showtimes, visit www. brendentheatres.com. For Vallejo showtimes, check www.cinemark. com/theatres/ca-vallejo. More information about upcoming films is available at www.movie insider.com.

boost to see a show like this growing up, especially with a lead actor of color like Ramakrishnan. Gen Z is so lucky. Plus, the show is wickedly funny. God, I am going to relish this last season of John McEnroe’s narration. – Maira Garcia

Pickles Brian Crane

Zits Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman

Pearls Before Swine Stephan Pastis

Candorville Darrin Bell

Baby Blues Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott

Baldo Hector Cantú and Carlos Castellanos

doubters to believers on a nightly basis.

Then remember that they took it to another level when Kevin Durant joined the team and created the Super Villains.

Remember the great playoff battles between James Harden’s Rockets and the Dubs – they were worthy adversaries – a necessary foil of reprehensible basketball character that pushed one of the most talented teams ever to be truly great.

Remember the 16-1 postseason.

Remember Curry cooking Chris Paul when he played with the Clippers. Then the Rockets. And oh, yeah, the Suns.

Surgery

From Page B1

(what’s wrong.)

“It’s tough to speculate, but we’re hoping for the best.”

Remember “I’m here. I’m back.”

And never, ever forget that we once thought this dynasty was dead, only for it to start again with Andrew Wiggins and Kevon Looney’s brilliant postseasons and Curry posting one of the most incredible individual NBA Finals performances ever.

No one knows what happens next for the Warriors. Even the most educated guesses are likely to look ridiculous in retrospect.

But it’s without question that a shake-up is needed. This team wasn’t close to good enough to win a title this year. The fact they went 6-7 in the postseason proves that. And the way they lost Game 6 Friday – the way they lost so many road games this season, falling behind early and closing

Miller has been a spark of excitement on a team that entered Sunday’s game against the Texas Rangers with a 9-32 record, not only the worst in the majors but on a pace to lose close to 130 games, easily surpassing the 1962 New York Mets (120 losses)

the deficit – only strengthens the argument. And while all the winning this team in the past seemingly overrode all the evidence they provided this season, making them feel inevitable, the truth is this team “maxed out,” per coach Steve Kerr.

Add in the fact that this roster costs $370 million in player payroll and luxury tax, according to Spotrac.com – $40 million more than any other team in the league.

The Warriors’ blowout Game 6 loss culminated a season that never quite clicked. We’ll find out if it was the culmination of one of the greatest team cores in modern sports history.

Yes, breaking up the Big Three – Curry, Green, and Thompson –is absolutely on the table

for the most losses in modern history. Going into the weekend, A’s starters were a combined 2-213 – the A’s went without a win from the rotation for an MLB record 32 games to start the season – with a 7.58 ERA, more than a run higher

this offseason, as Green has a player option for the 2023-24 season and Thompson is entering the final year of his contract. Jordan Poole, Jonathan Kuminga, and Donte DiVincenzo could also be on their way out.

But no matter what happens in the coming days, weeks, months, and years, remember that perhaps no team in Bay Area sports has provided as much joy and pride to the region as the Warriors.

This was (is?) truly a one-of-a-kind team. A transformative squad whose impact will last decades.

And if the Warriors’ days contending for titles are over, I choose to remember them at their best.

There was nothing else like them.

than the White Sox (5.54) at No. 2. Miller’s record is 0-2, but in four starts he has pitched two of the team’s seven quality starts (at least six innings and allowing three earned runs or less) and is the only A’s starter with an ERA under 5.50.

Tuesday’s TV sports

A’s

From Page B1

Vegas, TNT, TBD.

Acton what he got her before he broke the news that “I’m going to need to get her an A’s one instead of a Vegas hat.”

Kaprielian started Saturday and allowed three

In brief

runs on six hits and a walk in seven innings. Kotsay said, though, that there were no opportunities for Kaprielian to remain in the rotation over the next five or six days. Oakland hosts Arizona for a three-game set that starts Monday, has a day off Thursday, then starts a seven-game road trip Friday in Houston.

Rockies pitcher has skull fracture, concussion after line drive to head

Rockies pitcher Ryan Feltner suffered a skull fracture and a concussion Saturday when he was hit by a line drive during a game against the Philadelphia Phillies, Colorado Manager Bud Black said Sunday. Black told reporters (via MLB.com) that after being taken to a hospital, Feltner was texting teammates, medical staff and others later Saturday and appeared to be “fairly lucid.” The manager said the injury did not require surgery and that Feltner might be able to visit Colorado’s Coors Field on Monday and Tuesday.